The Fields of Death

‘Time for the reserves,’ he decided. Wheeling his horse about, he galloped across the ridge to where the men of the Sixth Division were waiting on the reverse slope, hidden from the battle. General Clinton sat on his horse at the head of his men and tipped his hat as Arthur rode up and reined in breathlessly.

‘Clinton, I want your fellows to advance directly. They are to take the large hill to your front. The enemy must be driven from it and across the valley.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Clinton nodded. ‘You can rely on us. The boys have missed enough of the excitement as it is.’

‘Then I am glad to be of service,’ Arthur smiled. Then his expression hardened. ‘Remember, drive the enemy off the hill.’

By the time he had returned to his command post Arthur was shocked to see that fresh French formations were descending from the Greater Arapil, directly towards the left flank of the Fourth Division. General Cole was finally alert to the danger and had begun to wheel the battalion at the end of his line to face the danger. But one battalion would not be enough, Arthur could see at once. Within the next few minutes his fears were borne out as the French line halted and opened fire, cutting down swathes of men in the thin red line opposing them.

Arthur felt his stomach tighten as he watched. The battalion could not possibly hold its ground for long, and when it gave way the French could charge into Cole’s flank and begin to roll up the allied line. Another French volley ripped through the battalion, cutting down scores of redcoats. Now it seemed that more lay crumpled on the ground than still stood, steadily reloading and firing into the oncoming French formation.

Arthur was aware that General Alava was watching him, trying to gauge his reaction, and he determined not to show the Spaniard any sign of the anxiety that gnawed at his heart. He looked to his left and saw that Clinton’s men had reached the crest and begun to descend the slope. But they would not reach the hill in time to prevent the collapse of Cole’s division.

‘Who’s that?’ Somerset asked, then hurriedly lifted his telescope to examine a formation approaching the hill. It had been hidden from Arthur and his staff by a spur reaching out from the Lesser Arapil. ‘It’s a Portuguese brigade! Must be from the reserves, sir.’

Arthur was watching them now, and saw a general in a heavily gold-braided uniform leading them from the front. He smiled.‘Good for you, Beresford.’

The fresh Portuguese brigade marched swiftly across the intervening ground and formed a firing line on the flank of the French division that had been poised to crush General Cole and his men. With a dull crash the brigade fired into the the French flank, cutting it down almost to a man. The French advance abruptly stopped, and hurriedly began to swing back the right of its line to face the new threat.

Cole’s division had been saved and Arthur breathed a sigh of relief as he exchanged a quick glance with General Alava. ‘That was close.’

‘Indeed?’ Alava laughed. ‘I would never have guessed it from your demeanour, my lord.’

Arthur turned back to observe the battle and saw that Cole had withdrawn one of his brigades from the crumbling French line to his front and sent it to reinforce his flank, stabilising his position. Caught in the angle between two allied brigades, the French began to pull back towards the protection of the hill’s summit. Clinton’s men began to climb the hill, the red line wavering slightly as the soldiers struggled across the boulders and patches of scrub that covered the slope. Above them the enemy re-formed, and such was the gradient that Arthur could see that the rear ranks would have a clear shot over the heads of those before them.

‘General Clinton will find the going hard,’ Alava mused as he watched the redcoats slowly advancing upon the waiting French men.

‘We shall see,’ Arthur responded quietly as he glanced at his watch. It was nearly six. Less than three hours had passed since the first shots had been fired and the sun hung low to the west, bathing the dust and smoke of the battlefield in a ruddy red-brown glow. To the south Arthur could see thousands of the French fleeing over the crest of the ridge, pursued by cavalry. The British infantry had all but given up the pursuit, and were wearily re-forming their ranks amid the enemy bodies that littered the rising ground.

A sudden crackle of gunfire from the Greater Arapil drew all eyes to its slopes as the French opened fire on Clinton’s division. For once, the French firepower was massed in such a way as to permit more than just the front rank sight of the enemy, and Arthur saw the leading British brigade stagger to a halt as the leading ranks were decimated by enemy musket balls. The men steadily dressed to the right, lowered their bayonets and continued forward, closing the last hundred or so paces to the enemy. Another French volley ripped out, cutting down more men, and then Clinton swept his sword forward and with a harsh roar his men charged through the smoke and threw themselves at the French. There was a short struggle before the French fell back and retreated down the far side of the hill, closely pursued by Clinton and his men, who were intent on driving them from the battlefield.

Arthur nodded his satisfaction. There was just one section of the French army remaining now, still covering the road leading from Salamanca, where the first skirmishes of the day had taken place. Leaving Somerset with orders to organise the pursuit of the rest of the French army until midnight, Arthur and General Alava rode across the hill to the Light Division, which had not moved since the battle had begun. General Alten was forward of his front line watching his skirmishers exchange fire with the enemy as Arthur and Alava rode up. Occasional musket balls passed by with a dull whirr before they slapped into the ground.

‘How goes the battle?’ asked Alten.

‘It is won,’ Arthur replied. ‘All that remains is for your division to follow the French up. Engage the rearguard and drive it back.’

‘That will be a pleasure, sir.’

Arthur reached his hand up to touch the brim of his hat. ‘You have your orders, General. Hang on their heels. Give them no respite. We have Marmont beaten; now we must ensure that his army is destroyed.’

Arthur stayed to watch the Light Division begin to advance, and as soon as he saw the enemy begin to fall back, leaving a screen of light infantry to cover the retreat, he turned away and returned to headquarters with a feeling of exultation. That morning, he had been resigned to a wearisome retreat towards Ciudad Rodrigo. Now, at a stroke, and scarcely five hours later, the army of Marmont was scattered and little stood between the allied army and the Spanish capital of Madrid.

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.’

There was not to be a next time. The next despatch from Jйrфme’s headquarters was written by Marshal Davout. The Emperor’s letter had caused his younger brother so much offence that he had abandoned the army to return to his kingdom of Westphalia, leaving Davout to assume temporary command of his corps. Despite his anger, Napoleon considered the news a blessing of sorts as he continued his pursuit of the main Russian army.

July brought with it several days of rainstorms that lashed the columns of the Grand Army as it tramped eastwards, driven on by its commander in his desire to find the Tsar and his soldiers and bring them to battle. Within hours every rutted track was turned into a muddy morass that sucked at the boots of the men and the horses’ hooves and slowed the speed of the artillery trains and supply wagons to a crawl. The Emperor’s marshals, aware of his orders to press on at all costs, left a small guard behind to escort the wagons and continued the advance.

When the rains had passed, the sun blazed down on the Grand Army. The roads dried out, and then in place of mud there were choking clouds of dust that clogged the lungs and stung the men’s eyes. Despite the season the nights were cool and the men huddled around their camp fires. Many of the soldiers were unseasoned and the long marches quickly exhausted them. When the rations started to run out they lacked the experience of veterans in foraging and began to starve. Before July came to an end a long line of graves stretched back behind the army, and here and there lay an occasional naked body: stragglers killed and stripped by the bands of Cossacks that began to shadow and harass the French columns like jackals.

Nor were the men alone in their suffering. The horses were equally exhausted, and once the feed had been consumed they were forced to eat whatever green corn they could find as they passed through the sparsely inhabited Russian landscape. At the end of July Napoleon halted the army at Vitebsk to allow the supply convoys to catch up. There, Berthier updated the notebooks that recorded the strength of every regiment in the army. Nearly a hundred thousand men were absent from the lists of effectives. Many of these were sick, some were stragglers, and the rest had died on the march.

After eight days the army continued the advance, and still the Russians fell back, burning crops and destroying farms and villages in the path of the French columns. Then, at last, in the middle of August, the enemy made a stand at Smolensk. For two days Ney’s infantry fought their way into the suburbs of the city, only to see the bridge over the Dnieper river blown up in their faces. The army had to wait another day while the bridge was repaired. By then the Russians were again in retreat towards Moscow.

Napoleon gave the order for the army to halt and rest while reinforcements and supplies came forward. While the weary soldiers scoured the city for food and plunder, Napoleon summoned his marshals to his temporary headquarters to consider the situation. The Russian summer was at its height and the windows of the mansion overlooking the Dnieper were wide open to admit what little breeze there was. The commanders of the central army group were as tired as their Emperor and when Berthier spread the campaign map before them Napoleon could see the dull despair in their eyes as they contemplated the two hundred and eighty miles that still stretched between Smolensk and Moscow.

An orderly served wine, chilled in the mansion’s ice house, and Napoleon waited for him to leave the room before he addressed the others.

‘My friends, we have been obliged to advance far deeper into Russia than I had anticipated. It seems that the Tsar is prepared to sacrifice his entire country rather than face us in battle. The army has been on the march for two months and every day we lose more men and horses to sickness, starvation and exhaustion. The main strike force has been reduced to little over a hundred and fifty thousand men. Today, our scouts have confirmed that General Bagration has succeeded in uniting with the main Russian army. Murat estimates that the Tsar now has a hundred and twenty-five thousand men between us and Moscow.’

Napoleon looked round the table at Berthier, Ney, Murat and Davout. There was a time, when he was younger and unburdened by the duties of an emperor, when Napoleon would have continued the advance without hesitation. And these men would have followed him on the instant. Now? He was no longer so sure of them.

He leaned back, raised his glass and took a quick sip before he continued. ‘A number of choices lie before us. At present the army is reaching the end of its endurance. It is imperative that the men are rested if we are to continue to advance on the road to Moscow, where I am sure the Tsar will turn to fight us. At the same time it would provide us with the chance for our supply convoys to reach us. We will need them to sustain us for the final march to Moscow, as we can be certain the Russians will destroy any stocks of food or forage in our path.’ He paused a moment. ‘There is little doubt that continuing our advance entails a number of risks. Which brings me to a second course of action. We halt now and winter in Smolensk. It would give us time to reorganise our supplies and rest the men so that we can renew the campaign in the spring in easy striking range of Moscow. However, I will not pretend that it will be easy to maintain such a large army as ours through the winter. The last choice is the most difficult. We retreat back over the Niemen and winter in Poland and reconsider the strategic situation next spring.’ Napoleon folded his hands together and looked round at the others. ‘Well?’

‘Retreat is out of the question, sire,’ Ney replied at once. ‘Our enemies would say that we had been defeated. They are already parading our reverses in Spain as proof that France is starting to crumble. I say we press on. One great victory is all we need. Then we can afford to rest and feed our men.’

Murat nodded. ‘Ney is right. We need to end this affair as soon as possible. Even if we did not retreat, and remained in Smolensk, the Russians would portray it as a defeat. Continue the advance, whatever the cost. As long as we chase down the Tsar and crush his army.’

Napoleon nodded as he considered their advice, and then turned to Davout. ‘How about you?’

Davout ran a hand over his thinning hair. ‘As you can see from the map, we are still nearly three hundred miles short of Moscow. The attrition of our men will only increase the further we march. Given our current rate of losses, we will be lucky if we reach Moscow with a third of the men we started out with.’

‘A third is all we need, if we take Moscow,’ Ney intervened. ‘And a third is sufficient to beat the Russian army, if they have the stomach to stand and fight us.’

A frown flitted across Davout’s features. ‘Why should they stand and fight? They haven’t so far. What if they let us take Moscow and refuse to sue for peace? They could continue to draw us on, biding their time while our strength diminishes, and then strike once the odds are on their side. There’s something else to consider, sire. If we suffer a reverse and we’re compelled to retreat, then given the distance involved we might well face a disaster. It is my view that our priority must be to keep the army in being as best we can. It might be prudent to winter here.’

‘Thank you for your honesty, Davout.’ Napoleon put a finger inside his collar to wipe the sweat from his neck. ‘Is there anything you wish to add, Berthier?’

The chief of staff pursed his lips briefly. ‘I fear that Davout is right, sire. Every step we take towards Moscow increases the risk of catastrophe, particularly with the onset of winter. I have spoken to some of our local guides. The Russian winter could kill us all.’

Napoleon considered the situation in silence for a moment. Besides his immediate difficulties there were other concerns. He was far from Paris, and the bad news from Spain concerned him greatly. Worse still, his enemies in France were becoming more outspoken in the absence of the Emperor. The sooner he could return to the capital the better. The fingers of his right hand drummed on the table as he weighed each factor up. In the end it was clear to him that he had more to lose by delaying action than by embracing it. He took another sip of the cooled wine and made his decision.

‘If we continue the advance, I cannot believe that the Tsar would abandon Moscow to us. I am convinced that he will make a stand somewhere on the road from Smolensk. If he refuses to fight then his own people will kill him and find themselves a new Tsar. So he will fight. I will stake the army on that. He will fight and we shall defeat him and take Moscow within a month. Then the Tsar will make peace. What else can he do?’

Chapter 29

Schivardino, 6 September 1812

‘It is a good likeness, is it not?’ Napoleon examined the portrait of his son, then pulled out his handkerchief and cleared his nose as he muttered, ‘Damned cold.’

Around him the headquarters staff and his marshals nodded approvingly as they looked at the painting they had been summoned to view. It had arrived with the latest government despatches and letters in an escorted carriage. Napoleon put his handkerchief away, sniffed, and stepped up to the painting, in its slim gilt frame. He stared at the infant’s face and for a moment the eyes seemed to come alive, gazing fondly at him. Napoleon felt a pang of longing, even though he knew it was a trick of artistic technique. He reached forward and brushed the cheek with his finger. The coarse surface of paint and canvas that met his touch broke the illusion and he stepped back.

‘Take it to my quarters. Hang it by the bed.’

The two servants holding the frame bowed their heads and carefully carried the painting out of the room. When they had gone, Napoleon turned to face his officers. ‘I’ve had bad news from Spain. Marshal Marmont was defeated by Wellington outside Salamanca six weeks ago. It is possible that Madrid has already fallen. Our position in Spain is dangerous. Which means that we must conclude our business in Russia as swiftly as possible, gentlemen.’

He crossed to the large open doors that led out on to a wide balcony. The view from the summer lodge on the edge of the village faced east. Just over a mile away lay the hills where the Russian army blocked the road to Moscow. ‘Out here, if you please.’The officers filed out into the afternoon sunshine. The sky was cloudless and the azure depths inspired a sense of serenity that was not in keeping with the preparations for battle on the earth below.

‘I told you the Tsar would fight.’ Napoleon smiled grimly as he surveyed the Russian lines before him. It was a strong position, and the enemy had made good use of the time to prepare some formidable earthworks to protect the centre of their line. Their right flank was protected by the Kalatsha river, and the town of Borodino on the far bank, and the left by a dense wood and the town of Utitsa beyond. Solid blocks of infantry and cavalry were clearly visible on the slopes overlooking Schivardino and a thin line of skirmishers dotted the brown grass at the foot of the slope, a short distance from their French counterparts. All morning, a group of priests had been parading religious artefacts up and down the ranks of the Russian army and the distant formations had shimmered in the sunlight as they went down on their knees and bowed their heads as the priests passed by.

Even with the latest replacements the French army was now only a hundred and thirty thousand strong. The Russians were estimated to be fielding almost as many men, but still Napoleon felt confident of another triumph for the Grand Army. The Tsar had already handed the initiative to Napoleon by choosing to defend this ground rather than continue his retreat.

Raising his arm, Napoleon pointed towards the centre of the Russian line. ‘That’s where we will strike at dawn tomorrow. We’ll mass our guns in front of those earthworks and pound them to pieces before sending the infantry forward. Prince Eugиne’s corps will drive in their right flank while Poniatowski deals with the left.’ He turned to face his officers. ‘That is the battle plan.’

His subordinates glanced at each other in surprise and Napoleon could not help frowning. The heavy cold of the last few days had left him feeling even more weary than usual. His head was throbbing painfully. He clasped his hands behind his back and tapped a foot impatiently. ‘Comments?’

Eugиne nodded. ‘A frontal attack on those earthworks is going to be bloody work, sire.’

‘Of course. But once we have the redoubts we can crush the Russian centre and destroy each flank in turn.’

‘Sire.’ Davout spoke up. ‘A frontal attack is too dangerous. If we lose too many men then there won’t be any chance of a breakthrough. Even if we did achieve that, there is a danger that we would be too weak to mount an effective pursuit.’

‘I see. Then what would you suggest, Davout? That we wait for the Tsar to attack us? He has shown little sign of any offensive spirit so far.’

Davout shook his head. ‘No, sire. Of course we must attack. But the ground is open to the south. There is nothing to stop us outflanking the Russians beyond Utitsa. Let Murat take his cavalry round the flank and attack the rear of their line while the main assault goes in.’

‘Against any other commander I would agree with you, but not the Tsar. We have him before us. He is willing to give battle and I do not want to give him any excuse to break off and continue his retreat. We must do all that we can to encourage him to remain in front of us. Is that clear?’

Davout shook his head.‘Sire, our cavalry is the finest in Europe. Why did we bring so many of them with us if you are not prepared to use them? This is a heaven-sent opportunity to trap the Tsar.’

‘He’s right, sire.’ Murat nodded. ‘Let my cavalry settle the issue.’

Napoleon raised a hand to his brow. He had decided on a plan, and balanced the risk of heavy losses against the fear that the Tsar would slip away once again. It was too late to change his mind. His head was pounding now, and despite the warmth of the day he felt cold and his body started to tremble. As Murat began to speak again Napoleon raised his hand to stop him. ‘Enough! The Grand Army has its orders, and you have yours. All that remains is to deploy your men in readiness for tomorrow. You are dismissed. Go.’

The rising sun was still hidden behind the hills upon which sprawled battalion upon battalion of Russian troops. The silhouettes and standards of the men on the crests were black against the soft orange hue of the eastern sky. The redoubts bulked huge and ominous in the shadowed side of the hills. The largest was on the right of the line commanding the bridge across the river to Borodino. A ditch lay to the front, then high earth ramparts and scores of embrasures through which the barrels of cannon pointed towards the French lines. The other earthworks took the form of two huge chevrons, their tips thrusting towards the enemy. Napoleon knew that when his infantry advanced the crossfire between the chevrons would be murderous.

He had not slept well. His cold had made it difficult to breathe easily and kept waking him. Now he struggled to think clearly as he beheld the final preparations for the battle. The corps of Ney and Davout stood ready to advance. Ahead of them lay over four hundred cannon, massed in batteries to bombard the Russian earthworks. They had been protected by hastily erected earthworks of their own, but the previous evening Napoleon’s artillery commander, General Lariboisiиre, had informed him that they were out of effective range of the Russian defences. So the guns had been dragged forward in the early hours and now stood out in the open. The reserve, the Imperial Guard, was formed up just outside Schivardino.

The air was still and a few swifts darted low over the trampled grass, sweeping up the first of the day’s insects. Most of the soldiers of both sides stood in sombre silence. A few had got hold of some spirits and attempted to raise a cheer or start some singing, but the sounds soon died away. Napoleon had given orders for the French bands to advance to the first rank, ready to strike up some rousing tunes when the attack began.

