Mar1998lead

Napoleon, With Feet of Clay, Invades Russia

By George Fowler

Although widely considered a military genius, Napoleon blundered badly when he decided to invade Russia. He seemed unable to learn the lessons of his former errors.

Alan Schom, a Hoover Institution fellow who has taught French history at American universities as well as at Ox ford, took upon himself an ambitious task: to cover all aspects of Napoleon Bonaparte’s life in one volume. In his new work, Napoleon, even those of us who have been sketchy students of Bonaparte may readily pick out Schom’s conclusions that differ from other accounts of the soldier-emperor’s life and career—possibly all the more reason for Napoleon buffs to tackle this 888-page tome. The author also addresses to a considerable extent the question of Bonaparte’s long-alleged murder.

Schom probes in depth Napoleon the man. Napoleon lovers and Napoleon haters will have themselves a swell time, the former no doubt heating up the author’s mailbox to the combustion point. Given the book’s length and scope, this article will only address Schom’s coverage of one momentous drama, the invasion of Russia.

Most historians (Schom being no exception) have agreed that Napoleon’s invasion and annexation of the states of Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck and the duchy of Oldenburg, between December 1810 and February 1812, virtually ensured a showdown with the Russia of Czar Alexander I. These occupations geographically closed off Russia’s commercial access to Europe (most particularly England) and most of the outside world. Alexander’s court wasted no time in retaliating. In a December 31, 1810 decree, Russia placed high import duties on all French goods. This hurt the Russian aristocrats infinitely more than it did the peasant masses, as most goods from France were definitely luxury items.

Prussia, Bavaria and Austria appeared sympathetic toward imperial Russia, particularly in light of France’s occupation of kindred states whose status affected their own well-being. But fear of the continentally dominant power stayed their hand. Alexander bought time in which to prepare for war by way of public expressions of friendship toward France. Privately, he stated to friends in both occupied and unoccupied Europe: “I am sick and tired of Napoleon’s continued meddling in our affairs. I have 200,000 good troops ready, and another 300,000 men in my militia, with which to challenge him, and we shall then see.”

On February 12, 1811, Bonaparte ordered War Minister Henri Clarke to full preparations for war with Russia, the operation to “be executed with the greatest secrecy.” On June 24, 1812, Czar Alexander was attending a ball at a baron’s estate when a courier brought word that the French army had just crossed the Russian frontier at the Niemen River. Still seeking time to strengthen his forces, the czar wrote to Napoleon, his letter, addressed in brotherly fashion to “Monsieur mon Frère,” stated: “If your majesty has no wish to spill the blood of his people over a misunderstanding of this nature, and if he agrees to withdraw his troops from Russian territory, I shall choose to overlook the matter . . . It lies within your majesty’s hands alone.”

Napoleon’s answer bespoke diplomacy by other means: “My forces are three times greater than yours . . . with the whole of Europe behind me, how do you expect to be able to stop me?” Schom wrote that this “mighty force was phenomenal in its size and strength as it continued its advance . . . All Europe was trembling at the very thought of this massive Gallic-led horde.”

Gallic-led in that troops had been drawn from most of Europe’s states, both allied and occupied. Troops were “contributed” by the occupied areas of Denmark, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Switzerland, northern Italy and the Papal States. The author also makes appropriate reference to the “French” army, this because Napoleon’s military adventures since his 1796 invasion of the northernmost regions of Italy, followed in 1798-1799 by his campaign in Egypt and Syria and his European warring as far east as Poland had been waged at an awful price in French lives. Thus, save for elite units, the enlisted uniforms of the “French” army were largely filled by recruits from well over a dozen lands.

Schom meticulously lists the array of forces that formed up in eastern Poland prior to the attack against Russia: 265 French infantry battalions, 291 foreign battalions, 219 French and 261 foreign cavalry squadrons—a total of 611,900 men. This massive multi-ethnic legion was backboned by 130 heavy siege guns and 1,242 field pieces of various caliber.

Over 6,000 wagons were required to carry daily food rations, for the mighty army as well as for 25,000 accompanying civilians. These included all manner of functionaries from high officials to prostitutes. To some 184,000 initial horses had been added 150,000 horses that were purchased or stolen east of the Rhine.

Schom notes that “Russia was not without its own substantial re sources.” It had just made a treaty of alliance with England, and the czar had the then-formidable military support of Sweden. However, Sweden’s manpower contribution consisted not of Swedes but of Finnish troops. Russia’s cavalry, complimented by thousands of fierce Cossacks, was considered the world’s finest. Alexander’s artillery strength was most impressive. It included 44 batteries of 18-pound howitzers and 12-pound cannon. Following Russia’s humiliating defeat at Austerlitz, Czar Alexander had reorganized and enlarged the army. Thirty six new basic training centers had been opened throughout Russia.

