Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookon both sides, but the Russian general, Beningsen, had all the luck. (1) His Cossacks capture Napoleon's letter to Bernadotte, which enables him to escape all Napoleon's plans, which otherwise would have destroyed half the Russian army. (2) A snowstorm in the middle of the day in the faces of the French ruins Augereau's corps and saves the Russians from a total rout. (3) The arrival of a Prussian army corps, under General Lestocq, robbed Davoust of his glorious victory on the right, and much of the ground gained--including the village of Kuschnitten. (4) The night came on just in time to save the rest of the Russian army, and to prevent Ney taking any decisive part in the battle. Bernadotte, as usual, failed to march to the sound of the guns, but, as Napoleon's orders to do so were captured by Cossacks, he might have had an excuse rather better than usual, had not General Hautpoult,[62] in touch both with him and Napoleon, advised him of his own orders and an imminent battle. Under such circumstances, no general save the Prince of Ponte-Corvo, says Bignon, would have remained inactive, "but it was the destiny of this marshal to have a rôle apart in all the great battles fought by the Emperor. His conduct was at least strange at Jena, it will not be less so, in 1809, at Wagram." The forces, according to Matthieu Dumas (_Précis des Evénements Militaires_, volume 18), were approximately 65,000 French against 80,000 allies[63]--the latter in a strong chosen position. Napoleon saved 1500, the wreckage of Augereau's[64] corps, that went astray in the blizzard (costing the French more than half their loss in the two days' fight), by a charge of his Horse Guard, but his Foot Guard never fired a shot. The allies lost 5000 to 6000 dead and 20,000 wounded. Napoleon told Montholon that his loss at Eylau was 18,000, which probably included 2000 dead, and 15,000 to 16,000 wounded and prisoners. As the French remained masters of the field of battle, the slightly wounded were evidently not counted by Napoleon, who in his bulletin gives 1900 dead and 5700 wounded. The list of wounded inmates of the hospital a month later, March 8th, totalled only 4600, which astonished Napoleon, who sent back for a recount. On receipt of this he wrote Daru (March 15): "From your advices to hand, I see we are not far out of count. There were at the battle of Eylau 4000 or 5000 wounded, and 1000 in the combats preceding the battle." No. 40. _Corbineau._--Mlle. d'Avrillon (vol. ii. 101) tells how, in haste to join his regiment at Paris, Corbineau had asked for a seat in her carriage from St. Cloud. She was delighted, as he was a charming man, "with no side on like Lauriston and Lemarois." He had just been made general, and said, "Either I will get killed or deserve the favour which the Emperor has granted me. M'selle, you shall hear me spoken of; if I am not killed I will perform some startling deed." _Dahlmann._--General Nicholas Dahlmann, commanding the chasseurs of the guard, was killed in the charge on the Russian infantry which saved the battle. On April 22nd Napoleon wrote Vice-Admiral Decrés to have three frigates put on the stocks to be called Dahlmann, Corbineau, and Hautpoul, and in each captain's cabin a marble inscription recounting their brave deeds. No. 41. _Young Tascher._--The third of Josephine's cousins-germain of that name. He was afterwards aide-de-camp of Prince Eugène, and later major-domo of the Empress Eugénie. No. 42. After this letter St. Amand declares that Napoleon's letters to his wife become "cold, short, banal, absolutely insignificant." "They consisted of a few remarks about the rain or the fine weather, and always the same refrain--the invitation to be cheerful.... Napoleon, occupied elsewhere, wrote no longer to his legitimate wife, but as a duty, as paying a debt of conscience." He was occupied, indeed, but barely as the author supposes. It is Bingham (vol. ii. 281) who reminds us that in the first three months of 1807 we have 1715 letters and despatches preserved of his work during that period, while he often rode forty leagues a day, and had instructed his librarian to send him by each morning's courier two or three new books from Paris. Aubenas is more just than St. Amand. "If his style is no longer that of the First Consul, still less of the General of Italy, he was solicitous, punctilious, attentive, affectionate even although laconic, in that correspondence (with Josephine) which, in the midst of his much greater preoccupations, seems for him as much a pleasure as a duty." No. 43. _I am still at Eylau._--It took Napoleon and his army eight days to bury the dead and remove the wounded. Lejeune says, "His whole time was given up now to seeing that the wounded received proper care, and he insisted on the Russians being as well treated as the French" (vol. i. 48). The Emperor wrote Daru that if more surgeons had been on the spot he could have saved at least 200 lives; although, to look at the surgical instruments used on these fields, and now preserved in the museum of Les Invalides, it is wonderful that the men survived operations with such ghastly implements of torture. A few days later Napoleon tells Daru on no account to begrudge money for medicines, and especially for quinine. _This country is covered with dead and wounded._--"Napoleon," says Dumas (vol. i. 18, 41), "having given order that the succour to the wounded on both sides might be multiplied, rode over the field of battle, which all eye-witnesses agree to have been the most horrible field of carnage which war has ever offered. In a space of less than a square league, the ground covered with snow, and the frozen lakes, were heaped up with 10,000 dead, and 3000 to 4000 dead horses, débris of artillery, arms of all kinds, cannon-balls, and shells. Six thousand Russians, expiring of their wounds, and of hunger and thirst, were left abandoned to the generosity of the conqueror." No. 50. _Osterode._--"A wretched village, where I shall pass a considerable time." Owing to the messenger to Bernadotte being captured by Cossacks, the Emperor, if not surprised at Eylau on the second day, found at least all his own intentions anticipated. He could not risk the same misfortune again, and at Osterode all his army were within easy hailing distance, "within two marches at most" (Dumas). Savary speaks of him there, "working, eating, giving audience, and sleeping--all in the same room," alone keeping head against the storm of his marshals, who wished him to retire across the Vistula. He remained over five weeks at Osterode, and more than two months at Finckenstein Castle, interesting himself in the affairs of Teheran and Monte Video, offering prizes for discoveries in electricity and medicine, giving advice as to the most scientific modes of teaching history and geography, while objecting to the creation of poet-laureates or Cæsarians whose exaggerated praises would be sure to awaken the ridicule of th |