by Philip Dwyer
73. The reference to the ‘Army of the twenty nations’ has its origins in an imperial proclamation, but it was the expression used by the Russian Orthodox Church to describe the Grande Armée, repeated every Christmas when thanks were given for Russia’s deliverance. SeeAlexander Martin, ‘The Response of the Population of Moscow to the Napoleonic Occupation of 1812’, in Marshall Poe and Eric Lohr (eds), The Military and Society in Russia, 1450–1917 (Leiden, 2002), p. 472.
74. Corr. xxiii. n. 18348 (19 December 1811).
75. Philippe-Paul, comte de Ségur, Histoire de Napoléon et de la grande-armée pendant l’année 1812, 2 vols (Brussels, 1825), i. p. 324.
76. Corr. xxiii. n. 18359 (23 December 1811).
77. Peter Simon Pallas, Nouveau voyage dans les gouvernements méridionaux de l’Empire de Russie, dans les années 1793 et 1794, trans. from the German, 2 vols (Paris, an X); Jacques Hantraye, Les cosaques aux Champs-Elysées: l’occupation de la France après la chute de Napoléon (Paris, 2005), p. 218.
78. Antoine Baudoin Gisbert de Dedem de Gelder, Un général hollandais sous le premier empire. Mémoires du général Bon de Dedem de Gelder 1774–1825 (Paris, 1900), p. 200. Six hours of training a day according to the grenadier Michel Souchez, in Pierre Charrié, Lettres de guerres, 1792–1815 (Nantes, 2004), p. 208 (30 March 1812).
79. Heinrich von Roos, Souvenirs d’un médecin de la Grande Armée (Paris, 2004), p. 77.
80. If Noël, Souvenirs militaires, p. 167, is to be believed.
81. Fantin des Odoards, Journal, p. 293.
82. Rowe, From Reich to State, p. 158.
83. Castellane, Journal, i. p. 146 (4 September 1812).
84. Louis Gardier, Journal de la campagne de Russie en 1812 (Paris, 1999), p. 18.
85. Montesquiou-Fezensac, Souvenirs militaires, p. 219.
86. Craig, Politics of the Prussian Army, pp. 58–9; and Gordon A. Craig, ‘Problems of Coalition Warfare: The Military Alliance against Napoleon, 1813–14’, in Gordon A. Craig, War, Politics and Diplomacy: Selected Essays (London, 1966), p. 41.
87. Münchow-Pohl, Zwischen Reform and Krieg, pp. 352–84; Obermann, ‘La situation de la Prusse sous l’occupation française’, pp. 278–83. This is for May and June 1812, before the invasion.
88. Corr. xxiii. n. 18622 (30 March 1812).
89. Dedem de Gelder, Un général hollandais, pp. 211–12, 203–4; Adams, Napoleon and Russia, p. 283.
90. Obermann, ‘La situation de la Prusse sous l’occupation française’, pp. 257–86, here pp. 278–9.
91. Alexandre Bellot de Kergorre, Journal d’un commissaire des guerres pendant le Premier Empire (1806–1821) (Paris, 1997), p. 45; Roman Soltyk, Napoléon en 1812: souvenirs du général Soltyk (Paris, 2006), pp. 30–1.
92. Bourgeois, Tableau de la campagne de Moscou, p. 17.
93. Armand de Solignac, La Bérézina. Souvenirs d’un soldat de la Grande Armée (Limoges, 1881), p. 39 (30 May, 8 June 1812).
94. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 30.
95. According to Agathon-Jean-François, baron Fain, Manuscrit de mil huit cent douze, 2 vols (Paris, 1827), p. 61.
96. Esdaile, Napoleon’s Wars, p. 452.
97. Fain, Manuscrit de mil huit cent douze, i. pp. 66–7.
98. Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre, iii. pp. 402–55; Hermann Freiherrn von Egloffstein, ‘Zur Geschichte des Fürstentages in Dresden 1812: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen Carl Augusts’, Historische Zeitschrift, 121 (1919), 268–82.
99. Schulz, Voyage en Pologne et en Allemagne, ii. pp. 53–5.
100. Castellane, Journal, i. p. 93 (19 May 1812); Müller, Souvenirs, p. 158.
101. There were, for example, no bells or cannon fired on his entry into the city, as required by protocol. Stamm-Kuhlmann, König in Preußens großer Zeit, pp. 358–9.
102. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 155.
103. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 154; Rambuteau, Mémoires, pp. 86–7. Similar reports were passed to Napoleon by his intendant general, Comte Mathieu Dumas. See Michael Josselson and Diana Josselson, The Commander: A Life of Barclay de Tolly (Oxford, 1980), pp. 89–90.
104. Castellane, Journal, i. p. 96 (26 May 1812); Villemain, Souvenirs contemporains, i. pp. 187–8; E. Cazalas, ‘La mission de Narbonne à Vilna’, Feuilles d’histoire du XVIIe au XXe siècle, 3 (1910), 216–30.
105. Cited in Zamoyski, 1812, p. 130.
106. Zamoyski, 1812, p. 132.
107. Fain, Manuscrit de mil huit cent douze, i. p. 68.
108. Villemain, Souvenirs contemporains, i. p. 174; Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre, iii. p. 479.
109. Berthier to Soult, 6 June 1812, cited in Gotteri, Napoléon, p. 149.
110. Metternich, Mémoires, i. p. 122.
111. Pradt, Histoire de l’ambassade, pp. 56–9; Fain, Manuscrit de mil huit cent douze, i. p. 75.
112. Esdaile, Napoleon’s Wars, pp. 461–2.
113. Pasquier, Mémoires, i. p. 525.
114. Esdaile, Napoleon’s Wars, pp. 462, 463.
115. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. pp. 161, 162.
116. Pierrelongue (ed.), Napoléon et Marie-Louise, pp. 22, 24 and 26; Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 163.
HUBRIS, 1812
18: The Second Polish War
1. The simile is from Comeau de Charry, Souvenirs des guerres, p. 443. See also Denniée, Itinéraire de l’empereur Napoléon, pp. 14–15; Dupuy, Souvenirs militaires, p. 166; François, Journal, p. 644 (24 June 1812).
2. Gaspard Ducque, Journal de marche du sous-lieutenant Ducque (Paris, 2004), p. 3.
3. Lejeune, Mémoires, p. 372.
4. Fantin des Odoards, Journal, p. 297.
5. Constantin de Grünwald, La campagne de Russie (Paris, 1964), p. 21.
6. Dumas, Souvenirs, iii. pp. 417–19; Creveld, Supplying War, pp. 65–8.
7. Castellane, Journal, i. p. 111 (4 July 1812).
8. Sayve, Souvenirs de Pologne, pp. 30–1.
9. Jakob Walter, The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier (Moreton-in-Marsh, 1997), p. 38.
10. According to Ségur, Histoire de Napoléon et de la grande-armée pendant l’année 1812, i. pp. 169–70.
11. Pierre Berthezène, Souvenirs militaires de la République et de l’Empire, 2 vols (Paris, 1855), i. pp. 323–36; Dedem de Gelder, Un général hollandais, pp. 225–7.
12. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. pp. 202–3.
13. These figures are taken from Zamoyski, 1812, pp. 142–3. The figures vary enormously from around 400,000 to even over one million men. Esdaile, Napoleon’s Wars, p. 452, has the army made up of 490,000 with another 121,000 following; Adams, Napoleon and Russia, p. 280, cites the figure of 600,000 but states that only 450,000 crossed the Niemen; Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, p. 756, estimates that 614,000 troops made up the Grande Armée de la Russie, of whom about half were French; Lefebvre, Napoléon (Paris, 1969), p. 529, gives 700,000; Albert Meynier, ‘Les armées française sous la Révolution et le Premier Empire: la Grande Armée en Russie’, Revue d’études militaires, 8 (1934), 7–19, cites a figure of 675,000 men, of whom 280,000 were French. Connelly, Blundering to Glory, p. 159, suggests there were 611,00 men of whom only one-third were classed as French; Lentz, Nouvelle histoire du Premier Empire, ii. p. 259, cites the figure of 680,000 men, but adds that only between 400,000 and 450,000 actually crossed the Niemen, of whom about half were French. See also Jean Delmas (ed.), Histoire militaire de la France, 4 vols (Paris, 1992), ii. p. 357, who writes of 578,000 men, including 90,000 cavalry. One contemporary, a survivor of the campaign, cites what appears to be a realistic figure, 460,000 men, including cavalry – but not including the Austrian contingent – with around 1,200 cannon (Labaume, Relation circonstanciée, p. 15). For these figures see Claus Scharf, ‘Einführung’, in Anton Wilhelm Nordhof, Die Geschichte der Zerstörung Moskaus im Jahre 1812, Deutsche Geschichtsquellen des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. with an introduction by Claus Scharf and Jürgen Kessel (Munich, 2000), p. 16.
