1 - In the Emperors Service

Now for Bonaparte, the disturber of all the great,

as well as of all the little folks of this lower world.

Sir Augustus Simon Frazer, Letters

Johannes Horn was born in 1787 in Bergen op Zoom, a thriving city on the Schelt. Pottery was the mainstay of Bergen op Zoom’s economy. There were more than ten potteries, carrying poetic names like Tree of Love, Red Lion, Thousand Fears and Wheel of Fortune. Bergen’s geographical location made it very suitable for trading and fishing; its anchovy was famous all over Europe. The city was the centre of a trade network extending from Paris to Amsterdam. Of course, the same position that made it so eminently suitable for trade, also meant that it held a strategic military location. Bergen op Zoom had been a fortress ever since the Middle Ages, but particularly since the Dutch Revolt in the sixteenth century. The city was never taken and was therefore nicknamed La Pucelle (the Virgin). In 1747 it lost its invincible reputation to the French army in the War of the Austrian Succession.

Map of Bergen op Zoom in 1773

The 1780s were a time of unrest throughout Europe, culminating in the French Revolution of 1789. As a result, the garrison at Bergen op Zoom was considerably strengthened several times. [1] At a time when the city had about five thousand inhabitants, the two thousand men of the garrison had a large social and economical impact on Bergen op Zoom. One of these men was Christiaan Horn, a native of the French Neusaarwerden in Alsace (now Sarre-Union). He was a grenadier in a Dutch regiment, and had brought his wife Doorretij Bekkerij to the Netherlands. On the 9 May 1787, their son Johannes Koenraat Horn was baptised in the Dutch Reformed Church.

Unfortunately, family life was not to last long. Christiaan Horn died when Johannes was still a little boy. So ‘he became dependent on the industry of his mother, whose parental tenderness and honest perseverance reared him until he arrived at the age of eighteen years’. [2]Their fortunes appeared to change when Doorretij Bekkerij received word that a cousin of her late husband had died on the Isle de Bourbon (now Reunion). The French used this tropical island near Madagascar as a stopover on their East Indies trade route. It is, incidentally, still an overseas department of France and thus the most remote part of the European Union. The relative, a cousin of his father’s and a captain of artillery, had left no direct heirs and a considerable property. Seeing no great future for herself and her son in Bergen op Zoom, Doorretij Bekkerij decided to try to claim this inheritance. ‘Few prospects are more pleasing than the acquisition of extensive wealth, without labour and without degradation. The widow entertained the most sanguine hopes of being able to see her son placed above the reach of want, or even of dependence; and therefore prosecuted her journey with vigour and alacrity.’[3]

Hoever, with few connections and less money it proved impossible to gain access to the proper authorities. Though she tried her best, ‘she learned, at length, that other things are necessary than the propriety and reasonableness of a claim, to give it certainty’. Doorretij received a small part of the large sum, spent it in trying to claim the whole, and then gave up. As their funds were running out, and the purpose of the journey had been ‘to advance the interests of young Hornn, they resolved to try some expedient of procuring employment for him, if they could not obtain immediate wealth.’ Horn had worked with horses as a boy and so applied for a position in Napoleon’s stables. He presented himself to the superintendent of the Emperor’s personal horse establishment. After a number of tests he was taken on as a postillon (who rides the near horse of the leaders to guide the horses drawing a coach). ‘Although little can be expected to belong to this circumstance of any interest to mankind in general, yet to Hornn it was an event of consequence then, and of chief importance in the retrospect of his life. Indeed, situated as he had been, the native of a distant an not very considerable province, it must have been gratifying to his vanity to have been thus suddenly placed in the immediate service of so extraordinary a personage as his new master; one who was also at that time his recognised sovereign.’[4]

Horn started his duties on the 20 May 1805, not three weeks after he had turned eighteen. While Napoleon won one of his most illustrious battles in December - that of Austerlitz – Horn worked in and around Paris. In 1806 he was promoted to the position of personal military coachman to Napoleon. His duties included driving the Emperor on campaign and to stay in his vicinity, when Napoleon decided to proceed on horseback.

Travelling arrangements

On his campaigns, Napoleon had the use of various means of transport. He had a string of saddle horses, which were often named after his major victories. The most famous – and elusive – of these was Marengo, but there were many others. There was a landau, the ‘light service’ vehicle, which was mainly used for quick transport between different army corps.

But pride of place has to go to Napoleons ‘dormeuse’ (sleeper). This vehicle was first ordered for the Russian campaign of 1812, from Napoleons favourite coachbuilder, Getting in Paris. It was an elaborate vehicle, containing all that an Emperor on campaign might need. There was a folding iron camp bed, a change of clothes, a tooth brush and razors as well as eau de Cologne. The carriage had special compartments for pens and paper and a writing desk which slid out of the front of the carriage. There were several drawers for maps and a small travel library. In one of the drawers a small liquor case, containing rum and a sweet Malaga wine was kept. The carriage also provided a tea pot, coffee pot, sugar basin, candlesticks, wash hand basin and plates for breakfast in gold and silver. The door panels of the carriage were bullet-proof and inside the carriage were two pistols. An outside lamp shone through the rear window, lighting the interior, shuttered windows made sure Napoleon could see the man on the front seat, but not the other way round. The carriage carried a four pound clock, by which the time pieces of his army were regulated. The front windows had a roller blind of strong painted canvas, which was designed to prevent the windows being blocked with snow or obscured by rain. At the back, there was a sliding panel, which permitted the addition or removal of conveniences without disturbing the Emperor. The dormeuse was painted a deep dark blue, with a handsome border ornamented in gold. The panels of the doors were emblazoned with the Imperial arms. The heavy-duty perch was painted vermillion. It really was a mobile home, as Napoleon’s secretary, Baron Fain, called it.[5]

