Excerpts from Chapter 10: THE GUARD STRIKES BACK

A crucial decision - the Young Guard's night action - 'he was the worst man I've known, and the cruellest'- Eugène refuses to surrender - Colonel Klicki has his wits about him - the Iron Marshal loses his bâton - 'a snail, carrying my all on my back' - 'how about some apricots in brandy?' - the Young Guard's heroic battle - Davout breaks through - François saves the Eagle - 390 heroic Dutchmen - a courteous captor - massacre of the wounded - Kutusov talks to Intendant Puybusque - 'the baggage taken was enormous'

Having failed to exploit Napoleon's five-day halt at Smolensk, Kutusov is belatedly lining up some 90,000 men 'including 500 guns, well-mounted like their cavalry in strength' along the low hills south of the Krasnoië road. A totally out-matching force, that is, to cut off IV, I and III Corps.

Napoleon is faced with a crucial choice. What shall the Guard do? Abandon the rest of the army, hurry on to Orsha and seize the Dnieper bridges? Or make a stand that'll give Eugène, Davout, perhaps even Ney, a chance to catch up? Not once during the campaign has the Guard 'given' (donné), as the expression goes. Some people like von Kalckreuth are even wondering whether by dint of almost never fighting its pampered regiments haven't become 'mere parade ground troops'. Their 'only achievement in this campaign', Hencken thinks, has been 'to impress the enemy' - for instance at Borodino. Even there it hadn't been unleashed. This is why the Young and Old Guards together still have upwards of 20,000 men, and it's against just such a moment as this they've been conserved. They're going to teach the Russians a lesson.

Evidently Napoleon's plan is to stake all on a lightning blow with the entire Guard:

'Drouot's strong batteries had been placed in position, and everything was prepared for battle and he didn't doubt he'd succeed, believing, as in happier times, that his luck would hold. He was full of confidence in his veterans, whom he'd doubtless been keeping in reserve for just such a desperate venture.'

But prudence prevails. Caulaincourt sees him return to what, apparently, has been his original plan. A two-phase operation, more efficacious and less risky, especially in view of the hazards of a night operation. 'There's nothing more terrible than a battle at night,' Bourgogne knows, 'when fatal mistakes can often occur.'

That evening Napoleon sends for Rapp. Tells him:

'"We've Russian infantry quite close. So far they've not been so audacious. At midnight you must attack them at bayonet-point. Surprise them, and take away their taste for coming so close to my headquarters."'

Rapp has all the Young Guard placed at his disposal. He returns to his headquarters 'a miserable house in the town, thatched with straw' and is just about to plan the movement when Narbonne appears; 'His Majesty doesn't want you to get yourself killed in this affair,' he tells him.

Mortier, the Young Guard's commander, is evidently more expendable. And it's he who's to take over in chief, while Roguet executes the actual movement. On guard outside Roguet's headquarters with fifteen Fusiliers-Grenadiers, Sergeant Bourgogne is congratulating himself on his 'luck to be under cover and near a fire we'd just lit' and has just put his men 'into a stable' when everything 'turns out quite otherwise. The regiment is to take part in the night operation, together with Roguet's Grenadiers, the Fusiliers-Chasseurs, Voltigeurs and Tirailleurs. Although the Young Guard includes many veterans like Bourgogne and Paul Bourgoing of the 5th Tirailleurs, very few of its 18-year-old conscripts have ever been under fire before; and en route for Moscow thousands, for instance from the Flankers, have died of sheer physical exhaustion. But at 9 p.m. comes the orer to

'surprise and seize the villages of Chirkowa, Maliewo and Bouianowo, about three miles along the Smolensk-Krasnoië road and occupied over a distance of 400 toises [about 800 yards] by sizeable forces of infantry, artillery and Cossacks.'

'At 11 p.m..' Bourgogne goes on, 'a few detachments were sent ahead to find out exactly where the Russians were. We Could see their campfires in the two villages they were holding.' At about 1 a.m. Roguet comes to him and says 'in his Gascon accent:

'"Scrgeant, leave a corporal and four men here in charge of my quarters and the few things I still have left. Yourself, go back to the bivouac and rejoin the regiment with your guard." To tell the truth I was buch much disgusted at this order. I don't mean I was afraid of fighting, but I terribly begrudged the time lost for sleep.'

It's a pitch-black night. But Roguet's able to adjudge the enemy's position 'by the direction of his fires. The villages,' he'll recall, 'crowned a fine plateau behind a deep ravine. I formed up three columns of attack.' Some time between 1 and 2 a.m. they get the order 'En avant! Marche!'

'We began to move forward in three columns - the Fusiliers-Grenadiers and the Fusiliers-Chasseurs in the centre, the Tirailleur and Voltigeur companies to right and left. The cold wits its intense as ever. With the snow up to our knees we had the greatest difficulty in marching across the fields.'