14. Anka Muhlstein, Napoléon à Moscou (Paris, 2007), pp. 16–17.
15. Adams, Napoleon and Russia, pp. 283–5.
16. Pierrelongue (ed.), Napoléon et Marie-Louise, pp. 22, 24 and 26; Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 163.
17. Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 763, 775; Lentz, Nouvelle histoire du Premier Empire, ii. p. 265.
18. Fain, Manuscrit de mil huit cent douze, i. p. 75; Soltyk, Napoléon en 1812, pp. 27–8. Also, citing Tuchkov, in Serge Nabokov and Sophie de Lastours, Koutouzov: le vainqueur de Napoléon (Paris, 1990), p. 156.
19. Corr. xxiii. n. 18855 (22 June 1812).
20. Sayve, Souvenirs de Pologne, pp. 146–7; Denniée, Itinéraire de l’empereur Napoléon, p. 27; Soltyk, Napoléon en 1812, pp. 46–8. They were treated even worse on the return leg of the invasion. See, for example, Labaume, Relation circonstanciée, pp. 363–4.
21. Cited in Marie-Christiane Torrance, ‘Some Russian Attitudes to France in the Period of the Napoleonic Wars as Revealed by Russian Memoirs (1807–14)’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 86c (1986), 293; Josselson and Josselson, The Commander, pp. 77, 92–3.
22. Christopher Duffy, Borodino and the War of 1812 (London, 1972), pp. 53–5; Josselson and Josselson, The Commander, p. 77; Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, pp. 124–5. It is an exaggeration to claim, however, that Alexander and Barclay de Tolly had outsmarted Napoleon.
23. Bailleu (ed.), Briefwechsel König Friedrich Wilhelm, n. 198 (14 May 1811), pp. 219–22.
24. Wilhelm von Oncken, Österreich und Preußen im Befreiungs-Kriege: urkundliche Aufschlüße über die politische Geschichte des Jahres 1813, 2 vols (Berlin, 1876–9), ii. pp. 611–14 (13 August 1811).
25. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, pp. 125–32, 149. Lieven believes that this kind of mission was little more than an excuse for intelligence gathering. Balashev was, in fact, accompanied by a young intelligence officer, Mikhail Orlov.
26. Palmer, Alexander I, pp. 226–7; Josselson and Josselson, The Commander, p. 96.
27. Sayve, Souvenirs de Pologne, p. 169; François, Journal, p. 645 (28 June 1812); Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 167.
28. For the former, Ségur, Histoire et mémoires, iv. p. 148; Denniée, Itinéraire de l’empereur Napoléon, p. 24; and for the latter, Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 167.
29. See also Josselson and Josselson, The Commander, pp. 86, 93–4, 95–6, 101–3 104; Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, p. 150.
30. Josselson and Josselson, The Commander, pp. 104–5; Martin, Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries, p. 132.
31. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, p. 151.
32. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. pp. 168, 173. Napoleon was supposedly helped to believe that the Russians would stand and fight by an agent in Lithuania who passed on disinformation (Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, p. 148, and on other ‘missions’, pp. 149–50).
33. Tatistcheff, Alexandre Ier et Napoléon, pp. 588–609; Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 171.
34. Cited in Zamoyski, 1812, p. 159.
35. Tatistcheff, Alexandre Ier et Napoléon, p. 606; Zamoyski, 1812, p. 160.
36. Emmanuel de Waresquiel (ed.), Lettres d’un lion: correspondance inédite du général Mouton, comte de Lobau (1812–1815) (Paris, 2005), p. 59 (30 June 1812).
