Napoleon's Marshals

By the beginning of November the theatre of war was virtually transferred from Prussia to Poland. As after Ulm, so after Jena, the Russians appeared on the scene too late to give effective aid to their allies, but in sufficient time to prevent the war from ending. Napoleon, who always had an intense esteem for the Marshal's common sense and military ability, asked him at this time to furnish a confidential report on the possibilities of Poland as a theatre of war, and the Marshal, with his keen insight into character, replied, "I am convinced that if you attempt to make the Poles rise on our behalf, within a fortnight they will be more against us than for us."

The French troops crossed the Vistula at Warsaw, and encountered "the fifth element, mud." Led by Murat, unable to make headway in mud up to their knees, baffled by the Fabian tactics of the Russians, and lacking the mighty brain of their Emperor, the Marshals fought without co-operation, each for his own glory. Lannes was as bad as the rest, showing in his refusal to give due praise to his brother generals for their help at Pultusk the same petty spirit of which he had complained in Murat. During the long winter weeks spent in cantonments along the Vistula, the Marshal was ill with fever, in hospital at Warsaw, and was not able to return to the head of his corps in time for the bloody battle of Eylau. During May he commanded the covering force at the siege of Dantzig, and was summoned thence to take part in the last phase of the campaign. The Russian General, Bennigsen, allowed himself to be outgeneralled by Napoleon, and the French were soon nearer Königsberg than the Russians. Bennigsen made desperate efforts to retrieve his mistake, and on June 13th actually managed to throw himself across the Alle at Friedland, just at the moment that Lannes arrived on the scene. The Marshal at once saw his opportunity. The Russians were drawn up with the Alle at their backs, so that retreat was impossible, and only victory could save them. The Marshal's design, therefore, was to hold the enemy till the main French army arrived. Bennigsen made the most determined efforts to throw him off, attempting to crush him by superior weight of horsemen and artillery. But the Marshal held on to him grimly, and by magnificent handling of Oudinot's grenadiers, the Saxon horse, and Grouchy's dragoons, he maintained his position in spite of all the Russian efforts during the night of June 13th. On the morning of the 14th, with ten thousand troops opposed to forty thousand, he fought for four hours without giving ground, skilfully availing himself of every bit of wood and cover, till at last reinforcements arrived. When the main French columns were deployed, Lannes, with the remnant of his indomitable corps, had a brief period of rest. But during the last phase of the battle the enemy made a desperate effort to break out of the trap through his shattered corps, and once again the Marshal led his troops with invincible élan, and drove the Russians right into the death-trap of Friedland.

Tilsit followed, and Napoleon showered honours on his trusty lieutenants. On June 30, 1807, he gave to Lannes the principality of Sievers in the department of Kalish, and on March 19, 1808, he conferred on him a greater honour when he created him Duke of Montebello in memory of his famous victory.

The Duke of Montebello spent his days of peace for the most part at Lectourne. He was summoned thence in October, 1808, to accompany the Emperor to Erfurt, and there the Czar Alexander made a special hero of his old adversary of Austerlitz, Pultusk, and Friedland, and presented him with the grand cordon of the Order of St. Andrew.

The period between Tilsit and Erfurt gave Lannes the last peaceful days that he ever spent, for from Erfurt he was hurried off again to war, this time to Spain. As usual when there was hard fighting in prospect, Napoleon knew that he could ill afford to do without his most trusty and able lieutenant. But Lannes had but little enthusiasm for the Spanish War. His reputation stood so high that there was little chance of enhancing it, and by now the fire-eating republican soldier was settling down into a quiet country gentleman, who preferred the domestic circle and the pleasure of playing the grand seigneur before an audience of friends to the stir of the camp and the pomp of the court. But he was too well drilled in soldierly instincts to refuse to serve when summoned by his chief, and accordingly, much against his will, he set out on what he expected to be a short inglorious campaign of a couple of months against a disorganised provincial militia.

