Citizen Emperor

by Philip Dwyer

  Some effort was, nevertheless, made to portray the war as a crusade, something that had been seen once before, in the run-up to Austerlitz.66 Napoleon had, like most of the French, considered the Russian people barbaric and on the margins of European civilization. The struggle against Russia was, therefore, to an extent, a struggle to the death between two different conceptions of Europe.67 The point was driven home in works on Russia reprinted or translated into French, such as the English travelogue by Edward Daniel Clarke, Travels in Various Countries of Europe, Asia and Africa, which had gone through a number of editions since its first appearance in 1810. There one can find descriptions of the Russian, whether noble or peasant, as ‘ignorant, superstitious, cunning, brutal, barbarous, dirty, [and] mean’.68 Before that, Napoleon had commissioned a series of articles, through the ministry of foreign affairs, ensuring that the few newspapers left in the Empire were able to portray Russians in the most unflattering light, highlighting everything from their ‘thick brown skin’ to their eyes ‘without expression’, their weak, lazy, ungrateful character, their ‘absolute submissiveness’ (read ‘slaves’, read ‘need to be freed’). In short, Russians were portrayed as ‘savages’, and as ‘desolators of society’, as ‘barbarian hordes . . . who vandalized the civilized world and exterminated peaceful men’.69 The French Empire contained forty-four million people who enjoyed personal liberty and were among the most civilized in the world. The Russian belonged to a ‘half-civilized’ people, who were going to be delivered by the soldiers of the Grande Armée.70 The propaganda campaign continued even as the Grande Armée occupied Moscow. In October 1812, a book appeared by Charles-Louis Lesur, which included a fabricated ‘Testament of Peter the Great’ designed to demonstrate that Russia was bent on European domination.71 That accusation was now levelled at Alexander I.72

  The Army of the Gauls and the Twenty Nations73

  On 13 December 1811, Napoleon ordered his librarian, Antoine-Alexandre Barbier, to send him books on Russia and the history of the invasion of Charles XII at the beginning of the eighteenth century.74 It was a sure sign that he was about to launch a new campaign. According to one of his aides-de-camp, the name of the Swedish king was constantly on his lips.75 On the 16th, he ordered the recall of the Imperial Guard from Spain.76 We do not know whether what he read played on his decision, but it is possible. These works portrayed Russia as an ethnically diverse and hence weak conglomerate of peoples, and possibly led to the impression that Russia would be easy to invade and conquer.77

  Napoleon had begun to regroup his forces in Prussia, Poland and Germany at the beginning of 1811, in order to strengthen his lines of defence against a possible Russian attack. During this time, the troops received intensive training; officers were kept busy from five in the morning till six in the evening.78 By the beginning of 1812, Napoleon decided to field an army large enough to intimidate Alexander into submission. ‘An army like that of Xerxes, and which will perform spectacularly like that of Alexander.’79 That, at least, was the belief among some of the troops when they realized the extent of the forces being gathered. Most in the military, however, from the highest-ranking officer to the lowliest footsoldier, appear to have been against the war.80 True, there were some, like Fantin des Odoards, who were looking forward to another campaign, but they seem to be in a distinct minority.81 The end result was a conglomeration of nationalities from all over the Empire, including Napoleon’s vassal states and allies. Apart from the French, there were Belgians, Dutch, Italians, Swiss, Austrians, Prussians, Poles, Bavarians, Badenese, Saxons, Württembergers, Westphalians, Spaniards, Portuguese and Croats. There were more Germans than Frenchmen in this army, if one includes those contingents from the annexed regions of the Rhine.82 One French officer remarked that the army resembled the Tower of Babel and that it was impossible to approach a bivouac without hearing a different language.83 Only about one in three soldiers who marched into Russia were French – that is, from what we would today consider to be France – and most of those were inexperienced. For the vast majority, this was their first campaign. This was a far cry from the ‘nation in arms’ that had galvanized the revolutionary armies. Napoleon’s Grande Armée had no single national identity; it had many identities and was composed of people who hated the French and Napoleon, and who had even fought against them in previous wars.84

