ページの画像
PDF
ePub
[graphic]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[subsumed][ocr errors]
[subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][ocr errors]
[ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

keeping the enemy some time at a distance. These points were scarcely fortified, when the enemy appeared on the 5th, and directed his vanguard upon the advanced redoubt. A very sharp action commenced, in the first place with the rear-guard under the orders of Lieut.-General Kanovnitzen, which was just reaching the position, and afterwards with the army of Prince Bagrathion, which formed the left. The redoubt, which the hardness of the ground had prevented the Russians from entirely completing, was vigorously defended from four o'clock in the afternoon until night. It was taken and retaken four times by the 27th division, which had the charge of maintaining it, and was not abandoned until night. The 2d division of Cuirassiers, which executed several brilliant charges, of which the result was the capture of eight pieces of cannon, particularly distinguished itself during that day. The 6th passed in skirmishes of no importance. The enemy defiled towards his right the principal part of his forces, and covered his left by batteries.The Russian Commander-in-Chief, who had foreseen that his left would be the principal point of attack, make the following dispositions: the 2d, the 4th, 6th, and 7th corps formed two lines of infantry, behind which were placed all the corps of cavalry. That of the Guards was in reserve between the centre and the left, which was moreover covered by the 8th corps. In order the better to insure the defence of the weak point of the position, Lieut.-General Toutschkoff, with the third corps and a part of the militia of Moscow, was placed in ambuscade behind the brushwood at the extremity of the left, with orders to act by the old road from Smolensk upon the right and the rear of the French, as soon as they should attack, and endeavour to turn the left. The grenadiers of Count Woronzoff defended the redans.

Prince Kutusoff, immediately on his arrival at this position, had assembled the Generals, and harangued the Staff: he was received with acclamations of the warmest enthusiasm. Full of the sacred cause they had to defend, the Russian army manifested a feeling, which even then gave an assurance of the glorious deeds, of which the day of the 7th was witness.-At 4 o'clock in the morning the enemy, availing themselves of a thick fog, began their movement towards the left of the Russians, and on that wing their principal efforts were throughout directed. Soon afterwards the battle became general, and continued until night. The attack on the redans was extremely sharp, and they were most vigorously defended.-They were disputed from 7 o'clock in the morning until 10 with an VOL. II.

I

unexampled obstinacy. In this sanguinary combat Major-General Count Woronzoff* was wounded, in a bayonet charge against the enemy. The Commander-in-Chief of the second army, Prince Bagrathion t, was wounded soon afterwards. Nevertheless, all the attacks which the enemy made against the left of the Russian position, as well with his infantry as with his cavalry, were fruitless, and repulsed with such loss, that towards night he was even forced to abandon the little ground which he had gained in the morning.His attacks upon the centre did not meet with better success. Repulsed at every point, he retired towards the beginning of the night, and the Russians remained masters of the field of battle. On the following morning General Platow was sent in pursuit of him; he came up with his rear-guard at eleven versts distance from the village of Borodino, and successfully harassed the same.

The loss of the enemy in this battle was immense in killed, wounded, and prisoners. Among the latter was the General of Brigade,

Count Michael Woronzoff, brother to the Countess of Pembroke, and heir to the illustrious house of Woronzoff, at the age of twenty-nine, had, by his achievements, gained the rank of Major-General, and in an action in Turkey, recovered, at the head of a regiment lately given him, the colours it had forfeited by misconduct in Austria.-Europe does not boast a more accomplished gentleman or braver soldier,Sir Robert Wilson's Campaigns.