Lannes accompanied the Emperor on his journey to Spain, attached to the headquarter staff without any definite command, for the Emperor knew that all was not well with the armies there, but he could not, until he had himself looked into the question, decide where he could use to the best advantage the great administrative and tactical ability of the Duke of Montebello. During the hurried crossing of the mountains of Tolosa the Marshal had the misfortune to be thrown from his horse. So severe were the injuries he received that it seemed impossible to take him beyond Vittoria, but Larrey, the Emperor's surgeon, ordered him to be wrapped in the bloody skin of a newly killed sheep; so successful was the prescription that the Marshal was soon able to follow the Emperor and rejoin headquarters. On his arrival the Emperor sent him to take over Moncey's corps of thirty-five thousand men, with orders to attack Castaños's forty-nine thousand at Tudela, while Ney, with twelve thousand, worked round the Spanish rear. On the morning of November 28th Lannes attacked the Spaniards at Tudela and won an easy victory, for the Aragonese, under Palafox, thought only of Saragossa, and the Valencians and Andalusians, under Castaños, of their line of retreat to the south. Lannes, seeing the exaggerated length of the Spanish position, at once divined the reason, and drove home an overwhelming attack against their weak centre. Successful as the battle was, it had not the far-reaching effects Napoleon had desired, for, owing to the mountainous nature of the ground, Ney was unable to get across the Spanish line of retreat; however, the enemy lost four thousand men at Tudela and, what was more important, all their artillery.

The battle of Tudela opened the road to Madrid. But when Napoleon arrived there, instead of driving the remnants of the Spanish armies before him and sweeping down to Seville, he found that there was a pressing danger in the north. To give the scattered Spaniards a chance of rallying, Sir John Moore was making a bold advance on Madrid, and was close to Salamanca. Napoleon at once ordered Lannes to hand over his corps to Moncey and to join headquarters. The corps of Ney and a part of Victor's corps were sent off to oppose the English, and on December 28th Napoleon and the Duke of Montebello set out to overtake them. The weather was awful, and the passage of the mountain passes in face of the blizzards of snow tried the endurance of the troops to the uttermost. Lannes, in spite of the fact that he had not entirely recovered from his fall, joined Napoleon in setting an example to the troops. At the head of the column marched the Emperor with one arm linked to Lannes and the other to Duroc. When completely worn out by the unaccustomed efforts and by the weight of their riding-boots, the Emperor and Lannes at times took a brief rest on the limber of a gun carriage, and then got down and marched again.

When Napoleon handed over the pursuit to Soult, he despatched the Duke of Montebello to take command of the corps of Junot and Moncey at Saragossa. On his arrival, on January 22, 1809, the Marshal found that the garrison of Saragossa was in much better heart than the besiegers, for on the west the third corps, owing to illness and fatigue, numbered barely thirteen thousand, and Gazan's division across the Ebro, before the eastern suburb, was scarcely seven thousand strong, while the total strength of the garrison was almost sixty thousand. Consequently Junot and Gazan were seriously contemplating raising the siege. Lannes's first duty was to restore the morale of the troops; to reprimand the general officers, who had been slack in their duty; to set an example to them by his fiery diligence, which refused to let him go to bed once during the whole of the first week he was before Saragossa; to restore the courage of the troops by daily exposing his life in the trenches, and, when necessary, reconnoitring in person with the utmost sangfroid right up to the Spanish positions; supervising hospitals, reorganising commissariat, planning with the engineer officers new methods of sap – in a word, to be everywhere and to do everything. Nothing can more clearly illustrate Napoleon's dictum, "A la guerre les hommes ne sont rien, c'est un homme qui est tout." Within five days of Lannes's taking over command the whole complexion of the situation had altered. The French were making the most resolute assaults with irresistible élan, carrying out the most difficult street-fighting with the greatest zest, sapping, mining, and blowing up convents and fortified posts, fighting above ground and below ground, suffering the most terrible losses, yet ever eager to fight again. By February 11th, thanks to the new morale of the troops, and to the fact that dysentery and enteric were playing havoc in the garrison, Lannes had captured house by house the western half of the town, and had arrived at the Corso. But once again murmurings broke out among the French troops, who had by now lost a fourth of their numbers, and at the same time a strong force of Spaniards under Palafox's brothers threatened to overwhelm Suchet, who was covering the siege. Lannes proved superior to all difficulties; by his fiery speeches and tact he reanimated both officers and men, pointing out to them the triumph they had already won in penning in fifty thousand Spaniards with a mere handful. Then, hurrying off with reinforcements for Suchet, he dug the covering force into an entrenched position on the heights of Villa Mayor, and four days later was back at Saragossa in time to superintend the attack across the Corso. On February 18th the French captured the suburb on the left bank of the river, and thus placed the inner town between two fires.

