Battle of Borodino. Napoleon's tion of Moscow. Kutusoff, who had distinguished himself in the war with Turkey which had just closed, to the chief command of the Russian army. On the 7th of September, 1812, Kutusoff risked a battle with Napoleon at Borodino, on the Moskwa, in the hope of saving Moscow. In the morning when this sanguinary engagement began each army numbered one hundred and thirty thousand men. The battle had commenced at six o'clock in the morning, and when night put an end to its horrors ninety thousand men lay dead and wounded on the field. The result of the battle was that the Russians were obliged to resume their retreat and the French were enabled to continue their advance in the direction of Moscow. At length, on the 14th of September, 1812, the French army came in Occupa- sight of the great city of Moscow and beheld its lofty steeples and copper domes glittering in the sun. When the city burst upon his gaze Napoleon exclaimed: "Behold; yonder is the celebrated city of the Czars!" The French troops rushed forward and entered Moscow on the same day, but they were astonished to find it deserted by its three hundred thousand inhabitants. Only a few of the rabble remained in the city. Napoleon took up his residence in the Kremlin, the ancient palace of the Czars. of Burning Before Moscow had been abandoned by its inhabitants, Count Moscow. Rostopschin, the Russian governor, had taken measures to burn the city after the French should enter. Accordingly, on the night of the 16th of September, 1812, a vast fire was seen to emanate from the eastern part of the city. Fires soon broke out in all quarters of the city, and in a few hours the holy city of the Russians was wrapt in flames. The city had been set on fire by the twenty thousand convicts whom Rostopschin, before leaving the city, had liberated for the purpose. No means were at hand for extinguishing the fire; as the fountains had been destroyed, the fire-engines carried off and the water-pipes cut before the inhabitants had left the city. For four days the fire continued to rage unabated, reducing the greater part of the city to ashes. When the fire had reached the Kremlin, Napoleon abandoned that edifice and took up his abode in the imperial castle at Petrowski, three miles from the city. He returned on the 19th and took up his quarters in that part of the Kremlin which had escaped the ravages of the fire. Napoleon's Moscow. The destruction of Moscow deprived the French army of winterEvacua- quarters; the Russian armies, which were now vastly superior to the tion of French, threatened to cut off all communications with France; and the Russian Emperor rejected all Napoleon's proposals for peace. In this critical situation Napoleon found himself obliged to order a retreat to Poland; and on the 19th of October, 1812, Moscow was evacuated by the French army. Napoleon, however, left a division of eight thou tion of the sand men under Marshal Mortier to superintend the evacuation of the city. For several days Mortier and his brave little band defended themselves in the Kremlin against their Russian assailants, when, on the 22d, they abandoned the city to join Napoleon. Before the French Destrucleft Moscow barrels of gunpowder had been placed under various parts of the Kremlin, which were lighted by means of a fuse. No sooner Kremlin. had the Russians entered the Kremlin than that venerable edifice was blown into the air; and pieces of timber, rocks, broken weapons, pieces of cannon and mutilated bodies were thrown in every direction. The thunders of the explosion awoke Napoleon and his troops, thirty miles distant. Mortier and his heroic little band reached the main French army in safety. Malo Yarasle retz. On the 24th of October, 1812, a portion of the French army, under Battle of Murat, after a succession of stubborn engagements, defeated the Russians at Malo-Yaraslevetz and remained masters of the town. This was a useless victory for the French, who soon found themselves obliged to retreat as rapidly as possible by the very route which their advance had exhausted. ance. leon's Disas trous Retreat. The horrors of this retreat of the French army exceeded anything Naporecorded in the annals of war. The Russians sent out their Cossacks, under Platoff, who greatly annoyed the French rear and cut off French straggling parties; while the main division of the Russian army pursued the retreating French troops and forced them to contest every inch of ground. The French army was encumbered with its sick and dying. On the 6th of November, 1812, an enemy far more terrible than the bullets of the Russians or the lances of the Cossacks made its appearThis enemy was a Russian winter of unusual severity. The thermometer