37. Bellot de Kergorre, Journal, p. 47; Coignet, Note-Books, p. 207; B. T. Duverger, Mes Aventures dans la Campagne de Russie (Paris, 1833), p. 4.
38. Denniée, Itinéraire de l’empereur Napoléon, pp. 21–2. Henri-Pierre Everts, ‘Campagne et captivité de Russie (1812–1813): extraits des Mémoires inédits du général-major H. p. Everts’, in Carnets et journal sur la campagne de Russie (Paris, 1997), p. 120, and Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 167, both give a figure of 10,000 dead horses.
39. Corr. xxiv. n. 18925 (8 July 1812).
40. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 186; Curtis Cate, The War of the Two Emperors: The Duel between Napoleon and Alexander – Russia, 1812 (New York, 1985), p. 255. Half of those again were lost at the battle of Borodino.
41. Alexander M. Martin, ‘Lost Arcadia: The 1812 War and the Russian Images of Aristocratic Womanhood’, European History Quarterly, 37 (2007), 611–14.
42. Aubin Dutheillet de Lamothe, Mémoires du lieutenant-colonel Aubin Dutheillet de Lamothe (Brussels, 1899), p. 39.
43. Roos, Souvenirs, p. 84; Georges de Chambray, Histoire de l’expédition de Russie, 2 vols (Paris, 1823), i. pp. 103–6, 111–13.
44. François, Journal, p. 645 (29 June 1812); Antony Brett-James, 1812: Eyewitness Accounts (New York, 1966), pp. 53–5.
45. Fain, Manuscrit de mil huit cent douze, i. pp. 227–8.
46. Roos, Souvenirs, p. 84.
47. Coignet, Note-Books, p. 215. Similarly, Everts, ‘Campagne et captivité de Russie’, p. 125.
48. Zamoyski, 1812, p. 228.
49. These figures vary according to the source. Before the arrival of the army at Vilnius, according to Lentz, Nouvelle histoire du Premier Empire, ii. p. 278, more than 30,000 were roaming the countryside.
50. Adams, Napoleon and Russia, p. 309.
51. Ducque, Journal, p. 11; Roos, Souvenirs, p. 81.
52. Gardier, Journal, p. 40.
53. Henri Ducor, Aventures d’un marin de la Garde impériale, prisonnier de guerre sur les pontons espagnols, dans l’île de Cabréra et en Russie, 2 vols (Paris, 1833), p. 310.
54. See for example Ducque, Journal, p. 10.
55. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 185.
56. Suckow, D’Iéna à Moscou, p. 156. Also Walter, Diary, p. 40; Everts, ‘Campagne et captivité de Russie’, p. 127; Paul-Charles-Amable de Bourgoing, Souvenirs militaires du Bon de Bourgoing, sénateur, ancien ambassadeur en Espagne, ancien pair de France, ministre plénipotentiaire en Russie et en Allemagne, 1791–1815 (Paris, 1897), pp. 88–9. Suicide could lead to veritable epidemics of self-killing in eightenth-century armies, according to Martin Monestier, Suicides: histoire, techniques et bizarreries de la mort volontaire des origines à nos jours (Paris, 1995), pp. 38–9.
57. On Jérôme’s performance in Russia see Boudon, Le roi Jérôme, pp. 372–82. On his stay in Poland on the way to Russia see Masson, Napoléon et sa famille, vii. pp. 297–305; Mansuy, Jérôme Napoléon et la Pologne en 1812, pp. 297–531.
58. Cited in Boudon, Le roi Jérôme, p. 381.
59. Chevalier, Souvenirs, p. 186.
60. Everts, ‘Campagne et captivité de Russie’, p. 126.
61. Bourgogne, Mémoires, p. 62.
62. Fantin des Odoards, Journal, p. 324.
63. Detlev von Uexküll (ed.), Arms and the Woman: The Diaries of Baron Boris Uxkull, 1812–1819, trans. Joel Carmichael (London, 1966), p. 72 (30 July 1812).
64. Waresquiel (ed.), Lettres d’un lion, p. 84 (24 September 1812); Chevalier, Souvenirs, pp. 181, 189–90. Chevalier reports that there was even a light fall of snow towards the end of September, Souvenirs, p. 83 (20 September 1812).