Disease and the success of their enemies had taken all the heart out of the Spanish defence, and on February 20th Palafox surrendered. Between December 21st and February 21st the Spanish losses had been fifty-four thousand dead from wounds and disease, and Saragossa itself was but a heap of crumbling ruins. Lannes did all in his power to alleviate the sufferings of the unfortunate inhabitants, yet in spite of all his efforts another ten thousand died within the next month. Unfortunately also for his reputation the Marshal, acting on distinct orders from Napoleon, treated his military prisoners with extreme severity and executed two of the most prominent. The great strain of the siege told heavily on the health of the Marshal, who had never completely recovered from his accident near Tolosa; accordingly, after refitting the corps under his command, he handed them over to Mortier and Junot, and at the end of March set out for Lectourne. But his stay there was short, for Napoleon, with the Spanish and Austrian wars on his hands, could not afford to do without his assistance.

By April 25th Lannes found himself once again at the post of danger, but this time on the Danube, at the battle of Abensberg. As he himself said, the first rumour of war always made him shiver, but as soon as he had taken the first step forward he had no thought but for his profession. But, much as he would have liked to dally at Lectourne, and much as he grumbled at Napoleon's overweening ambition once at the front he was the dashing soldier of the first Italian campaign. He arrived in time to take his share in the five days' fighting at Abensberg, Landshut, Eckmühl, and Ratisbon. At Ratisbon he had an opportunity of showing that time had had no effect on his spirit; after two storming parties had been swept away, he called for volunteers for a third attempt: none stepped forward, and he himself rushed to seize a ladder. His staff held him back; but the lesson was not in vain: volunteers crowded to seize the scaling ladders, led by two of the Marshal's aides-de-camp, and soon the walls of Ratisbon were crowned with French soldiers and the town was won.

Napoleon himself accompanied Lannes on the march to Vienna, and the Marshal was perfectly happy. Murat was absent, and there was no evil influence to cloud his friendship with his great chief. Once again Vienna succumbed without a shot, but this time the Austrians took care that there was no bridge over which Napoleon might cross the Danube. Accordingly, the Emperor determined to bridge the river below Vienna, making use of the Isle of Lobau, which lay two-thirds of the way across. The bridge from the south bank to Lobau was built under the personal supervision of the Emperor and Lannes, and on one occasion when they were reconnoitring in person they both fell into the river, and the Marshal, who was out of his depth, was pulled out by the Emperor himself.

By May 20th the French army was concentrated in Lobau, and on May 21st a crossing was effected by several bridges, and assured by Masséna occupying the village of Aspern and Lannes that of Essling. By the morning of the 22nd the mass of the French army had reached the north bank of the river. Napoleon, who perceived that the Austrian line was too extended to be strong, gave the command of the centre to Lannes with orders to sally forth from between the villages of Aspern and Essling and break the enemy's centre. In spite of a devastating artillery fire, the Marshal carried out his orders to perfection, making skilful use of his infantry and cavalry. He had actually forced back the Austrians when he was recalled by Napoleon, who had just heard that the enemy had succeeded in breaking the bridge by sending huge masses of timber down the swollen river. Lannes retreated slowly on Essling, his troops suffering severely from the re-formed Austrian batteries. While thus holding the foe in check the Marshal was struck on the knee by a cannon ball which ricocheted off the ground just in front of him. He was removed to the rear, and the doctors decided that it was necessary to amputate the right leg. The Marshal bore the operation well. He was moved to Vienna, and sent for the celebrated mechanician, Mesler, to make him a false leg, but unfortunately the hot weather affected the wound and mortification set in. The Emperor, in spite of his anxieties, came daily to visit him, and the dying hero had the last consolation of seeing how much he was valued by his august master and friend. The end came soon. On May 30th the Duke of Montebello died, and Napoleon, on hearing the news, with tears in his eyes cried out, "What a loss for France and for me!"

