The Camp-fires of Napoleon

Napoleon, on the top of the Landgrafenberg, had been highly astonished to hear the firing recommence without his order. He learned with still more astonishment that Marshal Ney, whom he had supposed to be in the rear, was engaged with the Prussians. He hastened up greatly displeased, and on approaching Vierzehn-Heiligen, perceived from the height Marshal Ney defending himself, in the middle of two weak squares, against the whole of the Prussian cavalry. This heroic demonstration was enough to dispel all displeasure. Napoleon sent General Bertrand with two regiments of light cavalry, all that he had at hand, in the absence of Murat, to assist in extricating Ney, and ordered Lannes to advance with his infantry. During the time that elapsed before relief arrived, the intrepid Ney was not disconcerted. While, with four regiments of horse, he renewed his charges of cavalry, he moved the 25th infantry to his left, in order to station himself on the wood of Iserstedt, which Augereau, on his part, was striving to reach; he made the battalion of grenadiers advance as far as the little wood which had protected his chasseurs, and dispatched the battalion of voltigeurs to gain possession of the village of Vierzehn-Heiligen. But, at the same instant, Lannes, coming to his assistance, threw the 21st regiment of light infantry into the village of Vierzehn-Heiligen, and, putting himself at the head of the 100th, 103d, 34th, 64th, and 88th of the line, debouched in the face of the Prussian infantry of General Grawert. The latter deployed before the village of Vierzehn-Heiligen, with a regularity of movement due to long exercises. It drew up in order of battle, and opened a regular and terrible fire of small arms. Ney’s three little detachments suffered severely; but Lannes, ascending on the right of General Grawert’s infantry, endeavored to turn it in spite of repeated charges of the Prince of Hohenlohe’s cavalry, which came to attack him in his march.

The Prince of Hohenlohe bravely supported his troops amidst the danger. The regiment of Sanitz was completely broken; he formed it anew under the fire. He then purposed that the Zastrow regiment should retake the village of Vierzehn-Heiligen at the point of the bayonet, hoping thereby to decide the victory. Meanwhile he was informed that more hostile columns began to appear; that General Holzendorf, engaged with superior forces, was incapable of seconding him; that General Ruchel, however, was on the point of joining him with his corps. He then judged it expedient to wait for this powerful succor, and poured a shower of shells into the village of Vierzehn-Heiligen, resolved to try the effect of flames before he attacked it with his bayonets. He sent at the same time officers to General Ruchel, to urge him to hasten up, and to promise him the victory if he arrived in time; for, according to him, the French were on the point of giving way. At that very hour fortune was deciding otherwise. Augereau debouching at last from the wood of Iserstedt with Desjardin’s division, disengaged Ney’s left, and began to exchange a fire of musketry with the Saxons who were defending the Schnecke, while General Heudelet attacked them in column on the high road from Jena to Weimar. On the other side of the field of battle, the corps of Marshal Soult, after driving the remains of the Cerini brigade, as well as the Pelet fusiliers, out of the wood of Closewitz, and flinging back Holzendorf’s detachment to a distance, opened its guns on the flank of the Prussians. Napoleon, seeing the progress of his two wings, and learning the arrival of the troops which had been left in rear, was no longer afraid to bring into action all the forces present on the ground, the guard included, and gave orders for advancing. An irresistible impulse was communicated to the whole line. The Prussians were driven back, broken, and hurled down the sloping ground which descends from Landgrafenberg to the valley of the Ilm. The regiments of Hohenlohe and the Hahn grenadiers, of Grawert’s division, were almost entirely destroyed by the fire or by the bayonet. The Cerini brigade, assailed with grape, fell back upon the Dyherrn reserve, which in vain opposed its five battalions to the movement of the French. That reserve, being soon left uncovered, found itself attacked, surrounded on all sides, and forced to disperse. Tauenzien’s corps, rallied for a moment, and brought back into the fire by the Prince of Hohenlohe, was hurried away, like the others, in the general rout. The Prussian cavalry, taking advantage of the absence of the heavy French cavalry, made charges to cover its broken infantry; but the chasseurs and hussars kept it in check; and though driven back several times, returned incessantly to the charge. A terrible carnage followed this disorderly retreat. At every step prisoners were made; artillery was taken by whole batteries.

