Smolensk

“ I expect the Minister (Barclay de Tolly) has already reported the abandonment of Smolénsk to the enemy. It is pitiable and sad, and the whole army is in despair that this most important place has been wantonly abandoned. I, for my part, begged him personally most urgently and finally wrote him, but nothing would induce him to consent. I swear to you on my honor that Napoleon was in such a fix as never before and might have lost half his army but could not have taken Smolénsk. Our troops fought, and are fighting, as never before. ”

“ And the impulses felt by a single person are always magnified in a crowd.
For the French retreating along the old Smolénsk road, the final goal—their native land—was too remote, and their immediate goal was Smolénsk, toward which all their desires and hopes, enormously intensified in the mass, urged them on. ”

“ Smolensk, however, which was twice fatal to the army, was a place of rest for some. During the respite which this afforded to their sufferings, these were asking each other, "how it happened, that at Moscow every thing had been forgotten; why there was so much useless baggage; why so many soldiers had already died of hunger and cold under the weight of their knapsacks, which were loaded with gold, instead of food and raiment ”

“ Maddened with famine and frost, men were seen to spring, with wildly exulting cries, into the flames of burning houses. Of those that fell into the hands of the Russian boors, many were stripped of their clothing and chased to death through the snow. [Pg 245] Smolensk, which the army had passed in its glory, it now reached in its gloom. The city was deserted and half burned. Most of the cannon had been abandoned, food and ammunition were lacking, and no halt was possible. The despairing army pushed on. ”

“ Yet not the slightest preparation was made even for the most peaceful return.”
“At last,” continues Ségur, “the army cast its eyes once more upon Smolensk. Before them lay the promised land, where the hungry should be filled and the weary be at rest, where they were to lie in warm and comfortable rooms and forget their nightly bivouacs in forty degrees of frost. ‘Now,’ they thought, ‘we can sleep as long as we wish, mend our clothes, and provide ourselves with boots!’ But the skeletons of horses lying in the streets show that even here there is a scarcity of provender. ”

“ But without going far in search of causes of uneasiness, was the Emperor ignorant of the joy of the Russians, when three months before he stopped to attack Smolensk, instead of marching to the right to Elnia, where he would have cut off the enemy's army from a retreat upon their capital? Now that the war has returned back to the same spots, will the Russians, whose movements are much more free than ours were then, imitate our error? Will they keep in our rear when they can so easily place themselves before us, on the line of our retreat? ”

“ They saw that they were too deeply embarked; that a victory was necessary for their speedy deliverance; and that he alone could give it them. Misfortune, moreover, had purified the army; all that remained of it could not fail to be its élite both in mind and body. In order to have got so far as they had done, what trials had they not withstood! Suspense, and disgust with miserable cantonments, were sufficient to agitate such men. To remain, appeared to them insupportable; to retreat, impossible; it was, therefore, imperative to advance.
The great names of Smolensk and Moscow inspired no alarm. ”

“ Russian poet and author, was born at Smolensk in 1788, and was specially educated for the army. In 1803 he obtained a commission as an officer, and two years later took part in the Austrian campaign. His tastes for literary pursuits, however, soon induced him to leave the service, whereupon he withdrew to his estates in the government of Smolensk, and subsequently devoted most of his time to study or travelling about Russia. Upon the invasion of the French in 1812, he re-entered the Russian army, and remained in active service until the end of the campaign in 1814. ”

“ Strange was the fate of Yuri, the last Smolensk prince. He did not remain long in Novgorod, and when the break came between Vassili and Vitold he appeared in Moscow a second time, with Prince Simeon of Vyazma. Vassili gave Yuri Torjok to support him. Now his unrestrained temper brought the man to a crime of foul aspect. He flamed up with passion for the wife of Prince Simeon. Meeting with strong resistance on her part, he strove to use violence, and when she defended herself with a keen weapon, he killed her. ”