Berthier glanced down at his watch and coughed. ‘It’s time, sire.’

‘Give the order.’

Berthier turned to the waiting artillery lieutenant and nodded. The gunner cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted towards the headquarters signal gun. ‘Fire!’

The sergeant in command of the gun leaned forward to apply the portfire to the fuse. Sparks sputtered momentarily and then the barrel shimmered as a long tongue of flame leaped from the muzzle, followed at once by a swirling cloud of powder smoke and a detonation like a thunderclap. There was a short delay and then the first of the batteries opened up with a roar. The others fired moments later and soon the sound was almost continuous as it carried back to the church tower of Schivardino where Napoleon and Berthier had climbed to look out over the battlefield.

On the slopes of the Russian position the heavy iron shot ploughed into the earthworks, kicking up spouts of loose soil. Some shots struck the embrasures, loosening the wicker fascines that sheltered the gun crews beyond. The Russian guns started to return fire and quickly began to score hits on the unprotected French artillerymen. Napoleon saw a gun carriage shatter, the timber spraying splinters all around and felling the six men either side of the weapon. Soon, the batteries of both sides were shrouded in thick smoke and they were firing blind.

To the continuous roar of the cannon was added a new sound: the sharp rattle of drums sounding the pas-de-charge as the French infantry began to advance along the entire length of the line. To the north Napoleon could see the dark blocks of men from Eugиne’s corps converging on Borodino, on the far side of the Kalatsha. In front of him the leading divisions of Ney and Davout had started up the slopes. Ahead of them advanced the voltigeurs, taking shots at the Russian skirmishers falling back towards the main Russian line.

The batteries in the redoubts ceased firing on the French guns and reloaded with case shot before switching their aim to the dense lines of infantry climbing up towards them. A moment later the first blasts of iron shot ripped through the leading French formations, striking down several men at a time. The fire from the Russian cannon intensified and the infantry hunched down as their officers waved them forward and the drums continued to beat, frantically urging the soldiers on into the hail of destruction sweeping the slopes.

From the church tower Napoleon and Berthier watched the attack’s progress through their telescopes, until Ney and Davout’s men had passed into the gently rolling banks of smoke surrounding the redoubts and out of sight. Below the smoke they could now see hundreds of blue-coated bodies flecking the slope. Napoleon took a deep breath and snapped his telescope shut.

‘Come, there’s little to see here. We can follow the battle better from downstairs.’ He led the way down into the nave of the church, which had been cleared to make way for the imperial staff. A map table had been set up and a handful of junior officers were busy tracking the movements of the army using small blocks of coloured wood as messengers hurried in and out of the entrance bearing hastily written despatches.

Despite the familiar anxiety and excitement whenever he was involved in a battle, the fatigue and illness of recent days weighed heavily on Napoleon. He slumped down on a small bench set into an alcove along the wall of the nave and rested his head in his hands. Outside the thunder of guns continued, and the concussion could be felt even where he sat. An hour after the attack began Berthier came up to him.

‘Sire, there are reports from all corps now.’

‘Well?’

‘Prince Eugиne has taken Borodino and has sent a division across the river to take the Gorki Heights.’

‘No.’ Napoleon looked up. ‘One division is not enough. He must support it, or have them fall back.’

‘Yes, sire.’

‘What else?’

‘Davout is attacking the two earthworks to the right of the village of Semenowska. Once they are taken he will turn and attack the largest redoubt on the other side of the village.’

‘Good. And what of Prince Poniatowski?’

‘He has taken Utitsa, sire. However, he reports that there are a large number of enemy infantry and some guns in the woods close to the town. He is sending skirmishers forward to drive them out.’

Napoleon nodded. So far all was going to plan. Once Davout had control of Semenowska and the redoubts he could wheel to the left and drive the Russians back against the river. He glanced at Berthier. ‘What have we lost?’

‘First reports say that the leading formations have suffered badly. One of Davout’s divisions has been cut to pieces and the survivors have fallen back.’

Napoleon pursed his lips. He had expected to lose many men; their sacrifice would be worthwhile if the Russian army were destroyed. ‘Very well, Berthier. Notify me of any further developments.’

‘Yes, sire.’ Berthier bowed and turned to hurry back to re-join his aides. Napoleon thought about ascending the tower again, but there was little point. The smoke would obscure his vision. He was not well enough to mount his horse and ride forward, so he would have to follow the battle on the map. He sat in the nave and waited. An hour later there was a fresh flurry of reports and Berthier read through them with a concerned expression before he approached the Emperor again.

‘The Russians have counter-attacked, sire. Eugиne’s division has been driven from the Heights, and Davout has lost control of Semenowska. He has re-formed his men and is preparing for another assault, with Ney in support. Poniatowski has been halted just beyond Utitsa. The Russians have hundreds of guns covering the road.’

‘Very well. Tell Murat to have one of his cavalry corps ready to support Davout, and order Eugиne to send three of his divisions across the river to attack the main redoubt.’

As the next hour passed sporadic reports continued to reach imperial headquarters. The fighting around the Russian centre sucked in more and more of Davout’s and Ney’s men. Several of the French generals were lost, and Davout was injured, but he had the wound dressed quickly so that he could continue to lead his men. Still, the Russians held on to the village of Semenowska and the earthworks. Before the third hour of the battle had passed Napoleon was obliged to send Junot’s reserve corps forward to support the attack. Every formation was now committed to the battle, with the exception of the twenty-five thousand men of the Imperial Guard, drawn up on a knoll a short distance from the church.

Napoleon picked up his telescope and gathering his strength he climbed back into the tower to try to gauge the progess of the latest attack on the Russian centre. The entire strength of three infantry corps together with ten thousand horsemen pressed forward, supported by two hundred and fifty cannon. The enemy had also concentrated their artillery in the centre, and more guns savaged the French flank from the largest redoubt. The hills opposite the church were now heaped with bodies and a steady stream of walking wounded limped down the slope to escape the maelstrom of cannon and musket fire around Semenowska and the two smaller earthworks. Slowly, the smoke cleared from the Russian centre and Napoleon realised that the enemy were starting to give ground. Now was the time for the cavalry to push forward and break the Russian line.

He returned to the nave to issue the order and then pulled up a chair so that he could sit by the map table to wait for further news. Surely Murat’s cavalry would scatter the Russians, he thought. After the earlier cannonade and the assaults by the French infantry, the Russians would be badly shaken. The sight of thousands of heavy cavalry charging towards them would be the final straw. Yet the minutes passed and there was no report of a breakthrough. Then, nearly an hour later, a message came from Murat. Incredibly, the Russians had not run. Instead, they had formed squares and steadily retreated to a ridge nearly two miles beyond their initial position. Murat asked for the Old Guard to be sent forward to settle the matter. Napoleon finished reading the note and handed it to Berthier.

‘The Imperial Guard is the only reserve that remains,’ he grumbled. ‘Murat wants to throw them against the Russian cannon. Tell Murat that he and my other marshals must make do with what they have. The enemy are still holding out in the strongest redoubt. We must have that before we advance any further. Bring every spare gun to bear on the redoubt. Eugиne’s corps will make the attack from the front, while Caulaincourt’s cavalry advance round the flank to take the redoubt from the rear.’

Berthier nodded.

Napoleon stared blankly at the map and muttered, ‘I will not destroy the Guard. They are the last fresh formation in the army. We are too far from home to risk everything.’

The middle of the day passed as Eugиne gathered his forces for the assault on the redoubt. It was two o’clock before four hundred guns opened fire, pounding the embrasures to pieces, dismounting dozens of guns and killing their crews. As Eugиne’s men closed on the redoubt the dazed defenders opened fire with the remaining guns while the Russian infantry lined the battered fortifications and fired into the approaching mass. As the French drums beat, the leading ranks surged forward, clambering up the steep sides of the earthwork, and engaged the defenders in a ferocious hand to hand struggle with cold steel and the butts of their muskets.

The shrill call of trumpets added to the sound of the drums as the French cavalry surged round the side of the redoubt and swept aside the line of infantry guarding the open entrances to the rear of the fortification. The garrison was caught between the two forces, and before the hour was out the last of them had been cut down. Not a single prisoner was taken.

Napoleon nodded in satisfaction when he heard the news from one of Ney’s staff officers.‘Good. The time for one last assault is upon us. Tell Ney to advance and the day is his.’

‘Sire, Marshal Ney says that his corps is too exhausted to advance, and he has lost too many men.’

‘Ney said that?’ Napoleon was shocked. Had even his bravest and most aggressive marshal lost heart? ‘Ney?’

‘Yes, sire,’ the officer replied nervously. ‘And he begs you to send forward the Guard. He said to assure you that if they attack now, then what is left of the Russian line will break.’

‘No! No! No!’ Napoleon hammered his fist on the table.‘The Guard stays where it is! Tell Ney, Davout and Murat that they must go forward.’

It was late in the afternoon before the exhausted French soldiers had re-formed their columns. They were grimly resolved to obey the Emperor’s order. All around them lay tens of thousands of dead and wounded men and horses. Before them, on the next ridge, thousands of Russian cavalry stood waiting, screening the remains of the Tsar’s army as it too re-formed its ranks. Once more the French guns belched flame and smoke and heavy iron balls arced across the battlefield to plough through the lines of Russian horsemen. They stood their ground with stolid courage as the French came on. Then the sound of trumpets called out, and the enemy cavalry turned about and trotted away to catch up with their infantry and guns as they left the battlefield.

Ney gave the order to halt, and as the daylight began to fade his men wearily spread out along the crest of the ridge that had been drenched in the blood of so many French and enemy soldiers. Once he was certain there was no danger of any counter-attack, Ney rode back to headquarters to confront his Emperor.

‘The Guard would have made all the difference!’ Ney glared at the Emperor.

Napoleon looked back, pale and sweating from his sickness. Ney had a dressing around his head, darkly stained where his skull had been creased by a spent musket ball. He had also been hit in the thigh and twice in the arm by chips of stone when cannon balls had grounded close to his horse.

‘One final assault by fresh troops would have put the seal on a great victory.’ Ney shook his head. ‘Now they have escaped.’

‘You are wrong,’ Napoleon replied evenly. ‘We have won a great victory today. That is what I have told Berthier to report to Paris. We have met the enemy and swept them aside.’

‘What?’ Ney’s lips curled in contempt. ‘Only a fool would believe that. Some victory.’ He gestured towards the ruined enemy earthworks. ‘We have won a few piles of dirt and the ruins of two villages. The Tsar’s army is still intact and now we will have to fight it again. All because the Guard refused to muddy their uniforms.’

‘The order was mine,’ Napoleon replied coldly as he rubbed his brow. The headache had returned with a vengeance. ‘I take full responsibility for the consequences.’

‘That’s good of you, sire.’

Napoleon ignored the mocking tone and continued, ‘The fact is, we have defeated the Tsar’s army. Even if he has managed to save most of his men, there is nothing that can stop us reaching Moscow now.’

Chapter 30

Moscow, 15 September 1812

Napoleon stood at the window of the Tsar’s private study in the Kremlin gazing out at the historic Russian capital with an expression of horrified awe. His face was lit in the blood-red hue as he stared towards the great swathe of Moscow that was on fire.

He had reached the city shortly after noon, a day after the first of Murat’s cavalry had cautiously made their way through the abandoned streets. The road junctions had been plastered with copies of a proclamation issued by Moscow’s governor ordering the population to evacuate, or face arrest and possible execution for treason. Naturally, many had refused to leave and had gone into hiding, emerging later to enjoy the freedom to break into the wealthiest houses and steal whatever valuables they could find. They had scuttled away, back into concealment, the moment they caught sight of the French troops entering the city. For their part, the hungry, tattered figures of the Grand Army took over where the native looters had left off.

‘Who started the fires?’ Napoleon asked.

‘We haven’t discovered that yet, sire,’ Murat replied. ‘None of the infantry had penetrated that part of the city before the fires broke out, so it might have been the work of some of the cavalry patrols. Or it could have been the Russians.’

‘The Russians?’

‘Why not, sire? They’ve been busy burning crops, villages and bridges behind them as they have retreated.’

‘That’s one thing. But to destroy the most sacred city of your country is quite another. I can’t believe Alexander could do such a thing. Such an act of barbarism.’

Murat shrugged. ‘Perhaps you have underestimated the Tsar.’

Napoleon frowned. Had he misjudged Alexander? Was his opponent a far more ruthless man than he had assumed? If that was the case, then Napoleon had erred more profoundly than ever before. It was an unsettling thought and he hurriedly banished it from his mind as he turned to Murat. ‘What is being done to contain the fires?’

Murat looked surprised. ‘Why, nothing, sire. It’s not our problem.’

‘It will be unless something is done. The army needs billets and food, which they won’t have unless something is done about the fire.’

Murat thought quickly. ‘We’d better use the Guard. Most of the other divisions are looting. The Guard is about the only disciplined unit left at the moment. That is, if you can spare them.’

‘Take them,’ Napoleon replied at once. ‘The fire must be contained.’

Murat nodded. ‘At the moment it’s confined to the poorest quarter of the city. Most of the houses there are small affairs, made of wood. We should be able to destroy enough of them to create a fire break.’

‘Very well then, deal with it, Murat.’ Napoleon waved a hand to dismiss his cavalry commander. The door closed loudly and Napoleon was alone again. He turned away from the window and began to examine the room, curious to see what it revealed about the Tsar.

The study was lit by a handful of candles burning in a chandelier. Paintings of family members and illustrious ancestors adorned the walls, though not, Napoleon noted, Alexander’s father, Nicholas, who had been murdered by the men who had placed Alexander on the throne. The vast desk, with its ornate marquetry, was empty, as were the document cupboards throughout the Tsar’s suite. Piles of ashes and scorch marks defiled the brilliant marble tiles of the floor where confidential documents had been burned. A long row of bookcases lined the wall opposite the windows and Napoleon ran his finger along the spines of the books. A few shelves contained works in Russian and others contained texts in Latin and German, but the majority of the books were in French. Napoleon smiled at the eclectic range of writings, everything from obscure philosophical tracts to the works of Rousseau and Voltaire. So, the Tsar was a man interested in liberal politics, Napoleon mused. A pity; he might have made a good Frenchman. Then he paused, stared and smiled. On one of the top shelves he had spied some racy romantic novels of the kind hawked around the less salubrious neighbourhoods of Paris.

‘A man of the people as well, then.’ Smiling, Napoleon stretched up an arm to pluck out one of the books. He idly flicked through the opening pages and then placed the book in the pocket of his coat and strode across the room to sit down in the finely carved and upholstered chair behind the desk. Directly opposite him, on the far wall, hung a portrait of Alexander in military uniform, his gloved hand resting on the handle of a curved sword. Napoleon stared at the portrait for a long time before he muttered, ‘Why don’t you surrender? Why? Your army has been beaten. Your greatest city has fallen and now burns. What more can you endure? It is madness to continue the war. You will sue for peace. I know it.’

The fire burned for another three days, consuming most of the city before it died out, or was stopped by the firebreaks the French soldiers had created by blasting entire streets to pieces with powder charges. The air over the city was filled with the acrid stench of burning and smoke still curled into the clear skies for many days afterwards. Only a quarter of the city, including the Kremlin, had escaped the flames, but it was more than enough to accommodate the men of the Grand Army.

After the initial orgy of looting the soldiers were content to make their billets as comfortable as possible while they rested, and enjoyed whatever food they found in the abandoned city. It was an opportunity for the wounded to recover in the comfort of proper beds and not on the overcrowded, jolting bed of an army wagon. Many men used the time to patch their worn uniforms, repair their boots, or find more comfortable replacements. They were happy to believe the proclamations issued from the Emperor’s headquarters that congratulated them on having fought the campaign to a glorious and successful conclusion. All that remained was for the Emperor and the Tsar to negotiate a peace and then the men of the Grand Army could return home, laden with the spoils of war and tall tales of having fought and bested the wild Cossacks of the steppes.

The days passed, and there was no sign of any Russian officials approaching the city to discuss peace terms. Despite the lack of an armistice Murat’s cavalry patrols reported that their Cossack counterparts were happy to fraternise and exchange spirits and other gifts. The only worrying intelligence was that the Russian officer appointed to command the Tsar’s forces, General Kutusov, was marching his men to the west of Moscow, threatening the Grand Army’s communications.

September drifted into October and there was a noticeable drop in the temperature as the end of autumn drew near. Napoleon instructed Berthier to prepare the army to march once more. There was a distant possibility that the Russian army might have to be fought again to shatter whatever was left of the Tsar’s desire to continue the struggle. Still the Emperor waited for the Russians. He expected them hourly, and spent most of his time in the Tsar’s study, waiting to receive the war-weary and dispirited representatives of the Tsar. It was difficult to concentrate his mind on anything else, and in order to cope with the wait Napoleon began to read the romantic novels in Alexander’s private collection, numbingly banal as they were. At mealtimes, his closest comrades were surprised to see the Emperor lingering over his food, picking at it carefully where before he had treated a meal as a necessary waste of time.

On the fifth day of the month Napoleon abruptly gave orders for a delegation headed by General Delacorte, who had once served in the Russian embassy, to be sent to Kutusov to request an audience with Alexander. They returned six days later and Delacorte was brought before the Emperor to make his report. Napoleon greeted him warmly.

‘I am glad to see you have returned safely.’

‘Thank you, sire.’ Delacorte bowed his head.

‘So tell me what happened.’

‘We found Kutusov’s army easily enough and were escorted through his picket lines and on to his field headquarters. He welcomed us, insisting that we dine with him and his officers before we discussed the purpose of our mission. I gave him your letter first, sire, asking that an armistice be agreed while I was given safe conduct and taken to the Tsar. Kutusov refused to let me proceed. He took your letter and said that he would ensure that it was delivered safely into the Tsar’s hands.’

Napoleon frowned. ‘I gave you strict orders to deliver that letter in person.’

Delacorte shrugged. ‘I didn’t see what else I could do, sire.’

Napoleon stared at him for a moment. ‘Very well. Continue.’

‘Yes, sire. We were kept at Kutusov’s headquarters while we waited for the reply. He continued to treat us well, and claimed that he and his men would like nothing more than peace between Russia and France. Then, yesterday morning, there was a reply from the Tsar.’

‘A reply? Then where is it?’

Delacorte hesitated, and then reached into his jacket and extracted a single sheet of paper, folded, without any seal. He handed it to Napoleon, who opened it out and read the short message, written in French in a neat small hand.

To his imperial majesty, Napoleon of France, greetings.

I thank you for your letter requesting me to state my preliminary terms for discussing a peace treaty between our nations. However, I am resolved not to discontinue the state of war between us, and therefore I regret that I must refuse your request. Sadly, I refute your claim that the campaign is concluded. Indeed, this is the moment when my campaign begins. Alexander,Tsar of Russia.

