Encumbered by a vast amount of booty, a host of camp-followers, and a huge train of vehicles of all sorts, the Grand Army left Moscow, upward of one hundred thousand strong and with some fifty thousand horses. Neither men nor horses had been shod for a winter campaign. The clothing worn by the troops was mostly that of summer. The movement of the troops was slow, because of the enormous baggage. The Emperor wished to retreat by the Kalouga road which would carry him over a country able to support him with provisions. The Russians barred the way, and at Malo-Yaroslavitz the French, under EugÈne Beauharnais, attacked and beat them. Falling back to a stronger position, the Russians still barred the way. Military critics say that had not Napoleon’s retreat been so sluggish, he would have outstripped these Russians in their efforts to head him off. Had he burned all that plunder which his army was carrying away, he might have saved his army.

Marshal BessiÈres and others, sent forward to reconnoitre, reported that the enemy was too strongly intrenched to be dislodged; the army must get back to the old road by which it had come. Napoleon hesitated, listened to reports and advice, lost time, and finally gave the word to retreat by the old route—a fatal decision. What BessiÈres had seen, according to some authorities, was but a rear-guard: Kutusoff had retreated, and the new route by Kalouga could have been taken by the French.

With heavy heart the Emperor led the way to the other road—that which had already been swept bare in the advance to Moscow.

The Russians did not press the pursuit with any great vigor, but the Grand Army, nevertheless, melted like snow. Men and horses died of starvation, demoralization set in, bands of stragglers were cut off by Cossacks, so that after a battle at Wiasma, and previous to any snow or severe cold, only fifty-five thousand men and twelve thousand horses were fit for active service.

On November 6 the weather changed, and wintry horrors accumulated. The snow, the freezing winds, the icy rains, the lack of food, the want of shelter, the ferocity of pursuing foes, the inhumanity of comrades and friends, the immense plains to be crossed, the deep rivers to be bridged, the enormous burden of despair to be borne,—these were the factors of the most hideous drama war ever presented.

The Grand Army reeled in tattered fragments toward home, fighting, starving, freezing, meeting death in every shape known to man. The French marched in four divisions, commanded by the Emperor, EugÈne, Davoust, and Ney. Terrible as was the daily loss by disease, death, and straggling, each of these divisions held its formation, and never failed to stand and fight when the Russians attacked. The unbending courage shown by these commanders, the steadiness of subordinate officers, the despairing gallantry of the remnants of the Grand Army, stand out in bold relief to the general gloom of this mightiest of shipwrecks. Much of the time Napoleon was on foot, clad in furs, staff in hand to help him through the drifts, marching stolidly, silently, with his men. Nothing that he could do was left undone; but that which he could do had little influence on general results as they tramped along. Until they reached Smolensk, he was almost as powerless as the others; after that his superiority saved what was left of the army.

The hardships of the retreat increased after November 14, when Smolensk was left behind. Men fell by the road exhausted, men were blinded by the glare of the light on limitless fields of snow, men were maddened by the intolerable anxieties and woes of the march. In the day the ice cut their rag-covered or naked feet, the wind and freezing rain tortured their hungry, tattered bodies. At night—nights of sixteen fearful hours—bivouac fires were scant and insufficient, and when morning dawned, the circle of sleeping forms around these dismal bivouacs would sometimes remain forever unbroken—the sleep of the soldier was the long one, the final one.

In October the Russian prisoners had said to the French, “In a fortnight the nails will drop from your fingers; you will not be able to hold your guns.” The cold was even worse; not only did nails drop off, the hands dropped off. The time soon came when a benumbed Frenchman, who had fallen into a ditch, and who had piteously begged a passing comrade to lend a helping hand, was answered, “I haven’t any!” There were only the stumps of the arms; the poor fellow’s hands had been frozen off. “But here, catch hold of my cloak,” he continued, and the man in the ditch having caught hold, was dragged to his feet.

Conditions like these made savages of the men. In the rush for food and fire and shelter, the strong tramped down the weak. Frantic with cold and hunger, they fought each other like wolves for place and provisions. The weaker were shut out and died. Horse-flesh was common diet; it is even said that cannibalism occurred. For warmth, artillerymen could be seen holding their hands at the noses of their horses; for food, a soldier was considered lucky who found a little flour, half dirt and chaff, in the cracks of a floor. But in the worst stages of this awful retreat there was human heroism; there was human sympathy and unselfishness. There is nothing finer in the fine character of EugÈne Beauharnais than the gallantry with which he set the good example of patience, courage, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. From the time he beat Kutusoff in the first fight after Moscow, to his taking the chief command, which Murat abandoned, his conduct was heroic. Rugged Davoust, the best of the marshals now serving, who would have saved his master at Borodino, and who did snatch him from the burning streets of Moscow, was a tower of strength after the retreat began.