The death of Lannes removed the first of Napoleon's chosen Paladins, and, in the opinion of the Emperor himself, perhaps the greatest soldier of them all. At St. Helena the fallen Emperor thus appraised his old comrade: "Lannes was a man of extraordinary bravery. Calm under fire, he possessed a sure and penetrating coup d'œil; he had great experience in war. As a general he was infinitely superior to Moreau and Soult." But high as this eulogy is, the fact remains that Lannes was lucky in the time of his death: Fortune had not yet set her face against Napoleon's arms, and he was spared the terrors of the Russian retreat, the terrible fighting at Leipzig, and the gloom and misery of the winter campaign in France. That Lannes would have emerged superior to these trials his previous career affords strong reason to presume. Yet, brilliant as were his actions at Montebello, Saalfeld, Pultusk, and Tudela, masterly as were his operations at the siege of Saragossa, they only prove the Marshal's command of the technique of tactics. As Davout has pointed out, the Duke of Montebello had never an opportunity of showing his ability in the field of grand tactics or in the higher conceptions of strategy; he was a past master in the art of manœuvring twenty-five thousand infantry, but he had never the opportunity of devising and carrying out a complete campaign, involving the handling of hundreds of thousands of men and the successful solution of problems both military and political. "The Roland of the French Army" had by nature many qualities which go to form a great soldier. His bravery was undoubted; before Ney he was called "the Bravest of the Brave." He had personal qualities which inspired his troops with his own courage and élan. He had the military eye, and a mind of extraordinary activity, which worked best when under the pressure of necessity and danger. He was physically strong and able to endure fatigue, and he had great capacity for taking pains. But his temper was often at fault, causing him to burst into fits of uncontrollable rage, while from jealousy he was apt to sulk and refuse to co-operate with his fellows. If an officer failed to grasp his meaning he would storm at him, and attempt himself to carry out the task. But on one occasion he heard the Emperor cry out, "That devil Lannes possesses all the qualities of a great commander, but he will never be one, because he cannot master his temper, and is constantly bickering with his subalterns, the greatest fault that a commander can make." From that day forward Lannes made the resolution to command his temper, and, in spite of his nature, his self-control became extraordinary. But though he conquered this weakness, he never overcame his jealousy of his fellow Marshals and generals. Again and again he threw up his command because he thought he was slighted or that others were preferred to him. At times he broke out into violent tirades against the Emperor himself, and on one occasion, in his jealousy, told him that Murat, his brother-in-law, was "a mountebank, a tight-rope dancer." Napoleon remonstrated with him, exclaiming, "It is I alone who give you both glory and success." Lannes, livid with anger, retaliated, "Yes, yes; because you have marched up to your ankles in gore on this bloody field, you think yourself a great man; and your emplumed brother-in-law crows on his own dunghill… Twelve thousand corpses lying on the plain to keep the field for your honour … and yet to deny me – to me, Lannes – my due share in the honours of the day!" On the day before his death he could not resist humiliating his hated enemy, Bessières, whom Napoleon had put under his command, and he actually insulted him on the field of battle by sending a junior aide-de-camp to tell the Marshal "to charge home," implying that he was shirking his duty.

As a man, Lannes was warm-hearted and beloved by his family, his staff, and his men. Rough diamond as he was, he was truly one of nature's gentlemen. He never forgot a friend, though he seldom if ever forgave an enemy. His sympathies were essentially democratic; himself one of the people, he believed thoroughly in republican ideas. Outspoken to a fault, he would flare out against Napoleon himself, but one kind word from his great chief would cause him to forget all his bitterness. His impetuosity and his republican ideals of equality were, naturally, extremely offensive on occasions to the Emperor and the new nobility, and Lannes, in spite of all his efforts, was too genuine to conceal his hatred of all flunkeyism. It was this Gascon self-confidence, blended with singular amiability of character, which, while it offended the court, attached to the Marshal his soldiers and the provincial society of Lectourne, where even to this day the name of the Duke of Montebello is held in the most affectionate esteem and regard.