Napoleon lowered the note. ‘Is that all there is? Is there nothing more?’

‘No, sire.’

Napoleon read the note again. ‘This must be a joke.’

‘I don’t think so, sire. I recognise the Tsar’s hand from my days in the embassy. That’s his signature, I am sure of it.’

Napoleon shook his head. ‘Then he mocks me . . . Or his mind is troubled. Yes, perhaps that’s it. After all, his father was reputed to be insane. He must have written this in haste. After the defeat at Borodino and the loss of Moscow his mind is bound to be disturbed. When he has had time to think it over he will write again and accept my offer.’

Delacorte looked at his Emperor in surprise for a moment, then nodded. ‘Yes, sire. I imagine you are right. Will that be all?’

‘What?’ Napoleon looked directly at him. ‘Yes, you may go. And I thank you for your efforts, Delacorte.’

The general left the study, closing the door softly behind him. Napoleon read the letter once again, then smiled faintly before screwing it up and tossing it into the fire.

There was still no further word from the Tsar three days later and Napoleon summoned Delacorte again and tasked him with leading another delegation to Kutusov. This time they were not permitted to hand over any letters, and Kutusov brusquely informed them that no further delegations would be received. Once he had dismissed the officer Napoleon sank into his chair and stared down the room towards the portrait of Alexander. He had spent many hours gazing at it already, trying to read the expression the artist had caught.

Napoleon knew that portraits rewarded close study. The sitter would be conscious of how they wished to be presented to those who would view the completed portrait down the years. So they crafted a pose which would embody their virtues, as they saw them. It was the task of the artist to study and amplify his subject’s qualities, yet at the same time a good artist could not resist subtly inflecting his depiction according to his opinion of the person sitting before him.

It might have been a trick of the light, but for the first time Napoleon saw a glint of cruelty in the eyes of Alexander, and the lips were not set in a faint smile of beneficence any more. It was another man who stood before him, no longer the impressionable young ruler who had only recently taken the throne and wanted to improve the lot of his people and be loved by them. An icy chill rose up in the nape of Napoleon’s neck and he shuddered.

A knock at the door startled him out of his thoughts and he sat forward and called out, ‘Come!’

The door clicked open. Berthier entered and crossed the room to stand before the Emperor’s desk.

‘What is it?’ Napoleon asked hopefully.

Berthier pulled out a loose leaf folder from under his arm and flicked it open. ‘There are a few issues that I need to bring to your attention, in accordance with your order to prepare the army to march, sire.’

‘Oh?’ Napoleon sank back in his chair.

‘I’ve spoken with the cartography staff, sire, and they calculate that it will take a minimum of fifty days to return to the Niemen.’

‘I did not say that we would be retreating to Poland,’ Napoleon cut in.

‘No, sire, but as chief of staff it is my duty to prepare for all contingencies. ’

Napoleon was silent for a moment before he nodded.‘You are right. Continue.’

‘Yes, sire. Even if we were to leave Moscow at once, we cannot reach the Niemen before the winter sets in. The first snow will fall in November, and the temperatures will drop far below freezing. Our men are still in the uniforms they were wearing for a summer campaign. They need warm clothing, sire. Thick coats, gloves, scarves and boots.’

‘Then see to it. Have them issued with whatever they need from stores.’

‘Sire, I have already spoken to the chief of the commissary. Dumas has hardly any stock of winter clothing. If your majesty recalls, it was decided not to overburden the supply wagons with unnecessary equipment. It was anticipated that the campaign would be over in time for the army to return to winter quarters in Poland.’

‘Yes. I remember.’

‘Whatever clothing Dumas has now has been picked up along the route, as the wagons emptied of rations.’

‘A wise precaution.’ Napoleon nodded vaguely. ‘Dumas is a clever fellow.’

‘The problem is that there is not nearly enough winter clothing for the entire army. Our latest strength returns give us ninety-five thousand men. Dumas can provide for no more than twenty thousand.’

‘Then requisition some more coats, and whatever else is needed.’

‘Where from, sire?’

‘I cannot believe there is not enough winter clothing to be had in Moscow.’

‘The fire destroyed the shopping and warehouse districts,’ Berthier explained evenly. ‘The only clothing that is left is whatever is in the houses that survived. Even then, the Russians took nearly everything with them when they evacuated the city.’

‘Then do what you can,’ Napoleon replied tersely. ‘Anything else?’

‘Yes, sire. Murat reports that he has fewer than ten thousand cavalry mounts remaining and many of those are lame, and all of them are short of forage. The same is true for the artillery. The city’s stock of feed was also lost in the fire.’

‘Then we must have fresh horses. An army is nothing without cavalry and artillery. Tell Murat to send his men out to buy horses from the towns and villages around Moscow.’

Berthier took a deep breath.‘Sire, the city is surrounded by Cossacks. In any case, Murat’s patrols report that every settlement within twenty miles of Moscow has been evacuated and torched. There are no horses to be had.’

‘Why do you tell me this? What can I do?’ Napoleon waved his arms wide. ‘I can’t just make horses appear!’

Berthier kept his mouth shut, closed his file and tucked it back under his arm and then stared straight ahead, refusing to meet the Emperor’s eyes. Napoleon tilted his head back and stared at the intricate ceiling mouldings, painted with gold leaf. He smiled grimly. He had a fortune in gold in the army’s war chest, enough to buy all the coats and horses he needed. Now the gold would be little more than a burden if the army was forced to retreat through the harsh Russian winter. He leaned forward and looked across at Berthier.

‘Send for my marshals.’

A servant built up the fire before drawing the long curtains across the window and leaving the study. Outside the night was cold and a chilly wind moaned down the streets of Moscow, bringing with it brief squalls of rain that drove those men of the Grand Army still searching for spoils into the shelter of their billets.

Inside the room in the Kremlin, Napoleon faced his marshals, bracing himself to admit the truth.

‘The Tsar does not want peace. He refuses to even contemplate it.’ Napoleon frowned.‘It seems that he will not admit defeat, in spite of all that he has lost.’

‘Why would he?’ asked Davout. ‘Every day that we sit in Moscow and wait on events, his army grows stronger. By now, he will have gathered in men from his garrisons, and from the army that was facing Turkey. Sire, if we are not careful, Moscow will turn from a trophy into a trap.’

‘Then what do you suggest we do?’

‘There’s no question about it. We must retreat, while we still can.’

‘Retreat?’ Ney snorted. ‘When we have won all that we have? Kutusov is still too afraid to fight. That’s why he sits out there and does nothing.’

‘He doesn’t have to do anything,’ Davout replied,‘but sit and wait for the winter to do his work for him. Soon this city will run out of food, and then wood for the fires. We shall have to start eating the horses. When spring comes whatever is left of the Grand Army will not be fit to fight.’

‘Then we don’t stay here,’ Ney responded. ‘If the Tsar won’t sue for peace when we have taken Moscow, then I say we march on St Petersburg instead. Let’s see how reluctant he is to talk when we burn down the most prized of his palaces.’

Napoleon smiled sourly. ‘I suspect that it would make no difference to his resolve. Besides, our communications are already stretched enough and it is four hundred miles from here to St Petersburg. It is out of the question.’ He drew a breath. ‘Our position in Moscow is already growing tenuous. The Cossacks have started attacking Murat’s patrols and they are gradually closing in around the city. The road to Smolensk was cut three days ago, and has only today been cleared by General Sulpice . . . The danger is clear enough. I have made my decision. We will quit Moscow and fall back to Smolensk. There are enough rations there to last the army through the winter. It is possible that General Kutusov might feel bold enough to try to block our retreat. If so, he will hand us another chance to crush his army. In any case, that must be the explanation that we give to the army. They must not be allowed to think of this as a retreat. As far as the soldiers are concerned, we are marching out to find and destroy Kutusov. Is that clear?’

The marshals nodded. Then Davout spoke.

‘Sire, whatever the soldiers believe, we can be sure that our enemies in Europe will present this as a defeat. We have to be careful that defeat is not turned into catastrophe.’

‘What do you mean?’

Davout folded his hands and stared down at them thoughtfully. ‘It is no secret that many of our allies contributed their contingents under duress. We know that we can’t trust the Prussians. If this campaign goes against us, then I fear that Frederick William may well change sides and join the Tsar. If he does, then he will not be the only one.’ He looked up.‘Sire, the overriding priority now is no longer to defeat the Russians. It is my conviction that that is no longer possible. What matters is survival. That means we must save as many men, horses and guns as we can. They will be needed to hold our ground in Europe when this campaign is over.’

There was a silence around the table, before Ney laughed. ‘Ever the optimist, Davout! Damn it, man, you paint the blackest of pictures.’

‘Sometimes the picture is black,’ Napoleon replied, glancing at the portrait at the end of the room. ‘In any case, the decision is made. The army is to abandon Moscow, on the nineteeth. Return to your commands and prepare your men to march. Berthier will send each of you your orders for your place in the line of march.’

Napoleon sat on his mount, surrounded by his staff, as the column trudged by under a leaden sky of gathering rain clouds. The army had set out at first light, but the days were growing shorter and dusk was settling over Moscow before the tail of the huge column had cleared the city. Marshal Mortier commanded the rearguard, and his men were busy spiking the guns that had to be left behind in the city because there were no longer sufficient horses to draw them. Mortier’s soldiers were also tasked with destroying any stocks of powder and weapons that might be of use to the enemy. Afterwards, they would set off, covering the rear of the army.

As Napoleon watched his men pass by, they still offered a cheer as they saw him, but they were no longer the men of the Grand Army that had crossed the Niemen nearly six months ago. They looked more like a procession of beggars in their tattered uniforms and the assortment of coats and jackets they had looted from Moscow. Many were laden down with the more burdensome spoils of war, and the route was already lined with discarded paintings, mirrors and laquered boxes, left in the mud.

In amongst the columns of infantry were wagons and carts filled with the wounded, whatever rations could be gleaned from Moscow, and yet more spoils. The vehicles, and the army’s remaining guns, were drawn by skeletal horses and mules, their ribs clearly delineated under the loose folds of their hides. It was the same for the cavalry, Napoleon noted sadly. The gleaming mounts that had been spurred on across the steppes were now mere shadows of the finest cavalry in Europe. Thousands of troopers no longer had mounts, and marched as infantry, their carbines slung over their shoulders.

He watched them for a while, then took a last glance back towards the Moscow skyline. His heart filled with a bitter hatred for the Tsar. Tugging the reins, Napoleon turned his mount to follow the column snaking back the way it had come as the first cold drops of rain began to fall.

Chapter 31

Arthur

Madrid, 12 August 1812

The bells of the great church of Nuestra Seсora de la Almudena rang out across the city, but were scarcely audible above the din of the crowd lining the streets down which the British troops marched as they made for the royal palace. Despite its being the hottest part of the year, the Spaniards had turned out in their tens of thousands to greet the liberator of Madrid. A battalion of the Coldstream Guards led the way, in carefully patched uniforms, fresh tripoli on their cross belts and buttons polished to a glassy shine. Next came a squadron of the German dragoons who had scattered the last division of Marmont’s army the day after the battle at Salamanca. And then, together with his staff, came Arthur, mounted on his favourite chestnut horse, Copenhagen. He had dressed for the event and left his plain coat and hat at headquarters. Instead he wore his red coat, adorned with gold lace. On his left breast he wore the medals and stars of the titles that he had won over the years. A new bicorne sat on his head, with a plume of white feathers lining it from front to back.

‘I feel like a damned stuffed goose,’ he called to Somerset, who rode to his side and slightly further back. ‘All done up for a Christmas banquet.’

Somesert laughed, doffing his hat to a group of Spanish ladies who were sheltering beneath parasols as they watched the procession from a balcony. ‘Just as long as you look the part, my lord. After all, the Spanish government has conferred upon you the title of the supreme commander of all Spanish forces.’

‘A measure that will be of supreme indifference to almost every Spaniard under arms, I can assure you.’

‘Be that as it may, my lord, you have won their hearts, and the Spanish deserve to see a conquering warrior, not some chap in a coat who might as well be a country doctor when all is said and done.’

‘Country doctor?’ Arthur sniffed. ‘Well, at least my appearance does not seem to concern our fellows unduly.’

He sat stiffly in his saddle as he rode with all the dignity he could muster, occasionally turning to one side or the other and raising a hand to acknowledge the crowd’s cheers, which only prompted a further burst of wild cries and frantic waving of strips of cloth in the red and gold of Spain. It was an impressive reception, Arthur mused. The previous day, Madrid’s population had greeted the army with hysterical joy, pressing bottles of wine and gifts of bread, pastries and dried sausage into the hands of the first soldiers to enter the suburbs. For their part the soldiers had grinned as they nodded their gratitude and responded with the few words of Spanish they had picked up. Today’s procession to the royal palace was a much more formal affair, but had taken on the air of a wild public holiday.

The hated French had gone. As news of the crushing defeat at Salamanca reached King Joseph, he hurriedly packed up his valuables, and a heavily guarded convoy of French officials left the city a few days before the arrival of the allied army. A large column of Spanish collaborators left with them, to avoid the growing bloodlust of the mob. The French were heading south-east to Valencia, where Joseph sought the protection of Marshal Suchet.

Even so, the allied army was short of supplies, the men were tired and many of Arthur’s senior officers were out of action due to injury and sickness. There was little more that could be achieved by pursuing Marmont, and the liberation of Madrid would be an effective blow to French prestige across Europe. It would also help to raise morale back in Britain, where the new Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, was working hard to generate political support for Arthur’s campaigns in the Peninsula.

Arthur felt his mind reeling with the possibilities that the victory at Salamanca had opened up for future operations. But that was work for later. For the present he was content to play the part of the liberator of Madrid, and as the royal palace came in sight along the avenue he raised his hat from his head and held it high as he swept it round towards the sea of ecstatic Madrileсos, cheering as they waved their strips of cloth in wild abandon.

As soon as Arthur stepped inside the tall doors of the balcony he gestured towards a footman bearing a tray of glasses of water. The cheers of the crowd filled the room almost as loudly as they filled the plaza outside. The midday heat beating down upon Madrid had caused Arthur to perspire freely under his scarlet woollen jacket. Once he had removed his hat and wiped a dribble of sweat from his brow, he downed two glasses of the chilled water in quick succession. Then he allowed a servant to remove the ribbon across his shoulder and the other around his waist before unclipping his sword belt, undoing the buttons of his jacket and slipping it off.

‘Thank God for that.’ He breathed deeply. ‘I believe I would have stewed in my own juices if I had been forced to wear that a moment longer.’

General Alava smiled. ‘It seems that our climate suits no one but the natives.’

‘There are more comfortable landscapes across which to wage war,’ Arthur agreed. ‘But for now we will rest the army for a few days. Let the men indulge themselves, and let the locals enjoy their freedom, while I decide what is to happen next.’

‘And what will you decide, I wonder?’Alava cocked an eyebrow.‘You have Madrid, but taking the capital - while a great achievement in itself - will not rid my people of the French.’

‘No, it won’t,’ Arthur admitted. ‘But it has forced them to withdraw to the north and east of the country, and Marshal Soult will have to give up the siege of Cadiz and leave Andalucia, or risk being cut off.’ Arthur took another glass of water and sipped at it thoughtfully. ‘Now that we have our great victory, and have chased Boney’s brother out of Madrid, it would be criminal to squander the favourable circumstances in which we find ourselves.’

He stretched his arms and then crossed to the huge oak table that dominated the middle of what had once been King Joseph’s library. The most valuable books in the collection had been hurriedly packed into the convoy when the French had fled. Now there were gaps in the shelves, like missing teeth, and hundreds of volumes that had been pulled out and then rejected still lay where they had been dropped on the floor. Most of the rooms in the palace had been ransacked by the palace staff as soon as the French had left, and now the elegant halls and chambers were littered with broken vases and crockery.

Many of the maps and charts that had been stored in a large rack in the corner of the library had been left behind, and Arthur selected a large-scale representation of the Peninsula and unrolled it across the table, helping Somerset pin the corners down with some of the discarded books. Then he stared at the map thoughtfully. Less than two years ago his army had been crammed into a small sliver of land north of Lisbon, while the French had free range across the rest of the sprawl of land depicted on the map. Now, the French were pressed back into the north and east of Spain. While they still had over two hundred thousand men in their armies, the marshals were bitterly divided and treated Joseph with barely disguised contempt, according to the reports of Arthur’s agents. Moreover, they had been largely abandoned by their master as he pursued his apparently limitless ambitions in Russia.

Arthur was still astonished by the news of the invasion, and the scale of the forces involved. Just half of the resources Bonaparte had deployed in Russia would have enabled him to settle his troubles in Spain very swiftly indeed. As it was, the soldiers of the Emperor were now forced to fight on two fronts, stretched thinly over hostile terrain with only the most rudimentary of road systems. Unless destiny was perversely overgenerous in the favour it bestowed on Bonaparte, his empire was being stretched to its limits. Here in Spain, Arthur was determined to strike a mortal blow to French aspirations. If the Tsar could do the same in the depths of Russia, then surely this war of wars was drawing towards the final act.

Arthur focused his mind again. At length he put voice to his thoughts as Somerset and Alava stood either side of him. ‘With Joseph having fallen back on Suchet’s army at Valencia we are faced with the prospect that Soult will at some point come to his senses and join forces with them, in which case we will, as so often before, be outnumbered. However, I believe that we might still be able to hold the centre of Spain if we can be sure that we have contained what is left of Marmont’s strength as far north as the river Ebro. That means taking Burgos.’ He turned to General Alava.‘What do you know of the fortress of Burgos?’

‘It is on the main route between France and Madrid. Bonaparte must have recognised its importance, since he ordered a number of improvements to the defences.’ Alava shrugged.‘Though nothing on the scale of Badajoz.’

‘I’m glad to hear that. Might I ask if you have actually seen the fortress since these improvements were made?’

‘No,’Alava replied frankly.‘But I have heard enough from my sources to know that Burgos will not present you with much difficulty, my lord.’

Arthur stared at him for a moment and then nodded. ‘Very well. Now then, if Joseph and Suchet advance on Madrid then our Spanish allies must do everything in their power to disrupt the advance. The army of Andalucia must strike into the flank of the French, while the irregulars harry them every step of the way. If they can be delayed until autumn then the rains will have swelled the Tagus and I will be able to cover the handful of crossing points that will be left.’ Arthur paused and stroked his chin. ‘What do you think, gentlemen?’

Somerset puffed his cheeks out and shook his head. ‘Sir, you’re pinning your faith on things falling into line.’

Arthur shrugged. ‘I have no alternative. That is the hand I have been dealt. I intend to hold Madrid for as long as possible. It may not achieve much for us tactically, but we must look to the wider strategy that determines this war. Every day that we can stay here delivers another blow to the Bonapartes’ rule over Spain. It will give heart not only to the Spanish, but to all Europe.’