Napoleon always referred to this coach as a ‘chaise de poste’, his adaptation of the English terminology: ‘post chaise’. A curious choice as ‘chaise de poste’ usually meant a two-wheeled vehicle in France at that time.[6] It is also referred to as the ‘berline’ or the ‘travelling carriage’. The vehicle was driven ‘en poste’, meaning by postillons on two of the three pairs of horses, obviating the need for a coachman. The box was usually taken by Napoleons personal servant, the mameluke Roustam. Two valets occupied the rear of the carriage. An ‘ecuyer’ (equerry) rode near the right door of the dormeuse, the side where Napoleon usually sat. On the left rode the general of the Guard, who commanded the escort. [7] As soon as travel turned into manoeuvring, he would leave the carriage and ride.

Napoleon´s suite consisted of ten or twelve carriages, which moved in three divisions, so that there was always an establishment ready to receive him at each place where he stopped.[8] He usually slept in a house or hut, prepared by the first relais. But if this was not available, he would sometimes use the carriage. When he moved away again, he could leave people to restock, pay and sometimes appease. These could then catch up with the Emperor without hurry, as the first group would have left 12 hours before Napoleon, to make sure he would find his quarters ready when he stopped again.

In the Emperor’s Service

Jena

Uncomfortable with the high-handed dealing of Napoleon in Germany after his victory over Austria the year before, Prussia had declared war in August 1806. On September 24^th Horn set out for the first time to drive Napoleon to war. They travelled to Mainz and then headed north, stopping over at Weimar. Horn waited by the carriage whilst Napoleon entered the electoral palace there. A few minutes later one of the officers in attendance came out, and meeting with some others who were in waiting to accompany Napoleon, he told them how Napoleon had met the Duchess of Weimar. On being introduced, Napoleon had said ‘I pity you, for I shall annihilate the power of your husband. How could he be so infatuated as to oppose himself to me?’ The Duchess answered ‘Your majesty would have despised him if he had not. My husband has been in the service of the king of Prussia more than thirty years: and surely he ought not to have abandoned so old a master, in that moment when the king had to contend with so powerful an enemy as your majesty!’. The Emperor smiled and told her that she had saved her husband.[9] It is a telling story, not only about Napoleon himself, but also about Horn. He was not in the position to hear the story from the first or even the second hand, he merely overheard the officers speaking among themselves. In the entire memoirs there is only one instance of direct contact between Napoleon and Horn, other than in the giving of orders. In the Imperial Household Horn was just one of many. His position was comparable to that of executive chauffeurs today, ‘so close and yet so far away’.

Napoleon and his suite arrived in the vicinity of Jena, about thirty kilometres from Weimar, on 13 October 1806; they were ‘within half a cannon’s shot’ of the Prussian army. At day-break the French engaged and within hours achieved a decisive victory. Napoleon made a fierce enemy here, the Lieutenant-General Gebhard von Blucher, who would never forget the humiliating defeat of Jena and would take his revenge at Waterloo. Napoleon drove on victoriously to Berlin. At the end of October, Napoleon reached Potsdam, where his military hero, Frederick the Great, was buried. He visited Sans Souci, Frederick’s palace, and examined it thoroughly. ‘The gratification which the Emperor felt, as well as the different objects themselves which he met with were subjects of his familiar conversation with his Generals. It was here that he came into approximation with a man to whose pursuits and disposition his own bore no inconsiderable resemblance. Ambition of the highest order governed the actions of them both.’ In the palace the sword and belt which the Prussian monarch had worn during the Seven Years War were discovered. ‘It is difficult to decide whether he was influenced by a reverence for Frederick, or by a desire to humiliate the pride of the existing Prussians’, but in any case Napoleon took Fredericks sword as a trophy for Les Invalides. Horn, as usual, was waiting with the carriage. [10]

In Berlin, Napoleon lost no time to try to subdue one of his more lasting enemies. He issued a decree forbidding any trade with Britain to the countries he conquered and demanded the same of his allies. After the battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Napoleon had given up his idea of invading Britain. Instead, he resorted to an economic boycott, which he hoped would bring this ‘nation of shopkeepers’ to its knees. But first Napoleon had another threat on his hands.

Friedland & Tilsit

Napoleons victory over the Prussians at Jena worried their – rather tardy – allies, the Russians. The Russians had by now assembled their army and marched for Berlin. Napoleon marched to meet them and the two armies met in Poland in December. The French won a minor victory at Pultrisk, but the first real battle took place on February 7th and 8th of 1807 at Eylau. Though Napoleon later claimed this as a victory, it cost him over 15.000 men, and was inconclusive. Napoleon decided not to attack the Russians again until spring: ‘Both armies had suffered too much to enter into renewed action without some repose from such arduous service, and some respite for the reinforcement of their strength.’[11] After passing an unusually calm winter with his mistress, Marie Walewska, Napoleon started to prepare for battle. On the seventh anniversary of the auspicious battle of Marengo, the battle of Friedland was fought. It was a complete victory for Napoleon. He was now at the hight of his powers, having subdued Austria, Prussia and Russia and controlling most of what is now Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium. Of the European powers, only Portugal and Great-Britain were neither defeated nor allies. An armistice with the Russians was concluded on a raft constructed for the purpose on the river Niemen near Tilsit on the Russian border. The Prussian King Frederick was invited as well, though Napoleon lost no opportunity to make him feel his inferiority to the two Emperors.