  Prussia, along with Saxony, was obliged to quarter and supply the Grande Armée massed in preparation for the invasion, including delivering all fortresses and ammunition supplies to the French. Frederick William was required to leave Berlin, now placed in charge of a French general, and assume residence at Potsdam.85 Napoleon continued to humiliate Prussia and its king, insisting on a new defensive alliance at the beginning of 1812 by which Prussia was made to furnish a contingent of 20,000 men – this was about half the army that Prussia was allowed – to be placed at Napoleon’s disposal. It meant that Napoleon could in principle deploy them when and where he saw fit. The formal arrangements were worked out in a treaty signed on 5 March. Frederick William and Hardenberg, who was now chancellor, had little choice but to accept these humiliating terms. Napoleon had given the Prussian ambassador, Friedrich von Krusemarck, the choice of having the Grande Armée march on to Prussian soil as either friend or foe. Prussia, in effect, was treated no differently to an enemy state, notwithstanding the alliance. It led to one-quarter of the Prussian officer corps leaving the service in protest.86

  The impact of the Grande Armée on Prussia was even more devastating, if some witnesses are to be believed, than it had been during the occupation of 1807–8. A few figures will give an impression of the enormous amounts Prussia was obliged to hand over. It included more than 30,000 tonnes of flour, two million bottles of beer and another two million of brandy, more than 50,000 tonnes of hay and straw, 15,000 horses, 44,000 oxen and 3,600 carts (with carters).87 Napoleon in fact ordered the army to live off the land in the weeks leading up to the invasion so as not to eat into the stockpiles of supplies.88 ‘The inhabitants’, wrote one Dutch general stationed around Wismar and Greifswald, ‘were not kind to us; in good conscience, I could not blame them, for we had acted towards them in bad faith worthy of the Carthaginians, and often I was revolted by the orders I had to carry out.’89 One Prussian bureaucrat observed that the entire Polish frontier region had been completely devastated.90 The Grande Armée pillaged the meagre resources available, committing the worst possible depredations in the process.91 ‘The soldiers spread through the countryside in search of food, beating peasants, chasing them from their homes, which they looted from top to bottom, taking their cattle, and engaging in . . . the most reprehensible excesses.’92 Worse, a conscript wrote of seeing terrible waste along on the road to Poznan´ (Posen) and Torun´ (Thorn), with sacks of wheat left to rot, barrels of alcohol in the gutter, and supplies left in broken-down wagons. The troops were forbidden to help themselves as they passed by.93 Napoleon should have known better; the army was obviously larger than the inhabitants could realistically be expected to supply, especially since Poland was experiencing serious drought and failed harvests. But he did not seem to care.

  The Imperial Progress

  The social season was particularly brilliant that winter in Paris, like a ‘candle that flares up brightly just before its final flicker’.94 When it was over and Napoleon left Saint-Cloud on Saturday 9 May with Marie-Louise, a sizeable proportion of the court was at his side, almost as though they were setting out on a pleasure trip,95 amid great displays of public loyalty. In Germany, he stopped along the way to receive homage from various princes – the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, the Prince of Anhalt-Cöthen, the King of Württemberg and the Grand Duke of Baden.

  The imperial progress was heading for Dresden, the capital of the Kingdom of Saxony, and it was designed to impress. Napoleon had summoned his allies in an attempt to instil in them some enthusiasm for his grandiose but hazardous plan to invade Russia. This act of political theatre was meant, once again, to establish a
hierarchical relationship between Napoleon and the German princes, and as a consequence to dissuade them from thinking they could betray him while he was away on campaign.96 Dresden was, in some respects, the mirror image of Erfurt, only this time with Francis II in the role of Alexander. The meeting was meant to overawe the German princes, but it was also intended to present a united front to Alexander, to pressure him into a compromise arrangement,97 and to intimidate all those who might doubt Napoleon’s decisiveness and the loyalty of his allies.

