Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/229

1812.] NAPOLEON 217 himself, first by beginning so late, then by repeated delays, at Vilna, at Vitebsk, and most of all at Moscow. On the other side we must not admit absolutely the Russian story that he was lured onward by a Parthian policy, and that Moscow was sacrificed by a solemn universal act of patriotism. Wellington s policy of retrograde movements had indeed come into fashion among specialists, and an entrenched camp was preparing at Drissa on the Dwina in imitation of Torres Vedras. But the nation and the army were full of reckless confidence and impatience for battle ; only their preparations were by no means complete. The long retreat to Moscow and beyond it was unintentional, and filled the Russians with despair, while at the same time it agreed with the views of some of the more en lightened strategists. As usual, Napoleon took the enemy by surprise, and brought an overwhelming force to the critical point. When he crossed the Niemen the Russians were still thinking of an offensive war, and rumours had also been spread that he would enter Volhynia. Hence their force was divided into three armies : one, commanded by the Livonian Barclay de Tolly, had its headquarters at Vilna, a second under Prince Bagration was further south at Volkowysk, the third under Tormaseff was in Volhynia. But the total of these armies scarcely amounted to 200,000 men, and that of Barclay de Tolly opposed little more than 100,000 to the main body of Napoleon s host, which amounted nearly to 300,000. Hence it evacuates Vilna and retires by Svenziany to the camp at Drissa. Barclay arrives at Drissa on July 9th, and here for the first time the emperor and the generals seem to realize the extent of the danger. Alexander issues an ukase calling out the population in the proportion of five to every hundred males, and hurries to Moscow and thence to St Petersburg in order to rouse the national enthusiasm. The Drissa camp is also perceived to be untenable. It had been intended to screen St Petersburg, and Napoleon is seen to look rather in the direction of Moscow. Barclay retires to Vitebsk, but is obliged, in order to effect his junction with Bagration, to retreat still further, and Napoleon enters Vitebsk on the 28th. The road to Moscow passes between the Dwina, which flows northward, and the Dnieper, which flows southward, Vitebsk on the one river and Smolensk on the other forming, as it were, the two doorposts. We expect to find Napoleon at this point cutting the hostile armies in two and compelling that of Bagration to a sur render ; he has a great superiority of numbers, and he might have had the advantage of a friendly population. But his host seems unmanageable, and the people are estranged by the rapacity and cruelty to which it is driven by insufficient supplies. Barclay and Bagration effect their junction at Smolensk on August 3d, and now have a compact army of at least 120,000 men. They evacuated Smolensk also on the 18th, but only after an obstinate defence which left Napoleon master of nothing but a burning ruin. Both at Vitebsk and Smolensk he betrayed the extreme embarrassment of his mind. Should he go into winter quarters ? should he press forward to Moscow 1 It was a choice of desperate courses. His army was dwindling away ; he had forfeited the support of the Poles ; Germany was full of discontent ; and yet a large part of his army was Polish or German ; how could he delay ? And yet if he advanced, since August was already running out, he must encounter the Russian winter. He determined to advance, relying on the overwhelming effect that would be produced by the occupation of Moscow. He would win, as after Austerlitz and Friedland, through the feebleness and fickle ness of Alexander. Meanwhile his unresisted progress, and the abandonment by Barclay of one position after another, created tho greatest consternation among the Russians, as well they might. Barclay was a German, and might well seem another Melas or Mack. A cry arose for his dismissal, to which the czar responded by putting old Kutusoff, who was at least a Russian, at the head of all his armies. This change necessarily brought on a great battle, which took place on September 6th near the village of Borodino. Battle of More than 100,000 men and about six hundred pieces of Boro- artillery were engaged on each side. It ended in a victory, dili0 but an almost fruitless victory, for the French. They lost perhaps 30,000 men, including Generals Montbrun and Caulaincourt, the Russians nearly 50,000, including Prince Bagration. Here again Napoleon displayed unwonted indecision. He refused to let loose his guard, consisting of 20,000 fresh troops, who might apparently have effected the complete dissolution of the hostile army, and materially altered the whole sequel of the campaign. He said, "At 800 leagues from Paris one must not risk one s last reserve." This battle, the greatest after Leipsic of all the Napoleonic battles, was followed by the occupation of Moscow on September 14, which, to Napoleon s great disappointment, was found almost entirely empty. After a council of war held at Fili, Kutusoff had taken the resolution to abandon the old capital, the loss of which was held not to be so irreparable as the loss of the army. But, as with Old Russian craft he had announced Borodino to the emperor as a victory, the sensation produced upon the Russian public by the fall of Moscow was all the more overwhelm ing. Nor did the next occurrence, which immediately Burning followed, at first bring any relief. Fires broke out in of Moscow on the night after Napoleon s entrance ; on the Moscow - next night, by which time he was quartered in the Kremlin, the greater part of the city was in flames, and on the day following he was forced by the progress of the conflagration to evacuate the Kremlin again. But on the first intelli gence of this catastrophe the destruction of Moscow was attributed in Russia to the French themselves, and was not by any means regarded as a crushing blow dealt at Napoleon by Russian patriotism. It is indeed not clear that this event had any decisive influence upon the result of the war. Nor does it seem to have been the deliberate work of the patriotism of Moscow. The beginner of it was one man, Count Rostopchin, governor of Moscow, who is shown by many public utterances to have brooded for some time over the thought, and is proved to have made preparations for carrying it into effect before leaving the town. It is, however, supposed that what was begun by him was com pleted by a rabble which had no object but plunder, and partly by French soldiers. The immediate effect of it was to deepen the alarm of the Russians, and, when this feeling passed away, to deepen their hatred of the French. Now came the critical moment. Would Alexander negotiate 1 That is, would he listen to certain timid courtiers about him, such as Romanzoff, or would he be inspired by the patriotic ardour of his people and lean on his nobler counsellors, the German patriot Stein or Sir Robert Wilson 1 The pressure for a moment was great ; we can imagine that had the Russian army been dissolved at Borodino it might have been irresistible. But he stood firm ; he refused to negotiate ; and Napoleon suddenly found that he had before him, not the simple problem he had solved so often in earlier life, but the insoluble puzzle he had first encountered in Spain. His failures in Egypt and in Spain had been more or less disguised. He was now in danger of a failure which could not be concealed, and on a far larger scale ; but had he retreated forthwith and wintered in Vilna, where he might have arrived early in November, the conquest of Russia might have seemed XVII. 28