Somerset thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘I understand, sir. I just hope we don’t spread ourselves too thin to prove the point.’

‘Spread ourselves thin?’ Arthur repeated with a wry smile. ‘My dear Somerset, where on earth have you been these last years? Thanks to our government, if we were any more thinly spread then the enemy would see right through us.’

‘They may do that yet, sir.’

Arthur turned to Alava. ‘General, I want you to head south. You will speak for me. Tell every resistance leader and every regular officer you find that I have been given command over all allied forces in Spain. My orders are simple. They are to attack the French wherever they find them.’

Alava grinned. ‘That will be a pleasure, my lord. And what of you? What will you do now?’

‘Me?’ Arthur reached across the map and tapped the name of a town far to the north of Madrid. ‘I’ll take half the army and seize Burgos.’

Chapter 32

Burgos, 4 October 1812

The summer seemed reluctant to loosen its grip on Spain and every day the sun beat down on the parched landscape as the army marched north, driving back the small French force that had been scraped together after Salamanca. Then, as Arthur commenced his siege of Burgos, the weather changed as autumn swept in with unseasonal ferocity. The landscape of Castile was lashed by rainstorms which flooded the trenches and batteries that had been painstakingly cut out of the ground by Arthur’s men. The engineers had suffered heavy losses at the two previous sieges and had been reduced to a mere sixteen officers and other ranks. Nor was there sufficient siege artillery to end the task swiftly. By the time the army had reached Burgos along the heavily rutted and broken-up road that led north from Madrid, only three eighteen-pounders had survived the journey. The rest had suffered broken wheels or splintered gun carriages and had to be left behind while repairs were attempted.

‘So much for Alava’s sources,’ Somerset commented bitterly as he gazed at the fortress sitting atop a steep-sided hill. It was separated from the rest of the town by a ravine and linked to the town by a narrow spur of rock. A powerful battery covered this approach and rendered any frontal assault suicidal. Moreover, the fortress was constructed in concentric tiers so that the defenders would be able to continue their resistance even if the outer wall was taken. Somerset stared sourly at the fortress. ‘The place is all but impregnable, sir.’

‘Nonsense!’ Arthur snapped and then, cross at his fraying temper, continued more quietly, ‘We have one of their outworks, thanks to Major Somers-Cocks. It is just a question of time and steady effort and the fortress will be ours.’

Somerset glanced at him and then back at the fortress without saying a word, but his doubt and frustration were palpable. Arthur could understand his sentiment easily enough. There were thirty-five thousand men camped around the fortress. According to the local people the garrison amounted to little more than two thousand men, but their commander, General Dubreton, was every bit as wily and spirited as his comrade Philippon had been at Badajoz. Memory of that terrible siege had been preying on Arthur’s mind ever since the army had arrived before Burgos and he was determined not to repeat the bloody assault that had cost him so dearly. There would be no massed assault this time. Burgos would be taken piece by piece.

‘My dear Somerset,’ he said patiently, ‘I have seen many hill forts like this when I served in India and I managed to break into them readily enough. We will have Burgos in due course.’

‘I trust you are right, sir.’

‘How are the preparations for the mine proceeding?’

Somerset gestured towards the narrow trench zig-zagging up the slope towards the outer wall. A short distance from the base of the wall the trench disappeared into a tunnel.‘Captain Perkins says that it will be ready to detonate at dawn tomorrow, sir.’

‘Very well. Pass the word for Major Somers-Cocks to see me at headquarters at three in the morning. I will give him his orders in person.’

The major, like so many who had bought their way up through the officer ranks, was young, fair-haired and fresh-faced. But Arthur knew the man had a fine combat record. As such he was just the kind of man Arthur needed to lead the assaults on the defences of the fortress. He seemed to court danger with impunity and had been one of the handful of officers who had volunteered for the duty. It was as well for England that she produced such fine soldiers, Arthur reflected as he briefly examined the man standing at attention in front of his desk in the early hours.

Arthur cleared his throat and began the briefing. ‘Have you completed the preparations for your assault party?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ Somers-Cocks answered with a slight Scots burr. ‘The men are already waiting in the approach trench. Two hundred and fifty volunteers, as you ordered.’

‘I hope it will be enough.’

‘It will suffice, my lord.’ Somers-Cocks smiled. ‘After all, my orders are not to take the whole fortress. Merely take and hold the breach.’

‘If you are successful, the support wave will reach you quickly enough. But understand, they have strict orders not to advance unless you give the signal that the breach is in your hands.’

‘I understand, my lord.’

‘Good.’ Arthur nodded, and then softened his formal tone. ‘Did you have any difficulty finding the volunteers for the assault party?’

‘Most came willingly.’

‘Most?’

‘Och, you know how it is, my lord. Some men never know that they want to volunteer until they receive the right kind of inspiration.’

Arthur arched an eyebrow. ‘That being?’

The major pursed his lips. ‘The choice between fifteen minutes in the breach and a week of fatigues in the latrine generally has the desired result, my lord.’

Arthur laughed and stood up, offering his hand to Somers-Cocks. ‘Good luck, my boy.’

‘Thank you, my lord.’ He shook Arthur’s hand, then stepped back, saluted and turned to leave the tent. Arthur stared after him for a moment, wondering if he would see the man alive again when the next day had dawned. Then he shook his head. Somers-Cocks was one of those individuals who was fated to survive.

‘Four o’clock, sir,’ Somerset said quietly, his boots squelching in the mud as he stepped forward to Arthur’s side.

‘Yes.’

All was still. Overhead a bank of clouds had blocked out the stars and added to the pitch darkness that enveloped the fortress. Torches on the wall picked out some of the details of the defences and occasionally one of the French soldiers on watch. The only sounds came from the allied camp where a handful of drunken soldiers from two battalions were engaged in a brawl. The provosts would soon sort that out, Arthur reflected, but for now the noise would help to divert the attention of the defenders while the assault party edged as close to the mine as they dared.

‘Five past four,’ Somerset muttered. ‘The engineers are late.’

Arthur was about to reply when a jet of flame blasted out from the entrance to the tunnel leading under the wall, followed by a roar that echoed off the walls of the nearby town. After the sound died away there was a stunned silence before Arthur heard the crash and rumble of masonry as a section of the wall above the mine collapsed. At once there was a cry from Somers-Cocks. ‘Forward! Go forward!’

There was no cheer from the men of the assault party as they burst from the shelter of their trench and scurried up the slope towards the breach. A few muskets fired down at them from the nearest tower of the outer wall, but they charged on, clambering up the debris slope and into the breach. The sounds of fighting carried back to the command post as Arthur strained ears and eyes in an attempt to try to discern how the attack was progressing. Then there was a sudden lurid flare of white sparks as one of the assault party lit the small pot of powder that had been taken forward to act as the signal that the beach had been taken. At once the waiting support brigade rose up from where they had been concealed in the approach trenches and rushed towards the breach. The sounds of musket fire continued for the next half-hour before dying down to the occasional exchange of a handful of shots.

As the first light gathered on the horizon a runner came panting up the trench to the command post, his boots slipping in the glutinous mud that filled all the trenches.

‘My lord.’ He breathed heavily as he stood to attention. ‘Major Somers-Cocks begs to report that the breach has been taken, and his men are holding the flanks while the brigade invests the defences around the breach.’

‘Very good,’ Arthur felt the burden of anxiety lift from his shoulders. ‘Pass on my congratulations and my thanks to the major.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Once the man had slithered back down into the trench Somerset spoke. ‘Well, that was fairly straightforward, thank God.’

Arthur rubbed his aching eyes briefly.‘We have the breach, Somerset. That is all. You can be sure that Dubreton is already planning his counterstroke.’

As the morning passed the assault party took cover around the breach and continued to exchange shots with the defenders in the upper level of fortifications. Meanwhile the follow-up brigade, under the guidance of the engineer officers, hurriedly built up a breastwork inside the breach and began to clear away the debris to make the passage through the gap easier. At noon, Arthur sent forward a company of Portuguese troops to relieve Somers-Cocks and his men, while another company took over from those widening the breach.

It was slightly overcast and a chilly breeze was made yet more uncomfortable by a steady drizzle that began mid-morning. Arthur made his way along the approach trench to inspect the breach. There was already a foot of water lying in the bottom and the soil beneath was muddy and slippery so that he had to tread carefully. In places the sides of the trench were crumbling away and small parties of men, drenched and covered with mud, were shoring up the banks of earth with wicker baskets filled with rocks. As the trench began to climb the slope the puddles ceased and instead the water gushed down the floor like a small mountain stream. Arthur paused to look up at the fortress looming overhead and there was a soft zip as a plug of mud exploded into the air near the edge of the trench.

‘Keep yer bloody ’ead down!’ a sergeant bellowed at him. ‘ ’Less you want it blown orf!’

Arthur ducked and then turned towards the sergeant. At the sight of his commander’s distinctive hooked nose the sergeant blanched. ‘Beggin’ yer pardon, my lord. Just that we’ve already lost two men today to some bleedin’ Frog marksman up there.’

‘I thank you for your wise advice, sergeant.’ Arthur smiled at him, and keeping low he continued up the trench, making sure he kept close to the most sheltered side as he climbed up to the breach. Captain Perkins of the engineers saluted him as Arthur emerged into the small open space in front of the gap. A section of wall fifteen feet across had collapsed and the soldiers were busy removing the rubble and using it to build up two low walls linking the end of the trench to the breach.

‘How is the work progressing, Captain?’

‘Well enough, sir.’ Perkins was another Scot, short and thickset, with a broader accent than Somers-Cocks, and he was as covered with mud as his men. ‘Once we have the breach cleared, I’ll set the lads to work constructing the approach to the second wall, though it’ll be hard work.’

‘Oh? What’s the problem?’

‘Let me show you, if I may, sir.’ Perkins did not wait for a reply but made his way through the breach and crouched down just inside the ruined masonry. He turned and gestured to Arthur to keep his head down. Arthur crouched beside him and quickly glanced round the interior of the fortress’s first wall. A cobbled track ran between the two walls, and to its side there was a cliff of perhaps twenty feet in height before the foundations of the second wall rose up. The cliff was a good fifty feet from the breach. Perkins coughed and smiled apologetically. ‘Caught a bit of a cold in all this damp, sir. Anyway, as you can see, there’s open ground between us and the cliff. In order to mine the second wall we will need to cut into that rock and tunnel up towards the foundations. It’s going to be a tough job.’

‘But you can do it?’

‘Given time, sir. Yes.’

‘Time is something we are a little short of, Perkins. My scouts to the north report that a French army is gathering to relieve Burgos within the month. The latest word from Madrid is that Soult is marching to join Joseph. When that happens they will make for Madrid. We have to take Burgos as soon as possible and join forces with Hill if we are to hold the centre of Spain. Do you understand?’

‘Aye, sir, I do. We will carry out our duty as swiftly as we can, but before we can start mining we have to get the lads across the open ground. A trench is no good because the Frogs have the ground covered by the bastion to our right, and the angle of the wall to the left there. At the moment the Portuguese boys have the wall covered’ - he nodded towards the brown-uniformed men crouching amid the rocks at the base of the cliff on either side of the breach - ‘but to get men and equipment up to the cliff we are going to have to build a covered gallery across the open ground. Dangerous and time-consuming work, sir.’

‘I see. How long will it take?’

Perkins pursed his lips. ‘Two days to erect the gallery. Two weeks to tunnel up through the rock, a day to prepare the mine, and then it’s up to the infantry to storm the fortress, sir.’

‘Two and a half weeks, then,’Arthur mused.‘That’s cutting it fine. Do whatever you can to speed things up, Perkins.’

‘Aye, sir. I’ve had the necessary tools brought forward and I’ll set the lads to work as soon as the breach is cleared.’

‘Very well.’Arthur clapped him on the shoulder.‘Keep me informed.’

He was about to turn away when there was a sudden crackle of musket fire from close by. The two officers looked towards the sound. To their left the Portuguese were firing along the cobbled road as it bent round the corner. More shots were fired, this time to their right. Then there was a shout and the sound of boots echoing off the fortress walls and Arthur saw the first of the Frenchmen appear along the road. More came, filling the gap between the walls as they charged forward, pausing only to fire at the Portuguese troops in their way.

Perkins cupped a hand to his mouth and bellowed, ‘To arms! To arms! The Frogs are sallying!’ He turned to Arthur. ‘You’d better go, sir. Get back to the support trench and order some reinforcements up here.’

Arthur shook his head as he stood up. ‘No.’

Perkins reached inside his coat and pulled out a pistol. ‘As you will, sir.’

All around the breach, the men who had been working to clear the rubble scrambled for their weapons and rushed forward, past Arthur. There was a brief skirmish as the Portuguese company tried to hold their ground, thrusting their bayonets and clubbing the butts at the Frenchmen, but there were too many of the enemy and they were quickly swept aside and cut down before the French closed in on the breach from both sides. Perkins and his men rushed forward. Most had muskets, but some had snatched up shovels instead and now wielded them like hatchets. It was close work, and bloody, with no time for mercy. Arthur saw Perkins raise his pistol and shoot a Frenchman in the face, blowing out the back of his skull in a shower of blood, brains and bone fragments. Arthur felt a surge of fear as he realised he was unarmed. Looking round he saw a musket leaning against the outside of the wall and scrambled across the rubble to snatch it up, hoping that it was loaded. By the time he got back to the breach, his men were already being pressed back through it, as hundreds of Frenchmen surged forward. He saw Perkins double over as a bayonet plunged into his chest, piercing him through.

‘Get back!’ a voice called out. ‘There’s too many of ’em. Fall back!’

The soldiers gave ground, carrying Arthur with them. They reached the trench as the first of the enemy emerged from the breach, led by a huge officer with a thick moustache. He bellowed at them to charge, and kill all in their path. His men plunged towards the trench, driving the British back. Arthur had already been thrust some distance and turned to make his way down the slippery trench towards the camp. Then he saw a young lieutenant, wide-eyed with terror, pressed against the side. Arthur grabbed him by the arm.

‘Lieutenant! Rally these men. You must fight back. Here!’ He thrust the musket into the man’s hand and pulled him into the middle of the trench, blocking the way of those still scrambling back from the breach.

‘Stop there, lads!’ Arthur held up his hand. ‘Stop, I say!’

At the sight of their general the men drew up, unwilling to disobey him, yet afraid to turn and fight. Arthur pointed his gloved hand back up the slope. ‘The enemy have the breach! If we let them hold their ground then we will have to take it again! I will not waste lives unnecessarily. You must turn round and take it back! Come, lads, ’tis the only way!’

The lieutenant nodded, and then pushed through the throng of men, holding his borrowed musket at the slope. ‘After me, men!’ he shouted, a slight edge of hysteria to his cry. ‘Forward! For the King! For England!’

‘For England!’ echoed the sergeant who had urged Arthur to keep his head down. ‘Let’s gut those bloody Frogs, lads! Forward!’

The men let out a cheer and surged back up the trench. Arthur watched them go for a moment and then hurried back down the approach trench, slithering here and there in the mud. When he reached the flat stretch he splashed along until he came to the first of the assembly areas, where he saw Somers-Cocks and his volunteers.

‘What’s happening, my lord?’ asked the major.

Arthur did not answer, but thrust his arm towards the breach. ‘Take your men up there at the double. Clear the breach and hold your ground. Go!’

‘Follow me!’ Somers-Cocks bellowed, drawing his sword. He plunged into the opening of the trench, and his men ran after him, splashing through the muddy water that filled the bottom. Arthur turned and hurried on, making for the command post. There he found Somerset and gave orders for a brigade to be sent to support Somers-Cocks. Then, snatching up a telescope, he leaned against the sandbag parapet of the command post and braced his elbows to squint through the eyepiece. The French were hurriedly smashing down the makeshift walls on either side of the breach. Others were busy finishing off the allied wounded with their bayonets. An officer in a gold-braided uniform was directing some of his men to gather up the engineers’ tools and carry them back into the fortress. Arthur’s heart sank at the sight. The French defenders were as intelligent as they were brave, he thought bitterly. The capture of the tools would set Arthur back far more than the deaths of his men.

The French officer took a last look round the breach and then down the slope towards Somers-Cocks and his men, charging forward to join the survivors of the attack battling their way back up the final stretch of trench before the breach. With a wave of his sword the Frenchman ordered his men towards the gap and they withdrew in good order and disappeared from view.

‘We lost ninety-four killed and thirty-two wounded, most of the tools that Perkins had brought forward, and twenty yards of the approach trench have been pushed in,’ Somerset reported that night. ‘The breach is back in our hands, and Major Somers-Cocks has established a permanent force of two companies of the Coldstream Guards to protect our foothold inside the fortress. Captain Morris has taken over the mining operation, my lord.’

‘Very well.’ Arthur nodded wearily. ‘We’ll proceed with the siege, for now. Did you read the latest report from our Spanish friends?’

The news was bad. The Spanish general charged with holding up any French advance fromValencia towards Madrid had taken umbrage at the appointment of Arthur to supreme commander and mutinied. Meanwhile Soult was marching to join Joseph Bonaparte. To the north of Burgos, General Souham had been confirmed in his appointment as Marmont’s replacement and had gathered nearly fifty thousand men on the far bank of the Ebro. Any day now, Arthur expected to hear that Souham had crossed the river and was making for Burgos. The final slice of misery was an intercepted message from the French Emperor to his brother announcing that he had won a great victory over the Russians at Borodino and was on the verge of capturing Moscow.

Somerset sat back in his chair despondently. ‘Unless our luck changes, it may well be prudent to cut our losses and retreat.’

‘From Burgos, perhaps,’ Arthur agreed. ‘But I fear that we may also have to abandon Madrid as well. What else can we do if this news is accurate? If I had the whole army here I could take on Souham and defeat him, at the price of leaving Madrid open to Soult. If I return to Madrid and combine Hill’s army with mine that would give us sixty-five thousand men with which to face Soult with as many as a hundred thousand, while Souham closes on us from the north. We would be caught in a vice.’ Arthur shut his eyes and forced his exhausted mind to think as clearly as possible. ‘The best we can hope for now is to take Burgos and put in a strong, well-provisioned, garrison. That will hold Souham up while we return to Madrid. Then? All I can do is pray that Soult is delayed.’

Somerset watched his general closely for a moment, noting how sunken his eyes looked and how exhausted he appeared. The cold, miserable weather of the past weeks and the mud and depressing landscape of Burgos had added to his burden and for the first time Somerset began to wonder how one man could endure the strain of command for so long. The campaign had begun at the start of the year and now, ten months on, the officers and men were clearly exhausted and their morale was low. If they were close to the end of their tether, then by what greater order of magnitude was Wellington close to the end of his? Only one man could have led the army to achieve all it had in the Peninsula, and looking on that man now, Somerset feared for himself, and for the whole army, far from a home some had not seen for years.