  King Frederick Augustus I and Queen Amalie of Saxony met Napoleon on the outskirts of their capital before together making an entry into Dresden by the light of torches as the cannon thundered and church bells pealed.98 Frederick Augustus had been obliged to vacate the best rooms in the Marcolini Palace, now occupied by Napoleon and his suite. In 1812, Dresden was a town of around 30,000 inhabitants spread over both sides of the River Elbe, the old town on one side and the new on the other.99 The Saxon king was almost bankrupted entertaining the visiting dignitaries with extravagant balls, banquets, operas, theatre performances and hunting parties. At nine every morning, Napoleon would hold his lever, attended not only by the lesser German princes, but also by the kings of Saxony and Prussia, as well as the Emperor of Austria.100 At first Frederick William of Prussia had no intention of going but was persuaded to do so.101 Napoleon considered him to be little more than a ‘drill sergeant’, a ‘blockhead’, but he was by all accounts prepared to charm the Prussian king at Dresden, to subordinate his true feelings to the interests of the moment, and his need for troops.102 It must have been a tremendous humiliation for all the German princes concerned, but especially for Francis and his young wife, Maria Ludovica, whose father had lost the throne of Modena to the French many years before. She detested Napoleon for it and no doubt felt bitter resentment and frustration at having to attend these ceremonies. From his own lever, Napoleon would lead the princes to observe the toilette of Marie-Louise.

  While in Dresden, Napoleon made one last attempt to reach Alexander. He sent one of his aides-de-camp, Louis de Narbonne, an old courtier under Louis XVI, to Vilnius where Alexander had set up his headquarters. Narbonne arrived there on 18 May. Alexander is supposed to have asked, ‘What does Napoleon want? To subject me to his interests, to force me to measures which ruin my people and, because I refuse, he intends to make war on me, in the belief that after two or three battles and the occupation of a few provinces, perhaps even a capital, I will be obliged to ask for peace whose conditions he will dictate. He is deluding himself!’ Then, with a map spread before him, he more or less explained the strategy the Russians would implement over the coming campaign: ‘Space is a barrier. If after a few defeats I retreat, sweeping along the population, if I leave it to time, to the wilderness, to the climate to defend me, I may yet have the last word.’103

  Narbonne reported back his conversation with Alexander.104 As soon as he had returned to Dresden (on the afternoon of 26 May), he was shown into Napoleon’s presence, still covered in the dust from the journey. Alexander had given him a message – ‘Tell the Emperor that I will not be the aggressor. He can cross the Niemen, but I will never sign a peace dictated on Russian territory.’105 Narbonne is supposed to have recommended that Napoleon reconstitute Poland, which he could use as a buffer, but that he should never cross the Niemen.106 Napoleon, however, was utterly convinced that he would succeed. ‘Never has an expedition against them [the Russians] been more certain of success,’ he told one of his secretaries, Baron Agathon Jean François Fain. ‘Never again will such a favourable concourse of circumstance present itself; I feel it drawing me in, and if the Emperor Alexander persists in refusing my proposals, I shall cross the Niemen.’107 He thought the whole thing would be over in two months and that a blow to the heart of the Russian Empire, at Moscow, the great, the holy, would shatter any resistance.108 This not only underestimated Alexander’s determination to see the war through to victory, but was an entirely erroneous idea. It might have been apt if someone had remembered that the fall of a major city or a capital – Berlin in 1806, Vienna in 1809, Lisbon or Madrid in 1808 – did not invariably lead to victory. More than likely, however, Napoleon had the Vienna of 1797 and 1805 uppermost in his mind when, the capital being threatened with occupation, the Austrian court sued for peace.