sank to eighteen degrees below zero, and the cold wind howled furiously over the vast steppes. The French army was becoming weaker and weaker by the casualties of battle and by fatigue, hunger and cold. The roads were strewn with the dead and dying men and horses. The starving troops fell upon the dead and dying horses and devoured their flesh like famished dogs, and many who had remained with the dying embers of the bivouac fires fell asleep to wake no more. All discipline was gone, and all the heavy artillery was abandoned to the pursuing Russians. The main Russian army, under Kutusoff, numbering one hundred thousand men, advanced by a route parallel to that of the French army; while another army, under Wittgenstein, pressed upon the French tear; and Platoff's Cossacks harassed the retreating troops and cut off such as were so unfortunate as to stray from their ranks. On the 9th of November, 1812, Napoleon and his wearied troops reached Smolensk, where they rested until the 15th, when the disastrous retreat The Pursuing Armies. Battles of Ney's Passage of the Dnieper. Dreadful of the was renewed. The French rear-guard, under Marshal Ney, was almost totally destroyed. In the battles of Krasnoi, on the 16th, 17th and 18th of November, 1812, the French lost thirty thousand men in killed, wounded and prisoners. Ney's fortunate but dangerous passage of the frozen Dnieper was one of the most daring feats recorded in history. The troops crossed the thin ice in safety; but the wagons containing the sick and wounded sank, amid the shrieks of the unfortunate sufferers. The most horrible of this series of horrors was the passage of the Beresina. While the French were passing over the bridges the enemy Beresina. under Wittgenstein and Platoff appeared and opened a heavy attack upon them. One of the bridges, unable to bear the weight of the crowd upon it, broke, thus precipitating into the stream thousands, whose dying shrieks were heard loud above the roar of the Russian cannon and the cheers of the Cossacks. Many who attempted to cross over the other bridge were swept off by the Russian artillery or thrown over in the confusion by their comrades. The following spring, when the ice melted, thirty-six thousand dead bodies were found in the channel of the Beresina. Destruction of Napoleon's Grand Army. The mournful disaster just related completed the destruction of Napoleon's Grand Army. When the remnants of the French army reached the Niemen the rear-guard, under Marshal Ney, Prince of the Moskwa, "the Bravest of the Brave," was reduced to thirty men. The veteran marshal, bearing a musket and pointing it at the pursuing enemy, was the last of the Grand Army that left the Russian territory. Napoleon had already left the army at Smorgoni on the 5th of December, 1812, and started in a sledge for Paris, where he arrived on the 18th. In this disastrous campaign the losses of Napoleon were as follows: One hundred and twenty-five thousand men killed in battle; one hundred and thirty-two thousand died from cold, hunger and fatigue; and one hundred and ninety-three thousand made prisoners by the Russians. Thus the total loss was four hundred and fifty thousand men. Moral Napo leon's Russian SECTION XII.-WAR OF GERMAN LIBERATION AND FALL THE moral effect of the Russian disaster was a far more serious misEffect of fortune to Napoleon than the loss of his great army, as it destroyed the belief in his invincibility and consequently encouraged the subject nations to throw off the supremacy before which they had been compelled to bow and to assert their former dignity and independence. It proved to be, as Talleyrand called it," the beginning of the end.” Disaster. Alliance with Russia and Sweden. Prussia was the first of the powers which had suffered from the in- Prussia's solence of the great conqueror to take advantage of the great misfortune which had befallen him. As early as December, 1812, the Prussian General York, who had commanded under the French Marshal Macdonald in the Russian campaign, had entered into an agreement with the Russian Marshal Diebitsch to cease from hostilities against Russia. Although the conduct of General York was at first disapproved by the Prussian government, the patriotic war spirit of the Prussian people was every day becoming more manifest. At length, on the 3d of February, 1813, Prussia concluded an alliance with Russia and Sweden and declared war against the French Emperor. The King of Prussia welcomed the Russian army in Berlin. The intense ill-usage which Prussia experienced at Napoleon's hands had excited such detestation of the foreign despotism that the Prussian king's "call to his people" to take up arms aroused an incredible military ardor, and the greatest enthusiasm pervaded all classes of the Prussian people. Men and youths abandoned their accustomed pursuits and left the circles of affection that they might devote their energies to their country's liberation from foreign domination. Students and professors left the lecture-room; officials left their posts; young nobles left their homes. All shouldered the musket and carried the knapsack and entered the ranks as common soldiers, along with the mechanic who had deserted the workshop and with the peasant who had left the plow that he might wield the sword. The The people of Hamburg rose against the French garrison and opened their gates to the Russians, their harbor to the British. Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia sought to gain the alliance of the King of Saxony; but Frederick Augustus, through fear of the French Emperor and through gratitude for the many proofs of favor and confidence which Napoleon had shown him, held fast to his alliance with the French Emperor, at whose disposal he had placed his lands, his fortresses and his troops, thus making Saxony the theater of hostilities. Prussian siasm. The King of Saxony Stands by Napoleon. Napoleon's New Army in Notwithstanding his great losses in Russia, Napoleon's ascendency over the French nation was so great that every demand which he made for men and money met with a prompt response; and by the opening of the year 1813 he succeeded in raising a new army of three hundred Germany. and fifty thousand men, exclusive of his troops in Spain. Napoleon left Paris, April 15, 1813, and hastened to Erfurt, in Saxony, where he assumed the command of his army, and marched against the allied forces. Thus began the War of German Liberation. The spring campaign of 1813 was favorable to Napoleon. He gained a victory over the allied Russian and Prussian armies at Lützen, Lutzen and Battles of May 2, 1813, the place rendered famous by the victory and death of Gustavus Adolphus nearly two centuries before; the allies being forced Bautzen. to retreat after a terrific conflict, in which the Prussian Marshal Scharnhorst and the French Marshal Bessieres were slain. Napoleon pursued the retreating allies; and after a desperate engagement of two days at Bautzen, May 20 and 21, 1813, he was again victorious, and the allied Russian and Prussian armies were driven from their intrenched camp. The losses were heavy on both sides, and during the pursuit the next day the French Marshal Duroc was killed. The death of Duroc, whom Napoleon loved and esteemed above all others for his amiability, fidelity and attachment, was a great shock to the French Emperor, who thus for the first time gave way to a dark presentiment of the mutabilities of life. An Armistice. Davoust Hamburg. The defeated Russians and Prussians retreated into Silesia, falling back to Schweidnitz, pursued as far as Breslau by the victorious French. The allies now asked for an armistice; and Napoleon granted one for eight weeks-from June 4th to July 28th-for the purpose of negotiating a peace. In the meantime the French Emperor had established his headquarters at Dresden, thus directing his military operations from the capital of Saxony. Marshal Davoust, at the head of a corps of French and Danes, reRetakes took Hamburg, May 30, 1813; and, in revenge for the expulsion of the French garrison, he destroyed eight thousand houses, thus rendering forty-eight thousand people homeless. A British fleet appeared Denmark off Copenhagen, May 31, 1813, and demanded the cession of Norway an Ally of to Sweden; whereupon King Frederick VI. of Denmark concluded a treaty with Napoleon at Copenhagen, promising to declare war against Sweden, Russia and Prussia. Napoleon. Austria Allies. The armistice had been concluded through the mediation of Austria; Joins the but the allies were insincere in their professed desire for peace, as they employed the time afforded by the armistice to organize another coalition of all the other European powers against France. Austria pushed forward her military preparations with all possible haste, and at length submitted her ultimatum to Napoleon, demanding as the price of her aid to France that he should surrender Poland, Holland, Spain, Switzerland and half of Italy, and also that the Confederation of the Rhine should be dissolved and that the Pope should be reëstablished in his temporal power at Rome. Napoleon indignantly rejected Austria's terms; but the peace Congress convened at Prague, according to prearrangement, July 4, 1813. After several weeks of fruitless negotiations, hostilities were renewed August 10, 1813, when the Emperor of Austria joined the allies and declared war against his son-in-law, the Emperor of the French. |