Other marshals did not love Davoust; they quarrelled with him, said he was slow, and accused him of not maintaining discipline. On the retreat Ney, whom Davoust had left behind, charged him with something like treachery. But Napoleon knew the value of Davoust, and history knows it. To the careful student of this eventful epoch the conclusion comes home, irresistibly, that Napoleon might have remained till his death the mightiest monarch of the world had he listened to two men,—in civil affairs, CambacÉrÈs; in military matters, Davoust.

As to Murat, he fought all along the front with such conspicuous gallantry, superbly mounted and gorgeously dressed, that he extorted the admiration of the Russians themselves. The Cossacks, especially, looked upon him as the bravest, the most martial of men. Murat fought the cavalry till the horses were all dead, and then he spent most of his time in Napoleon’s carriage.

But Ney, rugged, lionlike Ney, surpassed them all, winning in this campaign the Emperor’s proud title, “The brave of the braves.” Such grandeur of courage, such steadiness, such loyalty, the world never surpassed. Separated from Davoust, beset by overwhelming numbers, he seemed a lost man. The Emperor, hard pressed himself, but determined to make a final effort to save his marshals, halted at Krasnoi, facing sixty thousand Russians with six thousand French. Nothing in Napoleon’s own career is finer than this. Russian shells began to fly, screaming through the air and along the snow. Lebrun spoke of it as of something unusually terrible. “Bah!” said the Emperor with contempt; “balls have been whistling about our legs these twenty years.” His desperate courage in standing at bay so impressed Kutusoff that he drew back, and Davoust came through. But Ney was still behind, and in the face of the tremendous odds the French were forced onward. In deep grief for his marshal, the Emperor reproached himself for having exposed Ney too much. From time to time he would inquire if any one had heard from him. On the 20th of November General Gourgand came in haste to announce that Ney was only a few leagues away and would soon join. With a cry of joy, Napoleon exclaimed, “Is it true?” When Gourgand explained how Ney had marched and fought: how he had defied a beleaguring host ten times his own number; how, summoned to surrender, he had replied, “A marshal of France has never surrendered!” and how he had, partly by stratagem, and partly by force, escaped with a small remnant of his command, Napoleon was delighted. “There are 200,000,000 francs in my vaults in the Tuileries, and I would give them all to have Ney at my side!”

When the heroic survivors of this column joined the main army, there were shouts and tears of joy.

It was Ney who held the Cossacks at bay toward the final stages of the retreat; it was Ney who fired the last shot of the war as he recrossed the Niemen: it was Ney who became almost literally the rear-guard of the Grand Army.

Well might the Bourbon Duchess of AngoulÊme say, in 1815, when told the story of this man’s antique heroism in the Russian campaign, “Had we known all that, we would not have had him shot!”

In the disorder, savagery, elemental chaos of this historic retreat, human nature flew to the extremes. There were soldiers who slew each other in struggles for food, and soldiers who risked starvation to share with others. In some instances comradeship was mocked, in some it was stronger than ever. There were instances where the strong laughed at the weak who pleaded for aid. There were cases where the strong braved all to save the weak. Wounded officers were seen drawn on sledges to which their comrades had harnessed themselves, brother officers taking the place of horses. A child, abandoned by its mother, was saved by Marshal Ney, and escaped all the hardships of the retreat. Another mother drowning in the Beresina held her babe aloft in her arms, the child alive, the mother as good as dead.

One of the most touching and purely unselfish acts of devotion was that of the Hessian contingent in its protection of their hereditary prince. The people of Hesse had little cause to reverence their rulers—petty tyrants who had sold them into military servitude at so much a head to England, and who had misgoverned them with the worst of feudal methods. But on the coldest night of the retreat, when it seemed that the young Prince Emil would freeze to death, the remnant of the Hessians closed around him, “wrapped in their great white cloaks pressed tightly against one another, protecting him from wind and cold. The next morning three-fourths of them were dead, and buried beneath the snow.”

By the time the French came near the Beresina, the two Russian armies, which had been released by the treaties the Czar had made with Turkey and Sweden, had reached the scene of war, and threatened the line of retreat. Kutusoff in overwhelming force in the rear, Wittgenstein and Tchitchagoff in front and flank, the French seemed doomed. When the Russians were driven by Oudinot from Borissow, they burnt the bridge over the Beresina. The ice had melted, the river was swollen, it was wide and deep, and the Russians were on the opposite bank ready to dispute the passage. To bridge and cross the river in the face of these Russians—such was the French necessity: either that or surrender, for Kutusoff was close behind.

