The Camp-fires of Napoleon

The two armies were exhausted. That day, so sombre, was every moment becoming more sombre still, and about to terminate in a tremendous night. More than thirty thousand Russians, struck by the balls and the swords of the French, strewed the ground, some dead, others wounded more or less severely. Many of the soldiers began to abandon their colors. General Bennigsen, surrounded by his lieutenants, was deliberating whether to resume the offensive, and try the effect of one more effort. But, out of an army of eighty thousand men, not more than forty thousand were left in a state to fight, the Prussians included. If he were worsted in this desperate engagement, he would not have wherewithal to cover his retreat. However, he was still hesitating, when intelligence was brought him of a last and important incident. Marshal Ney, who had closely followed the Prussians, arriving in the evening on the left, as Marshal Davoust had arrived in the morning on the right, debouched at length near Althof.

Thus Napoleons combinations, retarded by time, had, nevertheless, brought upon the two flanks of the Russian army the forces that were to decide the victory. The order for retreat could no longer be deferred; for Marshal Davoust, having maintained himself at Klein-Sausgarten, would not have much to do to meet Marshal Ney, who had advanced to Schmoditten; and the junction of these two Marshals would have exposed the Russians to the risk of being enveloped. The order for retreating was instantly given by General Bennigsen; but, to insure the retreat, he purposed to curb Marshal Ney, by attempting to take from him the village of Schmoditten. The Russians marched upon that village, under favor of the night, and in profound silence, in hopes of surprising the troops of Marshal Ney, who had arrived late on the field of battle, when it was difficult to recognise one another. But the latter were on their guard. General Marchand, with the 6th light infantry, and the 39th of the line, allowing the Russians to approach, then receiving them with a point-blank fire, stopped them short. He then rushed upon them with the bayonet, and obliged them to renounce all serious attack. From that moment they definitely commenced their retreat.

Napoleon knew that he was master of the field of battle. He occupied the slightly rising plain beyond Eylau, having his cavalry and his guard before him and at the centre, and his other corps in possession of the positions which the Russians had occupied in the morning.

Certain of being victorious, but grieved to the bottom of his heart, the Emperor had remained amidst his troops, and ordered them to kindle fires, and not leave the ranks, even to go in quest of provisions. A small quantity of bread and brandy was distributed among the soldiers, and, though there was not enough for all, yet no complaints were heard. Less joyous than at Austerlitz and at Jena, they were full of confidence, proud of themselves, ready to renew that dreadful struggle, if the Russians had the courage and the strength to do so. Whoever had given them, at this moment, bread and brandy, which they were in want of, would have found them in as high spirits as usual. Two artillerymen of Marshal Davoust’s corps having been absent from their company during this engagement, and arrived too late to be present at the battle, their comrades assembled in the evening at the bivouac, tried them, and not liking their reasons, inflicted upon them, on that frozen and blood-stained ground, the burlesque punishment which the soldiers call the savate.

There was no great abundance of any thing but ammunition. The service of the artillery, performed with extraordinary activity, had already replaced the ammunition consumed. With not less zeal was the service of the medical and surgical department performed. A great number of wounded had been picked up; to the others relief was administered on the spot, till they could be removed in their turn. Napoleon, overwhelmed with fatigue, was still afoot, and superintending the attentions that were paid to his soldiers.

In the rear of the army, so firm a countenance was not every where presented. Many stragglers, excluded from the effective in the morning, in consequence of the marches, had heard the din of that tremendous battle, had caught some hourras of the Cossacks, and fallen back, circulating bad news along the roads. The brave collected to range themselves beside their comrades, the others dispersed in the various routes which the army had traversed.

Daybreak next morning threw a light upon that frightful field of battle, and Napoleon himself was moved to such a degree as to betray his feelings in the bulletin which he published. On that icy plain, thousands of dead and dying, cruelly mangled, thousands of prostrate horses, an infinite quantity of dismounted cannon, broken carriages, scattered projectiles, burning hamlets, all this standing out from a ground of snow, exhibited a thrilling and terrible spectacle. “This spectacle,” exclaimed Napoleon, “is fit to excite in princes a love of peace and a horror of war!”

