Excerpts from Chapter 21: THE EMPEROR QUITS

"They danced while others froze' - a bulletin that doesn't lie - 'Sire, I'm old. Take me with you' - 'One must always trust ones luck - 'Kill me rather than let me be taken' - a hermetically sealed carriage and its escort - 'they'd been dancing while others froze' - 'the Emperor was shivering as with the argue'

Now IHQ's making for Molodeczno, near the junction with the Minsk-Vilna highway. This day, 2 December, is it double anniversary - of Napoleon's self-coronation, and of Austerlitz, that great victory only eight years ago which had 'rolled up the map of Europe'. But this freezing day no one feels like celebrating either. Left behind at Sedlichë to communicate with Victor, Castellane places himself under a tree, where

'all day, near a campfire on the highway, I've had the spectacle of the stragglers of all nations, all arms, most of whom have thrown away their muskets, the men of the Old Guard excepted. They're keeping theirs. All this forms a close column of twelve to fifteen men abreast.'

From a disgruntled Marshal Victor, when he turns up, he hears how IX and II Corps had taken up position to protect the stragglers its they'd passed through the narrow passage across the swamps near Ilya, and how the same disorder had reigned as at the Berezina. His colleague D'Aremberg has been sent on the same mission; but somehow they've missed each other. At 7 p.m., after passing the Vilna-Minsk junction on foot, Castellane gets to Molodeczno 'and the Emperor's headquarters, set up in it house which almost has the air of a proper château.' Molodeczno is quite a large town, but most of its timber houses, 'following our men's praiseworthy habit', are already in flames. As for the château,

'standing by itself to the left on some high ground at the entrance to the bridges, it's a fine timber manor house, the property of Count Oginski. The King of Naples had his campfire a few paces away from us.'

The sheet ice has prevented no fewer than twenty couriers from coming further. Fourteen of the leather dispatch-cases all, Fain notes (sent between 1 and 19 November, Caulaincourt sees), are from Paris; the rest 'from all along the line'. They don't only contain official correspondence. Castellane, who hasn't had any letters from home for a long time and has 'been deprived of news from Paris since Krasnoië, now gets nine. Several others, he gathers from their contents, must have been captured by Cossacks.

The most important dispatches are from Maret, at Vilna. Some report on Schwarzenberg's now useless advance. More relevantly they tell Napoleon that twelve battalions of Loison's [34th] division had reached Vilna on 21 November and been ordered forward to Ochmiana, the last town before it, to cover the last stage of the army's retreat. Loison himself is still at Königsberg, organising the rest of his scattered division.' To send forward Loison's untried Neapolitan and Bavarian conscripts from the Confederation of the Rhine has been Hogendorp's idea. And Napoleon immediately tries to inhibit it. Writes to Maret:

'"The 34th Division's movement must be stopped. If it has left, how shall we feed it? It will become disbanded, like the rest of the army."'

Some of his ministers he declares himself pleased with. Others not. Particularly not - indeed very far fron pleased - with his ambassador-extraordinary at Warsaw, Abbé D.-G.-F. de Pradt who - he's been telling Caulaincourt over and over again - has ruined all his plans. Where, for instance, are the 'Polish Cossacks'? There quite simply aren't any. And it's all Pradt's fault! The fact is, however, as Maret writes, the Grand Duchy's finances are exhausted/ So is Lithuania. And Caulaincourt, listening no doubt to Napoleon's comments as he rips open the leather dispatch-cases and glances at their dates of dispatch, realises that from now on

'we'd have to make do without all the other supports the Emperor had been counting on. Obviously neither Vilna, nor even the Niemen, would be the end of the enemy's retreat, and therefore of our troubles either. The Emperor busied himself reading his dispatches from France, and everyone was glad to have news front home. In Paris there'd been some worry about news from the army being interrupted, but no notion of the extent of our disasters.'