Whilst the monarchs were talking, the French army was decorating its camp with materials taken from the countryside around them; fir branches, materials from the villages and much wood. When Czar Alexander visited the camp, he was much impressed with the decorations. He inquired of his minister of war whether their own camp could not be made more attractive? The minister replied that he did not think Alexander could afford to strip so many towns and villages as the French camp had cost.[12]

Spanish campaign

In 1807 and 1808 Napoleon focussed primarily on internal affairs, establishing institutions of art and science, designing new public buildings and building bridges. His empire was at the high-point of its power: all of Europe was subject to Napoleon. Just one small army of indomitable English held out on the Iberian Peninsula. To finally get rid of this irritating army resisting his power, Napoleon decided to take the matter in his own hands. In April 1808, Horn was sent to Bordeaux in advance of Napoleon. His marshals had encountered a number of setbacks in Spain, and Napoleon wanted to finally end the unrest in Iberia. Horn could take the horses in easy stages, to keep them fit when the Emperor needed them for his Spanish campaign. After Napoleon had reached Bordeaux Horn drove him on to the Spanish border. The crowds lining the route there had a rather curious appearance. It was a dry and sandy country (it is a large forest now), and horses were scarce. The peasants therefore used stilts of about two metres long to get around. With these implements they could keep up with the carriage.[13] Napoleon crossed the Pyrenees and only two months later, on December 4^th, 1808, his troops entered Madrid in triumph.

On the way Napoleon sometimes behaved with great courage, as in the passage of the Leon Mountains in winter, no easy feat even today. Many of his men were literally blown off the mountain by the snowy winds, some with their horses. On the other hand, he could behave like a spoilt child, as when he returned to Benavente; 'Two roads presented themselves; and the Emperor desired Hornn not to take that one by which they had come, but to pursue the other. This road was nothing more than a way into a thick forest, into which he soon conducted them; and as the day was far advanced, it soon became dark. The road too became undistinguishable in the forest, and it was with difficulty the carriage could proceed. The Emperor persisted in going on, and at length they came to a river, which was running at the foot of a great precipice. General Nansoutti, on horseback, accompanied Bonaparte’s carriage; which was attended also by an escort of about fifty men. The general perceiving how dangerous it was to proceed on such a road in any vehicle, advised Napoleon to alight and walk. For some time he refused to do so; but at last he became impressed with the danger, and therefore got out of the carriage. But he could not conceal the vexation he felt in being thus obliged to walk on a cold night, and under circumstances so disagreeable. In the warmth of his temper, he turned to the general and said, “throw me into the river, and get rid of your Emperor”. In this manner the whole night was passed away, without having got clear of the forest; and being exposed to the danger of falling over the precipice into the river, or of being met with and made prisoners by the Spaniards: and it was not until morning that they escaped from this miserable labyrinth.’ Though he could claim it as a moderate success, the Spanish Campaign had not been a pleasure to Napoleon. Horn noted that 'there was no country in which he had seemed so completely dissatisfied as he had appeared to be in Spain'[14]

Wagram & Marie Louise

Napoleon kept campaigning, winning another victory against Austria at Wagram. This victory brought him a new bride. He had divorced Josephine, his first love, as she had not provided his Empire with an heir. Now he married into the House of Habsburg, one of the oldest ruling dynasties in Europe. For the good of her people Marie Louise of Austria agreed to married this arch-enemy of her country, whom she had been taught to call ‘the ogre’ or ‘the Antichrist’. Napoleon was gallant enough to remove all too poignant reminders of his Austrian victories before she came to Paris.[15] The marriage of convenience turned into a love affair even before it had been duly celebrated. Napoleon was so nervous, that he had ridden to meet his bride to be at the French border. Travelling on to Paris, he had retired with her before supper at the chateau of Compiègne, shocking his court. On Napoleon’s marriage day Horn drove one of the 44 state carriages in the procession from St. Cloud to Paris. A year later, Marie Louise duly presented Napoleon with an heir, Napoleon Francois Joseph Charles, whom Napoleon always referred to as The King of Rome, a title traditionally reserved for the heir to the Holy Roman Empire. Napoleon saw the birth of his son as a buttress to his throne: ‘Empires are created by the sword and are conserved by heredity.’[16] He was a proud and doting father, who even showed his marshals the picture of his son on campaigns, to hearten them.

Russia

In March 1923, in an interview with The New York Times, the British mountaineer George Mallory was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, and replied, 'Because it's there'. Such was probably Napoleon’s reason to wish to conquer Russia. It was at that time an enormous empire, with nearly 45 million inhabitants, subject or serf to their czar Alexander I. It stretched from the Artic Ocean in the North to the Black Sea in the South and from the Baltic sea in the West to the Pacific Ocean in the East. A vast tract of country to conquer with any army.

Ostensibly the reason for the Russian Campaign was that Alexander had broken the treaty of Tilsit by trading with England. As France itself was trading with England at the time, Alexander wrote to Napoleon: ‘Your Majesty cannot expect to impose on the Russians, as on the people of Hamburg, privations that you no longer impose on yourself.’[17] Napoleon, however, was bent on believing that Alexander wanted war, even though his Russian Ambassador, Armand de Caulaincourt, tried to convince him of the opposite. He repeated Alexander’s parting words to Napoleon: ‘It is possible, even probable, that we shall be defeated, but that does not mean that he will be able to dictate a peace. I shall not be the first to draw my sword, but I shall be the last to sheathe it. People don’t know how to suffer. If the fighting went against me, I should retire to Kamtchatka rather than cede provinces and sign treaties in my capital that were really only truces. Your Frenchman is brave; but long privations and a bad climate wear him down and discourage him. Our climate, our winter, will fight on our side. With you, marvels only take place when the Emperor is in personal attendance; and he cannot be everywhere, he cannot be absent from Paris year after year.’[18] These words soon proved to be prophetic. All the elements Alexander mentioned: retiring rather than ceding provinces, not signing peace treaties when his capital is taken, the cruel climate, the personal impact of Napoleon and the fact that he was now an Emperor, and not merely a General, proved to be crucial factors when Napoleon did in fact decide to invade Russia.

