so indifferent to the approach of their terrible winter. It was their natural ally; they grieved for us, and urged us to retreat. ‘In another fortnight,’ they said, ‘your nails will drop off, your weapons will fall out of your stiffened and half-frozen hands.’”

Fain confirms these details—“The cold seems to be the only cause of future anxiety. But the veterans of the army, who have already learned, in the bogs of Pultusk and the ice-fields of Eylau, to brave the climate, hope to escape this time with the same good luck. Moreover, no calculation has been neglected in this matter, and all the probabilities are reassuring. It is usually only in December or January that the Russian winter displays all its severity. During November the thermometer seldom marks six degrees of frost, in a normal year. Observations made during the preceding twenty years confirm this statement.”

On October 13 the Emperor saw the first fall of snow. “Let us hurry,” he said, “for in twenty days we must be in our winter quarters.” Napoleon repeats this sentence in Bulletin XXIV.

Labaume is very emphatic in his remarks—“It is past all comprehension,” he says, “that Napoleon could be so blind and so obstinate as to remain in Russia when he saw that the capital on which he had relied was in ruins, and that winter was approaching.... Providence no doubt, in punishment of his pride, must have dulled his wits. Could he otherwise have imagined that the very men who had had the courage to destroy their homes would be weak enough to accept his onerous terms, and sign a peace on the flaming ruins of their cities?”

“In proportion as our strength and energy fell,” says the same author, “so did the boldness of the Cossacks rise. It increased to such a pitch that they actually attacked an artillery convoy on its road from Viazma, and repeated the experiment on another artillery convoy coming from Italy. These Tartar hordes dashed in whenever they found a gap between our armies, and availed themselves of the advantages of their position to display the most impudent daring.”

The King of Naples, whose cavalry had almost reached the vanishing point, daily implored that something should be done; that peace should be concluded or a retreat begun. But the Emperor was both deaf and blind.

“The spell was broken at last!” exclaims SÉgur, “and by a mere Cossack. This barbarian fired at Murat as he was visiting an outpost. Murat was highly indignant, and explained to Dorogomilovsky that an armistice that existed only to be broken was not worth prolonging.”

The position of the French army then became intolerable. It was impossible to remain in Moscow, but it was equally impossible to retreat without preparation. The Emperor of the French nevertheless continued to issue the same characteristic bulletins. “Some think,” he said, “that the Emperor ought to set fire to the public buildings, march to Tula in order to be near Poland, and spend the winter in a friendly country where he can easily obtain all he requires from the stores of Dantzic, Kovno, Vilna, and Minsk. Others point out that between Moscow and St. Petersburg there are 180 leagues of bad road, while the distance from Vitebsk to St. Petersburg is only 130 leagues, and conclude that Moscow is worthless as a strategic position, while in its ruined condition it must lose its political importance for a century to come. There are a number of Cossacks with the enemy who give our cavalry some trouble.... Everything points to the necessity of seeing to our winter quarters. The cavalry especially are in need of rest.”

The battle of Tarutina opened Napoleon’s eyes. He now saw that Kutuzof was merely playing with him, and he resolved to retreat. But what a retreat! “From the very first,” says Fezensac, “it resembled a rout.” Some companies were dying from sheer starvation, whilst others did not know what to do with their provisions. Those soldiers who straggled from the line of march in search of food, fell into the hands of the Cossacks and the armed peasants. The road was filled with caissons which had been blown up, with guns and carts that had been abandoned.

The soldiers were unwilling to sacrifice their loot, and marched heavily laden. One of them gives an inventory of his share—“I had furs, pictures by old masters, rolled up for convenience of transport, and some precious stones. One of my comrades carried a huge case of quinine. Another had a whole library of beautiful books with gilt edges, and bound in red morocco. I had not forgotten the inner man, and had provided myself with rice, sugar, and coffee, besides in reserve three big pots of jam—two cherry and one gooseberry.”

Bourgogne gives similar details—“We were obliged to halt and wait for the left column. I took this opportunity to overhaul my knapsack, which seemed too heavy. It was well loaded. I had several pounds of sugar and rice, some biscuits, half a bottle of liqueur, the silk dress of a Chinese woman embroidered in gold and silver thread, several gold and silver ornaments, among them a fragment of the cross of St. Ivan, or rather the cover which surrounded it. I should state that in the middle of the great cross of St. Ivan was a smaller one, in massive gold, a foot in length. I had also my full-dress uniform, a woman’s large cape for riding, two silver pictures, a foot wide by eight inches high, the figures in relief, and several medals and stars set in diamonds belonging to a Russian prince. All these I kept to give away. Moreover, I had on my shirt, a waistcoat of yellow silk, embroidered and wadded, which I had cut out of a woman’s petticoat, and over that again a large collar, lined with ermine. A game-bag was slung at my side and held up under the collar by a heavy piece of silver braid. This bag held many precious things, among them a figure of Christ in gold and silver, a china porcelain vase, both of which escaped the general wreck as if by a miracle.... Then came my cross-belts, my arms, and sixty rounds of cartridges in my pouch.”