However, Russia’s army totaled only 409,000, 211,000 of them available first-line troops. The remainder were in reserve (about 45,000) or scattered in garrisons spanning immense distances. Napoleon told Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout: “The aim of all my moves will be to concentrate an army of 400,000 men at a single point.” One can hardly imagine the logistical nightmare involved in the moving and the concentration of a vast early 19th century army, already weary after marching many hundreds of miles. (Davout was the prince of Eckmühl. He was noted for having taken severe re prisals against the people of Bruns wick, where there had been a minor rebellion.—Ed.)

Each division of heavily laden troops (averaging 10,000 men) constituted a three- to four-mile-long body, moving forward at an average of 15 miles a day. Schom wrote that the French and allied contingents “formed the largest traffic jam in European history, which backed up hundreds of miles.” The author observes that its like “had not been seen since the 8th-century invasion of Europe by the Arabs and Berbers, and before that by Attila the Hun.”

The former refers of course to the Moorish occupation of Iberia, ended by Ferdinand of Spain in Granada (1492) and in Castile (1502).

Napoleon had hoped to draw a major Russian force to the Vistula River in the then-Grand Duchy of Warsaw, in pursuit of two northward driving armies. This would allow him to attack and envelop the main Russian army before it and the advancing Russians could be joined under one command. But the czar’s generals continued to withdraw as the French forces advanced. Two of three great factors relative to a Russian campaign began to come into play: time and distance. Many of Napoleon’s troops were moving behind schedule, and were unable to arrive at designated points as ordered.

The author writes that “the problem was aggravated by the yawning distances that seemed uncharted on even the best of maps, which Napoleon in any case never bothered with. It was utter folly to [mount] such a massive campaign in a vast region where it was well known that food, supplies and fodder would be at a minimum, and roads of any sort few and far between.” Logistically, “[I]t was Egypt all over again, and Napoleon had learned nothing then or since. He should have known better.”

(When, early in his career, Napoleon chose to invade Egypt, he nearly found himself cut off from his power base in France by the British navy, which had made the Mediterranean into a British lake. Only his luck saved him that time, when the British fleet found itself becalmed. But his luck was to run out in Russia.—Ed.)

The third great factor was the weather. But during this June-September 1812 advance it was the less-considered reverse side of the coin, the Slavic summer: “First there were spells of wilting, almost subtropical heat, as columns of hundreds of thousands of men under heavy kit, and 300,000 horses, kicked up miles-long dust clouds, literally choking man and beast alike, followed by sudden torrential, monsoon-like rains that persisted for days on end, turning hard, deeply rutted roads into axle-deep quagmires.” There resulted large and small tragedies involving incapacitated men, spent animals, cracked and broken axles and wheels. Thousands of repair crewmen, summoned from various units, worked night and day to maintain mobility.

In a further damning view of Napoleon the commander, the author writes: “The hard-slogging infantry, with their heavy field packs, abject, practically on the verge of starvation, far from home, and demoralized even before the first shot was fired, began throwing away their heavy flour supply and even cartridges. Napoleon simply did not understand the limits of human beings—nor for that matter did he understand the demands of elementary logistics.”

On July 23, Davout’s large I Corps caught up with a Russian force and inflicted several thousand casualties, but the main body escaped intact. Napoleon had anticipated taking Prince Mikhail Barclay de Tolly’s main Russian army at Vitebsk, on the Dvina River northeast of Minsk. But on the night of July 27-28 the Russians carried out an effective withdrawal, leaving the emperor in a black mood.

Increasingly, Napoleon turned on his trusted subordinates, blaming them for all aspects of his army’s difficulties. Increasingly, orders and decisions at every level could not be acted upon without his personal approval. The prospects of the great French expedition darkened. Those around Napoleon became convinced that he was on the verge of a complete breakdown. His pipelines of communications and supply, reaching “all the way back to Dresden (and the port of Danzig) was at the breaking point, (with) a straggling line of supplies stretching literally back to the Rhine.” By the end of July, Napoleon had lost at least 100,000 troops, not to Russian gunfire but through desertions and illness instigated by poor rations and continual fatigue.

At an August 6 war council, the Russian high command decided that Napoleon’s travails had reached a point where it was time not only to stop and fight, but to launch a powerful counteroffensive. But command rivalries and inept coordination dashed the hoped for moment of victory. With the enemy’s indecision, Napoleon rallied himself and sent two columns toward the Dnieper River. He dispatched another strong force with the intention of cutting off the new Russian retreat by sealing the Smolensk-Moscow road.