As mentioned before, the dormeuse was in fact designed for optimal comfort during the Russian campaign. It was used for the first time in 1812, when Napoleon left Paris for Moscow. At Dresden, Napoleon left behind his wife, Marie Louise. Horn then drove Napoleon through Prussia to Danzig (Gdansk), which is situated on the banks of the Vistula (now the Wisla River in Poland), near the Baltic Sea. They travelled fast in the carriage, drawn by six horses, making an average of more than ten kilometres an hour over increasingly bad roads. Napoleon was prepared to make long hours on the road. On the first day, they pressed on for twenty hours with scarcely a halt and the last day before he arrived at Danzig he drove on for a day and a night. [19] Napoleon was now 1600 kilometres from Paris, with over 1200 to go to Moscow.

At Danzig Napoleon inspected ‘the stupendous army which was there at that time’[20]; over half a million men from all corners of his vast empire were concentrated on the banks of the Vistula. Austrians, Prussians, Poles, Portugese, Bavarians, Croatians, Danes, Dutch, Germans, Swiss and many other nationalities had come to fight for their overlord. On June 6^th Napoleon crossed the Vistula and three weeks later he crossed the Niemen (now the Nemunas River in Lithuania), the river which formed the border with Russia. He did not bother to declare war formally as he felt his diplomatic contacts with Alexander must have made his intentions clear. Napoleon started his advance towards Vilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania).

Despite the enthusiasm some felt for the grand adventure they were embarking on, the destruction of the Grande Armée started the moment it set foot on Russian soil. The weather was so bad that the soldiers mistook the thunder for cannon fire.[21] The supply-carts got stuck in the muddy roads, the bridges could not bear the weight of the guns, the Russians had polluted all water-supplies by throwing dead horses in them, and though every soldier carried a four days’ ration, most had consumed it all on the first day. Though Vilna was only 130 kilometres from the border, the first problems in the supply train started to show. So even before the advance had really started, Napoleon started to lose men and horses to hunger, exhaustion and the weather. The capture of Vilna only four days after he had crossed the Niemen restored morale, though not supplies. Within twenty-four hours its stores were exhausted, it being practically impossible to provide the daily necessities for half a million men, even excluding the town’s inhabitants.

Napoleon left Vilna again after three weeks, on July 17th. Horn recounts: ‘He had not proceeded far on the road to Cowno, when a storm took place, infinitely more dreadful than can be imagined by those who have never left the southern parts of Europe. The rain fell in such torrents that horses and men were indiscriminately swept away. The roads were strewed with dead horses, overturned waggons, and scattered baggage. The lightning too was almost as destructive as the rain; and among other accidents it produced, was the destruction of a considerable number of the grenadiers of the guards at one spot.’[22] Another thing the French had not counted on was the fierce determination of the czar and his people to destroy everything they left behind. The scorched-earth tactics were devastating to an army of the size of the Grande Armée. They needed to forage further afield, where there was always the threat of the Cossacks. This militant tribe was allied with the Russian Czar, and though they had little effect as organised disciplined troops, they were highly valued as scouts, raiders and skirmishers and harried the French Grande Armée mercilessly.[23] A captured Cossack once told Napoleon ‘If Napoleon had Cossacks in his army, by this time he would be Emperor of China.’[24] The horses suffered even more than the men at this stage, as there was hardly enough time to pasture them properly even if there was grass. Many died from eating unripe rye. ‘Being unable to sustain themselves on their patriotism, they fall down by the roadside and expire,’ noted a cynical French General. [25]

During the Russian campaign Napoleon’s personal train consisted of ‘eight canteen waggons, a carriage for his wardrobe, two butlers, two valets, three cooks, four footmen and eight grooms. He normally travelled in a coach drawn by six horses, but would ride for short distances and occasionally march. When in contact with the enemy, he would mount one of his chargers. At night, if no suitable house or monastery was found for him, he slept in his carriage on a makeshift couch, but more often in a tent, of which a reconstruction is displayed in the Musée de l’Armée in the Invalides, ten-foot square, equipped with a folding camp-bed, chair and table. A sword lay always within his reach. He ate frugally but well. He never lacked supplies of his special Chambertin. He worked all day, even in motion, for his carriage was fitted with a desk and lights, and Berthier was always at his side to take dictated orders to the corps commanders or the most distant parts of the Empire. The entire staff required fifty-two carriages, innumerable carts, and 650 horses to transport them.’[26]

The army now advanced to Vitebsk, which it took on July 27^th after some fighting. Napoleon again lost precious time by stopping here for another two weeks, before proceeding towards Smolensk and from there on towards Moscow. After a month of unsuccessful resistance, Czar Alexander had brought a new commander in the field to stop Napoleon from attacking his spiritual capital. Prince Michael Kutuzov was sixty-seven, a bon vivant whose enormous bulk showed that he enjoyed his food and drink. He was so corpulent that he had trouble riding. Kutuzov was forced by public opinion to take a stand to protect Moscow, though he would have preferred a more cautious course. He chose Borodino as his battlefield. Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian general in Russian service, and later a famous military theorist concluded: ‘Kutuzov, it is certain, would not have given battle at Borodino, where he obviously did not expect to win. But the voice of the Court, the army and all Russia forced his hand.’[27]

