Through Russian Snows (27 page)

After having finally arranged these matters, he started north with
Frank, furnished with an order to postmasters on the road to supply them
instantly with relays of horses. Travelling night and day without a
stop, they arrived at Smolensk on the day before the French attacked the
place. Sir Robert had expected to find the Emperor here, but learnt that
he was still at St. Petersburg. Being personally acquainted with all the
Russian generals he was received with the greatest courtesy, and at once
placed himself at the disposal of the commander-in-chief, while Frank
was introduced to the members of the staff.

Sir Robert Wilson found that a very grave state of things was
prevailing. The generals were in open dissension with Barclay for having
suffered the enemy to overrun so many provinces, and for not making any
dispositions to defend the line of the Dnieper.

Next morning the Englishmen were awakened by a roar of musketry. They
had been furnished with horses, and, dressing hastily, mounted, and
joined the commander-in-chief's staff, which was taking up its position
on the hill, whence a general view could be obtained of what was passing
on the other side of the river. An aide-de-camp was on the point of
starting as they rode up to ascertain the exact position of things in
the town, and Sir Robert ordered Frank to accompany him. Frank had been
introduced to the aide-de-camp on the previous day, and as they dashed
down towards the bridge, he said:

"The fighting seems very heavy."

"It will be heavier before they take Smolensk," the Russian said. "There
are 20,000 men in the town, and reinforcements can be sent across as
required. At present the fighting is in the suburbs, but they won't
drive us out of them as quickly as they expect."

After crossing the bridge they made their way to the headquarters of
General Doctorow, and were at once shown in. The Russian saluted: "The
commander-in-chief sends his compliments to you, general, and wishes to
know how things are going on, and whether you need reinforcements. He
desires that you should send messengers every ten minutes acquainting
him with the progress of affairs."

"All goes well at present. The troops are everywhere doing their duty.
As yet we need no reinforcements. They are making but little way in any
of the suburbs, but of course their attack is not yet fully developed."

"Allow me to introduce to your Excellency this British officer, Mr.
Wyatt, aide-de-camp to General Wilson, who arrived in our camp yesterday
afternoon as British commissioner."

"You have come at an opportune moment, sir, to see fighting. If you had
come sooner you would have seen nothing but running away. If you would
like to make a tour of the walls to see what is going on, an officer
shall accompany you."

Frank accepted the invitation with thanks. He had nothing at present to
report more than the aide-de-camp would take back, and he knew that Sir
Robert would be glad of further particulars. He therefore asked him to
tell Sir Robert why he had stayed, and at once proceeded to the walls,
accompanied by an officer of Doctorow's staff. From there, little could
be seen of the fighting. The musketry fire, indeed, had almost ceased,
and the French could be seen retiring up the hill, where dense masses of
troops were drawn up. Returning to the general's quarters he mounted and
rode back to the commander-in-chief's staff.

"The affair has scarcely begun yet," he said to Sir Robert, "but the
whole of the French army is drawn up in line of battle, and, I should
say, is about to assault the town in full force."

For some hours there was a lull, but about mid-day heavy masses of
troops were seen descending from the French positions, and as they
approached the suburbs a roar of musketry broke out. Twice in the course
of the next two hours Frank was sent down into the town. He reported
that, although resisting with the greatest obstinacy, the Russians were
being driven out of the suburbs. Just as he returned the second time,
Sir Robert Wilson, who was examining the enemy's position with a
telescope, observed that ten batteries of artillery were making their
way up the steep hill on the other side of the river. He at once
reported this to the general, adding: "They will very speedily knock the
bridges into pieces and isolate the garrison altogether. But I think,
sir," he added, "if you place some batteries on the hill on this side,
you will take them in flank. The two hills are both about the same
height, and they will be completely exposed to your fire."

"Very well," General Barclay replied, "I will order eight batteries up
there at once, and you will oblige me if you will accompany them and
indicate the best position for them to take up. Colonel Stellitz, you
will at once carry the order to the artillery, and request the officer
in command of the batteries to post them as General Wilson may advise."

