Thread by @2econd_crossing

#OTD 10-11 November, 1812, Napoleon arrived at Warsaw, where he gave Prefect Pradt the severest of reprimands.
The rest of the Grande Armee moved from Eve to Zhizhmory, while Chichagov sacked the remainder of the French encampment in Vilna.
#Voicesfrom1812

Father Butkevicius, then a middle-school student in Warsaw, remembered his chemistry teacher asking, "Have you ever seen Napoleon, and can you remember what he looks like? There is someone here with [General] Caulaincourt who resembles him."

Butkevicius raised his hand and said that he had seen the Emperor "at a distance in 1806 at Warsaw," also in December.
The curious boy ran toward the town center, where he indeed saw "Napoleon...pacing to and fro in the saloon, and at the same time trying to get near the fire."

Because that fire belonged to the kitchen stove, the landlady busy cooking kept bumping into him, each time earning his whisper, "Ah, the beautiful polonaise!"
He did not seem to take notice of the immense crowd gathering to peek a glance at him.

The spectators were cautioned not to alert him, as he was travelling incognito.
Butkevicius saw that he still wore his iconic "uniform of a chasseur, and on top a short jacket lined with ermine," but his "usual little hat" replaced with "an ermine cap lined with green velvet."

When an officer approached him, politely addressing him "Sire," Napoleon replied, "But where did you learn that you had to call me Sire?"
The officer, "pointing to the Legion d'Honneur he wore on his breast," stated that he had received it from the Emperor himself at Wagram.

"If that is so, then I have no need to conceal my name any longer. Go and fetch the sub-prefect, as I need him," he replied.
Napoleon, "restored to good humor" as he was finally allowed to make the kitchen stove his fireplace, went to talk to the Polish ladies.

Among them, the wife of a justice of the peace struck him in particular with her youthful beauty. He "paid her compliments, tapping her on the shoulders, face, or ears"; not so pleasant a sight it must have been to the onlookers like Butkevicius. (Butkevicius)

At 11 a.m. on the 10th, after taking a walk around the Krakow Boluevard leading to Hotel Angleterre, Napoleon ordered Caulaincourt to summon Pradt to his room.
Two hours later, the Grand Equerry found him, who was "a little astonished to see [him]" and the way he was dressed.

"The Emperor!"
After "repeat[ing] again and again in astonishment," the prefect was escorted to the most embarrassing luncheon of his life.
On the way, Caulaincourt let him know that "the army is in a dire plight."
(Caulaincourt, Wonsowicz, Pradt, Austin)

"These disastrous results are well worthy of those who urged this war. What folly!" Caulaincourt told Pradt, as this was the only moment he could vent out his frustration with the campaign since spring.
Napoleon appeared, "anxious to show his displeasure."
(Caulaincourt)

Pradt saw before him a 'phantom' whose head was "enveloped in a silken shawl, his face lost sight in the depth of the fur in which he seemed buried, his gait hampered by fur-lined top-boots."
As this figure screamed "Come, follow me!", he felt himself in a "ghost-scene." (P.)

Napoleon began the interview by declaring,
"I refuse to stay with a man whom I am going to dismiss... He has given me too much cause for complaint."
Turning to Caulaincourt, he said, "He has ruined all my plans with his indolence." (C.)

The ambassador retained a courteous demeanor; but the more scathing Napoleon became, the "colder and more reserved" he became.
Overwhelmed with embarrassment, Caulaincourt tried to leave the room, was forced to remain as "a third party...to increase [Pradt]'s discomfiture."

Napoleon let out a barrage of reproachments for his involvement in the campaign "when he knew nothing about military matters," and that "he had nothing but blunders"-no Polish Cossacks, no voluntary uprising of the Poles, nothing.

A prudent man he was, Pradt calmly defended himself by "protesting his devotion, his zeal, and his regret for any errors he had committed, his desire to better."
He argued that all sacrifices had been made, and that the war had left Poland bereft of "not a crown-piece."

The conversation lasted into dinnertime, when Caulaincourt finally brought up the excuse that he needed to go out and arrange for his carriages.
But when the dinner was prepared, Caulaincourt was called back, for "he seemed bored to death with the ambassador's presence."

Pradt's cautious criticism of the campaign had the opposite effect of vexing Napoleon even more. Ignoring the warm meal on the table, he interrupted Pradt and "argued on the hypothesis that the army would remain at Vilna, and that Schwarzenberg would do what was expected."

