THE DVINA AND DNIEPER. 455 river was navigable some distance above Grodno. As he had the initiative, and occupied the fortress of Memel, Napoleon was able to use the Niemen for transporting supplies. From Lemberg, where Schwartzenberg lay with his Austrians, to the fortress of Memel, the irregular frontier was about five hundred miles long. East of the Russian frontier were the old provinces which, in the partition of Poland, had fallen to Russia. Lithuania had a small and poor population, and was full of woods and marshes; the roads were few and wretched, and the soil such that wagons or troops could not move across the country. The Bielostok country was better, but south of the Brest LitovskBobruisk line, marshes made campaigning impossible. Poland had been so vast that until you reach the Dvina and the Dneiper, you are not in a country quite Russian. Taking the Niemen as the first line, these two rivers form a second line of defense to Russia proper. The Dvina from Vitebsk runs northwest to Riga, and its only bridges were at Vitebsk and Dünaburg. Between Vitebsk and Orsha the Dvina and Dnieper are but fifty miles apart, and through this opening lies the easiest road to the heart of Russia, Smolensk being the first great city in the gap; and here everything is Russian. The Dnieper is navigable far above Smolensk, and the bridges here and at Mohilev were most important. Like a great ditch, the Beresina, with bridges at Borisov and Bobruisk, closes the gap between the Dvina and Dnieper, but in summer time this river is fordable in places. Thus, for the main part of the Grand Army, there were but three roads leading across the Russian frontier, at Kovno, Grodno and Brest Litovsk. These cities being a hundred miles apart shows the vast extent of the theatre of war. In his defensive scheme Alexander had begun to fortify Riga, Dünaburg, Bobruisk and Kiev, and had built a bridge 456 the retiring schemE. head at Borisov; but most of this work was only half done. At Drissa was a huge intrenched camp, but being on no highway and liable to be turned, it lacked strategic value. The enormous frontier to be covered could not be defended cordonfashion; nor is it necessary to stand across a road to hold it, for a position enabling the defender to fall upon the flank of an advancing army is the safest defense of any great route. From a military point of view, the retiring scheme of the Russians against a stronger and more able foe was the best, for the farther this foe advanced, the weaker he would become, from length of communications and difficulty of transportation, while the Russians were gaining strength with every day's retreat upon their reserves. But the czar had to look at some political questions. If a system of retreat was adopted, the Polish provinces would fall away from their allegiance, and the opposition of the anti-war party might be grave, as well as the effect upon friendly nations. A defensive position on the Dvina might do, although the camp at Drissa was ill-placed; but for political reasons the czar established his first depot as far forward as Vilna, and this brought initial disaster. As 1812 opened, the Russian troops were spread all over the five hundred miles from the Baltic to Volhynia; but when in May the French approached the Vistula, the troops drew together into two large bodies, under Barclay and Bagration, with headquarters at Vilna and Lutsk. These two groups were separated by the morasses of the upper Pripet, and their distance from each other was due to the broad front of Napoleon's advance. When it became apparent that Napoleon was to manœuvre on the Niemen, and the czar secretly learned that the Austrians were halfhearted, he strengthened Barclay's army from Bagration's; and as the campaign opened, the former with a hundred and thirty thousand men was near Vilna, with his right at Shavli A "WAR OF ARMIES." 457 and his left at Lida; Bagration with fifty thousand men had come up to Volkovisk; and Tormasov with over forty thousand men, not yet fully organized, took his place at Lutsk. Barclay had the corps of Tuchkov and Shuvalov in front of Vilna, and Baggavut's corps on the Niemen below Kovno; Constantine was in reserve at Sventsiani, and Doctorov at Lida kept touch with Bagration; the cavalry was partly with Baggavut, partly in rear of the left; Wittgenstein was beyond Rossiani as a flying right wing. The Cossacks were advanced towards Grodno, as if to threaten the French advance in flank, but they were unequal to the task. In battle worthless, they later, as light troops, proved invaluable. Bagration lay between Grodno and Brest Litovsk. The First and Second Armies thus stood astride the three roads to St. Petersburg and Moscow. Napoleon had no preconceived ideas of a plan of campaign, but he was certain that no army the Russians had raised could resist him in battle. Metternich states that the emperor told him in Dresden that in his first campaign he should overrun all of old Poland and not go beyond Smolensk; and in his proclamation Napoleon says nothing to his troops of cities to conquer and sack, as he might have done. He proposed to besiege Riga and Dünaburg, so as to control navigation up to Vilna; but as he could scarcely suppose that the Russians would meet him on the Vistula with a divided army, had he made a plan, he must have changed it. He was conducting what is now called a "war of armies" on an unknown terrain. Nor was the case different in the enemy's camp: each Russian commander had an idea of his own. On peace being concluded with Turkey, Chichagov wanted to march from Moldavia up the Danube through Illyria into Italy; Bagration, while holding the Niemen, desired to invade the Grand Duchy AN ASSUMED STATE OF FACTS. 459 of Warsaw; Barclay was for awaiting the French oncoming on Russian soil, and then fighting; Phull's idea was to hold in force the camp at Drissa, so as to debouch therefrom upon the flanks of the French should they advance beyond it. Knesebeck advised ravaging the country, constantly fighting small affairs but refusing battles, and drawing Napoleon so far from his base as to be in danger. Gneisenau believed in many fortifications for stopping and annoying an enemy flushed with victory. Alexander was proposing to play a game of retreat. The information Napoleon had secured about the Russian armies was necessarily more limited than that of the Russians about him. He knew Barclay's general location, and that he had been reinforced from Bagration's army; but he did not know that Tormasov was replacing Bagration: he imagined the latter still on the march to join Barclay by way of Brest Litovsk. It was on this assumed state of facts that he formed a plan for breaking in between Barclay and Bagration, by an advance through Kovno on Vilna. He had at first supposed that this would turn the Russian right flank; but although later news proved the Russian army.too far north, on either supposition he was manœuvring strategically so as to turn the enemy's flank, as at Marengo, Ulm, Jena, Friedland, or, as at Montenotte or Burgos, to break through his centre, in each case with his mass. The main blow would be delivered by him in person, with the Guard, Davout, Oudinot, Ney, and Nansouty's and Montbrun's cavalry, say two hundred and twenty-five thousand men; and in connection with this Eugene, with his own and St. Cyr's corps and Grouchy's cavalry, eighty thousand effective, was drawn on to Rastenburg, to advance thence on a more southerly line, via Suvalki on Seini, as an echelon on Napoleon's right, to contain any forces from Grodno, and to tear asunder still |