This singularity struck all eyes. From a propensity for returning to the things of past times, and also from economy, an attempt had been made to introduce the white uniform again into the army. The experiment had been made with some regiments, but the sight of blood on the white dress decided the question. Napoleon, filled with disgust and horror, declared that he would have none but blue uniforms, whatever might be the cost.

The Russians had left upon the field, about seven thousand dead, and five thousand wounded, and they took with them fifteen thousand more wounded. They had consequently twenty-seven thousand men placed hors de combat. Besides this loss, four thousand prisoners were made by the French, who also captured twenty-four pieces of cannon and sixteen colors. The loss of the French was about three thousand killed and four thousand wounded. Several eagles had been carried away by Bennigsen. It was a terrible, but indecisive battle. The victor was too much grieved to listen to the pæans of triumph, although his valor and skill had been nobly displayed in defeating a superior enemy.

THE CAMP-FIRE AT FRIEDLAND

After the bloody struggle of Eylau, in which thirty thousand men were placed hors de combat, the Russians seemed desirous of avoiding a conflict until they had received large reinforcements. In the mean time, Napoleon collected about two hundred thousand men between the Vistula, and the Memel, besieged and captured Dantzic, and was again in a condition to strike a tremendous blow at the inferior forces of the enemy. Early in June, 1807, the Russian general, Bennigsen, made the first offensive movement. The division of Marshal Ney, stationed at Gustadt, was attacked by a superior force, and that intrepid officer retreated, fighting, as far as Deppen. But on the 8th of June, Napoleon moved forward to extricate his lieutenant, and the Russians then fell back upon Heilsberg. There a desperate action occurred, in which both armies suffered terribly. The Russians were compelled to retreat, but they retired unmolested. On the 13th, Bennigsen approached the town of Friedland, situated on the west bank of the Alle, communicating with the eastern bank by long wooden bridges. Here the decisive battle of the next day was fought.

The course of the Alle, near the spot where the two armies were about to meet, exhibits numerous windings. The French came up by the woody hills, beyond which the ground gradually sinks to the banks of the Alle. The ground at this season was covered with rye of great height. To the right of the French, the river was seen pursuing its way through the plain, then turning round Friedland, coming to the left, thus forming an elbow. At daybreak on the morning of the 14th, Lannes, who commanded the advanced division of the French army, reached Posthenen, whence he could see the Russians marching across the bridges to deploy into the plain, and drawing up in a line of battle facing the heights. A rivulet, called the Mill Stream, there formed a small pond, after dividing the plain into two unequal halves. Bennigsen imagined that he had to contend with but one division of the French army, and, for the time, he had this advantage. But the whole force under Napoleon’s immediate command was coming up to support the gallant Lannes, and by crossing the bridges, the Russian general fairly placed himself in the power of the Emperor. For this Napoleon had manœuvred several days, and he now saw that the victory would be one of that complete, decisive kind he loved.

Marshal Lannes, in his haste to march, had brought with him only Oudinot’s voltigeurs and grenadiers, the 9th hussars, Grouchy’s dragoons, and two regiments of Saxon cavalry. He could not oppose more than ten thousand men to the enemy’s advanced guard, which, successively reinforced, was treble that number, and was soon to be followed by the whole Russian army. Fortunately for the French, the soil afforded numerous resources to the skill and courage of their illustrious marshal. In the centre of the position which it was necessary to occupy, in order to bar the way against the Russians, was a village, that of Posthenen, through which ran the Mill Stream to pursue its course to Friedland. Somewhat in rear rose a plateau, from which the plain of the Alle might be battered. Lannes placed his artillery there, and several battalions of grenadiers to protect it. On the right, a thick wood, that of Sortlack, protruded in a salient, and divided into two the space comprised between the village of Posthenen and the banks of the Alle. There Lannes posted two battalions of voltigeurs, which, dispersed as tirailleurs, would be able to stop for a long time troops not numerous and not very resolute. The 9th hussars, Grouchy’s dragoons, the Saxon cavalry, amounted to three thousand horse, ready to fall upon any column which should attempt to penetrate that curtain of tirailleurs. On the left of Posthenen, the line of woody heights extended, gradually lowering in the village of Heinrichsdorf, through which ran the high road from Friedland to Konigsberg. This point was of great importance, for the Russians, desirous to reach Konigsberg, would, of course, obstinately dispute the road thither. Besides, this part of the field of battle being more open, was naturally more difficult to defend. Lannes, who had not yet troops sufficient to establish himself there, had placed on his left, taking advantage of the woods and heights, the rest of his battalions, thus approaching the houses of Heinrichsdorf without being able to occupy them.