The battle of the Borodino was fought, grudgingly, by the two commanders. Kutuzov was reluctant to fight at all, Napoleon was not well and surprised all his generals by his inactivity. The men suffered, whatever their generals were thinking. Figures vary, but the Russians lost about one third of their army with 44.000 killed and wounded and the French lost at least 35.000 men, including 43 generals. It was the highest number of casualties on one day, until the battle of the Somme in 1916 would take over this macabre record. Both generals claimed Borodino as a victory, and it definitely was not a decisive victory for the French, as Kutuzov could stage an ordered retreat of his 80.000 remaining men. The battlefield was strewn with corpses when Napoleon toured it as night descended, though his pleasure was marred by the Russians shouting ‘victory’ from their camp-fires a few miles away. As he was riding he commented on the endurance of the Russian wounded, who were kissing the image of St. Nicholas to help them forget their pain. When a horse stepped on one of them and the man cried aloud, an aide said, ‘It’s only a Russian.’ ‘After a victory,’ Napoleon replied, ‘there are no enemies, only men.’ He ordered wounded of both sides to be carried to the monastery of Kolotskoye, which was transformed into a sort of hospital. Without medical supplies, one surgeon amputated 200 limbs, with just a gulp of brandy for the patients to numb their pain.[28]

The remaining 100 kilometres to Moscow were covered without a further battle with the Russians. Napoleon entered Moscow at the head of his guards at noon on the 14^th of November, a week after Borodino. He took up his abode in the Kremlin, the traditional palace of the rulers of Russia. Horn noticed the fact that Moscow seemed empty when they came: ‘there was scarcely an indication that the place was inhabited’. A number of fires were seen as well, but this was attributed to the carelessness of the troops.[29] Later it became obvious that the Russians were destroying their most holy city on purpose. Count Rostopchin, the military governor of Moscow, had given orders to set fire to or blow up anything that might be of use to the French and had removed the fire-fighting equipment. Horn recounts: ‘The people who had concealed themselves were now compelled to come forth; and they were seen on every side, endeavouring to rescue from the fire some of their property; or at least to save their children, and those who were infirm, from the miseries of immediate death. But all this went on in awful silence. The poor creatures did not utter an imprecation or complaint. Some of them had not sufficient strength to get away, and died almost at the doors of their own houses. The streets, the public buildings, and particularly the churches, were filled with these unfortunate victims. During all this scene of confusion and horror, the fire continued to extend itself, and soon the finest parts of the city were involved in the general destruction. The magnificent palaces, with their costly furniture, were destroyed; and even the hospitals, which contained more than twelve thousand wounded soldiers, fell in the general desolation.’[30] Napoleon could not stay at the Kremlin and relocated to the imperial palace of Peterskoe close by, while his soldiers looted the city. ‘The soldiers were employed in breaking open warehouses, and in taking wherever they could find them the most valuable articles. The crackling of the burning timbers, the breaking open of doors, and the occasional crash of falling buildings, were almost the only sounds that could be heard. Nor were the flames les active than the troops, in the work of destruction. Cottons, muslins, and the most valuable productions of Europe and Asia, became a prey to both. Many of the cellars also contained sugar, oil and vitriol; and when the conflagration had reached these subterranean repositories, and the liquid fire was seen pouring through the iron grates, the scene became splendid, as well as dreadful. But as the men stood together, they seemed as though in a fair, buying and selling the different commodities they had obtained. They ate of China, drank out of silver, and gave up, for the time, all discipline and restraint, together with the habits and manners of soldiers.’[31]

Napoleon was now in a quandary. If he had wanted to make Moscow his winter quarters, its usefulness for that purpose had now seriously diminished. It was now September, the winter was not very far off. He could march even further into Russia to force Alexander to sign at least a truce or try to capture St. Petersburg next spring. He could retreat towards Smolensk and Vitebsk, where he would be closer to his supplies or he could turn south where it would be warmer. If he had only been a general, instead of an Emperor, he would probably have chosen to stay in Moscow. However, as Alexander had predicted, he could not stay away from Paris indefinitely. ‘The French are like women, one must not stay away from them too long’, Napoleon told Caulaincourt.[32] He had more or less expected Alexander to sue for a truce after he had taken Moscow and even approached him himself to this end. However, Alexander could afford to wait and even refused to see any more of Napoleons envoys.

On 19 October 1812 Napoleon finally took a decision. He advanced towards Kaluga, a city south of Moscow where Kutuzov had retired with his army. Napoleon’s Grande Armée, which had crossed the Niemen with over 500.000 men, had been reduced by four-fifths and now consisted of 87.500 infantry and 15.000 cavalry. They brought with them a train of some 40.000 vehicles, ‘laden with the immense spoils of magnificent Moscow. […] The whole scene was calculated to give an idea of the return of the Greek and Roman armies after the destruction of Troy and Carthage: even the cohorts of Xerxes had not more baggage than now belonged to the French army.’[33] Among the trophies, Napoleon had ordered for the enormous golden cross of the bell tower of Ivan the Great to be taken to France, there to be erected over Les Invalides.

