“We Still Possessed Two Things – Courage and Honour”

On the morning of the 15th, Napoleon’s advance guard continued its march to Krasnoe.  Ségur describes how the column came across the Russian army which had passed the Grande Armée and was waiting across the road:  “… advancing without precaution, preceded by a crowd of marauders, all eager to reach Krasnoe, when at about five miles from that town a row of Cossacks, extending from the heights on the left and across the highroad, suddenly appeared before them.  Our soldiers halted, astounded.  They had not expected anything of the kind…”

Adrian Bourgogne of the Imperial Guard picks up the narrative:  “… the front of the Imperial columns was stopped by 25,000 Russians occupying the road.  Stragglers at the front caught sight of them first, and immediately turned back to join the first regiments advancing; the greater part of them, however, united and faced the enemy.  A few men, too careless or too wretched to care what they did, fell into the enemy’s hands.”

“The Grenadiers and Chasseurs, formed into close columns, advanced against the mass of Russians, who, not daring to wait for them, retired and left the passage free; they took up a position on the hills to the left of the road, and turned their artillery on us.  When we heard the cannon, we doubled our pace, as we were behind, and arrived just as our gunners were answering them.  The Russians disappeared behind the hills as our fire began, and we continued our way.”

Battle of Krasnoi
by Piter von Hess

“In two hours after the encounter with the Russians, the Emperor reached Krasnoe with the first regiments of the Guard — ours and the Fusiliers-Chasseurs.  We camped behind the town.  I was on guard with fifteen men at General Roguet’s quarters: a miserable house in the town, thatched with straw.  I put my men in a stable, thinking myself in luck to be under cover, and near a fire we had just lighted, but it turned out quite otherwise.”

“While we were in Krasnoe and the immediate neighborhood, the Russians, 90,000 strong, surrounded us – to right, to left, in front, and behind, nothing but Russians — thinking, no doubt, they could soon finish us off.  But the Emperor wished to show them it was not quite so easy a thing as they imagined; for although we were most wretched, and dying of cold and hunger, we still possessed two things – courage and honour.”

Old Guard Does Not Give Up
Commemorative 1912 Russian
Candy Box Card

“On the evening of our arrival, General Roguet received orders to attack during the night…  at two o’clock [a.m.] we began to move forward.  We formed into three columns…  The cold was as intense as ever.  We had the greatest difficulty in walking across the fields, as the snow was up to our knees.  After half an hour of this, we found ourselves in the midst of the Russians.  On our right was a long line of infantry, opening a murderous fire on us, their heavy cavalry on our left… They howled like wolves to excite each other, but did not dare to attack.  The artillery was in the centre, pouring grape-shot on us.  All this did not stop our career in the least.  In spite of the firing, and the number of our men who fell, we charged on into their camp, where we made frightful havoc with our bayonets.”

Tomorrow, the battle continues.

Source:
Sergeant Bourgogne: With Napoleon’s Imperial Guard in the Russian Campaign and on the Retreat from Moscow 1812-13, Adrien Bourgogne, pp 102 – 105

Commemorative 1912 Russian Candy Box Card image and translation provided by Alexey Temnikov

“A Terrible Effort Every Single Day”

Faber du Faur painted two scenes dated November 7.  Both dedicated to showing the effects the recent snow had upon the army.

Between Dorogobouye and Mikalevka,
7 November
by Faber du Faur

Between Dorogobouye and Mikalevka, 7 November
“The order had been given for us to turn off the Kaluga road and make our way to the Smolensk-Moscow road.  Until that point, despite the numerous difficulties we had encountered along near impassable roads – difficulties that often led to losses of men, horses and caissons – we had, at least, always managed to find some food.  We had, too, always marched as a disciplined body and had not lost a gun, despite fighting in some particularly bloody engagements.  But now we found ourselves in a land already stripped by both ourselves and our enemies.”