The fire, commenced at three in the morning, became all at once extremely brisk. The artillery, placed on the plateau of Posthenen, under the protection of Oudinot’s grenadiers, kept the Russians at a distance, and made considerable havoc among them. On the right, the voltigeurs, scattered on the skirt of the wood of Sortlack, stopped their infantry by an incessant tirailleur fire, and the Saxon horse, directed by General Grouchy, had made several unsuccessful charges against their cavalry. The Russians having become threatening towards Heinrichsdorf, General Grouchy, moving from the right to the left, galloped thither, to dispute with them the Konigsberg road, the important point for the possession of which torrents of blood were about to be spilt.

Though, in these first moments, Marshal Lannes had but ten thousand men to oppose twenty-five or thirty thousand, he maintained his ground, thanks to great skill and energy, and also to the able concurrence of General Oudinot, commanding the grenadiers, and of General Grouchy, commanding the cavalry. But the enemy reinforced himself from hour to hour, and General Bennigsen, on arriving at Friedland, had suddenly formed the resolution to give battle—a very rash resolution, for it would have been much wiser for him to have continued to descend the Alle to the junction of that river with the Pregel, and to take a position behind the latter, with his left to Wehlau, his right to Konigsberg. It would have taken him, it is true, another day to reach Konigsberg; but he would not have risked a battle against an army superior in number, in quality, better officered, and in a very unfavorable situation for him, since he had a river at his back, and he was very likely to be pushed into the elbow of the Alle, with all that vigor of impulsion of which the French army was capable.

He lost no time in having three bridges thrown over the Alle, one above and two below Friedland, in order to accelerate the passage of his troops, and also to furnish them with means of retreat. He lined with artillery the right bank, by which he arrived, and which commanded the left bank. Then, nearly his whole army having debouched, he disposed it in the following manner:—In the plain around Heinrichsdorf, on the right for him, on the left for the French, he placed four divisions of infantry, under Lieutenant-General Gortschakoff, and the better part of the cavalry under General Ouwarroff. The infantry was formed in two lines. In the first were two battalions of each regiment deployed, and a third drawn up in close column behind the two others, closing the interval which separated them. In the second, the field of battle gradually narrowing the further it extended into the angle of the Alle, a single battalion was deployed and two were formed in close column. The cavalry, ranged on the side and a little in advance, flanked the infantry. On the left (the right of the French,) two Russian divisions, of which the imperial guard formed part, increased by all the detachments of chasseurs, occupied the portion of the ground comprised between the Mill Stream and the Alle. They were drawn up in two lines, but very near each other, on account of the want of room. Prince Bagration commanded them. The cavalry of the guard was there, under General Kollogribow. Four flying bridges had been thrown across the Mill Stream, that it might interrupt the communications between the two wings as little as possible. The fourth Russian division had been left on the other side of the Alle, on the ground commanding the left bank, to collect the army in case of disaster or to come and decide the victory, if it obtained any commencement of success. The Russians had more than two hundred pieces of cannon upon their front, besides those which were either in reserve or in battery on the right bank. Their army, reduced to eighty or eighty-two thousand men after Heilsberg, separated at this time from Kamenski’s corps and from some detachments sent to Wehlau to guard the bridges of the Alle, still amounted to seventy-two or seventy-five thousand men. General Bennigsen caused the mass of the Russian army to be moved forward in the order just described, so that, on getting out of the elbow of the Alle, it might deploy, extend its fires, and avail itself of the advantages of number which it possessed at the beginning of the battle.

