The Fields of Death - Scarrow Simon - Страница 73
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Chapter 28
Napoleon
Kovno, 24 June 1812
As the sun set on the first day of the invasion Napoleon sat in his campaign wagon reading through the latest intelligence reports. It had been a sweltering day and he was stripped to his shirt as he leaned forward over the small desk. The doors of the wagon were open and a lantern hung from an iron loop in the roof of the vehicle. Berthier sat at another table further into the wagon, busy collating the reports so that he could pass on only pertinent information to his Emperor. A cloud of mosquitoes and gnats had been drawn to the glow of the lantern and Napoleon continually swatted them away as he read. Outside the wagon a company of the Old Guard formed a cordon to keep the area clear of the long lines of soldiers tramping forward on the road to Vilna. A squadron of chasseurs had been detailed to carry messages and stood quietly in their horse lines waiting to be called forward. The wagon had stopped temporarily while the general in charge of the Emperor’s campaign staff arranged for the field headquarters to be set up in the chambers of the merchants’ guild of Kovno.
Napoleon finished reading the first batch of selected reports and pushed them aside before leaning back on his bench and rubbing his eyes. There had been no sleep the night before. The first troops had crossed the Niemen in the early hours, followed by the engineers who immediately began construction of the three pontoon bridges over which the main thrust of the Grand Army was to pass, a quarter of a million men, under the Emperor’s direct control. To the north, another army of eighty thousand Bavarians and Italians under Napoleon’s stepson Prince Eugиne was advancing to cover the left flank of the main force. On the right flank, heading towards the south of the Pripet marshes, was another army of seventy thousand men drawn from a variety of German states, as well as a contingent of Poles, commanded by Prince Jйrфme. Their task was to force General Bagration east, and prevent him from linking up with the main Russian army. Still to the west of the Niemen were the last two formations of the invading army. Marshal Victor was in charge of the reserves, a hundred and fifty thousand men, ready to be sent forward to replace the losses of Napoleon’s army. Behind Victor marched Marshal Augereau with sixty thousand men, tasked with guarding the supply depots to be established in the wake of the army, and keep the lines of communication with Warsaw and thence to Paris open. Even though Napoleon was commanding the largest army that Europe had ever seen, he was also the ruler of an empire and needed to ensure that messages continued to flow to and from his capital city. Ahead of the entire army rode Marshal Murat’s cavalry screen, nearly twenty thousand men, probing ahead of the army, searching for the enemy while at the same time preventing enemy scouts from observing the advance of the French armies.
Napoleon lowered his hands and turned to Berthier. ‘Still no sign of Bagration’s army?’
‘No, sire.’ Berthier shook his head. ‘Nothing in the reports so far.’
‘Hm.’ Napoleon shut his eyes again and concentrated his mind on visualising the disposition of the French columns snaking across the Russian frontier. The fact that Murat’s cavalry had not fallen in with any of the enemy’s outposts was strange, unless General Bagration was already retreating, in which case it was vital to discover the direction he was taking.
‘Sire.’ Berthier broke into his thoughts.
‘What is it?’
‘There’s a new message here from Davout. His cavalry scouts captured some stragglers from Bagration’s army. It seems that they began to march north two weeks ago.’
Napoleon blinked his eyes open and sat up.‘North? Pass me the map.’
Berthier reached towards the rack of map cases and pulled out a large-scale representation of the west of Russia. He unrolled the map across a board and fixed it in place with some pegs before passing it across to his Emperor. Napoleon glanced at the map, then traced his finger north from the last reported position of Bagration’s army.‘Minsk. He’s heading for Minsk.’ He smiled thinly.‘It seems that the Russians are not so easily fooled. They’ve guessed that our main line of advance is to the north of the Pripet. Very well then, inform Jйrфme that his feint is over. He’s to pursue Bagration, and drive him away from the main Russian army. Let him know at once.’
‘Yes, sire.’
‘One day into the campaign, and already things are starting to go awry,’ Napoleon sighed wearily. ‘If the Russians are already attempting to link up then it is more than likely that the main army will be retreating on Vilna. Send an order to Murat. He is to take two divisions of cavalry from the reserve and ride to Vilna. He must not occupy the town. He is to observe only and report back if he encounters the main Russian army. Is that clear?’
Berthier nodded and reached for a fresh sheet of paper to write the orders.
‘Good, that’s done,’ Napoleon muttered.‘Now I must get some sleep. Wake me when the headquarters is ready.’ Rising from his desk, he squeezed past Berthier’s table and climbed into the cot at the end of the wagon and pulled the netting curtain closed to keep the insects out. Rolling on to his side, away from the interior, Napoleon banished further thought from his mind and closed his eyes. A minute later, his light snores rumbled in the background as Berthier dabbed at his brow, and picked his pen up again, dipped it in the ink, and continued scratching away.
The main column of the French army marched swiftly on Vilna, where Napoleon hoped for a decisive encounter. Intercepted despatches revealed that the Tsar himself had joined the main Russian army. The news raised Napoleon’s hopes of a swift end to the campaign. The prospect of his capturing the Tsar as well as defeating the army would surely compel the enemy to submit, and Napoleon ordered his army to advance as speedily as possible, even if that meant outpacing the ponderous convoys of supply wagons. But when the French army reached Vilna, they found that the Russians had gone, leaving their supply depot in flames and destroying the bridge over the Vilia river behind them.
There was still one chance to achieve an early blow against the Russians and Napoleon ordered Davout to take his corps to intercept Bagration, while Jйrфme pursued him from the south. Then in early July, while Napoleon waited at Vilna for news of the positions of the Russian armies, Berthier brought him a despatch from Jйrфme.
‘What does my brother have to say?’ Napoleon asked as he lay in a bath in the town’s finest hotel.
Berthier scanned the report and then looked up nervously. ‘Sire, Jйrфme says that his cavalry patrols lost contact with the Russians two days ago, on the third.’
Napoleon sat up. ‘Lost contact? How can they lose contact? Where is Jйrфme?’
‘The despatch was sent from Grodno, sire.’
‘Grodno?’ Napoleon recalled the name from the map and his brow knitted angrily.‘What the hell is Jйrфme doing? Why is his army moving so slowly? That young fool is going to cost us dear. Berthier, take this down. Tell him that it would be impossible to lead his men in a worse manner. He should have been harassing Bagration at every step. Then he might have driven the Russians into Davout’s path. We could have crushed one of the Tsar’s armies. Instead he has let it escape. You tell him that he has robbed me of all that I had hoped to achieve. We have lost the best opportunity ever presented in this war, all because he has failed to learn the most fundamental principles of warfare. Did you get all that?’
‘Yes, sire.’
‘Send it at once. With luck that might spur the fool into activity. Too late to do much good now, though. Let’s hope he responds with greater alacrity next time.’
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