+ Prince Bagrathion, who lost his life from his wounds, was an officer who was very much distinguished in the Campaigns of 1806 and 1807.-Of his services in those years Sir Robert Wilson has published the following account.—" He commanded the advanced-guard, and by pressing the enemy from Deutsch Eylau, and destroying their rear-guard, relieved Grandenz from blockade: commanded in the rear at the retreat from Bergfried: sustained the attack of the French in the unfavourable position in front of Landsberg: checked the advance of the French two miles in front of Eylau; his conduct throughout the retreat to Eylau did him infinite honour: commanded the advanced-guard at Eylau: when the French demanded possession of the village of Peterswalde, on his answering that he was there "to give them welcome," they retired without firing a shot.-The advanced-guard under him was inspected at Bartenstein, by the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, and was found in admirable order, and the huts, &c. arranged with an elegance that was quite unexpected: with the advanced-guard he drove the French over the passage before the combat of Deppen, in the passage of the Aller at Güttstadt, with that courage, conduct and fortune which characterizes all his services, he withdrew his troops, and destroyed his bridges with inconsiderable loss; thus, in the presence of Buonaparte, securing the escape of a feeble rear-guard, which, if properly pressed, must have been overwhelmed: at Heilsberg, he displayed equal judgment, retreating in the face of the enemy, and drawing him under the fire of 150 pieces of cannon: at Wehlaw, after the battle of Friedland, he supported the Cossacks and Basquiers with a timely reinforcement: he was made the channel of Beningsen's proposition for the armistice, which took place before the peace cons cluded at Tilsit.

Bonami. The loss of the Russians was also severe

besides the two

Generals before-mentioned, the Lieut.-Generals Tutschkoff, Prince Gostchakoff, and Kanovnitzin; the Major-Generals Boehmetieff, 1st and 2d, and Kretoff, were among the wounded*.

*The account of the battle of Borodino, of which the following is an epitome, was circulated at St. Petersburgh, and ascribed to the pen of Sir ROBERT WILSON.

"The Russian army continued its retreat upon the village of Borodino, between Mojaiske and Irisk, on the bigh Moscow road. It was here reinforced by 13,000 effective men, under General Miloradovitch, and 21,000 militia, chiefly armed with pikes, under Gen. Markow. The total number of the Russian army, exclusive of militia, amounted to 105,000 effective men; the French army amounted to 130,000, reinforcements having been drawn to it from the military posts occupied by the enemy.

66

Buonaparte, contrary to all expectation, as he had omitted the favourable moment for attacking the Russians on their march from Smolensk, to repass the Dnieper, presented his army in order of battle on the 24th Sept. It is possible that the appointment of Prince Kutousoff had baffled his hopes of peace; and that he found himself now obliged to effect that by force, which he was in hopes to have obtained by the influence of fear on the Russian Cabinet. Certain it is, that he himself regretted his former neglect of opportunity, and that he said, 'I have lost one of the most brilliant occasions of my life!'

"Prince Bagrathion's army sustained the Russian left; but it was very much advanced in front of the centre and right. A battery of seven guns on a hill covered the advance of Prince Bagrathion's army, which I shall in future call the Second Army. "The action began about two o'clock in the afternoon of the 26th September, and was furiously fought on both sides until near dark, when the enemy possessed himself of the hill and battery, and obliged the Second Army to retire and take up its position in alignement with the First Army, keeping some hills in its front, on which batteries were erected. On the morning of the 26th, the French, with all their force, again fell upon Prince Bagrathion; after a desperate resistance broke in upon him, obliged him to retreat in some disorder, and the reserves of the First Army were under the necessity of moving to the left and front, to cover his works and oppose the enemy, which service was effectually executed; and the Second Army being rallied again, advanced into battle, and in its turn supported the troops that had covered it. The Russian line was, however, obliged to throw back its left a little, so as to form an angle with a part of the centre and right. At the salient point of this angle was a battery, which, if taken and kept by the enemy, would have commanded the whole Russian position, and obliged a retreat. Buonaparte finding that the Russians remained steady, notwithstanding the tremendous artillery cross-fire, resolved to have this work carried. Various attempts were made during the day, by cavalry and infantry, but they were always repulsed. Towards nine o'clock in the morning, General Bonami had, however, lodged himself in the battery, in front of the Russian left; but General Gormouloff seizing the command of a column, (for he was a Staff-Officer,) rushed upon the battery, recarried it, put every man in it to the bayonet except General Bonami, who fairly escaped with twenty wounds, one of which struck into his breast. Towards dusk the enemy's force retired, abandoning the battery, which he had again carried about four o'clock in the afternoon, and which battery had been taken and retaken three times during

« 前へ次へ »