To Caulaincourt's surprise, Pradt refused to back down; with "a rather dogmatic tone," he refuted every bit of Napoleon's claims. He adamantly stated that the Duchy had long gone bankrupt, and that "not a horse nor a man" could be drawn from it.

Napoleon asked the final question.
"Then what do the Poles want?"
His reply-"They want to be Prussian"-was the last straw for him. Regardless of its veracity, Napoleon decided that he could no longer tolerate his presence.

After sarcastically saying, "Why not Russia?", he briskly turned his back on Pradt. Against Caulaincourt's pleas, he lapsed into another "long and violent tirade," and ordered him to be dismissed.
He went to stage a warm reception to the ministers who accompanied Pradt.

In contrast to the interview on a razor's edge, he laughed and joked. He boasted that "that rest and quiet were the lot of none but sluggard monarchs" while "he thrived on fatigue."
He assured them that the Russians "had been beaten in every direction, even at the Berezina."

Ignoring the ministers' apprehension about the economic distress in Poland, Napoleon again suggested that they raise levies for the 'Polish Cossacks." One of the attendants was naive enough to feel that "this extraordinary man...returned full of hope" for Poland.

At 7 p.m., his carriages were ready. Since they just passed Warsaw, Caulaincourt was relieved that "the most difficult part of our journey had certainly been accomplished."
On the next day, 11 December, the carriages were speeding down the road between Warsaw and Kutno.

At noon, when they neared Lowicz, Napoleon suddenly asked where they were, and suggested that they stop for a while.
According to Countess Potocka, who later married Wąsowicz, "Napoleon wanted to turn out of his road to go see Madame Walewska" in her country estate.
(More)

Caulaincourt, much taken aback by the proposal, "opposed this lover's whim very violently." Unafraid of appearing impudent, he urged the Emperor to consider "all its impropriety, and to dwell on the effect such frivolity would have on the Empress." (Potocka)

Most importantly, the army would never forgive him for "thinking of his love affairs at a time when he had lately abandoned his routed army."
At this voice of reality, he went "sulking for a few minutes," but felt his companion "too just to bear resentment against." (Ibid)

He "gave Caulaincourt assurances of esteem and affection which did honor to both men." Later, Wąsowicz conveyed this anecdote, "singular as it is little known," to the countess, "in the spiciest manner."
(Ibid)
They now sped up to Kutno without looking back.

During this time, a shaft of the carriage broke, causing two precious hours of delay.
Prodding Caulaincourt to transcribe his words more quickly, Napoleon passed the tedium by explaining in detail his previous plan for an expedition against India. (Caulaincourt)

At dawn on the 11th, Countess Tisenhaus "was woken up with the news that the Cossacks were in Vilna." This time, those forces turned out to be the entire Army of Moldavia, spearheaded by Chaplitz-the first of the Russian generals to reenter Vilna.
(Tisenhaus, Chichagov, Wilson)

Her father, a municipal official, had made arrangements for her to be evacuated to St. Petersburg if "the emperor [Alexander] did not come to Vilna" to restore order. He then went to follow her brothers, who had left before him, to the same city. (Tisenhaus)

"It was a gloomy and overwhelming moment. I remained alone, not yet knowing what would be the fate of the town..what Vilna had to expect from the clemency of the Russians, and ignorant of the designs of the French government."
Such were her fleeting impressions before the storm.

Rochechouart, the aide de camp to Chichagov, recorded the moment of his arrival:
"On 11 December, when the cold reached [-36°C], I entered Vilna, crouching at the bottom of the carriage. We travelled forward amid human reains, frozen on the road..." (Rochechouart)

The prolonged cold was an anomaly, for it "seldom lasted more than three days in that intensity."
The anti-French locals, who had been enthusiastically slaughtering the stragglers, thought "Heaven hurled all the rigors of an extraordinary winter upon her enemies." (Tisenhaus)

As soon as the Cossacks occupied the town square, "bloody executions" continued. Russian officers, who, to quote Berthezene, "proved themselves to be worthy descendants of the barbarians Peter the Great had wanted to control," were no exception.

Labaume later learned that the Jewish residents held especial grudges against the Imperial Guard for "ill-treatment they had received" from them.
But the more compassionate generals "were so angry at this atrocity that they had many of the [complicit] Jews killed." (Marbot)

The Countess' feelings was mixed with sympathy for the massacred and relief at the liberation of Russia. At one point, she made a failed attempt to save a Frenchman "knocked down and robbed" by the passerby, and "succeeded in intimidating the Cossacks by speaking firmly." (T.)

