Napoleon’s marshals and generals were nearer the battle scene but, like him, they were not actually involved, and only now and then did they find themselves under fire; these men issued their own instructions without consulting Napoleon, telling people where to stand and what to fire at, where the cavalry should ride and the infantry run. But even these instructions, just like Napoleon’s, were almost never followed, and if they were it was only to a tiny extent. More often than not, what happened was the opposite of what had been ordered. Soldiers told to advance would suddenly find themselves under a hail of grapeshot, and come running back. Soldiers told to stand still would suddenly see the Russians right in front of them, and either run away or surge forward, and the cavalry would charge off unbidden to catch up with any running Russians. In this way two cavalry regiments galloped through the Semyonovsk hollow and right up the hill, where they turned round and galloped flat out all the way back again. The same thing applied to the infantry, which was prone to run off in any direction other than the one they were supposed to go in.
All the real instructions – when and where to move the field-guns, when to send the infantry in and tell them to start firing, when to send Russian horses to ride down Russian infantry – all instructions of this kind were issued by officers on the spot, out in the ranks, without consulting Ney, Davout or Murat, let alone Napoleon himself. They were not scared of getting into trouble for disobedience or acting independently, because on the field of war what is at stake is the thing that matters most to any man – the saving of his own skin – and sometimes this means running away, sometimes it means rushing forward, and all those men that found themselves in the thick of the action did what they did on the spur of the moment.
And as it happened, all this rushing to and fro did little to relieve or even affect the position of the troops. All this charging at each other on foot and on horseback didn’t do a great deal of harm; the harm, the death and the maiming were caused by cannonballs and bullets flying about all over that open space and men running into them. If ever they managed to get out of the area where balls and bullets were flying about, a superior officer, standing at the rear, would soon bring them back into line, reimpose discipline, and use it to get them back under fire, where once again, scared to death, they would lose all discipline and stampede anywhere on the spur of the moment.
CHAPTER 34
Napoleon’s generals, Davout, Ney and Murat, who were situated not far from the field of fire, and even ventured into it once or twice, repeatedly directed vast masses of well-ordered troops back into that area. But, contrary to what had invariably happened in all their previous battles, instead of them duly reporting back that the enemy had been put to flight, the well-ordered masses of troops kept coming back in disorganized, panic-stricken mobs. They were soon brought back into line, but their numbers were dwindling. In the middle of the day Murat sent an adjutant to Napoleon with a request for reinforcements.
Napoleon was sitting at the foot of his mound drinking punch when the adjutant galloped in with a positive assurance that the Russians would be finished if his Majesty would just let them have another division.
‘What do you mean reinforcements?’ was Napoleon’s astonished reaction, and he looked daggers at the adjutant, a handsome young man with a mane of black curly hair not unlike Murat’s own locks, as if he could not understand what he was saying. ‘Reinforcements!’ he was thinking. ‘How can they want reinforcements when they’ve already got half the army ranged against one weak Russian flank that hasn’t got any support?’
‘Tell the King of Naples,’ said Napoleon stiffly, ‘that it is still not midday, and I cannot yet see my chess-board clearly. You may go.’
The handsome young man with the curly black mane gave a deep sigh, backed away with one hand to his hat, and galloped off back to the killing field.
Napoleon got to his feet, sent for Caulaincourt and Berthier, and started to chat about things that had nothing to do with the battle.
In mid-conversation, just when Napoleon was getting interested, Berthier’s eye was caught by a general galloping over to their redoubt on a steaming horse followed by his entourage. It was Belliard. He got down from his horse, strode rapidly across to the Emperor, and at the top of his voice he began explaining in no uncertain terms the absolute necessity for reinforcements. He gave his word that the Russians would be killed off if the Emperor would just let them have another division.
Napoleon gave a shrug, and continued to pace up and down without giving any answer. Belliard turned to the other generals in his entourage, who were standing round him, and spoke to them eagerly in the same loud voice.
