Through Russian Snows: A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow by G. A. Henty (10 best books of all time .TXT) 📖

rear, and, although swept by artillery and infantry fire, the brave horsemen carried out their object, although almost annihilated by the fire of the defenders of the redoubt.

The French infantry took advantage of the attention of the defenders being diverted by this attack, and with a rush stormed the work; the four Russian regiments who held it fought to the last, refusing all offers of quarter, and maintaining a hand-to-hand conflict until annihilated. The Russian artillery, in the works round Gorki, swept the redoubt with their fire, and under its cover the infantry made repeated but vain attacks to recapture it, for their desperate bravery was unavailing against the tremendous artillery fire concentrated upon them, while the French on their part were unable to take advantage of the position they had gained. Napoleon, indeed, would have launched his troops against the works round Gorki, but his generals represented to him that the losses had already been so enormous, that it was doubtful whether he could possibly succeed, and if he did so, it could only be with such further loss as would cripple the army altogether.

At three o'clock Napoleon, whose whole army, with the exception of the Imperial Guard, had been engaged, felt that nothing further could be done that day, and ordered the battle to cease. He had gained the three redoubts on the Russians' left and the great redoubt captured by the Viceroy, but these were really only advanced works, and the main position of the Russians still remained entirely intact. At night the French retired from the positions they had won, to those they had occupied before the battle begun, retaining possession only of the village of Borodino. The loss of the combatants during the two days' fighting had been nearly equal, no less than 40,000 men having been killed on each side, a number exceeding that of any other battle in modern times. Napoleon expected that the Russians would again give battle next morning, but Kutusow, contrary to the opinion of most of his generals, decided on falling back. Beningsen, one of his best officers, strongly urged him to take up a position at Kalouga, some seventy miles to the south of Moscow. The position was a very strong one. Napoleon could not advance against Moscow, which was in a position to offer a long and determined resistance, until he had driven off the Russian army. At Kalouga they could at any moment advance on to his line of communication, cut off all his supplies, and isolate him from France.

The advice was excellent, but Kutusow, who was even more unfitted than Barclay for the post of commander-in-chief, refused to adopt this course, and fell back towards Moscow, followed by the French. The sufferings of the latter had already become severe—the nights were getting very cold, the scarcity of food was considerable, the greater part of the army was already subsisting on horse-flesh, the warm clothing, which was becoming more and more necessary, was far in the rear, their shoes were worn out, and it was only the thought that they would have a long period of rest and comfort in Moscow, that animated them to press forward along the fifty miles of road between Borodino and that city.

Julian had passed through the terrible battle unscathed. It seemed to him, when fighting had ceased for the day, that it was almost miraculous a single man should have survived that storm of fire. While the fight had actually been going on, the excitement and the ardour of battle had rendered him almost insensible to the danger. With the soldiers as with their generals the capture of the three small redoubts became, as the day went on, a matter on which every thought was bent, every energy concentrated; it was no longer a battle between French and Russians, but a struggle in which each man felt that his personal honour was concerned. Each time that, with loud cheering, they stormed the blood-stained works, they felt the pride of victory; each time that, foot by foot, they were again forced backwards, there was rage in every heart and a fierce determination to return and conquer.

In such a struggle as this, when men's passions are once involved, death loses its terror; thickly as comrades may fall around, those who are still erect heed not the gaps, but with eyes fixed on the enemy in front of him, with lips set tightly together, with head bent somewhat down as men who struggle through a storm of rain, each man presses on until a shot strikes him, or he reaches the goal he aims at. At such a time the fire slackens, for each man strives to decide the struggle, with bayonet or clubbed musket. Four times did Julian's regiment climb the side of the ravine in front of the redoubts, four times were they hurled back again with ever-decreasing numbers, and when at last they found themselves, as the fire slackened, masters of the position, the men looked at each other as if waking from some terrible dream, filled with surprise that they were still alive and breathing, and faint and trembling, now that the exertion was over and the tremendous strain relaxed. When they had time to look round, they saw that but one-fourth of those who had, some hours before, advanced to the attack of the redoubt of Chewardino remained. The ground around the little earthworks was piled thickly with dead Frenchmen and Russians, and ploughed up by the iron storm that had for eight hours swept across it. Dismounted guns, ammunition boxes, muskets, and accoutrements were scattered everywhere. Even the veterans of a hundred battles had never witnessed such a scene, had never gone through so prolonged and terrible a struggle. Men were differently affected, some shook a comrade's hand with silent pressure, some stood gazing sternly and fixedly at the lines where the enemy still stood unconquered, and tears fell down many a bronzed and battle-worn face; some sobbed like children, exhausted by their emotions rather than their labours.