Already the Emperor had destroyed his papers and burned his eagles to save them from capture; already had provided himself with poison, resolved to die rather than be taken prisoner.

Standing up to their lips in the freezing current of the river, soldiers worked all night, fixing the timbers for the bridge. It was a terrible labor, and several lost their lives, drowned or frozen. Those who toiled on, had to keep the masses of ice pushed away while they worked.

The Emperor sat in a wretched hovel, waiting for day. Great tears rolled down his cheeks. “Berthier, how are we to get out of this?” Murat urged him to take an escort of a few Poles, cross the river higher up, and escape. The Emperor silently shook his head, and Murat said no more.

Suddenly came news that was almost too good for belief: the Russians had disappeared! Tchitchagoff, deceived by Napoleon’s feint to cross elsewhere, or misled by Kutusoff’s despatches, had led his army away. The line of retreat was now open, the bridges were rapidly finished, and with shouts of “Live the Emperor!” the jubilant French began to cross. When in their hurry a jam occurred in the passage, and artillery teams got blocked, Napoleon himself sprang on the bridge, caught the horses, and helped to free the pieces.

The bridges, constructed under so many difficulties and in such haste, were frail, the crush of the crowd in going over became greater and greater. Finally the bridges gave way. They were repaired, but broke again. Beginning with this, the tumult, the terror, the frantic struggle for place, the loss of life, became frightful. The weak fell, they were trampled by men and horses, and ground to pulp by wheels. Some perished on the bridges, others were pushed off and drowned in the river. There were no side-rails or ledges, nothing to keep those on the outer edge from being crowded off—and they went over by hundreds, by thousands. The Russians under Wittgenstein having come up, a fierce battle ensued between them and the French rear-guard. Amid wild confusion, the passage of the river continued, while a storm raged and the cannon roared. In the evening the large bridge, crushed by the weight upon it, gave way, and with a fearful cry, which rose above the storm and the battle, the multitude that was crossing sank forever. Next day the battle raged again, while the crossing continued. Early in the night, Victor’s rear-guard began to cross, the Russians cannonading the bridge, and covering it with the dead. Next morning the bridge was burned, and all the thousands of stragglers and camp-followers were cut off, and perished miserably.

Beyond the Beresina, the regulars of the Russian army did not press the pursuit, but the Cossacks hung on, inflicting heavy losses. From cold, from hunger, from disease, the French continued to lose fearfully; but the broken remnant of the Grand Army was now comparatively safe from the enemy.

Full details of the Malet conspiracy having reached Napoleon, he became anxious and restless. He believed he could render greater service to himself and the Empire by being in Paris. Turning over the command to Murat, at Smorgoni, the Emperor entered a covered sleigh, and set out for France.

Accompanied by Duroc, Caulaincourt and Lobau, Roustan the Mameluke, and a Polish officer, the Emperor sped across the snow on his way homeward. Almost captured by Cossacks, he reached Warsaw on the 15th of December, 1812, where he put up at the English Hotel, and sent for the AbbÉ de Pradt, his minister to the Grand Duchy. Here, in a small room of the hotel, moving about restlessly, stamping his feet for circulation while a servant girl bent over the hearth trying to make a fire from green wood, he gave his instructions to his treacherous minister, and announced that in the following spring he would be back in the Niemen at the head of three hundred thousand men. Then he sped onward toward Saxony.

Late at night, December 14, 1812, the sledge of the flying Emperor reached Dresden, where there was a brief conference between Napoleon and his faithful ally. Bitter beyond description must have been the reflections of the lonely fugitive in hurrying through those streets, where a few months before kings had crowded to his antechamber!

Escaping the conspiracies aimed at his life in Germany, he safely entered France, and reached Paris, late at night, December 18, 1812, arriving at the Tuileries almost alone, in a hackney coach.

There was an outburst of indignation in the Grand Army remnants when it was known that the Emperor had gone. “The same trick he played us in Egypt,” said one General to another. Murat had on his hands a thankless task at best, and under his management the situation did not improve. At Wilna the Cossack “Hourra!” stampeded the French, who fled, loosing six thousand prisoners. At the steep hill, a few miles beyond, the horses could not drag the artillery up the ice-covered road, and it was abandoned.

Sick of such a responsibility, Murat bethought himself that he also had a kingdom that might need his presence, and on January 16, 1813, he made over the command to EugÈne Beauharnais.

There were seventeen thousand men in the army when Murat left it; EugÈne increased its numbers until, by the 9th of March, 1813, it was an effective force of forty thousand. Taking a strong position, his line stretching from Magdeburg to Dresden, the loyal EugÈne waited for his Emperor to bring up reËnforcements.