Edward Foord

“ The storehouses were broken open amid frenzied scenes of disorder and violence; the miserable wretches murdered one another at the doors and in the streets. The provisions were pillaged, a great part of them being of course destroyed in the confusion. Nothing was left for Ney’s brave men, who were sacrificing themselves to save the rest of the army, except such remnants as they could obtain by searching for them.
Kutuzov meanwhile was advancing with a slowness and caution which exasperated the more eager of his subordinates and caused some of them to mutter angrily about treachery. ”

“ The road from Borisov to Studianka was choked with non-combatants, sick and wounded barely capable of dragging themselves along, straggling soldiers, disbanded skulkers, fugitives from Moscow, camp-followers, men, women and children, huddled in a helpless mass, all streaming mechanically to Studianka with the last of the organised fighting men. Vlastov’s division coming into the road at Staroï Borisov about 3 a.m., cut the line of retreat and the rearward portions of the mob fled back towards Borisov, whence Partouneaux moved out to fight his way through. ”

“ The fighting men were cut down in thousands, women and children involved in the hideous massacre. The Druids were slaughtered at their rites, or tossed upon their own flaming pyres. The sanctuaries were destroyed, the sacred groves cut down, and Paulinus might hope that he had dealt a decisive blow, when jaded messengers dashed into camp with the stunning tidings that all Roman Britain was in a flame of revolt. ”

“ Thus, disorganised, with discipline shattered, ill clothed, ill supplied, deficient in transport but laden with useless plunder, encumbered with sick, wounded, and helpless non-combatants, and with demoralisation latent everywhere, the Grande Armée set out from Napoleon’s Farthest to fight its way home. It is perhaps difficult to see things in their true light, every effort at so doing being naturally affected by knowledge of succeeding events. ”

“ The men of Cambria were thrown on the defensive by the great force directed against them. Caradoc manœuvred among the mountains, harassed the Roman line of march, cut off detachments, but was at last brought to bay in A.D. 50. All that could be suggested to counterbalance the superiority of the Romans in everything but mere numbers he did. He posted his army behind a roaring mountain torrent, with both flanks protected by craggy heights, and his centre covered by ‘sangars’ of piled stones. The wild warriors of Wales swore by their gods to conquer or die. ”

“ Generals were often no better. Napoleon himself added to the encumbrances of the army two convoys of spoils, one of gold and silver bullion, the presence of which may be justified, the other of objects of purely sentimental value, for which excuse can hardly be made. It was but another example of the paltry spirit which impelled Napoleon to desecrate the tomb of Frederick the Great. It is difficult to blame subordinate officers when their ruler and their generals set so evil an example, still less is it possible to find fault with the ignorant soldiery. ”

“ The emigrants could not march by land, like the Goths and Franks, in great masses, which could bear down resistance by sheer weight of numbers and courage. They had to transfer themselves over hundreds of miles of sea in more or less frail open craft, at the mercy of every gale; yet in the course of a century the name of Angle had vanished from the Continent, and become peculiar to Britain. ”

“ The Russian Campaign of 1812 was the last and greatest of Napoleon’s efforts to impose his dominion upon Continental Europe; and it resulted in perhaps the most tremendous overthrow that any world-conqueror has ever sustained. A review of the immediate causes of the mighty struggle is necessary and not without interest, but it is difficult, as one studies Napoleon’s character, to resist the conclusion that it was inevitable. The career of the Corsican adventurer whom genius and good fortune had made Emperor of France, resembles the fateful development of a Greek tragedy. ”

“ Aethelred II. at his accession was overlord of all Britain no less than his father. England possessed a navy as strong in numbers as the largest Viking fleet that had ever assailed the country. Yet when the crisis came everything was in hopeless disorder. It was not the people, but the ruling class that was in fault. The exasperation of the nation glows fiercely through the bitter entries of the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,’ whose compiler is thoroughly aware that sheer ineptitude, if not absolute treachery, was the cause of the national disasters. ”