During the night of August 13-14 French engineers threw four substantial pontoon bridges across the Dnieper, and by dawn most of Bonaparte’s army had crossed. The Russians withdrew to Smolensk, leaving a crack division of 9,500 under Lt. Gen. Dmitri Neverovski as a rear guard. Lt. Gen. Nicolai Nicolaye vitch Rayevski was ordered to hold Smolensk with 20,000 troops and 72 guns until two large Russian armies converged there. These would include a large number of Finnish troops and a contingent from Moldavia.

Now across the Dnieper, Napoleon launched Marshal Joachim Murat’s splendid cavalry, Marshal Michel Ney’s corps, the Imperial Guard and Prince Eugene’s army toward Smolensk. Barring the road, Neverovski formed a most formidable fighting square. The fact that Murat and Ney had not been on speaking terms for years complicated the French situation at this point. In any event Murat, without benefit of artillery, brought local disaster by ordering a series of futile and terribly costly charges against the hellfire of the Russian square. Thus Neverovski succeeded completely in buying time for the Russian concentration at Smolensk. Given the previous hardships encountered, this costly setback must have resulted in a further lowering of French morale.

At dawn on August 16, the advance French forces sighted the ancient walls of Smolensk. The following day brought heavy fighting. Overwhelming force under the Napoleonic banners prevailed, but much of the Russian army withdrew intact. On August 24, Napoleon received word of Wellington soundly defeating his army in Spain. However, the emperor ordered a drive against the Russian concentration at Borodino.

Czar Alexander trusted this vital defense to Gen. Mikhail I. Kutuzov, an old soldier who knew how to handle Russian troops and how to get the most out of them. He built redoubts and batteries throughout commanding hills and crests. Deploying his cavalry on his open country northeastern flank, Kutuzov placed Russia’s Imperial Guard, under Grand Duke Constantine, in reserve. The defending Russians comprised some 96,000 infantry and superb cavalry numbering 24,000.

Napoleon’s army numbered only 131,000 men, including cavalry, as it neared Borodino on September 5. Although the campaign had not experienced the massive, meat-grinder slaughter that would bring France’s poilu (a term for the French GI, literally meaning “hairy” or “shaggy”) within an inch of massive revolt in 1917, morale among the invading men and even the officers was low. (The officers in general lived like pre-revolutionary aristocrats, while treating the common men like dirt.—Ed.)

The army’s supply lines were now quite precarious and dangerously overextended. This factor, combined with the continual attrition due to sickness and desertion, presented a most severe situation to a Grand Army that was only one-third French.

Napoleon was now “tired, suffering from hemorrhoids, a lingering cold, a painful urinary infection, and the burning pain of his gastric ulcer piercing his side, forcing him more and more to hold his right hand in that famous ‘pose,’ inside his jacket over his left side.” In contrast to the low morale of the long-suffering French troops, the spirits of the Russian army were high, thanks largely to Kutuzov’s presence and the proximity of the holy Orthodox city of Moscow.

In the ensuing battle that commenced at dawn on September 7, the Russian defensive position served them well, their artillery of 300 guns and their sharpshooters withering the advancing French columns. Napoleon’s own deadly artillery proved the day’s equalizer in a battle in which he refused to commit his reserves, including his beloved Old Guard. The author does not allude to the likelihood that this decision may have been predicated on his desire to assure a future solid core of troops.

Neither side truly carried the day. Napoleon wrote: “These Russians let themselves be killed as if they were not men, but mere machines, refusing to surrender, and therefore we are taking no prisoners now, and that is not advancing our position one whit.”

Schom writes: “As for the casualties, they were catastrophic, the French suffering more than 40,000 dead and wounded, the Russians probably close to 50,000.... The French alone lost 48 wounded or dead major or lieutenant generals . . . Never had their been such a blood bath.” A senior medical officer, Dr. Jean-Baptiste Turoit, wrote that, not only was there no proper field hospital, but bandages and medication were in very short supply. The medical corps had been severely handicapped in that great quantities of medical supplies had been abandoned, in favor of priority military equipment, during the long and grueling advance into Russia. Cannon plugs and gun cotton were used as bandages and linen. Gangrene and various other infections were rampant, and most amputees died. Great numbers of wounded were left on the field, in the plunging night temperatures, to expire among the already dead.

Napoleon spent the night of September 14-15 at a tavern outside Moscow. His secretary, Claude Meneval, described the emperor’s entrance into Moscow as being “without any of the usual tumult accompanying the victories associated with the taking of a large city. The streets were perfectly still, apart from the rumbling of the wheels of the gun limbers and the caissons of munitions . . . Not a face in a window, not a child in a garden, not a horse carriage or wagon in the streets or courtyards.” In fact, the czar’s government had retreated to St. Petersburg, and most of the city’s 300,000 inhabitants had fled.