The Russian witness, A. F. de B., gives the last touch to this picture—“Every French officer had two or three carriages, and each took with him a Russian or French woman; for a number of women had in one way or another managed to follow the army. Some of them, suspecting the hard fate that awaited them, changed their minds at the gates of the city and returned. Others were robbed on the road of their horses, their provisions, and their furs. These wretched beings lived to see their children buried under the snow, and later on the greater number of them perished miserably. Very few escaped, and not one of them was seen to cross the frontier.”

Speaking of the women who accompanied the Grande ArmÉe, Duverger relates a characteristic episode—“We had orders to prevent any carriage from getting between the guns. A magnificent carriage, drawn by four horses, approached us rapidly. I signalled to the coachman to stop, but he refused, and continued to drive on. My comrades and I seized the bridle, and the carriage was close to the edge of a ditch when a young and pretty woman put her head out of the window. Her handsome new clothes, as well as the luxury which surrounded her, plainly showed that she enjoyed the favour of some very important personage. She ordered us in the name of the Emperor, and of the Major-General, to let her pass, but we refused.”

After Malo Jaroslavetz the situation of the army became more and more critical. On November 5, hand-mills, and rather heavy ones, too, were served out to the Guard. It seemed like a practical joke, for there was nothing to grind. The troops threw away these cumbersome and useless utensils within twenty-four hours.

On the following day snow began to fall heavily. The men were blinded by the flakes and numbed by the intense cold.

“Within a few nights,” writes Baron Fain, “everything is changed. Horses fall by thousands, cavalrymen march on foot, the artillery are without harness, the edge of the road is strewn with our unfortunate comrades. An entire brigade under General Augereau, the brother of the marshal, is surprised on the 9th, by the Cossacks of Orlov-Davidov and Seslavin, and surrenders! Napoleon has still enough natural feeling to be moved by this new misfortune. He sends General Baraguay d’Illiers—an old comrade of the army of Italy, and one of his most distinguished generals—on to France, with orders to remain under arrest in his own house until he can be tried by court-martial.”

Prince EugÈne reported the loss of all his artillery and ammunition. On the road into Doukovstchina he met with a terrible disaster crossing the little river Vop. The scene is dramatically described by Labaume—“There was a general panic, for in spite of the efforts made to keep the Russians in check, we knew but too surely that they were advancing. The prevailing panic, moreover, increased our danger. The river, being only half frozen, would not bear the weight of the wagons and droshkies which contained our few remaining provisions. Every one then struggled to transfer his most precious possessions from the wagons to the horses’ backs. No sooner were the horses out of a cart than a crowd of soldiers, without giving the owners time to rescue their effects, began to plunder it. Their search was particularly keen for flour and wine.... The cries of those who were crossing the river, the terror of those who were preparing for the plunge from the steep and slippery bank, the distress of the women, the weeping of children, and the panic of the soldiers themselves, made the passage of this river so harrowing a scene that it is impossible to recall it without a shudder. For a whole league around, on the edge of the road and the banks of the river, lay abandoned guns, caissons and elegant carriages that had come from Moscow. On every side lay articles that had been flung from the wagons; they were of course especially conspicuous on the dazzling snow. There were candelabra, bronze antiques, old masters, and rare and costly porcelain services.”

“On every side reigned terror and despair,” says Bourgeois. “Safety seemed to lie only in flight, and of course no one wished to be the last. If the crowd jostled you beneath the wheels of the carriages, you might abandon all hope of the horses pulling up and allowing you to extricate yourself. No one would listen to your cries. In the throng it was impossible to distinguish generals from common soldiers; they were dressed like scarecrows, in tattered garments, suffering the pangs of cold and hunger, and reduced to beg favours of the soldiers under their command.”

Chambray relates, for instance—“One day when some soldiers were warming themselves round a fire, a general came up half dead with cold, and begged for a place. No one vouchsafed a word in reply, and it was only on his repeating his petition that one of the men answered—‘All right, if you’ll fetch another log.’