The loss of the officers had been prodigious. Eight generals were killed and thirty wounded, and nearly two thousand officers. The colonel and majors of Julian's regiment had fallen, and a captain, who was but sixth on the list when the battle began, now commanded. Between three o'clock and dusk the men were engaged in binding up each other's wounds, eating what food they carried in their haversacks, and searching for more in those of the fallen. Few words were spoken, and even when the order came to evacuate the position and retire to the ground they had left that morning, there was not a murmur; for the time no one seemed to care what happened, or what became of him. Once on the ground where they were to bivouac, fresh life was infused into their veins. The chill evening air braced up their nerves; great fires were lighted with brushwood, broken cartridge-boxes, and the fragments of gun-carriages and waggons; and water was brought up from the stream. Horse-flesh was soon being roasted, and as hunger and thirst were appeased, the buzz of conversation rose round the fires, and the minds as well as the tongues of men seemed to thaw from their torpor.

"Well, comrade, so you too have gone through it without a scratch," Julian's friend, the sergeant, said to him. "Well, you will never see such a fight again if you grow gray in the service. Where are those who scoffed at the Russians now? They can fight, these men. It was a battle of giants. No one could have done more than we did, and yet they did as much; but to-morrow we shall win."

"What! do you think we shall fight again to-morrow?"

"That is for the Russians to say, not for us. If they stand we must fight them again. It is a matter of life and death for us to get to Moscow. We shall win to-morrow, for Napoleon will have to bring up the Imperial Guard, 20,000 of his best troops, and the Russians put their last man into the line of battle to-day, and, never fear, we shall win. But I own I have had enough of it. Never before have I hoped that the enemy in front of us would go off without a battle, but I do so now. We want rest and quiet. When spring comes we will fight them again as often as they like, but until then I for one do not wish to hear a gun fired."

"I am sure I do not, sergeant," Julian agreed; "and I only hope that we shall get peace and quiet when we reach Moscow."

"Oh, the Russians will be sure to send in to ask for terms of peace as soon as we get there," the sergeant said confidently.

"I hope so, but I have great doubts, sergeant. When people are ready to burn their homes rather than that we should occupy them, to desert all that they have and to wander away they know not where, when they will fight as they fought to-day, I have great doubts whether they will talk of surrender. They can bring up fresh troops long before we can. They will have no lack of provisions. Their country is so vast that they know that at most we can hold but a small portion of it. It seems to me that it is not of surrender they will be thinking, but of bringing up fresh troops from every part of their empire, of drilling and organizing and preparing for the next campaign. I cannot help thinking of what would happen to us if they burnt Moscow, as they have burned half a dozen towns already."

"No people ever made such a sacrifice. What, burn the city they consider sacred!—the old capital every Russian thinks of with pride! It never can be, but if they should do so, all I can say is, God help us all. Few of us would ever go back to France."

"So it seems to me, sergeant. I have been thinking of it lately, and after the way in which the Russians came on, careless of life, under the fire of our cannon to-day, I can believe them to be capable of anything."

The next morning it was found that the Russian lines were deserted. So the French army set forward again on its march, and on the morning of the 14th arrived within sight of Moscow. Kutusow had at one time seemed disposed to fight another battle in front of the city, and had given a solemn promise to its governor that he should have three days' notice of any change in his determination, and so allow time for him to carry out his intention to evacuate the town, when the municipal authorities were, methodically and officially, to proceed to destroy the whole city by fire. This promise Kutusow broke without giving any notice whatever. On the 13th, at a council of war, he overruled the objections of his generals, and determined to retreat, his arguments being that the ground was unsuited for defensive operations; that the defeat of the one disciplined army would endanger the final success of the war; and that it was for Russia, not for any one city, they were fighting.

The argument was not without reason; but, if he had resolved not to fight again, he should have accepted the advice to take up a position on Napoleon's flank. Had he done this, the French could have made no advance, and Moscow would have been saved from destruction.

As the army began its passage through the capital the exodus of the inhabitants commenced. Already the wealthier classes had removed their effects, and the merchants the greater part of their goods. Now the whole population poured out into the streets, and thousands of carts and vehicles of all descriptions, packed closely with household furniture, goods, and effects of all kinds, moved towards the gates. Out of 200,000 inhabitants 180,000 left the city, with 65,000 vehicles of every kind. In addition to these were enormous quantities of fugitives from every town and village west of Smolensk, who had hitherto accompanied the army, moving through the fields and lanes, so as to leave the roads unencumbered for the passage of the guns and trains.

Every Russian peasant possesses a roughly-made cart on two or four wheels, and as their belongings were very scanty, these, as a rule, sufficed to hold all their property. The greater portion of the fugitives had passed out of the city at two o'clock in the afternoon, and shortly afterwards Murat with his cavalry passed across the river by a ford and entered the town. A few desperate men left behind opened fire, but were speedily overpowered and killed, but a number of citizens, mad with fury, rushed so furiously upon Murat and his staff, that he was obliged to open fire upon them with a couple of light