“ We go long distances without seeing houses, fences, gates, or even a road. At all the stations there are people—the big ones crowded—and at the smaller ones, where we hardly stop, merely slacken, peasants—and such objects, one can hardly tell the men from the women; long, unkempt hair, all barefooted, and all wearing a sort of fur garment with a hole in the middle to pass the head through, and which falls low down to their knees.
We have just had tea at Smolensk, which is very Russian looking, with gilded domes and pink and green painted roofs. ”

“ These were extraordinary men; they encouraged themselves by repeating the name of Smolensk, which they felt they were approaching, and where everything had been promised to them.
“Thus since this deluge of snow, and the redoubled cold which it announced, all, officers and soldiers alike, preserved or lost their strength of mind, according to their age, their character, and temperament. He of our chiefs, whom till then we had seen the strictest in maintaining discipline, now found himself no longer in his element. ”

“ The marshal's left was supported by the river, and his right by Murat, whom Poniatowski, coming direct from Mohilef, arrived to reinforce.
In this place two steep hills contract the channel of the Boristhenes; on these hills Smolensk is built. That city has the appearance of two towns, separated by the river and connected by two bridges. That on the right bank, the most modern, is wholly occupied by traders; it is open, but overlooks the other, of which it is nevertheless but a dependency. ”

“ And, in truth, Ney was in the most terrible of situations. When he left Smolensk he was at the head of eight thousand men, but followed by an army of stragglers, whom the cannon of Platoff caused to evacuate Smolensk instantly, leaving behind him five thousand sick and wounded. When they reached the battle-field of Krasnoi they saw the carcases of their late comrades lying in heaps on the ground, and, a little beyond, the Russians in full force occupying the banks of the Losmina, and crowding all the hills around. ”

“ Smolensk fell after a siege of eighteen months, but at the last moment a powder magazine exploded and set fire to the city, and Sigismund became master only of a heap of ruins. The Poles in Moscow, attacked by the Russians, took possession of the Kremlin, burned down most of the city, and massacred a hundred thousand of the people. Anarchy was rampant everywhere. New chiefs appeared in all quarters. Each town declared for itself. The Swedes took possession of Novgorod. A third Dmitri appeared, and dwelt in state for a while, but was soon taken and hanged. ”

“ It is certain that numbers of persons so taken were shot, as a punishment. On the other hand, so eminent a Russian as Tolstoï maintains that the carelessness of the French soldiers was the cause of the fires. The Russians who had burned Smolensk to deprive the French of its use, who made the line of their retreat a desert to deprive the French of supplies, were probably the burners of Moscow. They burnt it as they burnt Smolensk and every village on their line of march, as a war measure which would injure the invaders. ”

“ Scarcely a quarter of the soldiers remain with the standards of their regiments, the others go off by themselves in different directions hoping to find food and escape discipline. In general they regard Smolénsk as the place where they hope to recover. ”

“ On the 8th of August the Emperor quitted Vitepsk and after a partial engagement at Krasnoi on the 14th, came in sight of Smolensk on the 16th. On the 10th of August Napoleon was observed to write eight letters to Davoust, and nearly as many to each of his commanders. "If the enemy defends Smolensk" he said in one of his letters to Davoust, "as I am tempted to believe he will, we shall have a decisive engagement there, and we cannot have too large a force. Orcha will become the central point of the army. Everything induces me to believe that there will be a great battle at Smolensk." ”

“ March without delay. Put all our forces together. We will get our honor back!”
On receiving this message, Yaroslav, with Igor and all the descendants of Oleg, joined their forces for the expedition. They wished to fall upon Smolensk unexpectedly, but when Rurik of Kief was going from the capital to take rest in his favorite residence, Ovrutch, he sent his oath papers to Yaroslav with these words: “If in thy joy thou art going to kill my brother, here are thy oath papers. If thou go to Smolensk, I will go to Chernigoff. Let us see how God and the holy cross will judge between us.” ”