Napoleon and Kutuzov met again at Maloyaroslavets, but after a preliminary skirmish, which cost the French 4.000 and the Russians 7.000 men, both commanders withdrew. Napoleon spent the night in a squalid weaver’s hut at Ghorodnia, a few kilometres above Maloyaroslavets. Discouraged by what he started to see as a Sisyphean task – ‘ I beat them every time, but cannot reach the end’ – Napoleon decided to go for a ride at four o’ clock in the morning. Some officers accompanied him, but not his usual cavalry escort. Suddenly a band of Cossacks appeared, shouting their war-cry of ‘Houra, Houra’. Napoleon stood his ground calmly until a squadron of chasseurs came up, just in time, to fight off the Cossacks. Napoleon was undismayed by the incident, which could have ended his career, and called for a council of war in the weaver’s hut. After a long discussion with his generals, Napoleon decided not to push on and try to defeat Kutuzov, but to turn back to France by the way he came. It was a decision that would make the Russian Campaign legendary in its horrors.

It was a blow to the morale of the troops to return by the road which was in a very bad state from their former passage and where they knew virtually no food could be had. Napoleon pushed his men to the limit, encouraging them to make the most of the weather while it lasted. On 27 October, the snow began to fall and the retreat became increasingly difficult. Two days later they had to cross the battlefield at Borodino, where the snow had not yet fallen thickly enough to hide the decomposing bodies of the men that had fallen there only fifty days ago. ‘This scene almost seemed to have been reserved as a death-blow to the spirits of the troops. In that battle it was computed that more than sixty thousand men were left upon the field. Almost the whole of them still remained, exhibiting the frightful spectacle of human beings, some of them mutilated by wounds, and others torn to pieces by birds of prey’, Horn recounted. Cossack prisoners ‘cut limbs from off the bodies that were strewed around, and roasted and ate them’. [34]

The army proceeded slowly towards Smolensk, where they hoped to find abundant provisions. The frost by now was down to minus thirty degrees Celsius at night. Napoleon had not provided his army with winter supplies. The horses were not shod properly, the men did not have decent coats and instead wrapped themselves in the spoils of Moscow: ‘Nothing was more commonplace than to see a soldier, his face dark and repellent, wrapped in a coat of pink of blue satin, trimmed with swan of blue-fox. The very appearance of the army, bizarre if not pathetic, lowered its pride and hope of survival’. [35] There were no supplies and the frost so heavy, that soldiers even took to slicing meat of the horses that were still walking. The flesh immediately froze, and the horses walked on, until the wounds started to putrefy and the horses died after all. Cannibalism was rampant. A Russian officer saw ‘a French soldier “of good appearance” peeling off the charred flesh of a comrade. He asked him if this food was not loathsome to him. “Yes,” replied the man, “but not to save my life; only to lull the gnawing agonies.” The officer gave him a piece of bread, and the soldier looked at him with tears of gratitude, only to fall back dead before he could eat it.’ The wounded were worst of. ‘The doctors, embarrassed by their inability to give them any help, shunned them. Those who had found a place on a cart had to endure its constant jolting over rutted tracks, and their cries of anguish so exasperated the postillions that they would drive suddenly at speed to shake off their passengers to certain death under the wheels of the following cart or at the hands of partisans.’ The example was devastating for those who were still healthy, they knew what would happen if they were wounded themselves. Amid the suffering, all men became equal, officers and soldiers. A thin veneer of civilization sometimes overcame the instinct of self-preservation. ‘A private soldier thought his officer dead, and began to strip him of his warmer clothes. The officer, barely audible, whispered, ‘Camarade, je ne suis pas encore mort.’ (Comrade, I am not dead yet). The soldier stood aside : ‘Eh bien, mon officier, j’attendrai encore quelques moments.’ (All right, officer, I’ll just wait a moment more). [36]

Napoleon did not share his soldiers’ privations and usually travelled in his carriage, warm in his sable cap, fur-lined greatcoat and boots. On the read to Smolensk, we find the only instance of Napoleon conversing directly with Horn. ‘Some part of the march from Moscow to Smolensko was performed by Bonaparte on foot; but his saddle horses and his carriage were in immediate attendance upon him. In his own saddle was a pocket that contained a small vessel of spirits; and whether riding or walking he would sometimes, during the intense cold, drink some of the spirits from the mouth of the flask. He took it out one day when they were in a most dreary part of the march, and many leagues from a human habitation, but found it empty: turning to Hornn, who was close to him, he said, “Have you any spirits with you?” who answered, “that he had not.” ”Then,” said the Emperor, smiling, “go and buy some.”[37] The fact that Hornn thought it worthwhile to repeat this rather feeble joke implies that these exchanges must have been rare indeed.

The decaying army finally reached Smolensk on 9 November. The Grande Armée had crossed the Niemen with over half a million troops, reached Moscow with 100,000 and was now down to only 40,000 men. The promised shelter here was a disappointment: the city was still in ruins from the last battle and the provisions had been eaten within three days by the first troops to arrive, Napoleon’s famous Guard. The promised rest was short, because Napoleon found out that three Russian armies were threatening to bar his route to the west. He had to move quickly to escape the trap. He left Smolensk for Orsha at the head of his guard, just as the last stragglers entered the city of hope, soon to be disappointed.