  Napoleon was also making the same tactical mistake he had made when venturing out of Egypt into Syria in 1798. Rather than wait for the enemy to cross vast distances, thereby weakening it in the process, he preferred to attack first. Patience was not one of his virtues. His enthusiasm, or self-belief, was enough to persuade some in his entourage that he must be right. Berthier wrote in June 1812 to Soult, in the thick of campaigning in Seville, that ‘In one month, we will be at it. A good battle won will decide the question, in January [1813], we will be able to give you a helping hand to finish with the English so that we can get back to our wives.’109 The problem though was that Napoleon had no real objectives. In May 1812 he told the Austrian foreign minister, Metternich, that the campaign ‘will end at Smolensk and Minsk. That is where I shall stop.’ He would then establish winter headquarters at Vilnius, from where he would ‘organize’ Lithuania.110 He was telling his ambassador in Warsaw, however, that ‘I will perhaps go to Moscow.’111 Not only did he not have an established plan, he changed his mind and hesitated constantly. Historians have concluded that Napoleon’s initial intention was, as it had been with every campaign, to seek out one or more decisive battles and to bring the enemy to the negotiating table.112 There is some indication that he realized just how difficult the task before him was,113 and that Russia was likely to take a little more time to subdue than other European powers. That is why the troops were to be supplied with twenty-four days’ rations, much more than was normally the case, although given the difficulties the supply wagons had in keeping up with the advancing army, this provision soon proved illusory.114

  One of the great events of the year was the appearance of what was known as the Great Comet of 1811, which remained visible to the naked eye for nine months, a record it held until the appearance of the Great Comet of 1997. The last time the comet was seen by humans was in the time of Ramses II, in about 1254 bc. This time around, it was first seen at Viviers in France on 26 March 1811, and was last seen in southern Russia at Neu Tscherkask on 17 August 1812. In August 1811, the tail divided into two streams, at right angles to one another. By the middle of October that year, William Herschel, who discovered the planet Uranus, estimated that the comet’s tail was 160 million kilometres in length. It was variously interpreted as either a good or a bad omen for Napoleon. He was personally convinced that the comet boded well for the coming campaign.

  Napoleon remained almost two weeks in Dresden, hoping that Alexander would break down and that, isolated in the face of such power, he would come to the negotiating table. Many people at the time thought he would. When he did not, Napoleon set out on 29 May 1812 to join his troops at their launching positions. The night before the crossing, starting out from the Prince of Eckmühl’s headquarters, about a league from Kaunas (Kovno) and the Niemen, he carried out a reconnaissance of the river looking for a place to cross. It was then that, as he was galloping through a wheat field, a hare startled his horse so that he fell. He was almost immediately back on his feet, but it was enough to cast a gloomy pall over Napoleon himself and over those who witnessed the incident, all of them superstitious, thinking it a bad omen.115 In that moment the comet was forgotten; Napoleon’s fall quickly did the rounds of the army.

  Only a few hours after he had left Marie-Louise at Dresden, Napoleon was writing to her. His letters to her during the first months of the Russian campaign are different in tenor to those he once wrote to Josephine during his first campaign in Italy. They are less erotic, less passionate, and much more paternal, but they nevertheless demonstrate the depth of his love for her, the love of an older man for a younger woman. They provide us with an insight into his thinking. ‘All the promise
s I made will be kept, so that our separation will last only a short time.’ Napoleon hoped that the campaign would last no more than two or three months.116

  HUBRIS, 1812

  18

  The Second Polish War

  The Tempest Breaks

  He was likened to a modern Darius, watching part of the army cross from a hill, standing in front of his tent, humming an old folk song, ‘Marlborough Has Left for the War’, while playing with his riding crop.1 He was in his element, which is why he was happy.

  When Second Lieutenant Ducque arrived on the banks of the Niemen on 23 June 1812, not far from Kaunas, he bivouacked on the hills along the river. There was nothing but troops as far as the eye could see.2 It must have been an impressive sight and left many men with feelings of ‘joy, pride and satisfaction’.3 Some of them had been marching for four months and it was only now that they were about to set foot on enemy territory.4 The army started to cross around two in the morning. Pontoon bridges had been constructed over the river, about 180 metres wide at this spot. Since the banks were so steep in parts, the troops found themselves sliding down on their backsides, breaking their speedy descent by grabbing hold of whatever they could. ‘It was like a noisy cataract, a cascade of living men.’5