‘Sir?’ he asked quietly. ‘Shall I order you something to eat? Sir?’

There was no reply, just a deep, even breathing. Somerset smiled fondly, then rose to his feet and fed a few more logs into the campaign stove. After a moment’s hesitation he picked up the mud-stained cloak lying across one of the chests in the tent and carefully draped it over Wellington’s body.

‘Good night, sir,’ he said softly, and left the tent.

Four days later, the French attacked the sappers again, bursting into their works between the walls in the early hours. They killed the engineers who were cutting a small tunnel through the rock beneath the second wall; the men charged with protecting them had put up a short fight before fleeing back towards the breach. There they had encountered Major Somers-Cocks, barring their path. He was attempting to rally them and counter-attack the enemy’s raiding party when he was shot through the heart. His men’s spirit broke and they fled back down the trenches, leaving the enemy to seize yet more tools before they set a small charge in the mouth of the mine and blew it up, burying the entrance under tons of rock.

Later, when the first report of the attack reached headquarters, Arthur read through the details and then lowered the document, his face ashen as he turned to address Somerset. ‘Somers-Cocks is dead.’ Then he walked slowly outside to stare at the fortress where the tricolour flag was flying defiantly above the keep.

Major Somers-Cocks was buried that afternoon, in an icy downpour. As his body, wrapped in a length of canvas, was lowered into the ground the chaplain of the Coldstream Guards read out the service in the usual blank monotone. Arthur did not listen to a word of it. He had heard all the words before, read out in the same dry manner over the bodies of many such young men. Some had shown similar promise to Somers-Cocks, most had not. Some had been cheerful spirits, gamely entering the field of war, while a few had been nervous, fearful even, eaten up by the prospect of death yet forcing themselves on until death had claimed them by shell, bullet, blade or disease.

The chaplain closed his prayer book and bowed his head for a moment, and most of the officers and men followed suit. Arthur did not. He glared at the fortress for a long time, the rain running down the sides of his face in glassy rivulets. Then at last he turned to Somerset, cleared his throat and spoke harshly. ‘I’m lifting the siege. The army is leaving Burgos and will march back to Madrid. Issue the orders, if you please. I’ll be in my tent if I am needed.’

He turned and splashed away through the puddles, rippled by the heavy rain.

‘Needed?’ Somerset repeated quietly.‘Now more than ever, my lord.’

Chapter 33

Tordesillas, 31 October 1812

‘So, he’s done it then?’ Arthur shook his head in frank admiration of the achievement.

‘Yes, sir,’ Somerset replied, glancing down at the captured bulletin. ‘Bonaparte entered Moscow on the nineteenth of last month.’

‘And does it say anything about the Tsar coming to terms?’

Somerset scanned the rest of the item and tilted his head to one side. ‘Not exactly. It just says the Emperor is waiting for the Tsar to admit defeat.’

‘Hmph,’ Arthur snorted. ‘If the Russians make peace then Bonaparte will be free to switch the balance of his power away from the east and towards us. At which point our goose will be thoroughly cooked. Well, we shall just have to hope that the Tsar continues to defy him. Now then, what is the latest intelligence on the enemy’s movements?’

Somerset shuffled through his reports. ‘It seems the French have seized a crossing over the river Douro at Toro.’

‘Toro, eh?’ Arthur frowned. ‘That’s bad news. They threaten to cut us off from Portugal. I had feared that they might be attempting to get between us and Madrid. Now it looks as if they might have designs on catching us between the Army of Portugal and Soult’s force marching on Hill.’ He paused and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘It seems that I am now in a worse position than ever, Somerset.’

The army had slipped away from Burgos a few days earlier, under cover of darkness. With the wheels of the guns and the wagons muffled by straw, they passed over the bridge at Burgos and then marched south-west towards Valladolid and the river Douro. It was Arthur’s intention to put as much distance as possible between his men and the French Army of Portugal. Any hope that the enemy was still too demoralised to fight after the defeat they had endured at Salamanca was soon dashed. They pursued the allied army with all the speed they could muster and pressed forward with the sturdy confidence of those who had the bigger battalions on their side. As the month had drawn to a close it had become clear that the French were too strong for Arthur to risk battle and he would be forced to give up any hope of keeping his forces in central Spain ready to renew the campaign the following year. Now, it seemed that he was in danger of being trapped here.

He looked up at Somerset. ‘There is no question over what we must do. Hill is to quit Madrid at once. I had hoped that we might join forces north of there, but it’s too late for that now. Send an order to him to meet me at Salamanca. Meanwhile he is not to engage the enemy.’

Somerset looked surprised. ‘It is your intention to allow the French to retake the capital, my lord?’

‘What would you have me do? Hill cannot stand against Soult alone.’

‘I agree, sir, but what will our Spanish allies make of this? They will say that we have betrayed them.’

‘By God, they can say what they damn well like!’ Arthur thumped his fist down on the table. At once he relented, furious with himself for having succumbed to the foul temper that had been brewing within him ever since the army had failed to take Burgos. He drew a deep breath and opened his fist, forcing himself to continue in a calmer tone. ‘I am sure that our Spanish allies will pour scorn on us for this. However, that is the cross we must bear. After all, we owe them little. I have learned never to expect much from the efforts of the Spanish grandees, even after all that we have done for them. They may cry viva, and they are friendly towards us, and hate the French, but in general they are the most incapable of useful exertion of all people I have known, and the most vain. So in balancing the good of my army against the goodwill of the Spanish, there is no question about which side my sympathies lie, Somerset.’ He looked at his aide, his eyes dry and sore from lack of sleep, and his head aching for the same reason. ‘Now, will you please be so kind as to send the order to Hill?’

‘Yes, sir, of course,’ Somerset replied guiltily. ‘I apologise.’

‘Nonsense!’ Arthur forced himself to smile. ‘It is I who must apologise. The faults that provoke me into my present melancholy are not yours, Somerset. Be comforted by that at least. Now get that message off to Hill, quick as you can.’

Although the skies cleared early in November, the winter had begun to settle across the heart of Spain. The roasting landscape that the army had marched through the last time they had cause to make for Salamanca was now gripped by cold dawns and blustery days with a chilly wind that sought out every rip in a man’s uniform and cut through to his skin.

‘An army in retreat is never a happy thing,’ Arthur said ruefully as he watched a regiment from General Campbell’s division trudge along the muddy road to Salamanca. The men were in a sorry state. Unshaven, some in patched uniforms that barely justified the term, others, having discarded the remnants of the grey worsted trousers they had been issued nearly eleven months earlier, wearing an assortment of replacements. Their muskets, however, were well cared for and not a speck of rust disfigured the long, dark grey barrels.

Some of the men glanced at Arthur with surly expressions as they passed by, and there were none of the cheers that usually greeted him when the men recognised their commander. Their bitter mood had not been helped by the incompetence of Arthur’s new quartermaster-general, Colonel Gordon, who had managed to send the supply wagons to Salamanca by a different road and so denied the army its rations for the last three days. The men had taken to eating acorns and chestnuts gathered along the way.

Arthur’s own mood soured as he reflected on Somerset’s recent discovery that Gordon had been sending back defeatist despatches to the newspapers in London. Arthur had long since grown accustomed to such ‘croaking’ from some of his subordinates. It was an inevitable consequence of a long conflict. But what he would not tolerate was incompetence, and he resolved to have Gordon dismissed, regardless of the man’s political connections.

General Campbell helped himself to a pinch of snuff as his men marched past. When Arthur commented on their demeanour, he said casually,‘Oh, they’re miserable beggars at the best of times, sir. Especially the veterans. But they’ll be happy enough with a tot of gin in them and the prospect of a fight.’

‘Then let us hope that the French don’t disappoint us when we reach Salamanca.’

Campbell winced as he sniffed, blinked his eyes, and then turned to Arthur. ‘It’s your intention to offer battle then, sir?’

‘Why not? It will be as good an opportunity as any, once we add Hill’s strength to our own.’

‘What will that give us?’ Campbell paused to calculate the numbers. ‘Sixty-five thousand men to set against perhaps a hundred thousand Frogs?’

‘Fewer than that, I should say,’ Arthur replied, ‘if my intelligence is correct. There were reports that several of Souham’s formations have been diverted to other commands. It is likely that we will be faced by no more than eighty thousand men.’

‘They still outnumber us, especially in cavalry and guns, sir.’

‘True, but I suspect that they will be unnerved by the prospect of fighting over the same ground where they were so soundly beaten last time. I dare say it will raise our fellows’ spirits for exactly the same reason.’

Campbell looked at him with a grin.‘Why, you’re a wily one, sir, that you are.’

‘Perhaps.’ Arthur frowned. ‘I just hope I have not overplayed my reputation. It would be a bad business if Soult and Joseph refused to take the bait for want of confidence.’ His attention returned to the soldiers marching past.‘I would be sorry to spare your men the chance to amuse themselves.’

Campbell laughed, and offered Arthur his snuff box. ‘Like some, sir? Clears the head wonderfully.’

Arthur looked at the box with disdain. He had never liked snuff, nor could he understand the pleasure that could be derived from the sneezing it induced. He shook his head. ‘I thank you, but no. With my nose, you would be sure to lose half your supply.’

Campbell stared at him wide-eyed, and then barked out a laugh as he tucked his snuff box away.

‘Now, keep your men moving, Campbell. I’ll need every one of them when we turn and fight at Salamanca.’ He touched the brim of his hat and turned his mount to ride on to the next division in the line of march that snaked west across the bare landscape.

Hill and his force joined the army at Salamanca two days after Arthur arrived. A day’s march behind Hill came the combined forces of Soult, Joseph and Souham. Arthur promptly had his army make camp, as before, on the reverse slopes of the Lesser Arapil. Just beyond the opposite ridge the French halted to make camp, posting a string of cavalry vedettes along the ridge to keep watch on the allied position. Arthur used the farmhouse where he had first spotted Marmont’s outflanking move as his headquarters. As the men scoured the surrounding countryside for firewood and made the best meal they could out of their remaining rations, Arthur summoned his senior officers to the farm to brief them on his plans.

He was pleased to see General Alava again. Alava had joined Hill’s column on the retreat from Madrid and smiled faintly in response to Arthur’s greeting.

‘My lord, you have no idea how much animosity your quitting Madrid has stirred up. I had a difficult time of it persuading the Cortes to let me re-join you.’

‘I apologise for your discomfort. However, I would hope that those who govern Spanish affairs would rather I had my army intact than have it remain in Madrid and be destroyed.’

Alava winced. ‘I only wish they were so foresighted, my lord. There are some who are all for declaring war on England.’

Somerset was scandalised. ‘You’re not serious?’

‘It was in the heat of the moment. It will pass,’ Alava waved his hand. ‘Fortunately, I was able to persuade cooler heads that this was a temporary expedient and that our allies would return to liberate Madrid, permanently.’

‘Thank you.’ Arthur waved Alava towards a seat around the tables the farmer had set up in his barn, the only space large enough to accommodate such a number of officers. Arthur rapped his knuckles on the board to silence them and get their attention. ‘Gentlemen, it is my hope to confront the enemy tomorrow. Though we are outnumbered, we have a fine defensive position which will negate whatever advantage they may have in guns and cavalry. It also leaves us with a clear route to Portugal, should we need it. We have been in a similar situation before and if the French come on in the same old way, why then we shall beat them in the same old way. As we did at Vimeiro and Busaco.’ He paused, preparing his officers for a change in tone. ‘The truth is, this battle, if there is one, will be the last opportunity we have to squeeze some advantage out of this year’s campaign. If we can defeat, or drive off, the French, then our retreat stops here. If they beat us, then at least we can retire to Portugal to lick our wounds and come back at them in the spring.’

‘What if they choose not to fight?’ asked Hill. ‘The last time we occupied this position, Marmont proved reluctant to attack. It was you, my lord, who had to take the battle to the enemy.’

‘Last time we were evenly matched, so I could afford to attack,’ Arthur replied. ‘This time, the odds are against us and it would not be prudent to do so. Besides, given the effort our enemies have made to scrape together every available man from three armies, I cannot believe that they will not offer battle. I assume that Soult, since he holds the senior military rank, will be in command. The last time we crossed swords was in Oporto. He will be thirsting for revenge. Soult will know that he must fight us here, or be obliged to follow us to the shelter of our fortresses in Portugal. Gentlemen, I am certain that we will have our battle.’ He looked round the barn at his officers. ‘All that remains is for you to do your duty.’

The sun rose out of a misty haze and bathed the two ridges in a warm glow that was welcomed by the soldiers, wearied of the wind and rain that had accompanied their march across the centre of Spain. While Arthur’s men quietly filed into their positions on the reverse slope, his artillery crews prepared their guns, positioned on the ridge where they could savage any enemy columns advancing up the slopes of the Lesser Arapil. Arthur had considered garrisoning the Greater Arapil, but decided against it. He needed all his men in the main battle line, and was wary of starting a savage battle of attrition for control of the hill that would work in favour of the more numerous French.

On the far ridge, the French forces marched into line to the accompaniment of their bands, which struck up the usual stirring tunes to fill their troops with the appropriate sentiments of drama and patriotism. For nearly three hours the French host formed in an arc around the Lesser Arapil, a steady stream of infantry battalions standing behind their tricolour standards topped with the gilded eagles that Bonaparte had conferred on his army. On the flanks, dense masses of cavalry stood patiently, the horses scraping the ground, tails occasionally flicking, as their riders waited for the order to mount. In the centre, ready to pound the allied line, a great battery of more than forty guns had been hauled forward and the first racks of shot and handful of charges had been brought up to load them.

By ten, all was in readiness on both sides and the soldiers waited in tense expectation, ears straining for the sound of the signal gun that would announce the opening of the battle. Arthur and his staff had mounted their horses and ridden as far forward along the ridge as was safe, and there they waited. Every so often an officer would fish out his watch and mark the passing of time.

Then, at midday, the French skirmishers began to advance, stepping out across the valley, and then rushing to cover as the British riflemen opened fire, shooting down a handful of French officers and men. A desultory duel between the two screens of marksmen dragged on for another hour with little result, since the riflemen were content to stay where they were and the French skirmishers, armed with smooth-bore muskets, and therefore outranged, only dared to bolt from one cover to another, until they were within effective range to fire their weapons. As the exchange of fire continued, the clouds above thickened, casting a gloomy pall over both armies.

‘Half past one, my lord,’ Somerset said casually.‘No sign of any attack. What the devil is Soult up to?’

A sudden fear struck Arthur. What if Soult was biding his time while another element of his army was moving into position. ‘Any word from the cavalry patrols?’

‘Sir?’

‘Any report of other enemy columns in the area? Or anywhere on the Portugal road?’

‘No, sir.’ Somerset had rarely detected such anxiety in his commander’s voice and added, reassuringly, ‘I am certain of it. I read all the reports first thing this morning. This is the only French army near Salamanca.’

‘And you would wager your life on that?’ Arthur asked curtly.

‘I would.’

Arthur turned to look at his aide, his eyes filled with contempt. ‘Then you are a fool, Somerset. Or a charlatan.’

Somerset swallowed his anger. Wellington was not himself and allowances had to be made, so he held his tongue as the general turned his attention back to the enemy, the fingers of his left hand tapping out an unconscious rhythm on his saddle holster. Arthur had a clear view of the enemy commanders and their staffs, crowded about the same position Marmont had occupied in the earlier battle. Raising his telescope, he trained it on the large group of horsemen and picked out the elaborate uniforms of Joseph and his senior commanders. They seemed to be locked in an animated debate.

As Arthur watched them he heard a faint pat on the brim of his hat, then another. Lowering his telescope, he saw that it had begun to rain. The pattering became more general, and then merged into a hiss as the rain fell in earnest, creating a steely veil between the two armies. Arthur glanced up at the sky and saw that the clouds had spread to the horizon. The most distant hills had already been blotted out and those only a few miles off had been reduced to grey outlines.

‘Still no movement from the enemy,’ an officer muttered.

Arthur nodded, and thrust his telescope back into the saddle bucket, fastened the buttons of his cloak, and sat stiffly as he considered his next move. The rain would handicap both sides. The French would have to advance across the muddy floor of the valley before mounting the slope leading up to the allied position. Infantry and cavalry alike would be hampered by the soft ground. At the same time, the rain would increase the number of misfires from Arthur’s men, which would reduce the firepower of his line, a worrying factor given that he was already outnumbered. As he was thinking, Somerset rose up in his stirrups and pointed towards the far ridge.

‘Sir, look there. The French are on the move.’

Arthur raised a hand to shield his eyes from the rain and squinted. Sure enough, the men of the enemy cavalry reserve, massed on the crest of the ridge, were mounting their horses. Then, one squadron at a time, they turned and rode away over the ridge. As the order spread to the other formations, the French army began to withdraw towards their camp.

‘It would seem that rain has stopped play,’ Somerset said.

Arthur nodded and sighed. There would be no battle today. Soult would not be lured into an attack on a strong defensive position. That left only one rational course open to Arthur. He tugged the reins and eased his horse round to face his staff officers. ‘That is it then, gentlemen. The army is to fall back to Ciudad Rodrigo. Somerset.’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Stand the army down. They are to return to camp for the night. Inform all divisional commanders that the army is to begin the retreat at dawn. They will have their written orders for the march during the night. That is all. Gentlemen, you are dismissed.’

The disappointment and dejected spirits of his officers were evident in their faces as Arthur watched them turn their mounts away and walk them back to the headquarters at the farm. He shared their sentiments. The army would have returned to the starting point of the campaign, and the failure to take Burgos, the abandoning of Madrid and the discomfort of the long retreat through the months of winter would weigh on the mind of every soldier. Many of them would voice their disgruntlement in letters home as they waited for the winter to pass.

However, Arthur reminded himself, soldiers were always inclined to complain about those things that caused them immediate discontent. In time, when they had rested, and fed well, and been issued with new boots and uniforms, they would recall the glory of Salamanca well enough. And the triumphant entry into the Spanish capital.

Arthur turned his horse back to face the enemy. Even though Soult had deprived him of the day’s battle, he recognised the significance of this moment. Despite his advantage in men, Soult had refused to fight. Bonaparte’s marshals had come to fear him, Arthur noted with satisfaction. They were no longer the masters of Europe’s battlefields. He hardly dared to voice the thought, but in his heart he knew that the tide of the war was turning against France, and against Bonaparte.

Chapter 34

Napoleon

Maloyaroslavets, 25 October 1812

The rain petered out after the first two days of the march, and clear skies and mild weather meant that the French army reached the town of Maloyaroslavets, sixty miles from Moscow, by the end of the fifth day. Napoleon decided to head south-west, towards Kutusov, in the hope that the Russians would fall back, thereby opening up a clear line of retreat towards Smolensk. The news from the other elements of the army was grim. Marshal MacDonald, who had been besieging Riga on the Baltic coast, was facing ever greater numbers of Russians, and the loyalty of many of his own troops was suspect, particularly the Prussians. To the south of the Pripet, General Schwarzenberg and his Austrians were facing twice as many Russians and were being forced back.