Trudging through it in the end of his rank Bourgogne hears several of his men muttering that they hope this'll be the end of their sufferings - they can't struggle on any longer. Roguet goes on: 'Noiselessly, the units to right and left got as close as they could to the enemy masses. then, at a signal given by me in the centre, we, without firing, flung ourselves on the Russians at bayonet-point.'

Evidently the surprise isn't complete, for Bourgogne sees some Russian units have had time to form up:

'On our right a long line of infantry opened a murderous fire on us. On our left their heavy cavalry was made up of cuirassiers in white uniforms with black cuirasses. After half an hour of this, we found ourselves in the midst of the Russians.'

Roguet:

'Immediately the two wings engaged toward Bouianowo and Chirkowa. In the middle of the night it was so intensely cold that the Russians were exposed even in their shelters.'

The Fusiliers-Grenadiers, it seems, have no experience of Russian 'resurrection men'.' As the Young and Middle Guard move forward they pass over several hundred 'dead or seriously wounded' Russians lying on the snow:

'These men now jumped up and fired at us front behind, so we had to about-face to defend ourselves. Unluckily for them, a battalion in the rear came up from behind, so that they were taken between two fires. fit five minutes not one of them was left alive.'

But neither are the Fusiliers-Grenadiers by any means unscathed:

'Poor Béloque was the first man we lost. At Smolensk he'd foretold his own death. A ball struck his head, and killed him on the spot. He was a great favourite with us all, and in spite of the indifference we were now feeling about everything, we were really sorry to lose him.'

'The fleeing Russians,' Roguet is noticing, 'though surprised and not knowing where to defend themselves' are 'moving from their right to their left.' As for the cuirassiers to Bourgogne's left,

'though they howled like wolves to excite one another, they didn't dare attack. The artillery was in the centre, pouring grapeshot at us. All this didn't in the least hold up our impetus. In spite of the firing and the number of our men who were falling, we charged on into their camp, where we made rightful havoc with our bayonets.'

By now, Bourgogne goes on,

'the Russians who were stationed farther off had had time to arm themselves and come to their comrades' help. This they did by setting fire to their camp and the two nearby villages. We fought by the light of the fires. The right- and left-hand columns had passed us, and entered the enemy's camp at its two ends, whereas our column had taken it in the middle.'

Divided and in disorder, the Russians have only had time to throw down their arms and fling their guns into the lake at the head of the Krasnoië stream. And Roguet, judging it unwise to pursue the mass of fugitives too far in the dark, orders a cease-fire. But to order it in the darkness and confusion is one thing, to obtain it another. By now the Fusiliers-Grenadiers, in one of the burning villages the Russians are trying to get out of but can't, and 'blinded by the glare of the fires' have lost all idea of their whereabouts. And when some Russians who're on the verge of being roasted alive in a burning farmhouse offer to surrender, the Fusiliers-Grenadiers' adjutant-major, too, orders the cease-fire. But French blood is up, and a wounded sapper, 'Sitting if) the snow all stained with his blood', refuses:

'He even asked for more cartridges when he'd fired his own. The adjutant-major, seeing his orders disregarded, himself came over with a message from the colonel. But our men, now frantic, took no notice, and still went on firing.'

The trapped Russians, no less desperate, attempt a sortie,

'but our men forced them back. Unable to endure their situation, they made a second attempt. But scarcely had a few of their number reached the yard than the building collapsed on the rest, and more than 40 perished in the flames, those in the yard being crushed its well. When this was over we collected together our wounded and with loaded weapons gathered round the colonel, waiting for daybreak. All this time the rattle of musketry wits going on continuously all round us, mingled with the groans of the wounded and dying.'

In the grey dawn Bourgogne helps a dying Russian to a more comfortable position. The man had tried to kill him, but in the nick of time he'd shot and badly wounded him, after which he'd been run through by adjutant-major Roustan's sword:

'All the houses in the village and the entire Russian camp were covered with half-burnt corpses. The Tirailleurs and Voltigeurs had lost more men than we had. After this bloody contest the Russians abandoned their positions, and we remained on the battlefield, but all the time staying on the qui-vive, unable either to get it moment's rest or even warm ourselves.'

Then, in the Fusiliers-Grenadiers' freezing bivouac, something very odd happens:

'After daybreak, while we were all talking together, Adjutant-Major Delaître came up. He was the worst man I've ever known and the cruellest, doing wrong for the mere pleasure of doing it. I don't think there was a man in the regiment who wouldn't have rejoiced to see him carried off by a bullet. We called him Peter the Cruel.'