The situation of Lannes was perilous, for he had the whole Russian army upon his hands. Fortunately, the time which had elapsed had procured him some reinforcements. General Nansouty’s division of heavy cavalry, composed of three thousand five hundred cuirassiers and carbineers, Dupas’s division, which was the first of Mortier’s corps, and numbered six thousand foot soldiers, lastly, Verdier’s division, which contained seven thousand, and was the second of Lannes’s corps, marched off successively, had come with all possible expedition. It was a force of twenty-six or twenty-seven thousand men, to fight seventy-five thousand. It was seven in the morning, and the Russians, preceded by a swarm of Cossacks, advanced towards Heinrichsdorf, where they already had infantry and cannon. Lannes, appreciating the importance of that post, sent thither the brigade of Albert’s grenadiers, and ordered General Grouchy to secure possession of it at any cost. General Grouchy, who had been reinforced by the cuirassiers, proceeded immediately to the village. Without stopping to consider the difficulty, he dispatched the brigade of Milet’s dragoons to attack Heinrichsdorf, while Carrie’s brigade turned the village, and the cuirassiers marched to support this movement. Milet’s brigade passed through Heinrichsdorf at a gallop, drove out the Russian foot-soldiers at the point of the sword, while Carrie’s brigade, going round it, took or dispersed those who had saved themselves by flight. Four pieces of cannon were taken. At this moment, the enemy’s cavalry, coming to the assistance of the infantry, expelled from Heinrichsdorf, rushed upon the dragoons and drove them back. But Nansouty’s cuirassiers charged it in their turn, and threw it upon the Russian infantry, which in this fray was obliged to withhold its fire.

During these occurrences, Dupas’s division entered into line. Marshal Mortier, whose horse was killed by a cannon-ball, the moment he appeared on the field of battle, placed that division between Heinrichsdorf and Posthenen, and opened on the Russians a fire of artillery which, poured upon deep masses, made prodigious havoc in their ranks. The arrival of Dupas’s division rendered disposable those battalions of grenadiers which had at first been drawn up to the left of Posthenen. Lannes drew them nearer to him, and could oppose their closer ranks to the attacks of the Russians, either before Posthenen or before the wood of Sortlack. General Oudinot, who commanded them, taking advantage of all the accidents of ground, sometimes from clumps of wood scattered here and there, sometimes from pools of water, produced by the rains of the preceding days, sometimes from above the corn, disputed the ground with equal skill and energy. By turns he hid or exhibited his soldiers, dispersed them as tirailleurs, or exposed them in a mass, bristling with bayonets, to all the efforts of the Russians. Those brave grenadiers, notwithstanding their inferiority in number, kept up the fight, supported by their general, when, luckily for them, Verdier’s division arrived. Marshal Lannes divided it into two movable columns, to be sent alternately to the right, to the centre, to the left, wherever the danger was most pressing. It was the skirt of the wood of Sortlack and the village of the same name, situated on the Alle, that were the most furiously disputed. In the end, the French remained masters of the village, the Russians of the skirts of the wood.

Lannes was enabled to prolong till noon this conflict of twenty-six thousand men against seventy-five thousand. But it was high time for Napoleon to arrive with the rest of his army. Lannes, anxious to apprize him of what was passing, had sent to him almost all his aides-de-camp, one after another, ordering them to get back to him without loss of time, if they killed their horses. They found him coming at a gallop to Friedland, and full of a joy that was expressed in his countenance. “This is the 14th of June,” he repeated to those whom he met; “it is the anniversary of Marengo; it is a lucky day for us!” Napoleon, outstripping his troops through the speed of his horse, had successively passed the long files of the guard, of Ney’s corps, of Bernadotte’s corps, all marching for Posthenen. He had saluted in passing, Dupont’s fine division, which from Ulm to Braunsberg, had never ceased to distinguish itself, though never in his presence, and he had declared that it would give him great pleasure to see it fight for once.