“ At that moment General Charpentier sent him from Smolensk a convoy of provisions. Bessières wished to take possession of them; but the emperor instantly ordered them to be forwarded to the Prince of Moskwa, saying that "those who were fighting must eat before the rest." At the same time, he sent word to Ney "to defend himself long enough to allow him some stay at Smolensk, where the army should eat, rest, and be reorganized."
The Russians, however, advanced under favor of a wood and of our forsaken carriages, whence they kept up a fire of musketry on Ney's troops. ”

“ And this is nearly all we have to say about the ladies of Smolensk, speaking superficially. But if we were to glance deeper into the character of these ladies, we should, of course, discover many more of their interesting propensities; however, we will not venture to do so, because it is very dangerous to look to any depth into the heart of a lady. ”

“ One fine summer's afternoon a few years ago, a pretty, neat-looking, but small spring-britchka, drove into the court-yard of an inn, in the governmental town of Smolensk. The vehicle was one of that peculiar description to which bachelors, retired colonels, staats-capitains, and landowners, rejoicing in the possession of about a hundred-and-fifty souls, give the preference for travelling purposes; in short, all those who in Russia are called "gentlemen of the middle rank." ”

“ A chain of other magazines had been formed from Smolensk to Minsk and Wilna. These two towns were in a still greater degree than Smolensk, centres of provisioning, of which the fortresses of the Vistula formed the first line. The total quantity of provisions distributed over this space was incalculable; the efforts for transporting them thither gigantic, and the result little better than nothing. They were insufficient in that immensity.
Thus great expeditions are crushed by their own weight. Human limits had been surpassed ”

“ Napoleon's historians themselves tell us that from Smolénsk onwards he wished to stop, knew the danger of his extended position, and knew that the occupation of Moscow would not be the end of the campaign, for he had seen at Smolénsk the state in which Russian towns were left to him, and had not received a single reply to his repeated announcements of his wish to negotiate. ”

“ The same thing that took place in Moscow had happened in all the towns and villages on Russian soil beginning with Smolensk, without the participation of Count Rostopchín and his broadsheets. The people awaited the enemy unconcernedly, did not riot or become excited or tear anyone to pieces, but faced its fate, feeling within it the strength to find what it should do at that most difficult moment. ”

“ The weakening of Lithuania, even for a time, was a godsend to Moscow. Not without satisfaction might the people there look on this struggle between the two deadly enemies of Russia. Tamerlane’s war with Tohtamish and Vitold’s great conflict with Kutlui were vastly important, and useful to Moscow and Russia. Many Smolensk people, weary of Vitold, wished to recall their native prince, Yuri, son of Sviatoslav, who was living in Ryazan with Oleg, his wife’s father, and in 1400 Yuri turned to his father-in-law with these words: “My Smolensk friends have sent men saying that many desire me. ”

“ Such men as we have described were the right honourable dignitaries of the town of Smolensk.
It is a curious fact that men of such frame know better how to manage their little affairs in this world of trouble and disappointment than those who are tall, slender or thin. Slender men are appointed in Russia—perhaps also elsewhere—as special commissioners, or are generally selected for such an office ”

“ To Duroc he said he would go to Smolensk and there winter. Complaining that his generals were sick of war, that he had made them too rich, that they could think of nothing but the pleasures of the chase on their estates, and the display of themselves in fine carriages in Paris, he ordered the advance upon Smolensk. Once more he failed to secure his much-desired pitched battle. The Russians fought his advance guard stubbornly, and inflicted heavy losses, but during the night they continued their retreat. ”

“ Napoleon was led on, not by any plan,—a plan had never been thought of,—but by the intrigues, quarrels, and ambition of men who unconsciously played a part in this terrible war and never foresaw that the result would be the safety of Russia. ... Amid these quarrels and intrigues, we are trying to meet the French, although ignorant of their whereabouts. The French encounter Neverovski's division, and approach the walls of Smolensk. It is impossible not to give battle at Smolensk. We must maintain our communications. The battle takes place, and thousands of men on both sides are killed. ”