men had been able to eat their fill and even stuff a full seven days of rations into their knapsacks for the days ahead. Thirst and hunger fluctuated, but disease had become a constant. One hospital even had a “dying chamber,” where hopeless cases were left on the straw to expire in peace. By mid-August, typhus was exploding in the ranks. “The number of sick people increased overwhelmingly,” wrote de Kerckhove, the Belgian doctor. “They were crawling along on the roads, where many of them died.”
Caulaincourt, the former Russian ambassador, was sent to inspect the hospitals and pass out money to the wounded. He was genuinely appalled at what he found. “Never was there such a situation more deplorable,” he wrote, “or a spectacle more heartrending for those who could think, and who hadn’t been dazzled by the false glamour of Glory and ambition.” He found most medical and supply officials indifferent to the suffering around them, governed by a “spirit of inexplicable and unpardonable meanness.” Caulaincourt found the emperor was only intermittently in touch with the looming disaster. He would acknowledge the problems and fly into a rage at an official from the commissariat, then be distracted by some report of a minor battle or the arrival of a fresh supply of ammunition, instantly reverting to his “old illusions” of conquering Russia, throwing the tsar out, pushing on to India, and crippling Britain’s mercantile trade. The diplomat had never seen a wider gap between unfolding reality and Napoleon’s grasp of it.
B UT THE SITUATION on the Russian side was hardly ideal, either. In the face of a seemingly endless retreat, Alexander resorted to propaganda to placate his subjects, churning out a steady stream of bulletins trumpeting imaginary victories against the French and instructing the leaders of the Orthodox Church to rally the faithful to the cause. But news of the French advance got out via soldiers’ letters sent home, from gossip passed east from peasants who had watched the Grande Armée march by unimpeded, and with the arrival of refugees, all of which spread “fear and despair.” The mood of the country darkened whenever the actual facts of the war escaped.
Finally, on August 2, the Russian First and Second armies met in Smolensk. “This news filled everyone with extraordinary joy,” wrote Nikolai Mitarevsky, a young Russian artillery officer. “We thought there would be no more retreating and the war would take on a different character.” Pressure was by now intense on General Barclay and on the tsar to confront Napoleon. Alexander’s high command, the soldiers themselves, and average Russian citizens were growing impatient and increasingly suspicious of Alexander’s motives. And rumors about the German-speaking Barclay were already beginning to spread—why didn’t he turn and fight?
Smolensk was a small town of 12,600 citizens, a site without great strategic interest, but it had acquired a significance for Russians out of proportion to its size, due to the presence of the revered icon of Hodegetria (literally, “she who shows the way”), supposedly painted by Saint Luke in the eleventh century. The miraculous portrait of the Virgin Mary and Jesus made Smolensk one of Russia’s “holy” cities, and the legacy of several battles between the Poles and Russians in the seventeenth century gave the place a nationalist pedigree as well. It was a maxim of Russian military history that “he who has Smolensk also has Moscow.” The city was, all in all, a fitting arena for a showdown with the invader.
Napoleon, of course, wanted nothing more than a confrontation, and on August 7 he got exciting news. Cossacks had attacked Count Horace Sebastiani’s 3,000 mounted troops at the town of Inkovo, halfway between Vitebsk and Smolensk, and dealt them a serious blow. Finally bowing to the political situation, Barclay sent three columns to attack Ney, “the Bravest of the Brave,”
Caulaincourt, the former Russian ambassador, was sent to inspect the hospitals and pass out money to the wounded. He was genuinely appalled at what he found. “Never was there such a situation more deplorable,” he wrote, “or a spectacle more heartrending for those who could think, and who hadn’t been dazzled by the false glamour of Glory and ambition.” He found most medical and supply officials indifferent to the suffering around them, governed by a “spirit of inexplicable and unpardonable meanness.” Caulaincourt found the emperor was only intermittently in touch with the looming disaster. He would acknowledge the problems and fly into a rage at an official from the commissariat, then be distracted by some report of a minor battle or the arrival of a fresh supply of ammunition, instantly reverting to his “old illusions” of conquering Russia, throwing the tsar out, pushing on to India, and crippling Britain’s mercantile trade. The diplomat had never seen a wider gap between unfolding reality and Napoleon’s grasp of it.
B UT THE SITUATION on the Russian side was hardly ideal, either. In the face of a seemingly endless retreat, Alexander resorted to propaganda to placate his subjects, churning out a steady stream of bulletins trumpeting imaginary victories against the French and instructing the leaders of the Orthodox Church to rally the faithful to the cause. But news of the French advance got out via soldiers’ letters sent home, from gossip passed east from peasants who had watched the Grande Armée march by unimpeded, and with the arrival of refugees, all of which spread “fear and despair.” The mood of the country darkened whenever the actual facts of the war escaped.
Finally, on August 2, the Russian First and Second armies met in Smolensk. “This news filled everyone with extraordinary joy,” wrote Nikolai Mitarevsky, a young Russian artillery officer. “We thought there would be no more retreating and the war would take on a different character.” Pressure was by now intense on General Barclay and on the tsar to confront Napoleon. Alexander’s high command, the soldiers themselves, and average Russian citizens were growing impatient and increasingly suspicious of Alexander’s motives. And rumors about the German-speaking Barclay were already beginning to spread—why didn’t he turn and fight?
Smolensk was a small town of 12,600 citizens, a site without great strategic interest, but it had acquired a significance for Russians out of proportion to its size, due to the presence of the revered icon of Hodegetria (literally, “she who shows the way”), supposedly painted by Saint Luke in the eleventh century. The miraculous portrait of the Virgin Mary and Jesus made Smolensk one of Russia’s “holy” cities, and the legacy of several battles between the Poles and Russians in the seventeenth century gave the place a nationalist pedigree as well. It was a maxim of Russian military history that “he who has Smolensk also has Moscow.” The city was, all in all, a fitting arena for a showdown with the invader.
Napoleon, of course, wanted nothing more than a confrontation, and on August 7 he got exciting news. Cossacks had attacked Count Horace Sebastiani’s 3,000 mounted troops at the town of Inkovo, halfway between Vitebsk and Smolensk, and dealt them a serious blow. Finally bowing to the political situation, Barclay sent three columns to attack Ney, “the Bravest of the Brave,”
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