Of his entrance into the Kremlin at noon on the 15th, Napoleon wrote that “nothing had been disturbed, all the clocks striking every quarter of an hour, chiming as if their Russian masters were still there.” He moved into the czar’s private apartments. Armand de Caulain court, the emperor’s trusted subordinate and the brother of a general who had been killed at Borodino, wrote: “At eight P.M., as this most mournful silence reigned . . . 15 fires were reported in . . . the Chinese Quarter, an immense bazaar of long galleries enclosing a vast series of warehouses and cellars . . . filled with precious merchandise of every description.”

Soon after midnight, the proliferation of fires was such that Napoleon was awakened. Caulaincourt continued: “(Napoleon) simply could not believe that . . . the Russians themselves were deliberately destroying their own city to prevent us from occupying it.” Count Fëdor V. Rostopchin had left orders to burn the city. To show that the czar truly wished this order to be carried out, the count put the torch to his own mansion before departing.

As Napoleon and his key aides conferred within the immediate splendor of the czar’s quarters, they realized the seriousness surrounding what was clearly a hollow victory. In St. Petersburg Czar Alexander, in a state of anger beyond anything that his associates had witnessed previously, denounced any suggestion of surrender, while swearing to “exterminate” the invaders.

Schom notes that by this point in Napoleon’s campaign the awful trail of attrition had thinned the Grand Army’s ranks down to 248,000 troops. This included the men in and around Moscow as well as those in the eastern garrison pipeline as far away as Königsberg, Danzig and Warsaw. About 59,000 troops, most of them new recruits, were en route to Eastern Europe. The shattered remnants of Murat’s once splendid cavalrymen “literally had to walk their few remaining horses most of the way from Borodino to Moscow.”

The czar had 193,000 troops at his disposal. More importantly, his equally splendid cavalrymen were in fine shape and eager to get at the largely spent French in defense of their land.

Napoleon made the decision to set up winter headquarters in Moscow. Thus “troops were ordered to bring in food, grain, provisions, furs, clothing. Fortifi ca tions had to be strengthened, and fresh levees of conscripts from France and Poland ordered up.”

By September 21, fairly strong Russian troop concentrations were spotted 15 miles south of Moscow. Cossack units were riding successfully through suburbs of the city. Napoleon became increasingly withdrawn, shunning those who counseled an immediate withdrawal before the onset of winter and a Russian encirclement.

Caulaincourt wrote: “We are already in great jeopardy . . . We lack everything . . . It is unseasonably warm now, but what will it be in two weeks’ time when winter sets in?” Napoleon had entered Russia with a 450,000-man army. Now, he had an effective force that numbered a mere 102,260 men. His formerly “elite” 41,500-man Imperial Guard had also been reduced to half that number.

Finally, on October 19, Napoleon ordered a withdrawal westward. Over 10,000 seriously wounded could not be left behind. However, very few of them would survive the retreat and live to see their native soil again. In addition to the wounded, wagons were also loaded with “gigantic statues and paintings, huge pieces of furniture, and enormous Persian carpets.” On October 23, Marshal Adolphe-Eduard Mortier was left behind with a rear guard of 7,000 men, and orders to blow up the entire Kremlin, but this order was never carried out.

The withdrawing army was soon some 50 miles long, and at several points receiving the unwanted attentions of the Cossacks. By late October, winter was setting in, and French horses “were dropping by the thousands, as wounded troops, baggage, cannon and loot were abandoned along the route.” Wolves became the great column’s camp followers, continually claiming their bonanza of fallen flesh. A Col. Marbot wrote of Russia as “this vast tomb.”

Soon the French cavalry was down to a few thousand, from the nearly 15,000 that had left Moscow. Schom writes that in the first weeks of November, “as the entire French army disintegrated, large packs of wolves moved in, and as Cossack and regular cavalry units ravaged the haggard French line, the snows began to fall.” Field commanders reported to Napoleon the growing incapacity of their troops.

By staging an elaborate feint, Napoleon succeeded in crossing the Berezina River. What remained of the French army crossed to the west bank during November 26-29. These remnants constituted less than 40,000 men and about 200 cannon. With thousands dropping and being taken prisoner daily, the Grand Army was further reduced to the incredible count of 8,823 within a few days. On December 5, the emperor bid farewell to his surviving senior commanders and placed the despondent Joachim Murat in command.

With a guard of 200, Napoleon Bonaparte set off on his ignominious journey to Paris. This guard had been reduced to a handful by the time they passed under the half-finished Arc de Triumphe, and into the cobbled courtyard of the Tuileries palace, to the astonishment of the Swiss Guard.

Thus the return of a thoroughly defeated man. But this thoroughly defeated man, who had repeatedly accomplished the seem ingly impossible, was still one of history’s most notable forces and would stage a remarkable, though short-lived, comeback in 1813.

(Napoleon Bonaparte, Alan Schom, Harper Collins, 1997, New York, 888 pages, $40.00 USA, $57.00 Canada.)