Meanwhile, Murat’s scouts were reporting that other Russian forces were closing in from the north, south and east to join Kutusov. There was no denying the danger: the trap was slowly closing around the Grand Army. If Kutusov could block the river crossings along the French line of retreat, then hunger and the cold would ravage Napoleon’s army and Kutusov’s men would finish them off.

The day before, Prince Eugиne had forced his way across the bridge over the river Lusha at Maloyaroslavets and this morning Napoleon, his staff and a small escort of dragoons had ridden out to reconnoitre the western road. Two thousand men were holding the town while the rest of the army waited on the north bank for the order to advance. The sky was clear and the morning air crisp and chilly, so that riders and mounts exhaled steamy plumes as the small party trotted through a shallow vale. Bare fields and the occasional peasant hut lined both sides of the road before giving way to forests that sprawled into the distance in all directions.

Napoleon glanced up at the sky and then spoke cheerfully to Berthier. ‘If this weather holds for another two weeks we shall make good progress to Smolensk.’

‘Yes, sire,’ Berthier replied, but his tone was cautious and Napoleon turned to look at him as their horses sloshed through a patch of watery mud.

‘You have doubts, Berthier?’

Berthier briefly scratched his stubbly chin. ‘May I speak freely, sire?’

‘Do.’

‘Very well. I cannot help thinking that we should be taking the most direct road back to Smolensk, particularly as the weather is good. The sooner the army falls back on its depots the better.’

‘I agree, my friend. But the biggest challenge facing us at present is to keep our army in being. If I had given the order to retrace our steps there would be no way of concealing from the men that we are retreating. You can imagine how that would affect morale. It is better that we chart a different course, one that allows me to present it to the men as an advance. If they believe that, then I am confident that they are ready to fight on. Do you understand?’

Berthier nodded.

‘Good. Then let’s see if we can find a high point to see the way ahead.’ Napoleon looked round and pointed to a knoll a mile down the track. ‘There.’

He was about to spur his horse into a canter when there was a shout to his left. Napoleon turned. One of the thin screen of dragoons riding fifty paces to the left was pointing to the woods. A group of riders, perhaps fifty men, clutching lances had burst out from amongst the trees and were racing towards the party of Frenchmen. They were dressed in flowing red cloaks and wore black fur hats. Their mounts were smaller and shaggier than the French horses.

‘Cossacks,’ Berthier muttered.

There was another shouted warning from the right and Napoleon and his officers turned to see a second party rushing from the forest on the other flank, angling out slightly to cut the Frenchmen off from the town. The dragoons had drawn out their carbines and were hurriedly steadying their mounts to take aim. There was a puff of smoke and a crack as the first dragoon fired. The shot went wide. As his companions joined in Napoleon saw one of the Cossacks’ ponies tumble over, pitching its rider forward on to the muddy field over which they raced towards the French Emperor and his small party. As soon as they had fired, the dragoons holstered their carbines and drew their swords, spurring their mounts towards the oncoming horsemen. On both sides of the imperial party the Russians charged forward, shouting their war cry as they leaned low over their ponies and swung their lances down ready to strike. The dragoons were heavily outnumbered and swiftly overwhelmed. As the last of them was cut down the Cossacks charged on, straight for Napoleon and his staff officers.

‘Draw your swords!’ Berthier bellowed. ‘Defend the Emperor!’

The ornately decorated blades rasped from their scabbards as the French officers drew out their light cavalry sabres and dress swords and formed a loose ring about Napoleon. A handful of them had pistols attached to their saddles and pulled them out of their holsters, cocked them and held them ready, aiming up at the sky in order to prevent any premature discharges from striking their own side. Napoleon watched the Cossacks race across the open ground towards him, close enough now for him to make out the long moustaches flicking out round each cheek as their lips curled back, mouths wide open as they cheered themselves on.

‘Brace yourselves!’ Berthier called out. ‘Don’t let them get through.’

One of the officers lowered his pistol, took aim, waited until the last moment and shot a Cossack in the chest. The man dropped his lance and toppled from his sheepskin saddle. A rapid succession of pistol shots followed and then the first of the Cossacks reached the cluster of gold-braided staff officers with their feathered and cockaded hats. He thrust out his lance arm and the point shot towards the chest of a young colonel on the topography staff. With a desperate slash the officer parried the head of the shaft and drew his arm back to strike as the Cossack drew level. The sweep of the highly polished blade hissed through the air, but the Russian swung his body to the side and hung low beside the saddle, and the sabre sliced harmlessly over his head.

Napoleon glanced round to see that all his officers were engaged now, locked in an uneven duel with the Cossacks as they jabbed their lances at any target that was presented to them. For their part the staff officers tried their best to parry the strikes and use the greater weight of their horses to force the enemy back, but they were outnumbered and were gradually driven into a tight knot around the Emperor. Napoleon had no pistols nor even a sword, and drew out his telescope, hefting it in his spare hand as he prepared to use it as a club. All around the air was thick with the scrape and clatter of blades on steel points and wooden shafts. The Cossacks had stopped their cheering and now focused intently on their hand-to-hand fight with their enemy, teeth locked in feral snarls. With a gasp, the first of Napoleon’s officers went down, falling from the saddle as the tip of a lance ripped from his stomach a bloody, glistening tangle of intestines. Almost at once he was joined by the Cossack who had struck him down as a sabre cut deep into the Russian’s neck, severing muscle and blood vessels and breaking through the spine. The man flung his arms out, spasmed in the saddle and fell.

‘Sire! Look out!’ Berthier yelled, urging his horse between Napoleon and the Cossack who had pressed through the ring behind them. Napoleon swung round to see the Russian’s wild expression as he drew back his lance to strike. The point came forward, foreshortened and deadly, like a snake striking, and Napoleon swept out his telescope, just managing to knock the point aside. Then the pony slammed into the flank of Napoleon’s mare, nearly knocking him out of his saddle. He swayed briefly before grimly tugging on his reins and clamping his legs round the horse’s girth. Berthier struck back, slashing his blade down on to the man’s shoulder, shattering the collar bone and shoulder blade with a sharp crack. The Cossack dropped his lance, snatched the reins aside with his good hand and raced away, barging between the men struggling around Napoleon.

‘Thank you, Berthier,’ Napoleon panted, his heart pounding with fear and excitement. Berthier smiled, then both men heard a distant trumpet note sounding across the fields. They turned and saw a squadron of Guard cavalry charging into view round a bend in the road.

‘Hold on!’ Napoleon shouted to his officers. ‘Hold them back!’

The skirmish intensified as the Cossacks strove to cut their foes down before they were saved by the reinforcements. Another officer fell, pierced through the chest, the bloody point bursting through his back less than three paces from where Napoleon sat on his mount. He recoiled involuntarily at the sight, then the lance was yanked back and the officer swayed in his saddle, groaning in agony, before he began to slump forward. Another cried out as a lance pinned his arm to his side, passing on into the Frenchman’s ribs. Napoleon quickly rose in his stirrups to see that the dragoons were spurring into a charge to save their Emperor, pounding down the road in a muddy spray, their swords held high and glittering in the sunshine.

A sudden shout behind Napoleon caused him to swivel in his saddle, just in time to see another Cossack making for him, lance ready to strike.

‘No you don’t!’ a voice shouted back and an officer spurred his horse between the Russian and the Emperor. As the Cossack thrust the officer threw his sword into the man’s face and grabbed at the shaft of the lance with both hands. The Cossack clung on but with a swift, powerful jerk the staff officer wrenched the other man from his saddle and sent him crashing to the ground. A savage thrust to the throat with the lance finished him off.

The approach of rumbling hooves drew Napoleon’s gaze away from the officer who had saved him and he saw the Guard cavalry charging up to the mкlйe. They were hand-picked men mounted on the best of horses, and they charged down those Cossacks who could not turn and flee in time. The rest disappeared across the field into the woods, pursued by the galloping Frenchmen.

‘Who is he, Berthier?’ Napoleon nodded towards the officer holding the lance. The man was no older than thirty, blond and with fine features.

‘Colonel Eblй, sire. An engineer.’

‘Then see to it that the colonel is promoted to general. A brave man, that.’

‘We will need all of his kind in the weeks ahead,’ Berthier responded quietly.

Napoleon frowned. He wanted to upbraid his chief of staff for his pessimism, but he knew that Berthier was right. Glancing round at the forests on either side, he could already see mounted figures stealing back towards the tree line, watching them. Abruptly, he turned his mount back down the road and a moment later Berthier fell in alongside him.

They were silent for a moment as Napoleon glanced from side to side.

‘I think we may have to reconsider our route,’ he said.

Back in the campaign wagon, Napoleon pulled a map of the Moscow approaches from its case and spread it out across the folding table. He leaned forward on his elbows and examined it briefly, then nodded to himself. He tapped his finger where the name of Maloyaroslavets was marked.

‘We dare not take the whole army across the river using a single span. It would take too long, and if the enemy can bring forward sufficient strength to attack the bridgehead then we could be stuck here while Kutusov approaches from the east.’

‘That is a possibility, sire,’ Berthier agreed. ‘But if the ground on the far side is held by a few bands of Cossacks and the remnants of the column that Eugиne forced aside, then I would say it is worth the risk. If the army gets over the Lusha then there are few natural obstacles between us and Smolensk.’

Napoleon thought a moment and then shook his head. ‘It would take only a few cannon to sweep the bridge and there would be a panic. We would lose thousands - men I cannot afford to lose. No, the army cannot cross here.’ Napoleon traced his finger across the map. ‘We’ll head north, back to the Moscow-Smolensk road.’

Berthier sucked in a breath. ‘But that will cost us six days, sire. We can’t afford to lose so much time.’

‘Time is irrelevant if there is no army left to make use of it.’ Napoleon straightened up and rubbed his back. Even though he had slept little in recent days he felt something of his old energy returning. His stomach was no longer hurting, he realised.

He continued to stare at the map. It was possible that Berthier was right, he conceded silently, and the march north would cost him six days, but the danger of attempting to cross the Lusha outweighed Berthier’s fears.

A sudden gust of wind caused the map to flap where it wasn’t clipped to the table. Napoleon shuddered and turned to one of the orderlies waiting outside the carriage. ‘Find me a warm coat.’

Several days later, the army re-joined the road to Smolensk and passed through the battlefield at Borodino. There had been no time to bury the vast number of dead men and horses when the Grand Army had pursued Kutusov in the direction of Moscow after the battle six weeks before. Since then the corpses had swollen, putrefied and been scavenged by packs of wolves that had been drawn from many miles around by the scent of death. Amid the ravaged bodies was the litter of war: abandoned muskets, shattered gun carriages, cavalry helmets and breastplates, cleaved by musket and cannon fire.

‘Good God . . .’ Berthier muttered as he gazed around the desolate landscape as the headquarters column passed through. He sat opposite Napoleon in an open carriage.

‘An ugly scene,’ Napoleon nodded, and then wrinkled his nose.‘And a foul stench, even now.’

He turned in his seat to look back along the column snaking across the battlefield. Although the men looked lean and ragged, they still kept hold of their muskets and packs. As Napoleon watched, he saw hundreds of them break ranks and hurry across to the rotting horses to see if there was any meat to be gleaned, no matter how rancid. It was a sobering sight and Napoleon turned away, settling himself down in his seat and shutting his eyes. He did not sleep, but anxiously reflected on the steady disintegration of the Grand Army.

Earlier that day one of Murat’s troopers had brought the Emperor a report from the rearguard. The reports of conditions at the rear of the army were hard to believe. Davout’s corps had taken over the rearguard, and he informed the Emperor that as many as thirty thousand stragglers and camp followers were clogging the road behind the main body of the army. Most had abandoned their weapons and the strongest formed bands and preyed on the weak, stealing their food and clothes and leaving them to die. Starvation was killing hundreds every day. Men dropped by the side of the road and stared into space, waiting for death.

Roving bands of Cossacks and peasants were happy to oblige and butchered any French soldiers they came across. The wounded on the remaining wagons were crushed in together, and when a man died, or was deemed to be beyond help, he was thrown over the side to die in the mud or be crushed under the following vehicles. The remaining horses were little more than skeletons, and the lame animals were butchered where they fell, to be torn to pieces by frenzied mobs. Some men were even unhitching the horses from the wagons of the wounded and leaving their comrades behind, ignoring their pitiful pleas not to be abandoned. And all along the line of march lay the abandoned spoils of the campaign, amid the discarded weapons, spiked guns, carts, wheelbarrows and wagons.

When the army reached the Dnieper river on the first day of November, Napoleon gave the order to halt to give the rearguard time to catch up. There was ominous news from further ahead. Russian forces were marching to block the crossings over the Berezina river, a hundred miles from the border with the Duchy of Warsaw.

As night fell the temperature dropped below zero and kept dropping. Having read the day’s despatches and written his responses, Napoleon climbed down from the campaign wagon and strode over to the fire that had been lit for him by a section of guardsmen. They now stood around the perimeter of the light cast by the flames, muskets slung over their shoulders as they stamped their feet, trying to keep warm as they stood guard. A servant brought a bowl of onion soup and a small loaf to the Emperor, who sat on a campaign chair a short distance from the fire. As he sipped at the hot soup he saw hundreds more fires dotted across the surrounding countryside and trailing back towards the eastern horizon. A half-moon hung in the sky, providing a thin illumination of the dark bands of forests and cleared swathes of farmland that stretched out on either side of the army. In the distance there was a brief outbreak of musket fire, then silence, and finally the long low howl of a wolf, taken up by others, which continued until a fresh rattle of musket fire scared them off.

Napoleon felt something cold prick his cheek, and blinked. Then a pale fleck floated lazily past his face and settled on his thigh. Another followed, then more, and he looked up into the night sky to see a sudden swirling motion against a bank of clouds drifting slowly across the heavens, obscuring the moon and stars. A low wind began to blow, fanning the flames of the fire. Napoleon heard footsteps nearby and turned to see Berthier approaching, a worried expression on his face.

‘I had hoped we might reach Smolensk before the snow came, sire.’

Napoleon took another sip of onion soup. ‘So did I. Now all we can do is pray that it doesn’t last.’

Neither man spoke as they watched the veil of snow close in across the landscape, slowly blanking out the fields and forests as it began to settle on the ground like a funeral shroud.

Chapter 35

6 November 1812

Berthier looked up from the despatch that Napoleon had handed him to read. ‘It seems to have been handled efficiently enough. The Paris garrison has stamped down on the traitors, and, as you say, General Malet is clearly a lunatic.’

‘Lunatic or sane, he deserved to be shot, along with the others,’ said Napoleon as he shuffled his stool closer to the stove. Outside the barn a blizzard was blowing, adding to the snow of the previous days. The imperial headquarters had struggled on until after dark before reaching the barn and the handful of sheds that were the only shelter the scouts had been able to find for the night. A stove had been fetched from the imperial baggage and one of the carts was broken up for firewood, providing enough for the stove and a small blaze outside where the sentries drawn from the Old Guard were huddled.

As twilight settled over the snow, painting the winter landscape in a pale blue hue, the headquarters staff had encountered a messenger on the road to Smolensk. The sealed despatch bag had only been opened once Napoleon had eaten and warmed himself by the stove. There was a message from the Minister of Police marked Most urgent, which Napoleon read first.

The minister reported that there had been an attempt by some senior army officers to seize power. The ringleader was General Malet, a longstanding opponent of the Emperor who had been committed to an asylum. Somehow, he had managed to escape. Arriving in Paris with a forged army despatch, he had declared that Napoleon had died in Russia, and managed to persuade a number of officers to join his cause. It was only when the military governor of Paris refused to believe the news that the plot was foiled and the culprits were arrested, tried and shot.

‘Well, it’s over now.’ Berthier folded the despatch and placed it in the document box of correspondence that had been read. ‘From the sound of things it stood no chance of success.’

‘You’re missing the point,’ Napoleon said wearily. ‘I don’t doubt that Malet and his friends would have failed. The soldiers in Paris would never have gone over to them. What worries me is that so many officials were prepared to believe that I was dead.’ He looked earnestly at Berthier.‘Don’t you see? It does not take long for my hold on power to slip when I leave Paris for any length of time.’ He was silent for a moment, staring at the beaten earth between his boots.‘It seems that my presence is needed in Paris as soon as I have led the army to safety for the winter.’

‘Sire,’ Berthier responded with a warning glance, and then looked round at the other officers in the barn. Some were hunched over campaign tables, busy writing orders, while others collated the latest strength returns, a task that daily revealed the increasing peril of the Grand Army as the number of men in each corps dwindled. Satisfied that he would not be overheard, Berthier continued. ‘You must remain with the army for as long as possible. While you are with us there is still some hope for the men. They trust you, sire. They know that you will lead them out of this frozen wasteland. But if you leave . . . if you abandon them, then whatever is left of their fighting spirit will die. The army will dissolve. We have to save as many of them as possible, else there will be nothing to stand between our empire and the forces of Russia when the next campaign season begins.’

Napoleon frowned at his chief of staff. ‘You exaggerate the danger, as ever, Berthier. What makes you think these conditions affect the enemy any less than us, eh? The Russians are still men. They feel the cold. They grow hungry as they outmarch their supply lines. I dare say that, even now, Kutusov is sitting in his headquarters listening to a doom-mongering subordinate of his own. The Russians will be in no better condition to continue the war than we are when the spring comes.’

‘You are wrong, sire,’ said Berthier. ‘The Russians are living within their supply lines. Their men have food when they need it, and are not obliged to try to carry it with them every step of the way.’

‘Nor will we be when we reach Smolensk!’ Napoleon snapped back. ‘There are rations enough there for all the men. The city has strong defences. The army could winter there while I return to Paris, and when the spring comes we will be within striking range of St Petersburg. If the loss of Moscow does not move the Tsar to seek peace, then perhaps if we take his new capital he will begin to see reason. If that does not work we shall take his cities one by one, and burn them, until he comes to terms.’

Berthier shook his head. ‘I am no longer sure that the loss of all his cities would weaken his will to resist. In any case, if the Grand Army, or what’s left of it, remains in Smolensk then it runs the risk of being trapped there during the depths of winter. And all the time the enemy will be drawing on his reserves to increase the size of the armies gathering against us. Come spring they will be ready to close the trap around Smolensk and compel the army to surrender, or perish. There would be no army for you to return to, sire.’

Napoleon lowered his gaze and stared at the flickering orange rim round the iron door of the stove. Berthier was right. He could not afford to quit the army when the morale of the men was so fragile. Yet he was gravely concerned about the situation in Paris - and not only Paris. The Prussians could not be trusted, nor could many of the other lesser allies in the German Confederation. Then there was Spain, where French control of the country was slipping from his hands, as Wellington and the accursed Spanish rebels continued to run rings around Napoleon’s marshals.