But now Delaître begins to talk, and

'greatly to our surprise, seemed much troubled by Béloque's tragic death. "Poor Béloque!" he said. "I'm very sorry I ever behaved badly to him."Just then a voice said in my ear (whose voice I never knew): "He'll die very soon." Others heard it too. He seemed sincerely sorry for all his nasty behaviour to those under him, especially to us NCOs.'

It's this shock that is enabling Napoleon to wait for Eugènec, for Davout, and - hopefully - even for Ney. It has also served notice on Kutusov that the name he's so afraid of is still really to be feared. The Imperial Guard, at least, can still bite back.

At crack of dawn IV Corps - 'scarcely 4,000 men under arms' - but 'in hope of being better off tomorrow night' - makes haste to leave its icy bivouac at Lubnia. All Griois now possesses is his sole surviving change of shirt and, as a last possible recourse, a precious loaf of white bread given him at Smolensk by General Desvaux, commander of the Guard Horse Artillery. Cesare de Laugier's doing his best to keep up with the slowly trudging column, when

'a man, passing close at a canter, knocks me over, and in my fall my cold sores open up. There I lie, stunned by the shock, mad with rage and realising how powerless I am, unable to stir. Two Italian soldiers who've fallen behind pick me up and lay me on the bank to the right of the road. I feel all my blood freezing, see death approaching, and gradually lose consciousness.'

But his luck holds. A Frenchman named Dalstein, also a captain-adjutant-major and serving with the Italians, sees him lying there; brings him to; encourages him; forces him to get up and come along with him.

All that morning IV Corps marches slowly on without meeting any particular obstacles. 'The weather was fine,' Griois goes on,

'the cold less keen, and the still, despite the pallor of its rays, was cheering up the snow-covered countryside a little. It was about midday. I'd dismounted at a place where the debris of carriages, weapons and effects showed there'd been a recent hurrah, and while walking onwards I was running my eye over some papers I'd picked up, When two or three roundshot whistled past my ears. They came from a little wood, not far to our left. We saw the puffs of smoke but as yet no unit had appeared. At this unexpected attack everyone rallied to the nearest platoons - but just at the moment no one was expecting to run into the enemy. There was little order in our column, which was widely spread out over the terrain.'

Griois immediately jumps on to his horse and joins Eugène, 'who wits quite a way ahead of his troops and waiting for them', accompanied, Labaume says,

'by his staff, some companies of sappers and some Sailors of the Royal Guard who were going on a couple of miles ahead of the divisions.'

Soon Cossacks appear from the woods and cover the high ground to right and left. The gunfire multiplies. Then - Labaume gives the time as 3 p.m. -

'the Viceroy catches sight of the disbanded and isolated men who've been marching ahead of him and occupying the road for a great distance running back. They're being attacked by Cossacks.'

Among those who come galloping back is General Count Ornano, now without any of his Bavarian cavalry, but who's 'been wounded or thrown off his horse'. They'd found the road barred by a body of troops. Eugène turns his horse, gallops back to his main body, halts its column and, haranguing it, explains what a critical position it's in. Immediately, says Cesare de Laugier,

'all who've a weapon, though devoured by fever or annihilated by the cold, come and take their place in the ranks. And the Viceroy deploys his battalions.'

He also does what he did at the Wop, but this time with greater difficulty: namely, scrapes together some ranks of mounted officers to look like cavalry, von Muraldt among them:

'But a few roundshot falling among us broke us up. After which, in open order. we rode over the snowy icy field, trying to find it hollow to protect us from the enemy's fire.'

Meanwhile chief-of-staff Guilleminot has assembled into companies all the advance party of isolated men who still have weapons, so that together with his sappers and sailors they add up to 1,200 men. 'The disbanded men, administrators and even the women' - evidently some haven't been left behind at Smolensk - 'come pressing in on them from all around. Superior officers who have no men are seen proudly joining the ranks.' The sailors insist on being commanded by one of their own officers, 'but every other platoon is commanded by a general'. One against ten, they're being bombarded by Russian guns and musketry from the surrounding high ground.

What to do? To press on is impossible. After a council of war, Guilleminot, seeing no sign of the main body yet coming to his aid, decides to fall back on to it. Forms up his little force in square - and marches straight through the intervening Russians!

'At first the Russians, stupefied, open up a path for them. Then call out to them to halt. Their only reply is resolutely to continue their march in a disdainful silence, only presenting the points of their weapons. Whereupon all the enemy fire opens up on them at once; and after a few paces half this heroic column litters the ground. The remainder pursue their way in good order - a truly incredible outcome for a force composed of such heterogeneous elements.'