The presence of Napoleon at Posthenen fired his soldiers and his generals with fresh ardor. Lannes, Mortier, Oudinot, who had been there since morning, and Ney, who had just arrived, surrounded him with the most lively joy. The brave Oudinot hastening up with his coat perforated by balls, and his horse covered with blood, exclaimed to the Emperor: “Make haste, Sire, my grenadiers are knocked up; but, give me a reinforcement, and I will drive all the Russians into the water.” Napoleon, surveying with his glass the plain, where the Russians, backed in the elbow of the Alle, were endeavoring in vain to deploy, soon appreciated their perilous situation and the unique occasion offered him by Fortune, swayed, it must be confessed, by his genius; for the fault which the Russian army were committing had been inspired, as it were, by him, when he pushed them from the other side of the Alle, and thus forced them to pass in before him, in going to the relief of Konigsberg. The day was far advanced, and it would take several hours to collect all the French troops. Some of Napoleon’s lieutenants were, therefore, of opinion that they ought to defer fighting a decisive battle till the morrow. “No, no,” replied Napoleon, “one does not catch an enemy twice in such a scrape.” He immediately made his dispositions for the attack. They were worthy of his marvellous perspicacity.

To drive the Russians into the Alle was the aim which every individual, down to the meanest soldier, assigned to the battle. But how to set about it, how to ensure that result, and how to render it as great as possible, was the question. At the farthest extremity of the elbow of the Alle, in which the Russian army was engulphed, there was a decisive point to occupy, namely, the little point of Friedland itself, situated on the right, between the Mill Stream and the Alle. There were the four bridges, the sole retreat of the Russian army, and Napoleon purposed to direct his utmost efforts against that point. He destined for Ney’s corps the difficult and glorious task of plunging into that gulf, of carrying Friedland at any cost, in spite of the desperate resistance which it would not fail to make, of wresting the bridges from them, and thus barring against them the only way of safety. But at the same time he resolved, while acting vigorously on his right, to suspend all efforts on his left, to amuse the Russian army on that side with a feigned fight, and not to push it briskly on the left till, the bridges being taken on the right, he should be sure, by pushing it, to fling it into a receptacle without an outlet.

Surrounded by his lieutenants, he explained to them, with that energy and that precision of language which were usual with him, the part which each of them had to act in that battle. Grasping the arm of Marshal Ney, and pointing to Friedland, the bridges, the Russians crowded together in front, “Yonder is the goal,” said he; “march to it without looking about you: break into that thick mass whatever it costs you; enter Friedland, take the bridges, and give yourself no concern about what may happen on your right, on your left, or on your rear. The army and I shall be there to attend to that.” Ney, boiling with ardor, proud of the formidable task assigned to him, set out at a gallop to arrange his troops before the wood of Sortlack. Struck with his martial attitude, Napoleon, addressing Marshal Mortier, said, “That man is a lion!”

On the same ground, Napoleon had his dispositions written down from his dictation, that each of his generals might have them bodily present to his mind, and not be liable to deviate from them. He ranged, then, Marshal Ney’s corps on the right, so that Lannes, bringing back Verdier’s division upon Posthenen, could present two strong lines with that and the grenadiers. He placed Bernadotte’s corps (temporarily Victor’s) between Ney and Lannes, a little in advance of Posthenen, and partly hidden by the inequalities of the ground. Dupont’s fine division formed the head of this corps. On the plateau, behind Posthenen, Napoleon established the imperial guard, the infantry in three close columns, the cavalry in two lines. Between Posthenen and Henrichsdorf was the corps of Marshal Mortier, posted as in the morning, but more concentrated and augmented by the young fusiliers of the imperial guard. A battalion of the 4th light infantry, and the regiment of the municipal guard of Paris, had taken the place of the grenadiers of the Albert brigade in Heinrichsdorf. Dumbrowski’s Polish division had joined Dupas’s division, and guarded the artillery. Napoleon left to General Grouchy the duty of which he had already so ably acquitted himself, that of defending the plain of Heinrichsdorf. To the dragoons and the cuirassiers commanded by that general he added the light cavalry of Generals Beaumont and Colbert, to assist him to rid himself of the Cossacks. Lastly, having two more divisions of dragoons to dispose of, he placed that of General Latour Maubourg, reinforced by the Dutch cuirassiers, behind the corps of Marshal Ney, and that of General La Houssaye, reinforced by the Saxon cuirassiers, behind Victor’s corps. The French in this imposing order amounted to no fewer than eighty thousand men. The order was repeated to the left not to advance, but merely to keep back the Russians till the success of the right was decided. Napoleon required that before the troops recommenced firing, they should wait for the signal from a battery of twenty pieces of cannon placed above Posthenen.