Sir Robert and the colonel, followed by Frank, at once rode off. Just as
they reached the artillery, the French battery opened fire. Exclamations
of rage burst from the soldiers as the shot splashed into the water
round the bridges and the shell burst over them. The general in command
of the artillery, on receiving the order, directed eight batteries to
follow General Wilson. At a gallop they dashed up the hill, and in ten
minutes had unlimbered and opened fire upon the French. The effect was
visible at once. Much confusion was observed among the artillery-men,
and in a short time several of the guns were dismounted, and four or
five powder waggons blown up. Then a loud cheer burst from the Russian
artillery-men as they saw the French bring up the horses from behind the
shelter of the crest, limber-up and drive off with the guns. But from
other points of vantage 150 guns were now pouring their fire into the
town, and, as the flames broke out from several quarters, exclamations
of grief and fury were heard from the Russian soldiers.

Smolensk was, like Moscow, considered a sacred city, and the soldiers
were affected rather by the impiety of the act than by the actual
destruction that was being wrought. As General Wilson and Frank rode
back to the spot where General Barclay was stationed, a mass of Russian
infantry moved down the hill towards the bridges, and at once began to
cross.

"Whose division is that?" Sir Robert asked an officer as they joined the
staff.

"It is Prince Eugene's," he replied. "They are pressing us hard now,
having driven Doctorow's men out of the covered way, and are massing for
an assault on one of the gates."

The fire continued unabated until seven o'clock. Then a messenger came
across with the news that the French were drawing off, and that the
covered way was being reoccupied. General Wilson was warmly thanked by
the Russian commander-in-chief for having silenced the batteries that
had threatened the bridges. That evening, when he issued the order for
the evacuation of Smolensk, the disaffection with Barclay de Tolly broke
out with renewed force, and during the night a body of generals came to
Sir Robert Wilson's tent. He was at the time occupied in dictating a
despatch to Frank, whom he requested to retire directly he saw the rank
of his visitors. As soon as they were alone they said that it had been
resolved to send to the Emperor not only the request of the army for a
new chief, but a declaration in their own name and that of the troops
"that if any order came from St. Petersburg, to suspend hostilities and
greet the invaders as friends"—for it had all along been believed that
the retrograde movements were the result of the advice of the minister,
Count Romanzow—"such an order would be regarded as one that did not
express his Imperial Majesty's real sentiments and wishes, but had been
extracted from his Majesty under false representations or external
control, and that the army would continue to maintain its pledge and to
pursue the contest till the invader was driven beyond the frontier."

"We are here, General Wilson," one of the generals said, "to beg you to
undertake the delivery of this message to the Emperor. It would mean
death to any Russian officer who undertook the commission, but, knowing
your attachment to the Emperor, and his equally well-known feelings
towards yourself, no person is so well qualified to lay the expression
of our sentiments before him. Your motives in doing so cannot be
suspected; coming from you, the Emperor's self-respect would not suffer
in the same way as it would do, were the message conveyed to him by one
of his own subjects."

One after another the generals urged the request.

Sir Robert listened to their arguments, and then said: "This is
altogether too grave a matter for me to decide upon hastily. I know
thoroughly well that there is no thought of disloyalty in the mind of
any of you towards the will of the Emperor, but the act is one of the
gravest insubordination, and it is indeed a threat that you will disobey
his Majesty's commands in the event of his ordering a suspension of
hostilities. As to the conduct of the commander-in-chief, I am not
competent to express any opinion whatever, but as a soldier I can
understand that this long-continued retreat and the abandonment of so
many provinces to the enemy, without striking a single blow in their
defence, is trying in the extreme, both to yourselves and your brave
soldiers. I shall not leave the army until I see it fairly on the march
again, but before I start I will give you my reply."

The generals thanked Sir Robert warmly, and then withdrew.

