The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Vol. III
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The Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte. Vol. III. By William Milligan Sloane LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE CHAPTER I. WAR WITH RUSSIA: PULTUSK. Poland and the Poles — The Seat of War — Change in the Character of Napoleon's Army — The Battle of Pultusk — Discontent in the Grand Army — Homesickness of the French — Napoleon's Generals — His Measures of Reorganization — Weakness of the Russians — The Ability of Bennigsen — Failure of the Russian Manœuvers — Napoleon in Warsaw. 1806-07. The key to Napoleon's dealings with Poland is to be found in his strategy; his political policy never passed beyond the first tentative stages, for he never conquered either Russia or Poland. The struggle upon which he was next to enter was a contest, not for Russian abasement but for Russian friendship in the interest of his far-reaching continental system. Poland was simply one of his weapons against the Czar. Austria was steadily arming; Francis received the quieting assurance that his share in the partition was to be undisturbed. In the general and proper sorrow which has been felt for the extinction of Polish nationality by three vulture neighbors, the terrible indictment of general worthlessness which was justly brought against her organization and administration is at most times and by most people utterly forgotten. A people has exactly the nationality, government, and administration which expresses its quality and secures its deserts. The Poles were either dull and sluggish boors or haughty and elegant, pleasure- loving nobles. Napoleon and his officers delighted in the life of Warsaw, but he never appears to have respected the Poles either as a whole or in their wrangling cliques; no doubt he occasionally faced the possibility of a redeemed Poland, but in general the suggestion of such a consummation served his purpose and he went no further. That he had no sentiment about Polish nationality is self-evident. After Jena the Czar displayed great activity. In spite of being compelled to detach eighty thousand men for service against Turkey, he had got together a second numerous army; Lestocq, with a corps of fifteen thousand Prussians, had joined him, and he was clearly determined to renew the war. For a time the French had no certain information as to whether he would cross the Prussian frontier or not, and Napoleon at first expected the city of Posen to be the center of operations. Before long, however, it became evident that the Russians were drawing together on Pultusk. Displaying an astounding assurance as to the stability of his power in France, and without regarding the possible effect upon conditions at home of a second war, at an enormous distance, Napoleon determined to meet them. With the same celerity and caution as of old, the various French divisions were led first across the Vistula, and then over the plains, until in the end of December they were concentrated before the enemy. During the three weeks consumed in these operations much besides was done to strengthen the position of the French and to assure their communications. The Russians were dislodged from Warsaw, and Thorn was besieged; the Vistula, Bug, Wkra, Narew, and other rivers were bridged; and a commissary department was organized. The seat of war was different indeed from any of those to which Napoleon had hitherto been accustomed. It was neither as densely settled nor as well tilled as Italy and Germany, the population was far lower in the scale of civilization, and therefore fiercer. The inhabitants could easily strip their villages of the little forage and the few goods they possessed, and at that season the fields were bare. The roads were of the worst description; the rivers were deep and broad, often with swampy banks and treacherous bottoms. In these circumstances it was almost impossible to secure reliable information, for scouts and spies were alike at fault. These new conditions of warfare were further complicated by a change in the character of Napoleon's army. After Austerlitz many men of German speech were to be found among the rank and file, and after Jena the character of the soldiery grew more and more cosmopolitan. On the first appearance of the imperial eagles of France in Poland, Jerome was at the head of a whole corps of Würtembergers and Bavarians; many Poles, Italians, Swiss, and Dutch were in others of the French corps; and among the foreigners there were even Prussians from beyond the Elbe. Some confusion was caused by this, and it was not diminished by the fact that the French themselves had scarcely recovered from the orgies in which they had been indulging for the last six weeks. Moreover, the determination of the Emperor to "conquer the sea by land" had emphasized in his mind the necessity of an overwhelming superiority of numbers, and in November he demanded from the French senate the eighty thousand conscripts who, according to law, could not be drawn until September, 1807. This was the beginning of the fatal practice destined in the end to enervate France and demoralize the army. There was already little patriotism among the men, except what served as a pretext for plunder; the homogeneity of purpose, principle, nationality, and age was soon to disappear. In the preliminary operations this deterioration was not apparent. The troops marched doggedly through the mud, worked hard when called upon, and although their rations, which were supplied by rascally contractors, were very bad and altogether different from those to which they had become accustomed in the years just preceding, the men ate them without murmuring. But when, on December twenty-sixth, they joined battle, the old push and nerve seemed lacking. The preparations had been made on the plan of concentration, but at the last moment Lannes was detached with his division to cut off the enemy's line of retreat over the Narew. Napoleon, as at Jena, believed the main army of his opponent to be where it was not, and he was incautious in thus dividing and weakening his forces. Accordingly the battle had an irregular and indecisive character. Lannes came unexpectedly upon the mass of the Russian army, two columns forming the center and right, and engaged them from ten in the morning until two in the afternoon. At that hour a reserve arrived under Gudin, and attacked the Russian right. But Bennigsen, the commander of that column, had ready a fresh reserve, and with its aid the newcomers were repulsed. Lannes, who had simultaneously made a final onset, was also beaten off by the superior force of his enemy. On the same day, Murat, Davout, and Augereau reached the neighboring village of Golymin, expecting to find the Russian center there; on the left wing, at Neidenburg, Ney stood face to face with Lestocq and his Prussians. There was nothing but skirmishing at either place, for the French emperor could not drag his artillery through the mud swiftly enough to make it tell at the right time, and both Prussians and Russians drew slowly off. Soult was to have repeated the turning manœuver as carried out before Jena, but the marching was so difficult, owing to a thaw, that he could not accomplish anything like the necessary distance. The morning after this indecisive battle the entire Russian army was far away. For strategic reasons and for lack of provisions it had withdrawn to Ostrolenka. There was no pursuit. The natural question, Why? is still unanswered. Some declare that the French troops were too weary and bad- tempered; others, that Napoleon, in view of the quagmires to which the roads were now reduced, dared not abandon his base of supplies, as he was accustomed to do in summer weather and in fruitful lands. There is still a third answer, that nothing was to be gained; for of what use were the few miles of bare, flat land which the army, putting forth its utmost exertions, might have been able to traverse? All these reasons have validity. There was discontent among the soldiers, for there was no booty; not even a soldier's common comforts could be found. For the first time men of the line shouted insults after the Emperor, and with impunity; even the faithful guard indulged in double-meaning quips, but they, on the other hand, were at the proper time soundly berated. "The short campaign of fifteen days," wrote one of them, "made us ten years older." There was also danger in advancing beyond reach of the commissary department,—deficient and contemptible as it was in the hands of unscrupulous speculators,—and there was indeed little to be gained by such a pursuit as was possible, except prestige, which at that moment and at that distance from France was not a valuable commodity. This element of distance from home was weighty. In far-off Egypt and Syria, French soldiers had fought bravely; an ideal will carry even the commonest Frenchman far, and they then believed themselves to be fighting for a principle. But since the armies of France had begun to fight for booty and glory, they must have both. Of the former there was little or none at all in the lands they now occupied; the latter could be enjoyed only in the jubilations of their kinsfolk; and although no account of any battle was more beclouded than that of Pultusk which the Emperor sent to Paris, the approbation of the fatherland could not reach Poland until long afterward, and in tones that were low and almost inaudible. It is an old French saying that next to the kingdom of heaven France is the most beautiful land, and every Frenchman believes it.