His army was in a long drawn out line, extending over 60 kilometres. The Russians, who had been dogging his steps ever since Moscow now finally attacked and cut his line. The battle of Krasnoe could have been a great success for the Russians, but unaccountably, Kutuzov decided to break off the engagement. It became famous mostly for the dashing action of Marshal Ney, who was cut off from Napoleon by the Russian manoeuvre and yet escaped to join the Emperor unharmed. It earned him the title ‘the bravest of the brave’. Napoleon could not ignore the state of his army. During the battle, Horn recounts, ‘the musical band of the guards became separated from him. When they rejoined him, they struck up the national air, “Ou peut-on etre mieux, qu’an sein de sa famille” (Where can we be happier than in the bosom of our families). Such a sentiment under existing circumstances, might have produced inconvenient recollections; and the Emperor perceiving that it might be so received by the army, said to the musicians with some anger, “You had much better play Let us arise and save the Empire.”[38]

On November 19^th Napoleon reached Orsha, on the right bank of the river Dniepr. Here there were stores enough to feed the greatly diminished army for two days. It had started to thaw, and though this meant the men could sleep longer without fear of freezing to death, the mud soon proved to be as bad as the ice. The very last horses were used to form a ‘Sacred Guard’ of sixhundred men to protect the Emperor. However ‘these horses had been taken particular care of, and by that means had been enabled to survive the many thousands which had been destroyed by the climate. But as soon as these were obliged to undergo fatigue and privations, they soon diminished; and within a few days the sacred squadron was no more.’[39]

The Russians by now had concentrated 120,000 troops in the area, thus outnumbering Napoleon’s dilapidated army by more four to one. Even Napoleon recognised that his luck had finally run out and that his only chance lay in retreat. The Beresina River however was a formidable obstacle in his way, the insignificant stream of their earlier crossing having swollen into a fast-running death-trap. The Russians had taken and destroyed the Borisov bridge, where he had been headed. Trying to recapture and rebuild it would have cost him whatever army he had left. Napoleon needed to find a place shallow enough for his bridging brigade to build a pontoon bridge if he wanted to escape. A captured Lithuanian peasant, obviously wet from crossing the river, showed the French the solution. There was a ford, only three feet deep, except in the middle, where the horses would have to swim. It was, by the way, the same ford that the Swedish King Charles XII used to start his campaign in Russia over a century earlier. The result was much the same; the Russians under Czar Peter used scorched earth tactics, and Charles XII lost an army, and later an empire.

Napoleon, however, was not thinking about history, but about survival. He depended for this on his chief engineer, General Eblé, who miraculously saved his army and his reputation. Eblé arrived on the banks of the Beresina on the November 25th. He designed one bridge for infantry and a second, sturdier one for cavalry, artillery and vehicles. Both bridges were nearly a hundred meter long. Using all the materials he could find (much of the material he had take with him had been destroyed at the orders of Napoleon, to fasten their progress) he finished both of them only a day later. His men worked in abominable conditions, often standing in the freezing water for hours on end. Of the 400 men who achieved this remarkable feat, hardly any survived. They were swept away by the fast-running water, died of frostbite or, like their leader General Eblé, died a few weeks later of sheer exhaustion.

Napoleon had his bridges, the Grande Armée could cross the Beresina. The first infantry division crossed the bridge and made sure there was no opposition on the other side. As soon as the second bridge was ready, horses, guns and vehicles started to make the crossing as well. At first, the passage was orderly and before nightfall on the 26^th several divisions had made the crossing. Pressure on the bridgehead heightened as the less disciplined divisions and stragglers reached the bridge. In a panic, fearing to be left behind, conflicts for priority broke out as those left on the far bank saw their way to survival threatened. By now, the Russians had been alerted to Napoleons movements and were firing on the crossing army. His marshals urged Napoleon to burn the bridges on the 27^th, but Napoleon refused to leave organized formations behind. A fierce battle with the Russians ensued on the 28^th. By now the bridges were swamped with refugees, stragglers and all the hangers-on an army on the march attracts. Some divisions cut their way through the melée with their swords to reach the other bank. On the morning of the 29^th of November, Napoleon finally ordered the bridges to be burnt, leaving a despairing crowd of civilians and stragglers behind.

He now made as much speed as possible in the direction of Vilna, though the worst part of the march back from Moscow was yet to come. The frost fell in with a vengeance, killing more than half the army that was saved at the Beresina. And all this time Paris was still in blissful ignorance of the tragedy that had befallen the Grande Armée. On 3 December, Napoleon decided he would have to inform his country of the situation. He dictated the famous 29^th Bulletin de la Grande Armée, in which he blamed the disaster on the weather. Having informed his people in France, he now turned to the immediate needs of what was left of his army. He wrote to Vilna for supplies: ‘Food, food, food – without it there are no horrors that this undisciplined mass will not commit in Vilna.’ On December 12^th an English captain wrote to a friend in England about the reports he received in St. Petersburg about the state of the French army: ‘they are so pressed on all sides by the Cossacks, that they now march by night and halt all day in a hollow square. When the Russian army reaches the ground last abandoned by the French, they find, in general, many of them, unhappy wretches! frozen to death, in the very position of sitting round their fires warming themselves. Some had fallen into the fire, and their heads were burnt to cinders, not having had physical strength sufficient to recover their perpendicular after once losing their balance. The roads are strewed with their bodies, and every village is filled with them. The report for this week, for which we are going to church to-morrow, gives a sum total of the losses of the French army, within the last eight days, in killed, wounded, surrendered, starved, and frozen at Wilna and elsewhere, and it amounts to nothing short of 30,000 men, artillery, colours, &c.’[40]