He felt the burden of it all weigh on his heart like a great rock. His empire needed him everywhere. He was fated to be either a ruler directing his wars from a distance, or a general leading his soldiers at the front, far from the capital. A man could not do both, he mused, and then smiled to himself. Perhaps not a man, but a Napoleon? Only history would tell.

‘Sire?’ Berthier interrupted his thoughts.

‘What is it?’

‘Your orders. Will the army halt at Smolensk?’

Napoleon was still for a moment and then shook his head. ‘You are right. It is too exposed. We will fall back on the depot at Minsk. Meanwhile, send a message to Marshal Victor. His corps is still intact. Order him to advance towards us. He is to keep our lines of communication open at all costs. I cannot afford to be out of touch with Paris.’

‘Yes, sire.’

Leaning towards the stove, Napoleon held out his hands and spoke softly. ‘The campaign is lost, Berthier.’

‘Yes, sire. I know.’

‘Then all that remains to do is get as many men out of Russia as possible.’

The Emperor and the Imperial Guard reached Smolensk on the ninth day of November. The stock of supplies for the Grand Army was far lower than Napoleon had anticipated. Not nearly enough to feed his men through the winter, or even until the end of the year. As the following formations reached the city, they were issued with all the food they could carry. Many of the men had had hardly anything to eat for weeks, and ignoring the orders of their officers they gorged themselves, leaving little to sustain them as the army marched on, crossing to the south of the Dnieper and leaving Smolensk behind.

Napoleon and his staff attempted to reorganise what was left of the army. There were now less than forty thousand front-line troops. Murat’s cavalry had almost ceased to exist and the officers were ordered to hand over their horses so that a small force could be scraped together to confront the menace of the Cossacks. The six thousand survivors of Ney’s corps took over the rearguard and rested a few days in the city to allow the wretched column of stragglers to pass by, looting what little food was left in the depots and houses of Smolensk in the process.

Early on the seventeenth, the same day that Ney had been ordered to quit Smolensk, the vanguard came up against a strong Russian force blocking the road. The sky was the colour of lead above the thick gleaming white layer that blanketed the stark landscape. A mile ahead of the Grand Army was a low rise where the Russians waited, infantry and a handful of guns to the centre and thousands of Cossacks drawn up on each flank. Napoleon regarded them through his telescope and then conferred with Berthier.

‘I would estimate perhaps twenty thousand all told.’

‘Yes, sire,’ Berthier replied a moment later. ‘I agree.’

‘They must be pushed aside.’ Napoleon bit his lip. There was only one remaining formation in the Grand Army strong enough to complete the task. If they failed then all was lost. He turned to Berthier. ‘Tell General Roguet to have the Guard form a battle line across the road. Here.’ He stabbed a finger towards the ground.

As the faint glow of the sun climbed behind the clouds the men of the Imperial Guard marched up the road and then turned and filed across the snow to take up their positions. In front of them, the last of the artillery horses hauled twenty guns into place and the crews clumsily began to load the weapons with numbed fingers. As Napoleon watched the preparations he saw that his elite corps had suffered the same privations as the rest of the army. The guardsmen were bearded and filthy, their mud-stained uniforms in tatters, and strips of cloth had been tied round their boots and hands in an attempt to keep their feet and fingers warm. Yet they formed ranks as neatly as if they had been on parade in the courtyard at the Tuileries. Napoleon could not help feeling proud of these men, who had served him through many campaigns. This moment was what they had been saved for. At the Grand Army’s darkest hour it would be the Imperial Guard who would fight to preserve them all.

A series of dull thuds from the Russian line announced the start of the battle, as the enemy cannon opened fire. General Roguet gave the order for his guns to reply as the last battalion of the Guard took its place in the line. For fifteen minutes the guns of both sides exchanged fire, their shot kicking up short-lived fountains of white as they grounded in the snow. Now and again a shot struck home, smashing a gun and striking down some of its crew. The men of the Imperial Guard artillery soon warmed to their task, grunting with effort as they laboured to load and fire their guns, and their superior training quickly showed as they silenced one enemy gun after another, while only two of their own were put out of action.

‘That’s the spirit!’ General Roguet grinned as he sat on his horse beside Napoleon. ‘First round to us, sire.’

Napoleon nodded, clasping his arms about his torso as he hunched his neck down into the muffler wound thickly about his neck.‘Tell your men to concentrate their fire on the infantry now.’

‘Yes, sire.’ Roguet spurred his mount forward through the snow towards his general of artillery. Moments later the first French shot began to fall into the dense ranks of the waiting Russian infantry as Roguet returned to his Emperor’s side. Each time a ball struck home it caused a swirl of bodies, deep into the heart of the Russian lines. Yet they calmly closed up the gaps and held their position. For an hour they endured the punishment, until the general of artillery reported that his ammunition was running low. The Guard’s dwindling convoy of supply wagons was still some miles further down the track leading to Smolensk.

‘Then send the infantry forward, General,’ Napoleon ordered.‘Order them to clear that rise and then push the enemy back to the south and open the route for the rest of the army.’

‘Yes, sire.’

Shortly after the last of the guns had fallen silent the order to advance was given. The drums beat the rhythm and the leading companies of each Guard battalion stepped out towards the enemy, their boots making only a soft crunch as they broke through a thin crust of ice atop the snow. After a short delay the following companies rippled forward, following the tracks left by their comrades, until over seven thousand men were closing on the enemy. Napoleon heard the blare of a distant horn and then the note was picked up and repeated along the Russian line as the Cossacks surged forward, hooves kicking up sprays of snow as they brandished their lances and let out their war cry.

A moment later Napoleon saw the Guards halt. The flanking battalions steadily formed squares and then the entire formation stood its ground as thousands of Cossacks came charging across the flawless blanket of snow towards them. Up went the muskets, levelled at the oncoming riders, and the French officers held their fire, waiting as the shouting wave of riders surged closer, no more than a hundred paces from the guardsmen, then fifty. Napoleon felt his guts tighten in anticipation. Then the entire front rank of the French line fired with tiny stabs of flame and the sudden bloom of a band of smoke immediately to their front. From his position, Napoleon had a clear view over the smoke and saw the foremost Cossacks cut down, men and horses tumbling amid the snow. At once the front rank of guardsmen went down on one knee and angled their bayonets towards the enemy. The second line raised their weapons, paused, and then another volley crashed out as another wave of musket balls scythed down more of the enemy.

The horsemen facing the front of the French line drew up, hesitating as they saw hundreds of their comrades sprawled in the snow around them. On the flanks, however, they had suffered few casualties and they spilled round the corners of the French squares, only to be met by more volleys from the companies covering the flanks of the Imperial Guard’s line. The charge broke, and the Cossacks turned their mounts away and galloped back to the rise. General Roguet ordered the squares to resume their original formation and then the Guards reloaded their muskets and continued their advance, halting as they came within range of the waiting Russian infantry. There was one exchange of volleys and scores of the leading battalions of guardsmen went down, and then the charge went in. The stolid courage of the Russians did not long endure as Napoleon’s veterans cut through them, stabbing and clubbing their way forward. Within a minute the enemy broke and ran, tiny dark figures scattering across the snow.

Roguet’s men took control of the rise, turning to the south to confront the clusters of Cossacks who had re-formed, and the two sides watched each other warily, just beyond musket range. Napoleon nodded with satisfaction. The road was open again and the army could make for the last crossing over the Dnieper at Orsha. After that, there was only one more river to cross before the final leg of the retreat to the Niemen.

For the rest of the day Napoleon remained with Roguet as the Guard continued to confront the Cossacks. Behind the guardsmen, the rest of the army tramped along the road. The snow was quickly compacted and the surface ice gleamed as the ragged French soldiers trod warily, trying to avoid slipping over. Behind the Guard artillery came the other battalions who had not taken part in the brief battle and a few hundred horsemen, all that remained of the thousands of finely mounted heavy cavalry that had advanced into Russia mere months before. Then came the gaunt figures of Prince Eugиne’s corps, some battalions reduced to less than fifty men still following the colours topped by the gilded eagles. No more than five thousand men remained of the forty-five thousand who had crossed the Niemen in June. Behind Eugиne’s corps came the ten thousand of Marshal Davout, who had led the largest formation on the campaign. Fewer than one in seven still marched behind their eagles. Following Davout was the long, ragged mass of stragglers, the wounded and the camp followers; women wrapped in cloaks, some clutching the hands of children who stared down apathetically as they staggered on. Some distance behind them, perhaps as much as a day’s march, was the rearguard commanded by Marshal Ney.

Napoleon stared down his telescope for any sign of Ney’s corps beyond the last dots of the final stragglers still trying to keep up with the army, but saw nothing but an almost empty winter landscape. With a feeling of anxiety he shut his telescope and turned to General Roguet.

‘Have your men re-join the column. Close up the stragglers as best you can.’

‘Yes, sire.’ Roguet nodded. ‘What about Ney? Do you intend to halt the army and let him catch up?’

‘No. We must not stop. We have to reach Orsha before the enemy, or they will deny us the crossing.’

‘Sire, I can leave a few battalions behind to hold the road open and wait for Ney.’

‘The Guard are the very last of our reserves. I cannot afford to risk losing a single man of them unnecessarily.’

Roguet shook his head in protest. ‘But, sire, if we abandon this position then the Cossacks will close the road behind us. Ney’s corps will be cut off.’

‘That’s too bad,’ Napoleon replied, and then forced a smile. ‘My dear Roguet, if any man can survive this retreat, it is Michel Ney. You can count on it.’

Roguet looked back down the road to Smolensk. ‘I hope you are right, sire.’

‘Trust me. Now then, General, order your men to join the column.’

Roguet bowed his head wearily and walked his horse away from the Emperor towards the dark lines of his men still facing the distant clusters of Cossacks. Napoleon stared at the enemy with loathing for a moment. The Cossacks were like animals. There had been many reports of the atrocities they had perpetrated on stragglers or small groups of prisoners they had captured. Only the day before a group of foragers had been rounded up and forced into a barn which was then set on fire. As a consequence the imperial headquarters had issued an order that no prisoners were to be taken. In any case, Napoleon reflected, there were too few men to guard them and no food to feed them with. Literally no food. Already there were rumours that some had turned to cannibalism. Napoleon’s expression turned to disgust at the thought. He did not believe the rumours, he told himself. Men did not do such things.

He shook off the thought and turned towards Smolensk one last time as the dusk closed in across the land, dimming the snowfields to ever darker shades of grey.

‘Good luck, Ney,’ he muttered, and turned his mount, spurring it into a trot in the snow alongside the column as he rode to catch up with his headquarters.

The vanguard marched hard, driven on by the knowledge that it was in a race to reach Orsha before the enemy could take the town and block the crossing. Two days after the battle the Imperial Guard reached the town and hurriedly set about fortifying the bridgehead across the Dnieper. Over the next days the rest of the main column trickled in and took shelter in the small town, crowding into the buildings and barns to get out of the bitter wind and snow. The small stocks of food in Orsha were soon exhausted and the rear elements of the Grand Army were forced to beg whatever scraps they could from their comrades. There was still no sign nor any word from Ney, and once the last of the stragglers had passed into the town the sentries kept an anxious watch for the first of the Cossacks that were sure to be close behind.

The staff of the imperial headquarters had taken over the town’s corn exchange and were gathered in the main hall where a fire burned in a vast stone fireplace constructed from blocks of granite. The road to Warsaw had been cut once again and the latest reports from the cavalry patrols brought more bad news.

‘The Russians have sent columns round our flanks to cut us off from the far bank of the Berezina,’ Napoleon told his staff and senior commanders as they stood before him. He paused before delivering the next blow. ‘They have taken Minsk.’

A groan went up around the hall. The supplies stockpiled at Minsk would be denied to the French army. Napoleon raised his hands and called for silence so that he could continue. ‘It is clear that they will make for the bridges and fords around Borisov. If they can hold them in strength before we arrive then there is no question about the outcome. The Grand Army must surrender or face annihilation. Therefore, I must ask for another great effort from the men. We must cross the Berezina as swiftly as possible.’

He paused and his tone softened. ‘I know how you must feel. We have been running from our pursuers for over a month now. It seems that there is always one more river we must cross to escape. I don’t doubt that your men will despair when they hear the news. The ordeal is not over yet. A hard march lies ahead of us, but when we cross at Borisov it is only another week’s march to Vilna where there is food enough for the whole army, as well as coats, boots and drink. Tell that to your men. Tell them it is there for the taking, if they can make the effort.’ Napoleon paused and looked round the room. He was sad to see the resignation in so many of their faces. They were beyond calls to patriotism and appeals to the heart now. But they must still be open to reason, he decided. He drew a deep breath.‘Tell them whatever you like, as long as it inspires them to keep marching. When that fails, use force.’

He gave them a moment to let his words settle in their weary minds. ‘We will have to do all that we can to increase the pace, gentlemen. To that end it is necessary that we leave behind all our heavy vehicles and any unnecessary baggage. We will keep the guns, limbers and ammunition carts only. Every wagon, carriage and cart is to be left behind. They will be burned, together with any supplies that we can no longer take with us.’

‘What about the wounded?’ asked Berthier.

‘The walking wounded can stay with the army. The rest will be left here, together with any who volunteer to remain behind to look after them.’

There was a silence as the officers digested the order, then Roguet cleared his throat. ‘Sire, that is a death sentence. We know what the Cossacks do to their prisoners.’

‘Then we must hope that the Russian regulars enter the town first,’ Napoleon replied. ‘But, just in case, we must ensure that every man is left with the means to escape captivity. The choice is theirs. There is nothing else we can do for the seriously wounded.’

Roguet shook his head, but kept his silence. Davout asked the next question.

‘What about the engineers’ pontoons, sire? Are they to be burned as well?’

‘Yes.’

Davout frowned. ‘But, sire, if the enemy take Borisov then we will need the pontoons to make our escape across the river.’

‘They’re not necessary,’ Napoleon replied. ‘The temperature has not risen above freezing for the last five days. It is likely to get colder still, in which case the river will freeze. Hard enough for us to cross the Berezina wherever the ice is thickest.’

‘That is taking quite a risk, sire,’ Davout protested. ‘If the Borisov crossings are denied to us, and the ice cannot bear the weight, then . . .’ He shook his head.

‘That’s why we need to move as fast as we can.’ Napoleon clasped his hands together behind his back and concluded the briefing. ‘Pass the orders on to all officers. All the vehicles are to be gathered in the market place. Half the remaining draught horses are to be butchered and the meat distributed to the men. Only our soldiers, mind you. Any civilians are to look to their own devices. The army will march at dawn.’

All through the night the wagons and other vehicles were dragged out of the town and pushed tightly together. Kindling was piled beneath the axles. The injured were carried into the buildings and made as comfortable as possible on beds, mattresses and piles of straw. Those who carried them tried to block out their comrades’ desperate pleas not to be left behind. The weakest horses were led to the cattle market and slaughtered, and the army’s butchers hurriedly stripped the carcasses of meat and placed the chunks in barrels to distribute to each surviving battalion of the army. An hour before dawn, as the men were roused from their billets in readiness to begin the next march, the engineers set light to the vast jumble of vehicles and the flames licked high into the sky as the first glimmer of the coming day lightened the eastern horizon.

It was at that moment that the alarm was raised. An officer from the battalion tasked with the last watch of the night came running into the corn exchange and breathlessly announced that a column was approaching Orsha. Napoleon quickly countermanded the order to begin the march and told Roguet to have the Guard ready to repel an attack. Then, with Berthier, he followed the officer through the streets to the eastern side of the town and climbed the tower of a small church. The officer commanding the watch battalion was already in the tower, gazing towards the sunrise. He turned and saluted as his Emperor panted up the steps and joined him.

‘What is your name?’ asked Napoleon, somewhat surprised to see a captain in charge of the battalion.

‘Captain Pierre Dubois, sire.’

‘And how old are you, Dubois?’

‘Twenty-one, sire.’

‘What happened to your colonel?’

‘We lost him, and most of the other officers, at Borodino, sire. I took over command from Captain Lebel in the second week of the retreat.’ Dubois paused and looked at Napoleon anxiously. ‘I meant the second week of the march, sire.’

Napoleon smiled and patted his arm.‘Easy there, Dubois. It’s all right to speak the truth to your Emperor. Now then, where’s this column of yours?’

Dubois led the way to the tower window. The shutters had been bolted back and a light breeze flapped the corners of Napoleon’s coat as he squinted into the half-light. The church was close to the river and as Napoleon glanced at the bridge, no more than fifty paces downstream to his right, he could see small ice floes gliding down towards the large stone buttresses. Dubois pointed to the road on the other side of the river. The handful of wooden houses on the far bank had been burned to deny the Russians any cover if they approached the town while the French were still occupying it. Beyond the charred ruins the road to Smolensk stretched out for a mile before it disappeared into a forested vale. A dark band slowly edged out of the vale, and raising his telescope to his eye Napoleon could just make out the figures of a column of infantry marching towards Orsha.

‘Russians?’ asked Berthier.

‘Can’t tell yet.’ Napoleon rested the telescope against the side of the window frame to steady it and then squinted. It was most likely that it was the vanguard of Kutusov’s army, hurrying forward to force Napoleon to turn and fight while the flanking Russian columns made for the Berezina. The tail of the column had emerged from the vale, and Napoleon waited a moment to see what would follow. But there was nothing. No more columns, guns or Cossacks. Just what appeared to be a strong battalion of infantry. The column marched steadily towards the bridge. Down below in the streets the first companies of the Imperial Guard were entering the buildings surrounding the end of the bridge and smashing open the windows and knocking rough loopholes in the walls with picks. Others dragged furniture out into the street to form a barricade across the bridge.

‘Very strange,’ Berthier muttered as he watched the column approach.‘They have to know that we are here, with all that smoke from the fire. But surely they would not dare to attack us on their own?’

‘Assuming they are Russian,’ Napoleon replied. He glanced through the telescope again. The head of the approaching column was now no more than half a mile away. At that moment, a small gap in the clouds opened on the horizon and sunlight flooded across the landscape, picking out a gleaming form at the head of the column. An eagle.

Napoleon felt a surge of relief and joy fill his heart as he lowered the telescope and beamed at Berthier. ‘It’s Ney!’

‘Ney?’ Berthier shook his head. ‘Impossible. The rearguard was cut off. There must have been thousands of Cossacks between Ney and the rest of the army.’

Napoleon’s smile faded.‘That explains why there are so few of them. But come on, we must greet him.’

