Napoleon in Russia

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter eight of the Story of Napoleon the Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
Patrick Seville. Chapter eight Napoleon in Russia. On the tenth
of March eighteen eleven, a little son was born to Napoleon,

(00:21):
who at once gave him the title of King of Rome,
with a son to follow him upon the throne. Napoleon
seemed to be at the very height of his glory.
Now begins the finest epoch of my reign, he said.
At forty one, he seemed to have the world at
his feet. Really, his doubtful had begun. The people of

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Russia had found Napoleon's orders not to trade with Britain
very hard, and the Csar became less and less inclined
to make his people keep them. As more and more
British goods were allowed to pass into Russia, Napoleon grew
more and more angry. They were other reasons for quarreling,
and at last war broke out between the two rival emperors,

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who at Tilsit had sworn to be friends. Napoleon decided
utterly to crush his great rival and to force all
Europe over which he had control to help him. So
he gathered a mighty army six hundred thousand strong from
all states of Germany, from Prussia, Austria, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Poland, Switzerland,

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even from Spain and Portugal. Soldiers came to swell the host,
which poured across the Niemen and three great bodies. But
it was a barren, empty country into which they passed.
No enemy even awaited them. Only a few horsemen watched
as they came. Why do you come into Russia? They asked?

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To conquer you, was the reply, and the horsemen galloped
silently away and disappeared into the forest beyond. With the
French army came an enormous baggage train. But Napoleon had
so long used his armies to believe that they would
find all they needed in the countries they invaded that
this part of the army was very badly managed. Almost

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at once, the soldiers began to suffer from hunger as
Napoleon advanced into the country. The Russians retreated day after
day along dusty, sandy roads, past burned and deserted villages
and towns, through dreary, silent, barren plains to retreat and
chase went on. The air was hot and close, the

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sun shone pitilessly. The men marched wearily, for they were
parched with thirst, and always hungry. They had little to
eat except what they could find by scouring the country
far and wide. There was much fierce fighting by the way.
One of these fights, called the Battle of Borodino, is
the deadliest battle of all Napoleon's wars, and it is

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known as the General's Battle, for twenty two Russian and
eighteen French generals were among the slain. At last, one
beautiful autumn morning, about a week after the Battle of Borodino,
Napoleon and his army caught the first sight of Moscow
from the top of a little hill called the Hill
of Salvation, which overlooks it. Moscow, Moscow. The cry ran

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down the lines to the weary men. Moscow was the
haven of rest towards which they had been struggling those
hundreds and hundreds of dreary miles. Now it lay before them,
glittering white in the sunshine, with its many colored roofs,
gilded domes, spires and turrets. The Asiatic town of countless churches. Moscow,

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the holy, cried Napoleon, reining in his horse. There at
last is the famous town. It was time. But when
Napoleon and his army marched through the streets, they were
silent and deserted. Here and there a timid or scowling
face might be seen, but the streets echoed with a
hollow sound, and the empty houses stared down upon the

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soldiers with closed shutters, like sightless eyes. For days, every
one who could lead the city had been hurrying away,
and the roads had been full of a constant stream
of clattering carriages and rumbling carts, laden with people and
their goods. The night before Napoleon had entered, the troops

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also had gone. All night long, the steady tramp tramp
had sounded through the streets. The great military stores had
been burned or destroyed, the prisons opened and the prisoners
set free, the fire engines made useless, and the great city,
mostly built of wood, left to the mercy of the

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rabble and the foe. Scarcely two hours after the last
soldier had gone, the French arrived, and when they found
the city silent and empty, they broke into the deserted homes,
robbing and wrecking them. Decking themselves in ridiculous finery, drinking
wildly until the army became a drunken mob. But at

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last the noise of laughter and corraus ceased, and the
city sank to rest. The weary soldiers, who for many
weeks had slept under the open sky and on the
bare ground, slept this night and splendid palaces, on soft
couches and wrapped in silken covers. But in the middle
of the night the cry of fire arose. Soon the

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city was bright with flames, and morning dawned before they
were put out. But again, when night came, the fire
broke out, and not in one place only, but in
many From every quarter north, south, east, and west, fire
burst until the city was a blazing sea of flame.