“ A few of the non-combatants followed Victor’s rear-guard, but the passages were soon blocked. At 8.30 Eblé fired the bridges, and there was a last scene of horror. Many of the unhappy wretches, at last alive to the situation, strove to dash through the flames, others endeavoured to cross on the thin ice between the bridges, many threw themselves into the icy stream to wade or swim. It is useless as well as painful to dwell longer upon the tragedy, the details of which may be gathered from countless works. ”

“ The confusion grew worse and worse: prisoners were taken and men lost in the marshes. At the ford every trace of order was lost, and the English, making a final charge, thrust the army into the river and Solway Moss. The rout was piteous. Only twenty men are said to have been slain in fight, but hundreds were drowned and suffocated in the bogs; and 1,200 prisoners taken, including the unfortunate Sinclair, two earls, five barons, and hundreds of gentlemen. Twenty-four cannon, the Royal Standard of Scotland, and all the Scots’ baggage fell into the hands of the victors. ”

“ Seventy thousand men, inspirited by success, were preparing to bar his retreat to the frontier; Minsk and Vitebsk with their magazines, Borisov with its all-important bridge, had passed into the enemy’s hands, and Schwarzenberg, with the one powerful force that remained at Napoleon’s disposal, had been drawn far away to the south-west. The Emperor had with him about Orsha only some 25,000 demoralised men, surrounded by a helpless mob of 40,000 non-combatants of both sexes, the majority in the last stages of misery and despair. ”

“ The last hope for the independence of the Danes of England lay in a Viking fleet which had just appeared on the East Anglian coast. Its crews landed, rallied the broken levies of their kinsmen, and, in conjunction with them, besieged Maldon. Before they could complete their cordon, a strong body of English troops, probably part of the victors of Tempsford and Colchester, entered the burh, and the combined force made a sortie, repulsed the besiegers, and, by a vigorous pursuit, completely broke them. ”

“ He is not perhaps to be blamed; it was no light thing to meet Napoleon—never so dangerous as when he appeared completely baffled. He knew that the quality of his army, diluted with raw militia-men and recruits of a few weeks’ training, left much to be desired; another battle like that of Borodino would completely cripple it. At any rate, he decided not to accept battle where he stood, but to fall back to another position about 3 miles in rear. This appears to have been strong enough; but it left uncovered the road from Maloyaroslavetz to Medyn, which Napoleon might have used for his retreat. ”

“ The English seamen manœuvred for the wind, and, having gained it, bore down on their encumbered foes. The result was an overwhelming victory. Robert de Courtenay, the leader of the reinforcements, was taken prisoner. So, too, was the Monk, who, having been in the English service, was immediately beheaded. Many knights were slain, others drowned themselves in despair, and only fifteen ships escaped. The victory had decisive results. Louis at once made peace, submitting to the Pope’s legate, and abandoning all hopes of the English crown. Hubert de Burgh became the darling of England. ”

“ The plight of the troops in the ranks was no better; their devotion to duty only prolonged their sufferings. Ill-clad, starving, stricken with cold and disease, often half-blind from the effects of the glaring snow by day and the smoke of the fires at night, it is wonderful that they ever managed, as they did, to make some kind of fight. Their duties, when they had strength to carry them out, were confined to beating off the hovering Cossacks, and to destroying guns and waggons that would otherwise have been abandoned. ”

“ The invasion of William the Lion, in 1174, was made ostensibly to aid the rebellious sons of Henry II. against their father. William’s true object was, no doubt, to recover the border counties. Perhaps no invasion of England has ever appeared so threatening, and proved so completely ‘the fleeting shadow of a dream.’ William’s army was large—perhaps the largest that a Scots king had hitherto gathered—but he could not control his wild followers. ”