“Even so, we still hoped to reach Smolensk before the furies of winter fell upon us – Smolensk, where we would find well-stocked magazines and shelter, where Victor and his corps, placed in reserve, would bid us a warm welcome.  Therefore, led by our hope, we traversed the field of Borodino, marched through Gjatsk and, on the 3rd, pushed through the Russians at Viasma.  However, on the 5th and 6th the sky grew overcast and there were occasional flurries of snow.  On the 7th a massive snowstorm robbed us of the day and announced the true arrival of the Russian winter.  We struggled forward, unsure of where we were or who surrounded us.  The furious storm blew huge flakes of ice into our faces – flakes which soon settled and sought to obstruct our march.  The horses found the going difficult on the icy surface and gave up  Convoys and, for the first time, cannon were abandoned.  The road began to be littered with frozen bodies, and these, soon covered with a snowy winding sheet, formed small mounds.  This was all that was to remain of so many of our comrades-in-arms.”

“The Russian winter finished off what the starvation, exhaustion and retreat had been unable to accomplish.  The army disbanded and melted away.  Now it resembled a rabble – men of all arms, of all army corps, marching in small bands or alone.  They had not deliberately abandoned their flags, but cold and an instinct for self-preservation made men quit their units.  Continuing the march was a terrible effort every single day; for the gunners it was especially tough as they tried to look after their horses and save their guns.  The most terrible part, though, was the night – sixteen hours of darkness, camped in the snow, without food, without a fire.  The first such winter camp was that at Mikalevka, on the night of the 7th.”

Camp Near Mikalevka,
7 November
by Faber du Faur

Camp Near Mikalevka, 7 November
The fatal retreat had begun.  The ancient city of the Czars was nothing but a heap of smouldering rubble and eyes had turned westwards towards far-off homelands.  Whilst the sky had been serene and our feet trod upon firm earth, all had gone well.  Our thin garments had protected us from autumnal breezes, we found food in villages, and the soldiers, even when suffering, had hope of better things to come.  But the sky clouded over, the snow fell and the icy North came down upon us with all its attendant furies.  The road disappeared and, for as far as one could see, a sheet of white stretched to the horizon.  The faithful gunners made incredible efforts to save their pieces; they buried  those they could no longer drag with them.”

“After a day in which we had suffered as never before, we reached a village and came across some snow-covered huts.  Some of our comrades had preceded us and sought out shelter for us.  But all was quiet and we assumed they had now abandoned the huts and resumed their march.  As we drew nearer, however, we came across corpses frozen stiff and saw in their fate our own destiny.  We sought to brace ourselves for all the future could hurl against us, but the sinister end to the first day of winter marked but the start of our woe.”

Source:
With Napoleon in Russia: The Illustrated Memoirs of Major Faber du Faur, 1812, Edited by Jonathan North

Mistreatment of French Prisoners

General Wilson continues his observations about the retreat after the first snow fall of early November.  “At Viazma, fifty French, by a savage order, were burned alive.  In another village fifty men had been buried alive; but these terrible acts of ferocity were minor features – they ended in death with comparitively little protracted suffering.  Here death, so much invited, so solicited as a friend, came with dilatory step; but still he came without interval of torturing pause.”

“I will cite three or four of the most painful indcidents that I witnessed.

1. A number of naked men, whose backs had been frozen while they warmed the front of their bodies, sat round the burning embers of a hut.  Sensible at last to the chill of the air, they had succeeded in turning themselves, when the fire caught the congealed flesh, and a hard burnt crust covered the whole of their backs.  The wretches were still living as I passed.

2.  Sixty dying naked men, whose necks were laid upon a felled tree, while Russian men and women with large faggot-sticks, singing in chorus and hopping round, with repeated blows struck out their brains in succession.

3.  A group of wounded men, at the ashes of another cottage, sitting and lying over the body of a comrade which they had roasted, and the flesh of which they had begun to eat.

4.  A French woman, naked to her chemise, with black, long, dishevelled hair, sitting on the snow, where she had remained the whole day and in that situation had been delivered of a child, which had afterwards been stolen from her.  This was the extreme of mental anguish and bodily suffering.

I could cite a variety of other sad and sorry calamities, but the very recollection is loathsome.”

Source:
1812: Napoleon’s Defeat in Russia, Antony Brett-James, p 222

Snow Comes to Stay

While it had snowed a few times since the occupation of Moscow, it had always melted away.  November 6, 1812 is the first snowfall that stays.