In this great danger, General Ruchel at length made his appearance, but too late. He marched in two fines of infantry, having on the left the cavalry belonging to his corps, and on the right the Saxon cavalry, commanded by the brave General Zeschwitz, who had come of his own accord and taken that position. He ascended at a foot-pace those plateaux, sloping from the Landgrafenberg to the Ilm. While mounting, Prussian and French poured down around him like a torrent, the one pursued by the other. He was thus met by a sort of tempest, at the moment of his appearance on the field of battle. While he was advancing, his heart rent with grief at this disaster, the French rushed upon him with the impetuosity of victory. The cavalry which covered his left flank was first dispersed. That unfortunate general, an unwise but ardent friend of his country, was the first to oppose the shock in person. A ball entered his chest, and he was borne off dying in the arms of his soldiers. His infantry, deprived of the cavalry which covered it, found itself attacked in flank by the troops of Marshal Soult, and threatened in front by those of Marshals Lannes and Ney. The battalions placed at the left extremity of the line, seized with terror, dispersed, and hurried along the rest of the corps in their flight. To aggravate the disaster, the French dragoons and cuirassiers came up at a gallop, under the conduct of Murat, impatient to take a share in the battle. They surrounded those hapless and dispersed battalions, cut in pieces all who attempted to resist, and pursued the others to the banks of the Ilm, where they made a great number of prisoners.

On the field of battle were left only the two Saxon brigades of Burgsdorf and Nehroff, which, after honorably defending the Schnecke against Heudelet’s and Desjardin’s division of Augereau’s corps, had been forced in their position by the address of the French tirailleurs, and effected their retreat, formed into two squares. These squares presented three sides of infantry and one of artillery, the latter being the rear side. The two Saxon brigades retired, halting alternately, firing their guns, and then resuming their march. Augereau’s artillery followed, sending balls after them; a swarm of French tirailleurs ran after them, harassing them with their small arms. Murat, who had just overthrown the relics of Ruchel’s corps, fell upon the two Saxon brigades, and ordered them to be charged to the utmost extremity by his dragoons and cuirassiers. The dragoons attacked first without forcing an entrance; but they returned to the charge, penetrated and broke the square. General d’Hatpoul, with the cuirassiers, attacked the second, broke it, and made that havoc which a victorious cavalry inflicts on a broken infantry. Those unfortunate men had no other resource but to surrender. The Prussian battalion of Boguslawski was forced in its turn, and treated like the others. The brave General Zeschwitz, who had hastened with the Saxon cavalry to the assistance of its infantry, made vain efforts to support it, and was driven back, and forced to give way to the general rout.

Murat rallied his squadrons, and hastened to Weimar, to collect fresh trophies. At some distance from that town were crowded together, pell-mell, detachments of infantry, cavalry, artillery, at the top of a long and steep slope, formed by the high road leading down to the bottom of the valley of the Ilm. These troops, confusedly huddled together, were supported upon a small wood, called the wood of Webicht. All at once, the bright helmets of the French cavalry made their appearance. A few musket-shots were instinctively fired by this affrighted crowd. At this signal, the mass, seized with terror, rushed down the hill, at the foot of which Weimar is situated: foot, horse, artillerymen, all tumbled over one another into this gulf—a new and tremendous disaster. Murat now sent after them a part of his dragoons, who goaded on this mob with the points of their swords, and pursued it into the streets of Weimar. With the others he made a circuit to the other side of Weimar, and cut off the retreat of the fugitives, who surrendered by thousands.

