War And Peace

I feel obliged to report to your Majesty the state of the various corps as observed by me personally on the march over the last two or three days. They are almost disbanded. Scarcely a quarter of the men still follow the flags of their regiments; the rest wander off on their own in different directions, pursuing their own interests, looking for food and hoping to evade discipline. All of them have only one thing in mind – Smolensk, where they hope to rest and recover. During the last few days many soldiers have been seen throwing away their cartridges and muskets. Given this state of affairs, whatever your long-term plans may be, the interests of your Majesty’s service demand a regrouping of the army at Smolensk, which will involve getting rid of all non-combatants, such as cavalrymen without horses, as well as any superfluous baggage and some of the artillery material, which is now disproportionate to our overall troop numbers. As well as a few days’ rest the soldiers, worn out by hunger and fatigue, need supplies. In recent days many have died by the roadside or in the bivouacs. This state of affairs is getting steadily worse, and there are grounds for fearing that if immediate steps are not taken there will be no possibility of controlling the troops in any engagement.

9th November. 20 miles from Smolensk.

After staggering into Smolensk, which they had seen as the promised land, the French murdered each other for food, raided their own stores and continued the flight when everything had gone.

On they went, with no idea of where they were going or why. The one who had least idea of all was the great genius, Napoleon, since there was no one to give him any orders. Nevertheless, he and his entourage still went through the motions of writing out various commands, letters, reports and orders of the day, addressing each other as ‘Sire’, ‘My dear Cousin’, ‘Prince of Eckmühl’, ‘King of Naples’, and so on. But the orders and reports were just pieces of paper; they were not followed up, because they couldn’t have been followed up. And despite the use of terms like Majesty, Highness, and Cousin they all felt themselves to be pathetic, loathsome creatures who had done a huge amount of harm, and now they were having to pay the price. And despite a great show of caring for the army, each man was thinking only of himself, and how quickly he could get away and save his skin.

CHAPTER 17

The behaviour of the Russian and French armies during the retreat from Moscow to the Niemen was like the Russian version of blind man’s buff, in which two players are blindfolded and one of them rings a bell now and then to let the other one know where he is. At first the one who is being chased rings his bell with no fear of his opponent, but when things begin to get tricky he runs away from his opponent as quietly as he can, though he often walks straight into his arms when he thinks he is running away.

At first Napoleon’s army announced where it was – this was in the early stages of retreat down the Kaluga road – but afterwards, when they were out on the Smolensk road, they ran away holding the bell by its little clapper, though they often ran straight into the Russians when they thought they were running away.

Given the speed of the French retreat, and of the Russians coming on behind, and the consequent exhaustion of the horses, the best method of estimating the enemy’s position – the gathering of intelligence on horseback – was out of the question. Besides that, frequent and rapid changes of position on the part of both armies meant that any available intelligence was never up to date. If information came in on the second of the month that the enemy army had been in a certain place on the first of the month, by the time they got to the third of the month, and something could be done about it, the army was two days’ march further on, in a totally different position.

One army fled; the other pursued. From Smolensk, the French had the choice of many different roads. You would have thought that, having stayed there for four days, the French might have been able to ascertain where the enemy was, think up something effective and do something new. But no, after a four-day halt they took to the road again in great mobs and instead of turning right or left, instead of planning and manœuvring their way forward, they plunged off down their own beaten track, their old road – the worst possible – the one through Krasnoye and Orsha.