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While the prisoners of Wilna were suffering these nameless cruelties, the unfortunate army marched to reach the border of Russia at Kowno, the same Kowno where the Grand Army six months before had been seen in all its military splendor, crossing the Niemen. They had now to march 75 miles, a three days' march to arrive there.
The number of Russian prisoners taken by the French during the war was very trifling, and we were assured, that there was no instance in the whole course of it, of a single Russian battalion or squadron laying down its arms. The number of prisoners taken by the Cossacks alone, from the time when the French left Moscow until the passage of the Niemen, was 90,000, and the number of cannon 550.
A well-trained Russian army of 400,000 men, under the stubborn, taciturn veteran, General Kutusov, was put in the field. War seemed imminent by April, 1812. After leisurely completing his preparations, Napoleon crossed the Niemen on 24 June, and the invasion of Russia had begun.
The welkin rang with applause, while Lazaref kissed his benefactor's hands and the hem of his coat. Next day Alexander crossed the Niemen. Savary went with him as a French envoy, partly to keep up the Czar's courage and spirits, which would be endangered by the sullen humor of the court circles in St. Petersburg, partly to study the temper of the Russian people.
The thought of the Polish provinces accepting a frank reconciliation with a humanised Russia and bringing the weight of homogeneous loyalty within a few miles of Berlin, has been always intensely distasteful to the arrogant Germanising tendencies of the other partner in iniquity. And, besides, the way to the Baltic provinces leads over the Niemen and over the Vistula.
In the yellowish soil along its banks grow rich crops of oats, buckwheat, corn, and some rye. Naturally such a section would be thickly populated, not only on account of the fertile soil, but because the Niemen, like the Vistula, is one of the country's means of communication and transportation.
They had marched from the Vistula, full of shipping, across the Pregel, loaded with stores, to the Niemen, where there was no navigation. Dantzig, behind them that Gibraltar of the North was stored with provision enough for the whole army. But there was no transport; for the roads of Lithuania were unsuitable for the heavy carts provided.
But Napoleon ordered new conscriptions, and made unusual exertions, so that he soon had two hundred and eighty thousand men between the Vistula and Memel. New successes attended the French armies, which resulted in a peace with Russia, at Tilsit, on the river Niemen, at which place Napoleon had a personal interview with the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia.
It was not until long afterwards that the world, piecing together information purposely delayed and details carefully falsified, knew that of the four hundred thousand men who marched triumphantly to the Niemen, only twenty thousand recrossed that river six months later, and of these two-thirds had never seen Moscow.
Petersburg and Moscow caught the war fever, opened their coffers, equipped a numerous militia, and by the end of July all Russia was hopeful and eager for battle. This, too, was the earnest desire of Napoleon. The advance from the Vistula to the Niemen and from the Niemen to the Dwina had been successfully carried forward but at what a cost!
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