Out of the seventy thousand Prussians who had appeared on the field of battle, not a single corps remained entire, not one retreated in order. Out of one hundred thousand French troops, composed of the corps of Marshals Soult, Lannes, Augereau, Ney, Murat, and the guard, not more than fifty thousand had fought, and they had been sufficient to overthrow the Prussian army. The greater part of that army, seized with a sort of vertigo, throwing away its arms, ceasing to know either its colors or its officers, covered all the roads of Thuringin. About twelve thousand Prussians and Saxons, killed and wounded, about four thousand French killed and wounded also, strewed the ground from Jena to Weimar. On the ground were seen stretched a great number—a greater number, indeed, than usual—of Prussian officers, who had nobly paid for their silly passions with their lives; Fifteen thousand prisoners, two hundred pieces of cannon, were in the hands of the French, intoxicated with joy. The shells of the Prussians had set fire to the town of Jena, and from the plateaux where the battle was fought, columns of flame were seen bursting from the dark bosom of night. French shells ploughed up the city of Weimar, and threatened it with a similar fate. The shrieks of fugitives while running through the streets, the tramp of Murat’s cavalry, dashing through them at a gallop, slaughtering without mercy all who were not quick enough in flinging down them arms, had filled with horror that charming city—the noble asylum of letters.

At Weimar, as at Jena, part of the inhabitants had fled. The conquerors, disposing like masters of their almost deserted towns, established their magazines and their hospitals in the churches and public buildings. Napoleon, on returning from Jena, directed his attention, according to his custom, to the collecting of the wounded, and heard shouts of Vive l’Empereur! mingled with the moans of the dying.

But Napoleon knew not yet the full measure of his victory. In the course of the day, he had heard the distant thundering of the cannon in the direction of Naumberg, where he had posted Marshal Davoust. He had the greatest confidence in the wisdom, valor, and inflexible resolution of that great general, but he did not know of the immensely superior forces the Marshal had to fight, to maintain his position. The facts were soon learned. Marshal Davoust, with only twenty-six thousand men, had not only sustained his position for many hours against the impetuous attack of seventy thousand Prussians, commanded by the Duke of Brunswick, and cheered by the presence of Frederick William himself, but had routed his enemy, and thus achieved the victory of Auerstadt. Never had there been a grander display of heroic firmness by general and soldiers. The Prussians had lost three thousand prisoners, nine or ten thousand men, killed or wounded, besides the Duke of Brunswick, Marshal Mollendorf and General Schwettan mortally wounded, together with a prodigious number of their gallant officers. Davoust had suffered a loss of seven thousand men, killed or wounded, and half the generals of brigade and colonels were placed hors de combat. The king was denied the consolation of his army retreating in good order. Nearly every corps was broken and disbanded, being seized with a panic. The roads were crowded with fear-stricken fugitives.

During the terrible night, which followed the bloody day of Jena and Auerstadt, the victors suffered not less than the vanquished. The night was intensely cold, and they were obliged to bivouac on the ground, having scarcely any thing to eat. Many of them wounded, more or less severely, were stretched on the cold earth beside wounded enemies, mingling their groans. Napoleon made every effort in his power to relieve their sufferings, and many a poor soldier, almost fainting from loss of blood, exerted his feeble strength to shout “Vive l’Empereur!”

But the Prussian army was annihilated. The road to Berlin was open, and thither the French Emperor hastened, in following up his decisive victory. A few small actions were fought and the French made thousands of prisoners almost every day. Frederick William solicited an armistice, but the Emperor refused to grant it for wise military reasons. He was destined to enter the Prussian capital in triumph. Never did Europe dread the name of Napoleon so notably as when that Prussian army, upon which the last hope was founded, vanished before his resistless arms.

THE CAMP-FIRE ON THE NAREW

Napoleon, having vanquished the Prussians, once more turned his arms against the Russians, who, under the command of Kamenski and Bennigsen, numbered about one hundred and fifteen thousand men. They were posted upon the Vistula; but as Napoleon easily passed that great river, they retired behind the Narew. The passage of this stream was one of the remarkable achievements of the French, during this portion of the Emperor’s splendid career.

Having arrived in the night, between the 18th and 19th of December, 1806, Napoleon reconnoitred the position of Marshal Davoust on the Narew, but a thick fog prevented him from attaining much accurate intelligence. He made his dispositions for attacking the enemy on the 22d or 23d of December. It is high time, he wrote to Marshal Davoust, to take our winter quarters; but this cannot be done till we have driven back the Russians.

The four divisions of General Bennigsen first presented themselves. Count Tolstoy’s division, posted at Czarnowo, occupied the apex of the angle formed by the junction of the Ukra and the Narew. That of General Sacken, also placed in rear towards Lopaczym, guarded the banks of the Ukra. The division of Prince Gallitzin was in reserve at Pultusk. The four divisions of General Buxhovden were at a great distance from those of General Bennigsen, and not calculated to render support to him.