A Scene of the Retreat from Russia

Philippe-Paul de Ségur describes the first snowstorm, “On the sixth of November the sky became terrible; its blue disappeared.  The army marched along wrapped in a cold mist.  Then the mist thickened, and presently from this immense cloud great snowflakes began to sift down on us.  It seemed as if the sky had come down and joined with the earth and our enemies to complete our ruin.  Everything in sight became vague, unrecognizable.  Objects changed their shape; we walked without knowing where we were or what lay ahead, and anything became an obstacle.  While the men were struggling to make headway against the icy, cutting blast, the snow driven by the wind was piling up and filling the hollows along the way.  Their smooth surfaces hid unsuspected depths which opened up treacherously under our feet.  The men were swallowed up, and the weak, unable to struggle out, were buried forever.”

“Russian winter in this new guise attacked [the soldiers] on all sides; it cut through their thin uniforms and worn shoes, their wet clothing froze on them, and this icy shroud molded their bodies and stiffened their limbs.  The sharp wind made them gasp for breath, and froze the moisture from their mouths and nostrils into icicles on their beards.”

Colonel Lubin Griois, commander of the artillery in the 3rd cavalry corps recorded how he spent the night of the first snow: “The only shelter near the place I had halted in was a sort of barn open to all the winds and its roof supported by four posts.  This lodging seemed to me excellent by comparison with those I had had for a long time past.  I had a large fire built in the centre and lay down to sleep beside it, surrounded by my horses.  But during the night snow began to fall heavily, and the wind blew it under the roof with such force that when I woke up at daybreak I was covered in snow, as was the whole landscape. The snow had hardened and was all frozen.  Winter had fallen on us with full severity and was not going to leave us.”

Source:
Napoleon’s Russian Campaign, Philippe-Paul de Ségur, pp 169-170

1812: Napoleon’s Defeat in Russia, Antony Brett-James, p 220

The Approach to Krasnoe

On the morning of the 15th, Napoleon’s advance guard continued its march to Krasnoe.  de Ségur describes how the column came across the Russian army which had passed the Grande Armée and was waiting across the road:  “… advancing without precaution, preceded by a crowd of marauders, all eager to reach Krasnoe, when at about five miles from that town a row of Cossacks, extending from the heights on the left and across the highroad, suddenly appeared before them.  Our soldiers halted, astounded.  They had not expected anything of the kind…”

Adrian Bourgogne of the Imperial Guard picks up the narrative:  “… the front of the Imperial columns was stopped by 25,000 Russians occupying the road.  Stragglers at the front caught sight of them first, and immediately turned back to join the first regiments advancing; the greater part of them, however, united and faced the enemy.  A few men, too careless or too wretched to care what they did, fell into the enemy’s hands.”

“The Grenadiers and Chasseurs, formed into close columns, advanced against the mass of Russians, who, not daring to wait for them, retired and left the passage free; they took up a position on the hills to the left of the road, and turned their artillery on us.  when we heard the cannon, we doubled our pace, as we were behind, and arrived just as our gunners were answering them.  The Russians disappeared behind the hills as our fire began, and we continued our way.”

“In two hours after the encounter with the Russians, the Emperor reached Krasnoe with the first regiments of the Guard — ours and the Fusiliers-Chasseurs.  We camped behind the town.  I was on guard with fifteen men at General Roguet’s quarters: a miserable house in the town, thatched with straw.  I put my men in a stable, thinking myself in luck to be under cover, and near a fire we had just lighted, but it turned out quite otherwise.”

“While we were in Krasnoe and the immediate neighborhood, the Russians, 90,000 strong, surrounded us – to right, to left, in front, and behind, nothing but Russians — thinking, no doubt, they could soon finish us off.  But the Emperor wished to show them it was not quite so easy a thing as they imagined; for although we were most wretched, and dying of cold and hunger, we still possessed two things – courage and honour.”

“On the evening of our arrival, General Roguet received orders to attack during the night…  at two o’clock [a.m.] we began to move forward.  We formed into three columns…  The cold was as intense as ever.  We had the greatest difficulty in walking across the fields, as the snow was up to our knees.  After half an hour of this, we found ourselves in the midst of the Russians.  On our right was a long line of infantry, opening a murderous fire on us, their heavy cavalry on our left… They howled like wolves to excite each other, bud did not dare to attack.  The artillery was in the centre, pouring grape-shot on us.  All this did not stop our career in the least.  In spite of the firing, and the number of our men who fell, we charged on into their camp, where we made frightful havoc with our bayonets.”

Tomorrow, the battle continues.