65. Labaume, Relation circonstanciée, pp. 152–3.
66. Thirion, Souvenirs militaires, pp. 78–9; François, Journal, pp. 646 and 647 (2 and 5 July 1812).
67. Thirion, Souvenirs militaires, p. 81; Adrien-Augustin-Amalric, comte de Mailly, Mon journal pendant la campagne de Russie, écrit de mémoire après mon retour à Paris (Paris, 1841), pp. 16–17; Walter, Diary, p. 44.
68. Chevalier, Souvenirs, pp. 181–2.
69. Bellot de Kergorre, Journal, p. 48.
70. Gardier, Journal, p. 39 (Spain); Duverger, Mes aventures, pp. 4–5.
71. Puybusque, Lettres sur la guerre de Russie, pp. 32 and 33 (7 July 1812); Gardier, Journal, pp. 39–40; Waresquiel (ed.), Lettres d’un lion, pp. 53 and 55 (3 and 5 June 1812); Walter, Diary, p. 53; Louis-Joseph Vionnet de Maringoné, Souvenirs d’un ex-commandant des grenadiers de la vieille-garde. Fragments des mémoires inédits du lieutenant-général L.-J. Vionnet de Maringoné (Paris, 1899), p. 1; Michel Combe, Mémoires du colonel Combe sur le campagnes de Russie en 1812, de Saxe 1813, de France, 1814 et 1815 (Paris, 1853), p. 78; Brett-James, 1812: Eyewitness, p. 52.
72. Suckow, D’Iéna à Moscou, p. 157.
73. Girod de l’Ain, Dix ans de souvenirs militaires, pp. 252–3; Ducor, Aventures d’un marin de la Garde impériale, i. pp. 305–6.
74. François, Journal, p. 653 (7 August 1812); Suckow, D’Iéna à Moscou, p. 157; Franz Joseph Hausmann, A Soldier for Napoleon: The Campaigns of Lieutenant Franz Joseph Hausmann, 7th Bavarian Infantry, trans. Cynthia Joy Hausmann, ed. John H. Gill (London, 1998), pp. 99, 149.
75. Corr. xxiii. and xxiv. nos. 18874 to 18969 (28 June–18 July 1812).
76. Antoine Henri de Jomini, Précis politique et militaire des campagnes de 1812 à 1814, 2 vols (Geneva, 1975), i. 72.
77. Duverger, Mes aventures, p. 5.
78. Montesquiou-Fezensac, Souvenirs militaires, pp. 233–4; Josselson and Josselson, The Commander, pp. 110–11.
79. Villemain, Souvenirs contemporains, i. p. 198.
80. Constant, Mémoires, ii. p. 272; Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. p. 200.
81. Ségur, Histoire et mémoires, iv. p. 257.
82. Ducor, Aventures d’un marin de la Garde impériale, p. 308.
83. Méneval, Mémoires, iii. p. 43; Castellane, Journal, i. pp. 126–7 (6 August 1812); Bourgoing, Souvenirs, pp. 98–100.
84. Corr. xxiv. nos. 19015 to 19093 (29 July–12 August 1812).
85. Ségur, Histoire de Napoléon, i. p. 222.
86. Adams, Napoleon and Russia, p. 315; Esdaile, Napoleon’s Wars, p. 472.
87. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, pp. 158–62.
88. On the events leading up to the battle for Smolensk see Lieven, Russia against Napoleon, pp. 164–73; Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 767–90.
89. According to Philippe-Paul, comte de Ségur, History of the Expedition to Russia Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812, 2 vols (London, 1826), ii. pp. 263–4, a large ford existed about one kilometre from the city, but that it remained undiscovered for two days.
90. Raymond Faure, Souvenirs du Nord, ou la Guerre, la Russie et les Russes ou l’esclavage (Paris, 1821), p. 34.
91. Caulaincourt, Memoirs, i. pp. 209–10. In fact, it was probably Charles IX of France (c. 1574).
92. Pierre Paradis to Geneviève Bonnegrâce (20 September 1812), in Léon Hennet and Emmanuel Martin (eds), Lettres interceptées par les Russes durant la campagne de 1812 (Paris, 1913) (hereafter Lettres interceptées), p. 20.