Also shivering at Molodeczno is a M. de Forget, Councillor of State, with the ministerial portfolio. Napoleon questions him on the state of the roads, etc. Is anything known of the army's catastrophe? Nothing? Well, that's just as well. The main thing now is that the Austrian, Prussian and American ambassadors who've been at Vilna all this time are on no account to be allowed to witness the débâcle. And an urgent message is sent off to Maret to clear the diplomatic corps out of Vilna post-haste.

Ever since the Berezina, Caulaincourt's been aware that napoleon's preparing a bulletin. And this evening at Molodeczno he dictates its text. For an Imperial Bulletin the 29th is quite exceptionally candid. It dates the catastrophe from 6 November ('until which time the weather was perfect ... the army's movement had been carried out with greatest success'), and goes on to describe how '30,000 horses perished in a few days, those of the cavalry, artillery and the Train were perishing every night, not by hundreds but by thousands', how much of the artillery and 'munitions of war and mouth' had had to be abandoned for lack of teams; and how, as the result of the sudden cold of 7 November, 'this army, so handsome on the 6th, was already very different by the 14th', and had been unable to risk a battle for lack of artillery:

'"The men seemed stunned, lost their gaiety, their good humour, and dreamed only of misfortunes and catastrophes. The enemy, seeing on the roads the traces of this terrible calamity that was striking the French army, tried to profit from it. He enveloped all the columns with his Cossacks who, like the Arabs of the desert, carried off the trains and vehicles that were following on."'

In sum, the largest army ever raised in Europe no longer exists. What a shock it's going to be for the Parisians! For France!

Already, yesterday evening, Castellane's friend Quartermaster Anatole de Montesquiou has been sent on his way to Paris with eight captured Russian flags and orders to everywhere spread news of the victory won on the banks of the Berezina and insert it instantly in the Vilna and Mainz newspapers. Above all he's to tell Marie-Louise all this verbally, before the terrible news becomes public:

'the Emperor's idea was to prepare public opinion. He was determined to hide none of his disasters.'

Boulart's among those who profit from the courier's departure to send a letter to his wife.

But Napoleon has reached an even more important decision - to leave the army. He tells Caulaincourt:

'"With things as they are, it's only from theTuileries I can keep my grip on Europe." He was counting on being able to set out within 48 hours. He was eager to start, so as to forestall the news of our disasters.'

As soon as contact's been made with Loison's fresh division, based at Vilna - where 'as he saw it the army would no longer be at risk' - he'll be off. Caulaincourt is dubious. Obviously Napoleon still has no real idea of the completeness of the catastrophe. But when he says he doubts that the army'll be able to make a stand at Vilna, Napoleon merely replies: "You're laughing at me!"

On another important point, however, he affects to listen to Caulaincourt's advice. To whom should he hand over supreme command - Murat or Eugène? Caulaincourt, in his blunt frank way that so often gives offence, repeats what he's already said several times before. The army has more confidence in Eugène. Murat, though a hero on the battlefield, isn't generally thought to have either the force of character, the sense of order or the foresight that'll be needed to save or re-organise what's left of the army. People are even accusing him of

'having instigated His Majesty to undertake the Moscow expedition and of having lost the magnificent cavalry force there'd been at the start of the campaign.'

Well, that's true, Napoleon agrees. But a king can't serve under a viceroy; so for reasons of rank it's not possible for him to hand over to Eugène. As Berthier, Caulaincourt adds, agrees.

'Certain other remarks he'd made earlier, and which I recalled because they recurred during this conversation, gave me the idea that he'd prefer to leave to his brother-in-law the honour of rallying the army, and that he was loth to let his stepson have the credit for this further achievement,'

a typical instance, Caulaincourt thinks to himself, of Napoleon's distrust of anyone who enjoys a well-deserved personal reputation. His impending departure, Napoleon goes on, is to be kept secret for the tie being. ...

1812: The Great Retreat: Table of Content

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