With Napoleon in Russia by de Caulaincourt Armand; Hanoteau Jean; Libaire George

Author:de Caulaincourt, Armand; Hanoteau, Jean; Libaire, George
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1900361
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2012-10-11T16:00:00+00:00

We made our way from Liadouï to Doubrowna. There on the following day [November 19], in the morning, just when we were about to set out, the Emperor learned that the First Corps had joined the troops he had left at Krasnoë ... and that consequently this corps had passed through Krasnoë on the seventeenth, the day on which it was possible that Marshal Elchingen had just left Smolensk. We knew nothing definite about the Third Corps, of which the First had had no news since the sixteenth.47 Not a single despatch officer had returned. Had any of them ever got through? The Emperor was lost in conjectures. Miloradovitch’s remaining in his original position, and the departure of our own troops, made us realize all the dangers to which Marshal Elchingen was exposed.

The grave reproaches that the two marshals have levelled against one another, the severe judgment of headquarters and the whole army in regard to one of them, make it incumbent on me to report in this connection only the Emperor’s own expressions, the Prince of Neuchâtel’s private opinions, and details openly given to headquarters by trustworthy persons. The Emperor and the Prince of Neuchâtel said again and again that the two marshals ought to march in concert and support one another; that, as Marshal Elchingen made the progress of his retreat depend on the obstacles with which the enemy confronted him, Marshal Eckmühl should have modified his pace accordingly. But the two marshals did not like one another, and, having had a violent difference of opinion about the looting of Smolensk, they had ceased to co-operate.

The following details represent the facts of the case as recounted by the Emperor and the Prince of Neuchâtel at the time. The First Corps, aware of the dangers threatening the Viceroy, who was ahead of it, quickened its pace, keeping Marshal Elchingen informed of its movements but not bothering about whether he was able to follow. The harder the Russians pressed and attacked, the faster the First Corps marched, thus carrying out the orders which Marshal Eckmühl had received. Those orders he had passed on to Marshal Elchingen, assuming that the latter ... would act on them, and hasten his pace also. No one expected a persistent attack, or was made anxious about the Third Corps by the wild shouts of the Cossacks. Marshal Eckmühl argued that any other policy would have vainly jeopardized the shattered regiments that still remained with him. He could not have helped Marshal Elchingen, he said; for the First Corps would have been destroyed or taken prisoner before it could have got back to Marshal Elchingen or been overtaken by him. This version of the affair was given out during the day.

It is impossible to describe the unbridled rage and fury that everyone showed towards Marshal Eckmühl. Marshal Elchingen was the hero of the campaign—the general whom everyone felt anxious about. So universal and so warm was the interest in Ney’s predicament that no limits were observed

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