"I shall write no more to-night, Wyatt," the general said when Frank
entered the tent. "I have other grave matters to think about. You had
best lie down at once, and get a few hours' sleep. To-morrow is likely
to be an eventful day, for the operation of withdrawing the army from
this position and getting on to the main road again will be full of
peril, and may indeed end in a terrible disaster."

As soon as the Russian army had repulsed the attacks of the French and
resumed its march towards Moscow, Sir Robert Wilson left it and
proceeded to St. Petersburg, where he had promised the Russian generals
to inform the Czar of the opinion and disposition of the army, their
dissatisfaction with the general, and their determination to continue
the combat and to refuse to recognize any negotiations or armistice that
might be made with the enemy.

"I shall leave you here, Wyatt," the General said, on the morning after
the desperate defence of Loubino had saved the army. "There is little
chance of the French pressing the Russians any further. I think it
probable that they may go into winter quarters where they now are; but
in any case they cannot hope to outmarch us, and, if they follow, the
battle will be in the position the Russians may choose. Even were there
more fighting imminent, I should still start to-day for St. Petersburg;
I only came round by Smolensk, as you know, because I thought that the
Emperor would be found there. My first duty is to see him, and to report
to him the arrangements that have been made on the Danube with the Grand
Vizier and his people, by which the whole of the Russian army there will
be able to join in the defence against the French. As soon as I have
done so and explained to his Majesty the position here, I shall rejoin;
and I hope the Czar will also be coming down here, for his presence
would be most useful—not in the military way, for no men in the world
could fight better than the Russians are doing,—but the army fears,
above all things, that peace will be made before it has an opportunity
of wiping out, what it considers its disgrace, in allowing the French to
overrun so many rich provinces without striking a blow.

"In point of fact, the defence of Smolensk, and the way in which some
20,000 men yesterday withstood for hours the assault of three or four
times their number, would be sufficient to prove to the world their
fighting qualities. In my own mind, I consider that Barclay has acted
wisely in declining to hazard the whole fortune of the war upon a single
battle against an enemy which, from the first, has outnumbered him
nearly threefold, but he should never have taken up his position on the
frontier if he did not mean to defend it. Any other army than this would
have become a disorganized rabble long ago. There is nothing so trying
to troops as to march for weeks hotly chased by an enemy. Three times in
the Peninsula we have seen what a British army becomes under far less
trying circumstances. If the Russians did but know it, this retreat of
theirs, and the admirable manner in which they have maintained their
discipline, is as creditable as winning a great victory would be; still
one can understand that the sight of this flying population, the
deserted fields, this surrender of provinces to an enemy, is mortifying
in the highest degree to their pride.

"Nevertheless, Barclay's policy, though I think it has been carried a
great deal too far—for with troops who will fight as ours did yesterday
he might have fought a dozen battles like that of Loubino, and would
have compelled the French to advance slowly instead of in hot
pursuit—has been justified to a great extent. From all I hear, the
invading army has already suffered very great losses from fever and
hardship, the effect of the weather, and from the number of stragglers
who have been cut off and killed by the peasantry. Their transport has
especially suffered, vast numbers of their horses having died; and in a
campaign like this, transport is everything. In the various fights that
have taken place since they entered Russia, they have probably suffered
a heavier loss than the Russians, as the latter have always fought on
the defensive; and the French loss has fallen on Napoleon's best troops,
while the Russian army is all equally good.

"Lastly, although the Russians are discontented at their continued
retreat, their
morale
does not seem to have suffered in any way, and
it is probable that the long marches, the inability to bring on a
general engagement, the distance from home, and the uncertainty about
the future has told heavily upon that of the French, who are vastly more
susceptible to matters of this kind than are the Russians. You will
remain with the headquarter staff, and I wish you, while I am away, to
obtain accurate details of the movements of the various columns, and to
write a full report every evening of the march and of all matters of
interest. I do not want you to forward these to me, but to keep them
for future reference. I hope to rejoin before any further fighting takes
place."