The main army assumed that the captured officers, at least, would receive courteous treatment by the Russians.
Recollections of Captain Aleksander Fredro of the 5th Infantry Regiment, taken prisoner in Vilna, shows otherwise, especially for the Poles.

"Captivity was to be expected, but this level of misery, of hunger, cold and disease, especially in Vilna, reached the most acute level...The prisoners, mostly scattered across empty buildings, froze to death by the dozen." (Fredro)

Every time food was issued, when some biscuits were thrown into the jostling crowd, a few more people were smothered to death," he wrote.
The Polish soldiers, in particular, were stigmatized as traitors and suffered the brunt of violence by the Russian captors. (Zamoyski)

Labaume and others also state that treatment of a prisoner depended on his ethnicity. Those from the Confederation of the Rhine were easily spared, and the Spainish and Portuguese even sympathized by the partisans who identified themselves with the Spanish cause. (L., Z.)

"But when they captured a Frenchman...they stripped him...If he was still able to march with them up to the evening, they ordered him to fetch wood or water, and then brutally drove him away from the fire which he himself had lighted," Labaume wrote indignantly. .

Berthezene and Labaume draw attention to the fact that Alexander (and Constantine) had repeatedly complained about mistreatment of the prisoners, to no avail. In fact, the Emperor's own brother had personally behaded a fine-looking French prisoner paraded in St. Petersburg.

The Lithuanians opened up their hitherto sealed storehouses to the Russians, providing "a perfect condiment." They collected the prisoners' helmets to be sent to theaters in Petersburg.
Alexander Chicherin, in a letter to his friends on the 18th, described the mood in Vilna:

But since the [French] newspapers that we found here claimed that the French killed 20,000 Russians, and captured 200 cannon and 30,000 men, somebody made a joke that the locals only had to change [Napoleon's] portrait before Kutuzov arrived..."
(Chicherin, Mikaberidze)

The main army, depending on each unit's time of arrival at Éve, started marching out anytime before noon.
The official drum roll was heard at 4 a.m. An hour later, Berthier sent a dispatch ordering Ney to "make a short day's marches to enable ourselves at Kovno."
(Austin)

Ney, with his army of few hundreds, assiduously followed suit. He made it a routine to begin reconnoitering at 7 a.m., march without rest from10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and use the whole night to rally the stragglers by "dint of cries, of entreaties, and of blows." (Segur)

Sergeant Bourgogne, after getting lost near the Ponary, finally caught sight of this tail of the whole army. As he saw the small rearguard sending the Russians to flight, he recounted:
"I shall never forget the Marshal's commanding air at this moment,

his splendid attitude towards the enemy, and the confidence with which he inspired the unhappy sick and wounded round him. In this moment he was like one of the heroes of the old time. In these last days of this disastrous retreat he was the savior of the remnant of the army."

But as Bourgogne followed the rearguard to "the foot of the mountain," he lost Sergeant Daubenton, a friend he had made en route, in the throng of stragglers. This old man had been travelling with his poodle Mouton, "wounded aad with frozen paws," tied to his knapsack.
(More)

"Look after Mouton..." were his last words, before "more than 4,000 stragglers came on like a torrent" between Daubenton anad Bourgogne.
This "handsome poodle" was from Spain, "on the banks of a river where the English had cut the bridge."

He had accompanied Daubenton since 1808, through the battles at Essling, Wagram, Spain, and Russia. Bourgogne learned later that someone took the regimental dog on his cart all the way to Saxony, where he was stolen, never to be found again.

Bourgogne, suffering from a sudden colic, limped his way toward Éve and Zhizhmory. He finally saw his friend Prinier again, only to see him run off to join Ney's rearguard. The Young Guard, like other corps, no longer existed, but Ney's presence served as their magnet.

The long, disjointed columns of men marched toward Zhizhmory, ten leagues from Kovno. The incessant cannonade from behind indicated that their "feeble rear-guard was being relentlessly pursued."
At 7 p.m., Murat and Eugene pressed onto Rounchichki, then toward Kovno. (L, Wilson

The rest halted at Zhizhmory, where Bourgogne found a group of soldiers awaiting their death in an abandoned hut.
"More than half their toes were missing, and the remainder ready to fall off."
He, too, thought his time has come, and "thought I should rise no more."

The town offered some food but no shelter. Here, Lariboisière used the officer's privilege to kick out two young Dutch soldiers from a hut.
"One of them, who wasn't even twenty, burst into tears and begged to be allowed to stay."
But the general callously forced them out.

-End of the Thread-

Note:
On my last post, I mistakenly wrote that Napoleon arrived at Warsaw on the evening of 10 December.

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