“ One of the most awful incidents of the retreat was the fate of the Russian prisoners, of whom some 2000—stragglers, convalescents, and civilians—were dragged with the army, under a guard made up of fragments and detachments of every nation. From the first the captives were treated with gross cruelty and neglect. The weakly ones who fell behind were done to death without mercy. Every night the survivors were huddled together, fireless, on the bare ground, without food save a little raw horse-flesh. ”

“ The men of Kent were too unprepared to attempt to oppose the landing, but they harassed the flanks of the army as it marched for the Thames along the old, old track that Cæsar had traversed a century before. This time the British guerrilla tactics had slight effect; there was ample cavalry to feel ahead, and ample light infantry to guard the flanks. We hear no more of the stunning and disordering surges of chariotry among the Roman battalions—indeed, there is some reason to believe that, with the introduction and breeding of larger horses fit for riding, it was already in a state of decline. ”

“ There was less of polish and pipeclay in the French army than in that of Great Britain; but the uniforms were frequently as comfortless and awkward as they well could be. One wonders how the men could march and fight in them. The headgear was often especially clumsy and absurd. To deal with the many types of uniform would need a separate work. The infantry were generally attired in the blue uniform coat which had replaced the Bourbon white at the Revolution. Cuirassiers wore blue; Dragoons green; Chasseurs and Hussars green, with facings of every colour. ”

“ After Hadrian, in what Florus jokingly termed the great Emperor’s ‘walking about Britain,’ had reorganized the island, and established the famous military frontier, Britain settled down to a more or less eventful existence as a Roman province. The unfortunate results of the enterprise, into which Claudius had perhaps been led partly against his will, soon began to be apparent, even if to all thinking men they were not plain as early as the reign of Hadrian. ”

“ Men drunken and dying lay in heaps in the snow-covered streets. Most of the benumbed fugitives lacked even the sense to avail themselves of the ice on the river; they crowded mechanically over the bridge, fighting for precedence, stifling and trampling each other down, as at the Berezina and Vilna. Murat placed some guns in battery on the left bank of the Niemen, and left for Königsberg on the 13th, while Ney and the rear-guard occupied the town, which they held until dark. Platov sent across a detachment on the ice, which captured the guns on the left bank and barred Ney’s retreat. ”

“ The passing from the scene of the strangely unsubstantial and shadowy figure of the sainted Eadward ‘the Confessor’ was the signal for the bursting of the storm that was to overwhelm Anglo-Saxon England. For the last thirteen years of his reign the country had been practically governed by his great minister, Harold Godwineson, Earl of Wessex. Harold’s character has suffered much at the hands of Norman chroniclers; there is no real reason to think that he was morally worse than most men of his age. ”

“ Finally, the pernicious practice of permitting the troops to march in disorder was soon to be productive of fatal consequences. Officers and men had grown so accustomed to it that its extent was probably not at first realised, and it soon became impossible to check it. The results were terrible. The worse element among the suffering troops had every opportunity for disbanding, and the Russian irregulars, who could achieve little against closed bodies of infantry, were able to commit immense havoc.
Over and above all this the army was encumbered by a disproportionate throng of non-combatants. ”

“ Between the cavalry attacks the bowmen poured in their volleys, shooting with a high trajectory so that the arrows were not wasted on the shield-wall, but made havoc in the heart of the dense mass. The device had terrible success. The picked warriors of England fell fast before the pitiless rain to which they could not reply. For the most part they could but suffer. Once or twice it seems that small bodies tried to charge out; now and again desperate warriors sprang forth to contend hand-to-hand with the Norman knights, but they only hastened their end. ”

“ Aethelflæd stormed Derby after a furious resistance, while Guthrum in vain attacked Bedford and Wiggingamere, and had to retreat on Tempsford, only to be assailed there by an English army of burh-ware from all the eastern fortresses. ‘They beset the burh and fought against it until they broke into it, and slew the King and Earl Toglos, and Earl Manna his son, and his brother, and all them that were therein, and would defend themselves, and they took the others and all that was therein.’ Eadward followed up the victory with energy. ”