Napoleon decided not to wait any longer, but to leave for Paris immediately. He was well aware of the distress his departure would cause his army, but decided that his Imperial Crown was worth it. He needed to be in Paris, to quench the unrest the Bulletin would cause when it was published. On December 9^th, Napoleon arrived at Smorghoni (now Smorgon, Belarus), sixty kilometres from Vilna. Here he rented horses and drove post-haste to Paris with only Caulaincourt (now his Master of the Horse) for a companion. Horn was directed to take Napoleons own horses through Berlin to Falda (probably Fulda, near Frankfurt) and to wait there for further instructions. Horn stayed at Falda until the next spring, when Napoleon expected to open the new campaign there. While Horn was there, the inhabitants used to amuse themselves by ridiculing the melancholy appearance of the French troops that passed through. ‘The soldiers in French regiments of the line, had on their backs the Emperor’s initials in four places, and the people said the four N.’s meant – “Nur Nicht Nach Northen” (Above all, do not go North).’[41]

The End of an Empire

Napoleons spectacular re-appearance in Paris, only two days after the 29^th Bulletin had been published did much to allay the fears of the French, who hardly had time to realize the extent of the disaster. Napoleon immediately set about recruiting a new army and only five months after he had left the remnants of his Grande Armée, he had raised a new army of 200,000 men. However, it soon proved that Napoleon had lost more than an army in Russia, he had lost his aura of invincibility. The slighted Prussian King concluded a secret treaty with the Czar in February 1813, and declared open war with France in March. Napoleon was forced to react and in May defeated the coalition forces twice even with his inexperienced new army. He did not dare to push his luck, and on June 4^th an armistice was concluded. Horn was ordered to attend Caulincourt to Prague, where the four great nations Austria, Prussia, Russia and France started negotiations. He sometimes acted as a personal attendant, as well as a coachman. By September they were back at Dresden, with Napoleon. From there Horn drove Napoleon southeast to Pirna ‘during the whole of which journey, although the roads were extremely bad, and they were going as fast as it was practicable to go, he was continually urging Hornn to drive faster.’[42]

The Allies finally managed to defeat Napoleon in the ‘Battle of the Nations’ at Leipzig in October. The English were supporting the coalition by attacking France from the south, the three allied forces of Austria, Prussia and Russia marched on Paris from the north and the east. Napoleon was now fighting not for conquest, but for safety; he fought on the soil of France. He was obliged to send his wife and son to safety in Austria, the land of is father-in-law cum enemy. Horn drove Napoleon during much of this campaign, which moved continuously through France, Troyes, Reims, St. Dizier, Soisson. On April 1^st, Paris fell and five days later, Napoleon followed.

He agreed to be exiled to Elba, a Mediterranean island, not far from his native ground of Corsica. Two weeks after his abdication he said an emotional fare-well to his Old Guard, who had fought for him at Austerlitz, Jena and Moscow. The coach which had taken him to Moscow, now brought him to his new Empire of Elba. In Napoleon’s Parisian stables, the regime change was accepted with equanimity and business was carried on as usual. Whether Horn stayed on cannot be verified, but is very likely.

[1] Drs. Charles de Mooij, Eindelyk uit d’Onderdrukking. Patriottenbeweging en Bataafs-Franse tijd in Noord-Brabant 1784-1814, Zwolle, 1989, 19.

[2] Jean Hornn, The Narrative of Jean Hornn, Military Coachman to Napoleon Bonaparte, London, 1816, 1-2.

[3] Ibidem, 1-2.

[4] Ibidem, 3-4.

[5] P. Fain (ed.), Memoires du Baron Fain, Paris 1908, 230

[6] Anthony De La Poer, ‘Phaeton’s Chariot[s] : The Mystery of Napoleon’s Waterloo Carriage (1), in: Military Illustrated Past & Present, 33, February 1991, 17.

[7] Fain, Memoires du Baron Fain, 223

[8] Ibidem, 18.

[9] Hornn, Narrative, 6.

[10] It was destroyed by the governor of Les Invalides in 1814, to avoid its falling in the hands of the advancing allies.

[11] Hornn, Narrative, 11.

[12] Ibidem, 14.

[13] Ibidem, 16.

[14] Ibidem, 23-25.

[15] Jill Hamilton, Marengo. The myth of Napoleon’s horse, London 2001, 132.

[16] Adam Zamoyski, Moscow 1812. Napoleon’s Fatal March, New York 2004, 11.

[17] Nigel Nicholson, Napoleon: 1812, London 1985, 11.

[18] Nicholson, Napoleon: 1812, 17 and Zamoyski, Moscow 1812, 73.

[19] Nicholson, Napoleon: 1812, 24.

[20] Hornn, Narrative, 30.

[21] Nicholson, Napoleon: 1812, 37.

[22] Hornn, Narrative, 32.

[23] Dugdale-Pointon, T. Cossacks, Napoleonic, 2001. http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_cossacks_napoleonic.html

[24] Nicholson, Napoleon: 1812, 68.

[25] Ibidem, 64.

[26] Nigel Nicholson, Napoleon: 1812, London 1985, 66.

[27] Ibidem, 62.

[28] Ibidem, 81-82.

[29] A.A. Caulaincourt, Memoires du général de Caulaincourt, duc de Vicence, grand écuyer de l’empereur, II, Paris, 1933-1934, 340.

[30] Hornn, Narrative, 35-36.

[31] Ibidem, 36-37.

[32] Nicholson, Napoleon: 1812, 132

[33] Hornn, Narrative, 39.

[34] Ibidem, 41.

[35] Nicholson, Napoleon: 1812, 127-128.

[36] Ibidem.

[37] Hornn, Narrative, 43.

[38] Ibidem, 42.

[39] Ibidem, 44.

[40] Harriet Raikes (ed), Private Correspondence of Thomas Raikes with the Duke of Wellington and other distinguished contemporaries, London 1861, 6.

[41] Hornn, Narrative, 46.

[42] Ibidem, 50.