It is easy to perceive that the distribution of the Russian corps was not judiciously combined in the angle of the Ukra and the Narew, and that they had not sufficiently concentrated their forces. If, instead of having a single division at the point of the angle, and one on each side at too great a distance from the first, lastly, five out of reach, they had distributed themselves with intelligence over ground so favourable for the defensive; if they had strongly occupied, first the conflux, then the two rivers, the Narew from Czarnowo to Pultusk, the Ukra from Pomichowo to Kolozomb; if they had placed in reserve in a central position, at Nasielsk, for example, a principal mass, ready to run to any threatened point, they might have disputed the ground with advantage. But Generals Bennigsen and Buxhovden were on bad terms; they disliked to be near each other; and old Kamenski, who had arrived only on the preceding day, had neither the necessary intelligence nor spirit for prescribing other dispositions than they had adopted in following each of them his whim.

Napoleon, who saw the position of the Russians from without only, certainly concluded that they were intrenched behind the Narew and the Ukra, for the purpose of guarding the banks, but without knowing how they were established and distributed there. He thought that it would be advisable to take, in the first place, the conflux, where it was probable, they would defend themselves with energy, and having carried that point, to proceed to the execution of his plan, which consisted in throwing the Russians, by a wheel from right to left, into the marshy and woody country in the interior of Poland. In consequence, having repeated the order to Marshals Ney, Bernadotte and Bessieres, forming his left, to proceed rapidly from Thorn to Biezun on the upper course of the Ukra; to Marshals Soult and Augereau, forming in his centre, to set out from Plock and Modlin, and form a junction at Plonsk on the Ukra; he put himself at the head of his right, composed of Davoust’s corps, Lannes’s corps, of the guard, and the reserves, resolved to force immediately the position of the Russians at the conflux of the Ukra and the Narew. He left in the works of Praga the Poles of the new levy, with a division of dragoons, a force sufficient to ward off all accidents, as the army was not to remove far from Warsaw.

Having arrived on the morning of the 23d of December at Okunin on the Narew, in wet weather, by muddy and almost impassable roads, Napoleon alighted, to superintend in person the dispositions of attack. This general, who, according to some critics, while directing armies of three hundred thousand men, knew not how to lead a brigade into fire, went himself to reconnoitre the enemy’s positions, and to place his forces on the ground, down to the very companies of the voltigeurs.

The Narew had been already crossed at Okunin, below the conflux of the Ukra and the Narew. To penetrate into the angle formed by those two rivers, it was necessary to pass either the Narew or the Ukra above their point of junction. The Ukra, being the narrower of the two, was deemed preferable for attempting a passage. Advantage had been taken of an island which divided it into two arms, near its mouth, in order to diminish the difficulty. On this island the French had established themselves, and they had yet to pass the second arm to reach the point of land occupied by the Russians between the Ukra and the Narew. This point of land, covered with woods, coppices, marshes, &c., looked like one very dense thicket. Further off, the ground became somewhat clearer, then rose and formed a steep declivity, which extended from the Narew to the Ukra. To the right of this natural intrenchment appeared the village of Czarnowo on the Narew, to the left of the village of Pomichowo on the Ukra. The Russians had advanced guards of tirailleurs in the thicket, several battalions and a numerous artillery on the elevated part of the ground, two battalions in reserve, and all their cavalry in the rear. Napoleon repaired to the island, mounted the roof of a barn by means of a ladder, studied the position of the Russians with a telescope, and immediately made the following dispositions. He scattered a great quantity of tirailleurs all along the Ukra, and to a considerable distance above the point of passage. He ordered them to keep up a brisk firing, and to kindle large fires with damp straw, so as to cover the bed of the river with a cloud of smoke, and to cause the Russians to apprehend an attack above the conflux, towards Pomichowo. He even directed to that quarter Gauthier’s brigade, belonging to Davoust’s corps, in order the more effectually to draw the enemy’s attention thither. During the execution of these orders, he collected at dusk all the companies of voltigeurs of Morand’s division, on the intended point of passage, and ordered them to fire from one bank to the other, through the clumps of wood, to drive off the enemy’s posts, while the seamen of the guard were equipping the craft collected on the Narew. The 17th of the line and the 13th light infantry were in column, ready to embark by detachments, and the rest of Morand’s division was assembled in the rear, in order to pass as soon as the bridge was established. The other divisions of Davoust’s corps were at the bridge of Okunin, awaiting the moment for acting. Lannes was advancing from Warsaw to Okunin.