“Lawlessness and insubordination reached their climax; there was no thought of discipline, and obedience was out of the question. All distinctions of rank were levelled—we were a wretched mass of shrunken, decivilized humanity. When some poor wretch, wearied with the long struggle, fell at last, a prey to his miseries, his neighbours, fully assured that all was over with him, and that he would never rise again, flung themselves upon their wretched comrade, before the breath was out of his body, and stripped him of the remnants of his clothing. In a few moments he would be left naked on the ground, to die a lingering and painful death. One might often see the spectral semblance of a man dragging himself painfully along to reach the halting-place, striving his utmost to put one leg before the other, until he realized at last that his strength was leaving him. A deep groan would be heard, the man’s eyes would fill with tears, his legs would begin to fail him, he would totter along for a few yards, swaying from side to side, then fall to the ground, never to rise again. If the poor wretch’s body fell across the road, his comrades would step indifferently over it as if nothing had occurred.

“The courage of which the troops had at first afforded so many signal proofs, gave place to the most hopeless cowardice. They had no thought but of flight. The idea of defending themselves never seemed to occur to them. In many instances they refused to raise a hand to save their own lives.

“At the approach of a handful of Cossacks, or a band of peasants with clubs, there was a general stampede. Even those who carried muskets would fling them away in order to run the more quickly. Those who were taken prisoners never dreamed of resistance—a company of Grenadiers would fall an easy prey to these unarmed peasants.”

“The Cossacks and the militia,” says the author of The War of 1812, “were more formidable to the captives than the regular forces.” The Russian generals did all that was in their power to restrain their ferocity, but their animosity was such that the officers would have had to be everywhere at once in order to save the prisoners.

“It was like marching over an endless battle-field,” says Fezensac. “Some lay in the snow with frost-bitten limbs; others fell asleep and perished in the burning villages. I remember a private in my battalion who acted like a drunken man. He marched at our side without recognizing any of his comrades, asked after his regiment, named the men of his company, and yet conversed with them as if they were complete strangers. He swayed from side to side as he walked, and his expression was dazed and wandering....

“The soldiers, blinded by the whirl of drifting snow, could not even distinguish the road, and often fell into ditches which became their graves. Ill-shod and worse clad, without meat or drink, huddled and shivering, hardly able to move a limb, they pressed forward at all costs, without paying the slightest attention to those who were failing, falling, and dying around them. Alas! what a mass of poor wretches there was upon that road, perishing of sheer exhaustion, yet still struggling to ward off the approach of death! Some cried ‘Farewell’ to their brethren and comrades, some with their last breath murmured the names of their mothers and their homes. The cold soon stiffened their limbs and struck into the very marrow of their bones. The place where they fell was marked only by little heaps of snow along the wayside, covering their bodies like the hillocks in the churchyard.

“Flocks of carrion rose up from the valleys and hovered in the air above them, uttering cries of ill omen. The innumerable dogs which had followed the army from Moscow, fattening on carrion, slunk around and howled on every side, awaiting fresh prey.”

It should be mentioned that when the retreat began most of the men had furs of different kinds, but in the nightly bivouacs, the snow, melted by the heat of the fires, soaked them through and through, and they afterwards froze again into solid blocks of ice. The result of the alternate freezing and thawing was that at last the fur rotted away and dropped off, and nothing was left of the splendid sables and ermines but a few wretched brown rags.

Stragglers who had deserted from their regiments were repulsed wherever they went, and could find no place in the bivouacs. One can imagine the plight of these poor wretches. Tortured with hunger they flung themselves on every horse that fell, and fought like savage dogs over the carcase. Exhausted with long marches and want of sleep, they could find in the snow no rest for their weary limbs. Half dead with cold, they wandered in every direction, searching the snow for fuel, and even when they were successful, the sodden wood was difficult to kindle and the fire was easily extinguished by the wind. “Then they huddled together like cattle,” says an eye-witness, “around birches and pines, or under carts. Sometimes they would set fire to the houses in which the officers had taken refuge, and sit motionless through the night around these monster bonfires.”

The soldiers’ frost-bitten limbs were covered with sores, which turned into black patches when they warmed them at the fire, and he was a lucky man who could boast of having escaped frost-bite altogether.

In their miseries they forgot their booty. “The road was covered,” says Duverger, “with useless plunder, which they had flung away. The famous chest of quinine was left to its fate. I tried to sell my pictures, but no one seemed to want them. I gave my furs away for nothing. The man who brought away the library was struck with the happy thought of selling it in lots, but no one would make a bid.”

They had even to abandon the famous trophies from Moscow, casting them into Lake Semlefsky, between Gjatsk and Mikhailov. The guns, the various knights’ trappings, and the ornaments from the Kremlin were buried close by. SÉgur says that the famous cross from the