They're welcomed with the. Italians' joyful shouts. Seeing that the road passes through a wood, Eugène, to fend off the Cossacks, orders Guillminot to collect the disbanded men in it, together with his sapper companies and the marines. At that moment, according to Laugier and Ségur,

'a Russian officer, Colonel Prince Kudacheff, Miloradovitch's ADC, preceded by a trumpeter sounding for a parley, comes forward towards the Viceroy's groulp. The Emperor and the Imperial Guard, he tells them, have been defeated the previous eveing:

'"You're surrounded by 20,000 Russians, supported by Kutusov's entire army," he says. "Nothing remains for you but to surrender on the honourable conditions Miloradovitch proposes."

'Already several officers, to prevent the Viceroy being recognised, are going forward to answer. But he thrusts them aside:

'"Hurry back to where you've come from," he tells the spokesman, and tell whoever's sent you that if he has 20,000 men, we've got 80,000!" And the Russian, at the sight of this handful of such proud men, astounded at such a reply, retired.'

'At the sound of the guns" Griois goes on,

'the troops hastened their steps, and as they turned up the prince formed them up in line of battle. Detached, my gunless gunners act as tirailleurs and draw up the guns which still remained to IV Corps - i.e., the two or three belonging to the Broussier division, served by my regiment, and six or eight of the Italian Guard's.'

Meanwhile Eugène has placed the Royal Guard in the centre of IV Corps, the 2nd [14th] Division (comprising what's left of the 2nd and 4th Battalions of the Spanish Joseph-Napoleon Regiment) to the left of the road, and the 1st [13th] Division to the right, with Pino's [15th] Division in reserve, all in squares. Attacked first by cavalry, then bombarded by a much stronger artillery than he can muster - by now Eugène only has two guns left - he 'sends the Royal Guard to attack the Russians' right flank'. Repulsed by 'terrible' grapeshot, decimated and forced to retire, it again forms square to drive off an attack by dragoons against its left flank. The Russian masses are far too great to be fought off without artillery. Even the two Italian guns only manage to fire a few rounds 'for lack of ammunition'. Whereupon Eugène 'orders [his ADC] Adjutant-Commandant Del Fante, followed by 200 volunteers, to advance along the highway to rejoin and cover the retreating 1st Division.' Del Fante succeeds, but falls, seriously wounded:

'M. de Villebranche, an auditor of the Council of State, seeing him get up all covered in blood, offers him his arm and helps him drag himself to a wood where there are some disbanded men. At that moment it roundshot hits the brave Del Finite, shatters his shoulders and decapitates M. de Villebranche.'

All his men are massacred. 'As for the gunners, they let themselves be killed at their guns rather than surrender.' Having run into such a wall of fire, Labaume says, Eugène is forced

'to pretend to wish to prolong the fighting on our left by re-animating and uniting the 14th [Broussier's] Division. And upon the Russians concentrating the greater part of their forces to roll it up, the Prince ordered all who remained to profit by the failing daylight to slip away to the right with the Royal Guard.'

Despite the Russians' huge numerical superiority and considerable losses, IV Corps flushes them out of the woods.

'We gained ground against them. But new enemies appeared, outflanking its on all sides. Their crossfire and the charges of their cavalry, which we had none of our own to oppose, caused us to suffer a lot.'

But November days are short, and by 4 p.m. the light is failing:

'We kept up the fight until nightfall without being driven in. It was high time. One more hour of daylight and we'd probably have been wiped out.'

All this happens so near to Krasnoië that Napoleon, 'uneasy at IV Corps' delayed arrival' but hearing the gunfire, has ordered his ADC General Durosnel to take 600 men - two squadrons of the Polish Guard Lancers and a battalion of Old Guard light infantry, with two guns, and facilitate Eugène's breakthroug. Just outside Krasnoië Durosnel runs into Cossacks and sees masses of Russian cavalry 'marching to the left of the road to manoeuvre more easily'. Forms square. Fires it few shots. Sends off three of his Polish lancers to circumvent the Krasnoië ravine and tell Eugène to do the same. And marches on. But then he too runs into such massive opposition that, realising he's done all he can, he beats a retreat back to Krasnoië:

'The Emperor was perturbed at the thought of part of his Guard being in action and cut off from the main body of the army.'

Durosnel gets back just as Latour-Maubourg and all that's left of the cavalry is about to set off to his relief. Delighted in this detachment's safe return, Napoleon invites Durosnel to supper.

...

1812: The Great Retreat: Table of Content

Published by Greenhill Books. © Greenhill Books. All rights reserved. Reproduced on MagWeb with permission of the publisher.

Magazine articles and contents are copyrighted property of the respective publication. All copyrights, trademarks, and other rights are held by the respective magazines, companies, and/or licensors, with all rights reserved. MagWeb, its contents, and HTML coding are © Copyright 1999 by Coalition Web, Inc.

This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com