The seamen of the guard soon brought some boats, by means of which several detachments of voltigeurs were conveyed from one bank to the other. These penetrated into the thicket, while the officers of the pontoniers and the seamen of the guard were occupied in forming a bridge of boats with the utmost expedition. At seven in the evening, the bridge being passable, Morand’s division crossed in close column, and marched forward, preceded by the 17th of the line and the 13th light infantry, and by a swarm of tirailleurs. They advanced under cover of the darkness and the wood. The sappers of the regiment cleared a passage through the thicket for the infantry. No sooner had they overcome these first obstacles, than they found themselves unsheltered, opposite to the elevated plateau which runs from the Narew to the Ukra, and which was defended either by abattis or by a numerous artillery. The Russians, amidst the darkness of the night, opened upon the French columns a continuous fire of grape and musketry, which did some mischief. While the voltigeurs of Morand’s division and the 13th light infantry approached as tirailleurs, Colonel Lanusse, at the head of the 17th of the line, formed in column of attack on the right, to storm the Russian batteries. He had already carried one of them, when the Russians advancing in mass upon his left flank, obliged him to fall back. The rest of Morand’s division came up to the support of the two first regiments. The 13th light, infantry having exhausted its cartridges, was replaced by the 30th, and again they marched by the right to attack the village of Czarnowo, while on the left, General Petit proceeded with four hundred picked men to the attack of the Russian intrenchments facing the Ukra, opposite to Pomichowo. In spite of the darkness, they manœuvred with the utmost order. Two battalions of the 30th and one of the 17th attacked Czarnowo, one by going along the bank of the Narew, the two others by directly climbing the plateau on which the village is seated. These three battalions carried Czarnowo, and, followed by the 51st and the 61st regiments, debouched on the plateau, driving back the Russians into the plain beyond it. At the same moment General Petit had assaulted the extremity of the enemy’s intrenchments towards the Ukra, and, seconded by the fire of artillery, kept up by Gauthier’s brigade from the other side of the river, had carried them. At midnight, the assailants were masters of the position of the Russians from the Narew to the Ukra, but, from the tardiness of their retreat, which could be discerned in the dark, it was to be inferred that they would return to the charge, and, for this reason, Marshal Davoust sent the second brigade of General Gudin’s division to the assistance of General Petit who was most exposed. During the night, the Russians, as it had been foreseen, returned three times to the charge, with the intention of retaking the position which they had lost, and hurling down the French from the plateau towards that point of woody and marshy ground on which they had landed. Thrice were they suffered to approach within thirty paces, and each time the French replying to their attack by a point-blank fire, brought them to a dead stand, and then, meeting them with the bayonet, repulsed them. At length, the night being far advanced, they betook themselves in full retreat, towards Nasielsk. Never was night action fought with greater order, precision, and hardihood. The Russians left, killed, wounded and prisoners, about eighteen hundred men, and a great quantity of artillery. The French had six hundred wounded, and about one hundred killed.

Napoleon, at his evening camp-fire on the Narew, congratulated General Morand and Marshal Davoust upon their gallant conduct, and hastened to reap the benefits of the victory. Then followed a series of actions in terrible weather, and in a country now hardened with frost, and then slushed with rain. In all these, the lieutenants of the Emperor, and especially the indomitable Lannes, gained unfading glory.

CAMP-FIRE AT EYLAU

The Russians, under General Bennigsen, were pursued and harassed by the French Marshals after the passage of the Narew, until the evening of the 7th of February, 1807, when they halted beyond the village of Eylau, and evinced a determination to give battle on the following day. The French army was worn with fatigue, reduced in number by rapid marches and rear-guard actions, pinched with hunger and suffering from cold. But they were now to fight a great battle against a superior number of brave and disciplined troops.