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A strong wind arose, blowing the flames now here now there,
till palaces and churches, shops and houses were wrapped in
fire and sank together, and piles of charred in blackened dashes.
For two days, Napoleon gloomily watched the fearful destruction. Then,
yielding to the entreaties of his officers, he rode from

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the burning town through a whirlwind of flame, a raging
hail of sparks and rolling clouds of smoke. He took
refuge and a palace belonging to the Tsar, which was
beyond the city. But even there the heat of the
flames was so great that the stones were hot to touch.
Whenever the fire seemed to die down in one place,

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it kindled again in another. But at last, when four
fifths of the city was a blackened ruin, when there
was little left to burn, the flame ceased. Napoleon then returned,
and among the ruins he awaited in answer to a
letter which he had written to the Tsar by the
light of the burning city. It was a letter proposing

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terms of peace, but no answer to it ever came.
Day after day passed. At first there had been food
enough for the great army, splendid wines and dainty fare,
such as they were little accustomed to, but these soon
gave out. Now of bread there was none, and only

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horse flesh for meat. The Russians had swept the country bare.
It was in Vain that the French soldiers scoured it
in search of food. It was in Vain that Napoleon
issued proclamations to the peasants, telling them that they would
be well paid for anything that they might bring. Their
hatred of the French was such that not all the

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gold in the country could tempt them to Moscow. They
would rather have cut off the right hands than have
helped Napoleon in the slightest The autumn had been unusually warm.
The sunny weather had lasted late, but at length it
came to an end. A slight snow fell as a
warning that the fearful Russian winter was about to begin.

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It is a winter of keen cold, such as the
French had no knowledge of. They were ill fed and
worse clothed, and in no way fit to endure it. Again,
Napoleon wrote to Alexander again, no answer was returned. Then,
seeing the uselessness and danger of trying to spend the

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winter in a barren country hundreds and hundreds of miles
from his own kingdom, Napoleon gave the order to march back.
Napoleon had to face defeat, yet even to himself he
would not own it. Moscow has been found not to
be a good military post, he writes. It is necessary

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for the army to breathe in a wider space. The
sick and wounded were left behind. Was not to burden
the army. But every soldier was laden with booty, gold
and silver plate, silk and gems were piled in wheelbarrows.
Beautiful carriages were laden with all kinds of spoil, and

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a train of Russian prisoners marched bowed beneath heavy loads.
So the march began. But soon the road was strewn
with these bunded spoils. Hunger, fearful, gnawing hunger, took hold
upon the men. There was nothing to eat but horse flesh.
When a horse died, the men fell upon it like

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hungry wolves, tearing it to pieces. They were ready to
kill each other for a few potatoes or a handful
of rye. All order and discipline was lost. Many broke
from the ranks and wandered about, seeking vainly for food,
perished on the barren steps, harassed by cossacks. Their wretched

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army still pressed forward. Then came the snow, and with
it bitter cold. The snow fell and fell, blotting out
the road, blotting out every landmark. Blinded by the whirling flakes,
chilled to the bone by cutting winds, the men wandered on,
hardly knowing whither. Numbed and frozen, Unable to crawl farther,

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many fell, and the white snow became their winding sheet.
At night, perhaps they bivouacked, and in the morning a
circle of white mounds alone told where they had lain
down to sleep their last sleep. Pursuing Russians killed those
who straggled behind. Often they had no strength to resist.

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Sometimes even they had no arms, for their muskets would
drop from their frozen fingers and be left in the snow.
Yet through all the misery and cold and famine, a
few lived and struggled on Smolunsk. Smolunsk, they said that
was their goal, the paradise of rest and plenty, to

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which they pressed. But when Smolunsk was at last reached,
they found neither arrest nor plenty. There. The town was
as much a ruin as Moscow had been. The stores
of food and clothes were exhausted. After a few days halt,
the retreat continued. Near the town of Borisov, the river

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Beresina had to be crossed by two frail bridges, and
here one of the most terrible scenes of the war
took place. While the French crossed, they were attacked by
the Russians. As men, frantic with terror, crushed onto the bridges.
One of them gave way, and all upon it were
thrown into the half frozen river below. Over the second bridge,

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the French now rushed madly, trampling and killing each other
in their haste. Shot down in crowds by the Russian bullets.
Shrieks of terror and pain filled the air, mingling with
the crash and thunder of the Russian guns and the
savage chairs of the Russian soldiers. Twelve thousand at least
perished at this fearful crossing. The rest continued their march

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of agony towards Vilna. Ten days later, a miserable, ragged,
limping crowd crept into that town. Remove all strangers from Vilna,
Napoleon had written. The army is not beautiful to look
upon just now. But ere the ragged remnant of the
once grand army had reached Vilna, Napoleon had deserted it.

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He had heard that there was a rising in Paris,
so leaving his soldiers to their misery. Wrapped in furs,
he hurried as fast as horses could carry him homeward. Meanwhile,
the miserable specter of an army staggered on, chased by
the pitiless Cossacks. At last, in the middle of December,

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they crossed the Niemen and found a refuge for a
time in and near Kronicksburg. Of all the magnificent army
that had set out to conquer Russia, not twenty thousand
famine stricken men returned. End of Chapter eight.