They hurried down the stairs and out into the street. The stern expressions of the guardsmen preparing to defend the town turned to disbelief and joy when Captain Dubois shouted the news that Ney had survived. Napoleon and Berthier edged round the barricade and hurried across the bridge. They stopped on the far side as the head of the column came into view a short distance away. The men were marching in step, muskets resting on their shoulders: the very picture of military efficiency were it not for the rags holding their boots together. At their head marched Marshal Ney, a musket slung across his shoulder and a scarf wrapped over his feathered hat and tied under his chin. Several days’ growth of red beard covered his jaw and cheeks. Twenty paces from the Emperor he stepped to the side of his men and bellowed, ‘Rearguard! Halt!’

The column stamped forward a pace and stopped.

Ney stared at them a moment and then bellowed, ‘Rearguard! Long live Napoleon! Long live France!’

They echoed his cheer with full throats, and as the echo of their cry died away Ney turned to Napoleon. ‘Permission to return to main column, sire?’

‘Permission granted!’ Napoleon laughed. He strode forward and clasped Ney’s arms. ‘My God, it is a fine thing to see you again. How on earth did you manage it?’

‘A moment, if you please, sire.’ Ney turned back to his column and drew a deep breath. ‘Rearguard . . . Fall out! Get some food and some rest. You’ve earned it!’

The men broke ranks and filed past Napoleon and the two marshals. Despite their bearing as they approached the town Napoleon could clearly see that they were at the end of their endurance. Ravaged by hunger and exhaustion, their eyes were sunken in dark sockets and their cheeks looked pinched as they walked stiffly over the bridge. The guardsmen cheered them as they entered the town, embracing their comrades and shoving their own meagre rations into the newcomers’ hands.

‘Just over nine hundred of them,’ Ney said quietly as they passed by. ‘All that’s left of my corps and those that joined them at Smolensk.’

‘What happened?’ asked Berthier.

‘We were pursued most of the way by Cossacks. At first we drove them off with musket fire, but two days ago we were down to three rounds a man. I had no choice but to close up and form square. We halted for the night, and they kept coming at us, racing in from the shadows to pick us off a few at a time. There was no chance to sleep, so I got the square moving. We marched through the night, and the whole of yesterday, under attack nearly all the time. I had to leave the wounded behind. I would have ordered them to be shot, but we needed the ammunition. The Cossacks only broke off towards dusk. We rested for the night in what was left of a village then started marching again at first light. Haven’t seen a single Cossack since yesterday. Don’t know why they let us go, but thank Christ they did. We’re down to our last few rounds.’

Napoleon stroked his chin. ‘They let you go because they had orders to get ahead of the main column. They’ll be making for Borisov. At least that’s my guess.’ He looked up at Ney again and could not help smiling again. ‘I knew that I had not seen the last of you. I knew it.’

‘Well.’ Ney shrugged.‘I have to say that I had my doubts.’ He unslung his musket and stared at the weapon. ‘It’s been quite a while since I last fought as a ranker. Here!’ He thrust the musket towards one of the last of the soldiers crossing the bridge. ‘Take this for me.’

‘Yes, sir!’

As the soldier hobbled on Napoleon punched Ney lightly on the shoulder. ‘Marshal Michel Ney, Duke of Elchingen, I shall have to find a new title for you. But for now one will have to suffice. Ney, the bravest of the brave.’

Ney nodded his approval and then rubbed his hands together briskly. ‘I thank you, sire, but right now I am Ney, the coldest of the cold. Where’s the nearest bottle of brandy?’

Chapter 36

The skies cleared as the army marched out of Orsha and made for Borisov. For the first time in days the sun shone and the temperature rose above freezing. Meltwater dripped from the trees and the surface of the road gradually turned to slush that made the going a little easier for the soldiers and remaining horses of the army. The men’s mood was lifted by the escape of Ney and his rearguard. After all, if they had survived their predicament and fought their way through the Russians, then there was something to hope for.

The army made its way across open farmland towards the Berezina without sighting any Cossacks on either flank, or behind them. For the first time in weeks, Napoleon was beginning to think that the worst was over. Marshal Victor and Marshal Oudinot had advanced from Vilna and joined the army with twenty thousand fresh soldiers and a convoy of supplies.

Then, towards the end of the second day’s march, a dragoon came galloping up to Berthier with a despatch from the cavalry screen, some fifteen miles ahead. Berthier quickly read the message as his horse walked along and then trotted forward to Napoleon’s side.

‘Sire, the scouts sighted Borisov at noon.’

‘Is the way clear?’

‘No, sire.’

‘The Russians have taken the town?’

‘Worse than that. They’ve burned the bridges and have dug into the far bank.’

Napoleon reined in and took the slip of paper from Berthier to read it through for himself. Then he handed it back with a heavy heart. ‘We needed those crossings.’

‘Yes, sire.’

A hearty cheer interrupted their conversation as the remains of a battalion from Oudinot’s corps marched past. Napoleon turned to them with a smile and raised his hand in greeting. The smile dropped at once as he turned back to Berthier.‘We keep marching towards the Berezina. The army is too weak to divert north or south. We must halt while an alternative crossing place is found. There’s a village called Loshnitsa less than a day’s march from the river, I recall. Give orders for the vanguard to halt there.’ Berthier nodded. ‘I’m riding ahead to see for myself. I’ll join you at Loshnitsa.’

Escorted by one of the few remaining squadrons of Guards cavalry, Napoleon spurred his horse forward. They passed the Imperial Guard at the head of the column and then followed the road west. The thaw had brought some of the peasants out of their huts to replenish their stocks of firewood. As soon as they saw the small column of distant horsemen they ran for cover. There was still no sign of the Cossacks and as night fell Napoleon rode on until they came up to one of the cavalry patrols observing the distant fires of the Russian soldiers on the far side of the river.

Napoleon dismounted as the colonel in charge of the dragoons made his report. ‘The enemy has invested the town, sire. Must be upwards of five thousand men. We’ve seen more of them up and downstream, patrolling the far bank.’The colonel turned to point to the north where a dim glow reflected off some low clouds scudding in from the east. ‘See that? Camp fires. But there’s no knowing how many of them are over there, sire.’

Napoleon nodded, then looked closely at the colonel. ‘What regiment do you command?’

‘Regiment?’ The colonel looked surprised. Then he smiled ruefully. ‘Sire, I command all that is left of Nansouty’s cavalry corps. All the remaining horses have been allocated to the dragoons. All two hundred of us.’

Napoleon struggled to hide his shock as he glanced round at the handful of pitiful-looking mounts that were tethered to the back of a small hut where the colonel’s men were sheltering for the night.‘Where are the rest of your men?’

‘I have one troop to the south and one close to the bank to observe Borisov. The other two troops are scouting the river to the north, looking for any crossing points.’

‘Good work.’ Napoleon nodded towards the shed where a welcoming glow lit the door frame. ‘I will spend the night with you.’

‘Sire, we’d be honoured.’

Napoleon turned to the commander of the Guards squadron.‘You’re dismissed. Find some shelter for you and your men, then report back here in the morning.’

The officer saluted and then wearily ordered his men to follow him as he trotted off into the darkness.

‘That’s the situation, gentlemen,’ Napoleon concluded as he ended the briefing of his senior officers in the dacha on the outskirts of Loshnitsa. ‘The cavalry patrols have scouted thirty miles upstream and every bridge and ford is defended by Russian guns and infantry. They also report that the recent thaw has caused the ice on the Berezina to break up.’ He paused. ‘We have to consider our options.’

He sat back and waited for his officers to respond. There was silence for a moment before Davout spoke for them.

‘I will say what is on all our minds, then. The choice is between a long march to the north, until we can cut round the upper reaches of the Berezina, or negotiating an armistice with the Russians. It is more than likely that the Tsar will deny us an armistice. He will want nothing less than a full surrender of the Grand Army.’ Davout nodded towards the Emperor. ‘Sire, if that happens, then it is vital that you are not taken prisoner along with the rest of the army. I must ask if you have made any plans to escape in the event of a surrender?’

There was a silence as Napoleon looked round at his officers, men he had known for years. He nodded. ‘I have considered the possibility, but not the precise details.’

‘Then might I urge you to think on it?’ Davout insisted.

‘Very well.’ Napoleon stirred and sat up. ‘I don’t think there is anything else to be said, gentlemen. I bid you good night. Oh, and Davout . . .’

‘Sire?’

‘It seems you were right about the pontoon bridges. I was wrong to give the order for them to be burned.’

‘I know.’ Davout nodded. ‘Good night, sire.’

When the last of the officers had left the shuttered drawing room a sentry closed the door. Berthier remained seated at the table, having returned to his routine of updating the dwindling figures from the strength returns in his notebooks. Napoleon twisted one of the silver buttons on his greatcoat.

‘What do you think, Berthier?’

Berthier replied without looking up. ‘Think of what, sire?’

‘My abandoning the army.’

Berthier lowered his pen and looked up. ‘I think it may shortly become a necessity, sire.’

‘And will it be a mistake? Speak honestly, my friend.’

‘If you are captured by the Tsar, then you can expect little mercy from him given what happened to Moscow, and the other towns and villages we have marched through. Even if your life is spared, you can be sure that you will be humiliated, and France along with you. So, yes, sire. If it comes to it, then you must do everything in your power to avoid being taken by the Russians.’

‘Everything?’ Napoleon asked quietly.

‘Yes, sire,’ Berthier nodded. He had understood. ‘Even that.’

‘My surgeon has some phials of poison. I have always ensured that he carried them in case of such an emergency. I will keep one on my person from now on. As a precaution.’

‘It would be wise, sire.’

Both men were silent for a while before Napoleon stirred. ‘Of course, if I abandon the army, they will say I am a coward, my enemies.’

‘You must expect that. But the people of France will understand that it was necessary. They will know that as long as you are alive France must be counted a great nation. While you live, you inspire our soldiers to acts of greatness, and you awe our enemies. Soldiers can be replaced. You, sire, can not.’

Napoleon searched Berthier’s face for any sign of flattery or insincerity, but his chief of staff seemed utterly convinced by his own words. Napoleon smiled warmly at him. ‘You, too, cannot be replaced, my friend. You are the word to my thought. It is through your words that my will is exercised and France has won its greatness on the battlefield. I should have thanked you before now.’ Napoleon felt an uncomfortable surge of guilt as he recalled the numerous occasions he had slighted or insulted Berthier. He shifted uncomfortably and gestured towards the door. ‘I must think, alone. Leave your books for tonight. Go and find something to eat, some wine to drink and a bed by a warm fire.’

Berthier hesitated, then nodded. He gathered up his notebooks, placed them in his large leather despatch case and quietly left the room. Napoleon rose stiffly from his chair, then carried it across to the remains of the small fire glowing in the grate. He carefully placed some more logs on the flames and sat back, closing his eyes, surrendering to the comforting warmth. He pushed troubling thoughts aside and pictured himself on the lawn at Fontainebleau, in the summer, playing with his infant son.

‘Sire.’ A hand shook his shoulder gently.

Napoleon woke immediately, eyes wide as he looked into Berthier’s excited features.

‘What is it?’

‘Marshal Oudinot is here with me, sire.’ Berthier stepped aside to reveal Oudinot.

‘So?’

‘It’s best if the marshal explains himself.’

‘Explains what?’ Napoleon eased himself up. He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was three o’clock in the morning. He had been asleep for over five hours, he realised, angry with himself.

Oudinot stepped forward. ‘I’ve come straight from my headquarters. sire. I’ll come to the point.’

‘Please do.’

‘A column of reinforcements under General Corbineau joined my command this evening.’

‘I know about that. He commands a brigade that was sent for from Vilna.’

‘That’s right. Corbineau intended to cross the Berezina at Borisov on his way to join us, but the day before yesterday he discovered the town was in Russian hands. So he questioned a local peasant to see if there was another place to cross the river. The peasant guided him to a ford eight miles north of Borisov, at the village of Studienka.’

‘I know it, but there’s no ford there.’

‘None marked on the map, sire. But Corbineau crossed there.’ Oudinot could not help smiling. ‘He says the water was no more than waist deep.’

There were several flashes in the night as the firing on the far side of the river faded away. Corbineau and his men had succeeded in storming the two guns that had been left to cover the unmarked ford. They had earlier waded across the freezing river, muskets held high, and driven off a company of Russian infantry before turning on the guns. Evidently the enemy had also known about the ford, but since it had not been marked on any maps they had posted only a token force to protect the crossing place. In the distance, to the south, there was an occasional rumble of artillery as Oudinot’s men carried out their diversionary attacks opposite Borisov. As Napoleon had hoped, the Russian forces strung out along the far bank had hurried south, marching to the sound of the guns.

As soon as Corbineau sent word back across the river that he had control of the far bank Napoleon gave the order for General Eblй’s engineers to set to work. The plan called for two bridges to be constructed in the darkness and the army was to begin crossing the moment they were completed. Davout’s and Victor’s corps were to cover the approaches to Studienka while the rest of the army crossed over. The swiftness of the current and the unevenness of the river bed had ruled out any attempt to ford the river in strength. Half the army would have been swept away and the rest would have been frozen by the immersion in the icy water.

A handful of braziers were lit on the east bank to provide illumination for the engineers, and a short time later some more fires appeared on the far bank as a second team of Eblй’s men began work from the other end, a hundred paces away. Napoleon strode down to the river bank to watch the progress. He found Eblй directing the work, a few feet from the edge of the icy current swirling downstream. Out in the river the dark figures of his men stood braced against the current as they held stout timbers in place while their comrades used a makeshift piledriver to ram the timbers into the river bed.

‘How goes it, General?’

Eblй turned and saluted. ‘The first trestle is in position, sire. We’ve been lucky with the frost.’

‘Lucky?’ Napoleon stared at the men standing up to their thighs in the river.

Eblй stamped his boot on the frozen river bank. ‘It’s hardened the mud. Makes it easier to get the materials down the bank.’

‘I see.’ Napoleon gestured towards the handful of wagons behind them. ‘I thought I gave orders to have all the wagons burned at Orsha.’

‘Yes, sire. However, I gave orders for my men to save a handful of wagons for our tools and nail barrels.’

‘You disobeyed my order.’

Eblй stared at him and then shrugged. ‘Evidently.’

‘Good man. I wish half my generals showed such initiative.’ Eblй looked relieved, but Napoleon pointed a finger at him. ‘Just don’t make a habit of it.’

Eblй laughed.

Napoleon looked round at the timber piled on the bank. ‘Will you have enough material to complete the job?’

‘That depends on Studienka, sire. The timber comes from the houses. My men are busy tearing the buildings down to get what we need. As long as the village is big enough, you can have your bridges.’

‘When will they be completed, General?’

‘Before noon tomorrow, if we are lucky. But the river is starting to rise, and there’s ice in it. That may slow us down. I can’t let the men work in these conditions for more than an hour at a time. I’ll work them in shifts. An hour in the water, and half an hour resting by the fires. Still, we’re going to lose many of them to the cold, sire.’

The sound of the engineers’ hammers and piledrivers continued through the night. Meanwhile, the stragglers and non-combatants were arriving at the village and filled the streets of Studienka while they waited for the bridges to open. Napoleon intended to get the bulk of the army over the river before giving the civilians their chance. Last of all would come Victor and the rearguard, then the bridges would be destroyed.

As dawn broke, weak and pallid as clouds obscured the sun and threatened snow, a party of Cossacks was sighted a mile to the south on the far bank. They observed the bridge-building for a few minutes before turning and galloping away.

‘They’ll reach Borisov within the hour,’ Napoleon muttered to Berthier. ‘It will take the commander there an hour or so to form his men up and begin to march towards the ford. Give them three hours at the most to reach us, and another to deploy. We can expect them to start attacking our outposts early this afternoon.’ He turned to examine the bridges. Trestles extended from both banks and the engineers were hard at work nailing support beams and planking in place. The smaller bridge, built for infantry to cross, still had a gap of some twenty paces between each end. The second bridge was larger, constructed to bear the weight of the army’s remaining guns and the wagons that had escaped the fire at Orsha. It was going to take somewhat longer to complete.

‘Shall I give the order for Oudinot to withdraw to the bridgehead, sire?’ Berthier asked.

‘What?’

‘The Russians know what we are up to. There’s no need for Oudinot to continue his diversionary action now.’

‘Yes, of course. Recall him at once.’

The first bridge was completed just after one in the afternoon and the leading elements of Oudinot’s corps which had just reached Studienka were the first to cross, hurrying over the bridge to advance along the causeway that stretched over the marshy land on the far side of the Berezina. It was the only means of escape and Napoleon had ordered Oudinot to keep the causeway open at all costs.

As soon as the first soldiers were marching across the bridge Eblй and his engineers concentrated their efforts on the larger structure. Already, a third of the engineers had been swept away, or were too weakened to work any further. Napoleon joined them by their braziers and did what he could to lift their spirits by praising them for their bravery and the sacrifice they were making for the army. The men listened in numbed silence as they shivered in their ice-crusted uniforms, struggling to keep their places close to the brazier.

Towards the middle of the afternoon, Eblй informed the Emperor that the second bridge was ready. Napoleon gave the order for the artillery and the Imperial Guard to begin crossing and then embraced Eblй.

‘Your men have performed a miracle, General.’

Eblй was trembling with the cold and fatigue and he could barely stay on his feet. He nodded.‘Thank you, sire, but our job is not over yet. The river is still rising, and I don’t know how long the trestles will withstand the pressure of the floes. It would be best to get the army over as swiftly as possible.’

Napoleon smiled. ‘That is my intention. Now, you’d better re-join your men. Berthier, find the general and his men some brandy. I believe there are still a few kegs in the headquarters stores.’

‘Yes, sir.’

As Berthier turned away to order one of his aides to find and distribute the brandy there was the crump of artillery to the east, adding to the faint sound of guns and musket fire from the far bank, where Corbineau and his men were holding their ground, steadily being reinforced by the troops crossing the first bridge. Napoleon strained his ears as he looked to the east. Soon the cannon fire from the rearguard action merged into an almost continuous rumble. The trap was closing on the French. Kutusov and the main Russian army would arrive from the east at any time. The survival of the Grand Army depended on Eblй’s bridges, hurriedly constructed using scavenged timber from the village.

For the rest of the day and into the evening the soldiers, cavalry and guns continued to cross the river. As soon as the civilians had heard that the bridges were open they had made for the river, and a strong cordon of infantry with fixed bayonets was holding them at bay, keeping the bridges open to military traffic. During the night a section of the second bridge collapsed, taking a gun carriage with it. Two hours were lost as the exhausted engineers repaired the bridge. The following morning the bridge was open again and the army continued to cross. At noon Napoleon ordered his headquarters to move to the far bank, together with the remaining elements of the Imperial Guard. The sound of cannon fire behind them had died away during the afternoon and the latest report from Victor was that the enemy were manoeuvring to the south, as if they still expected Napoleon to attempt to force the crossings at Borisov. Napoleon was watching the steady flow of guns and wagons over the second bridge. He could not help smiling as he read Victor’s report.