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He saw the raft, decorated with monograms, saw Napoleon pass before the French Guards on the farther bank of the river, saw the pensive face of the Emperor Alexander as he sat in silence in a tavern on the bank of the Niemen awaiting Napoleon's arrival, saw both Emperors get into boats, and saw how Napoleon reaching the raft first stepped quickly forward to meet Alexander and held out his hand to him, and how they both retired into the pavilion.
Had the vision of that army, as it was to recross the Niemen within six months, risen upon their minds, it would have been dismissed as a nightmare of false and monstrous mien. Onward into Russia wound the vast and hopeful mass, without a battle and without sight of a foe. The Russians were retreating and drawing their foes deeper and deeper into the heart of their desolate land.
On the other hand, there is the fact that St. Marsan, Napoleon's ambassador at Berlin, assured that Government, on October 29th, that his master did not wish to destroy Prussia, but laid much stress on the supplies which she could furnish him a support that would enable the Grand Army to advance on the Niemen like a rushing stream. The metaphor was strangely imprudent.
A great forest region lies to the east and north of Grodno, and between the Niemen and the cities of Augustowo and Suwalki which the Germans, after their successful offensive, used as bases for their operations. A strip of country including these forests, and running parallel to the Niemen was a sort of no-man's land in the spring of 1915.
On the retreat of Bennigsen towards the Niemen, the unfortunate King of Prussia, evacuating Konigsberg, where he now perceived it must be impossible to maintain himself, sought a last and precarious shelter in the seaport of Memel; and the Emperor Alexander, overawed by the genius of Napoleon, which had triumphed over troops more resolute than had ever before opposed him, and alarmed for the consequence of some decisive measure towards the re-organisation of the Poles as a nation, began to think seriously of peace.
On the tenth of June, * coming up with the army, he spent the night in apartments prepared for him on the estate of a Polish count in the Vilkavisski forest. * Old style. Next day, overtaking the army, he went in a carriage to the Niemen, and, changing into a Polish uniform, he drove to the riverbank in order to select a place for the crossing.
The wherries sent from Danzig to the Niemen were often snapped up by British cruisers, and the carriage of stores from the Niemen entailed so frightful a waste of horseflesh that only the most absolute necessaries could keep pace with the army in its rapid advance. The men were thus left without food except such as marauding could extort. In this art Napoleon's troops were experts.
On the morn of June 23rd, three immense French columns wound their way to the pontoon bridges hastily thrown over the Niemen near Kovno; and loud shouts of triumph greeted the great leader as the vanguard set foot on Lithuanian soil. No Russians were seen except a few light horsemen, who galloped up, inquired of the engineers why they were building the bridges, and then rode hastily away.
The line from the Niemen to Moscow was very long, yet Schwarzenberg was on the right to prevent Tormassoff from breaking through, and Napoleon felt sure that Wittgenstein on the left was too weak to be a menace.
A last effort was attempted by those about him to make him stop at Smolensk. General Rapp, just arrived from Germany, could not conceal his emotion and astonishment. "The army has only marched a hundred leagues since the Niemen," said he. "I saw it before crossing, and already everything is changed.
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