VII

MICHEL NEY, MARSHAL, DUKE OF ELCHINGEN, PRINCE OF MOSKOWA

"Go on, Ney; I am satisfied with you; you will make your way." So spoke a captain of hussars to a young recruit who had attracted his attention. The captain little thought that the zealous stripling would one day become a Marshal of France, the Prince of Moskowa, and famed throughout Europe as the "Bravest of the Brave." Still, the youth had presentiments of future greatness. Born on January 10, 1769, the son of a poor cooper, of Sarrelouis, more German than French, Michel Ney, at the age of fifteen, was possessed with the idea that he was destined for distinction. His father and mother tried to persuade him to become a miner, but nothing would please the high-spirited boy save the life of a soldier. Accordingly on February 1, 1787, he tramped off to Metz and enlisted as a private in the regiment known as the Colonel General's Hussars. Physically strong, unusually active, by nature a horseman, he soon attracted the attention of his comrades by his skill in ménage and his command of the sabre, and was chosen to represent his regiment in a duel against the fencing master of another regiment of the garrison. Unfortunately for Ney, the authorities got wind of the affair in time to prevent any decision being arrived at, and the young soldier was punished for breaking regulations by a term of imprisonment; but no sooner was he released than he again challenged his opponent. This time there was no interference, and Ney so severely wounded his adversary that he was unable to continue his profession. Though he thus early in his career distinguished himself by his bravery, tenacity, and disregard of rules, it must not for a moment be thought that he was a mere swashbuckler. With the determination to rise firmly before his eyes, he set about, from the day he enlisted, to learn thoroughly the rudiments of his profession, and to acquire a knowledge of French and the faculty of reading and writing; thus he was able to pass the necessary tests, and quickly gained the rank of sergeant. Ney was fortunate in that he had not to spend long years as a non-commissioned officer with no obvious future before him. The Revolution gave him the opportunity so long desired by Masséna and others, and it was as lieutenant that he started on active service with Dumouriez's army in 1793. Once on active service it was not long before his great qualities made themselves recognised. Though absolutely uncultivated, save for the smattering of reading and writing which he had picked up in the regimental school, and to outward appearances rather heavy and stupid, in the midst of danger he showed an energy, a quickness of intuition, and a clearness of understanding which hurled aside the most formidable obstacles. Physical fear he never knew; as he said, when asked if he ever felt afraid, "No, I never had time." In his earliest engagements at Neerwinden and in the north of France, he foreshadowed his future career by the extraordinary bravery and resource he showed in handling his squadron of cavalry during the retreat, on one occasion, with some twenty hussars, completely routing three hundred of the enemy's horse. This achievement attracted the attention of General Kléber, who sent for Captain Ney and entrusted him with the formation of a body of franc-tireurs of all arms. The franc-tireurs were really recognised brigands. They received no pay or arms and lived entirely on plunder, but were extremely useful for scouting and reconnaissance, and collected a great deal of information under a dashing officer. From this congenial work Ney was summoned in 1796 to command the cavalry of General Coland's division in the Army of the Sambre and Meuse. There he distinguished himself by capturing Würzburg and two thousand of the enemy with a squadron of one hundred hussars. After this exploit General Kléber refused to listen to his remonstrances and insisted on his accepting his promotion as general of brigade. At the commencement of the campaign of 1797 Ney had the misfortune to be taken prisoner at Giessen. While covering the retreat with his cavalry, he saw a horse artillery gun deserted by its men. Galloping back by himself, he attempted to save the piece, but the enemy's horse swept down and captured him. His captivity was not long: his exchange was soon effected, and he returned to France in time to join in the agitation against the party of the Clicheans, the only occasion he actively interfered in politics.

On the re-opening of the war in 1799 Ney was sent to command the cavalry of the Army of the Rhine. The campaign was notable for an exploit which admirably illustrates the secret of his success as a soldier. The town of Mannheim, held by a large Austrian garrison, was the key of Southern Germany. The French army was separated from this fortress by the broad Rhine. The enemy was confident that any attempt on the fortress must be preceded by the passage of the river by the whole French army. But Ney, hearing that the enemy's troops were cantonned in the villages surrounding the town, saw that if a small French force could be smuggled across by night, it might be possible to seize the town by a coup-de-main. The most important thing to ascertain was the exact position of the cantonments of the troops outside the fortress and of the various guards and sentinels inside the town. So important did he consider this information that he determined to cross the river himself and reconnoitre the position in person. Accordingly, general of division as he was, he disguised himself as a Prussian, and trusting to his early knowledge of German, he crossed the river secretly, and carefully noted all the enemy's preparations, running the risk of being found out and shot as a spy. The following evening, with a weak detachment, he again crossed the river, attacked the enemy's guards with the bayonet, drove back a sortie of the garrison, and entered the town pell-mell with the flying enemy; and under cover of the darkness, which hid the paucity of his troops, he bluffed the enemy into surrender. The year 1800 brought him further glory under Masséna and Moreau, and he became known throughout the armies of France as the "Indefatigable."