There are numerous books written mostly by officers of Napoleon’s campaign in Russia, but this one, told by an NCO of the Imperial Guard, is, in my opinion, one of the very best. Sergeant Bourgogne had campaigned with Napoleon for several years and he describes the retreat from Moscow in terms which are not sensational but rather in terms which brings the reader into the very action of which he writes. You can feel his hunger and his cold, the pain he feels for comrades left behind and the joy as others long thought of as dead, are found.
He was not privy to any grand strategy and yet he and those around him, despite their sufferings, remained loyal to their Emperor. To catch a glimpse of Napoleon seemed to buoy the men’s hopes as they believed that Napoleon would lead them onto victory no matter what. Bourgogne also mentions Marshal Ney, the Bravest of the Brave (although not necessarily the Smartest of the Smart) as he holds the read guard together against the attacks by the Cossacks and armed Russian peasants. Time after time, the half frozen, starving men of the rear guard (remember, whenever they reached a town or village, all of the food had already been taken by the retreating troops before them) would turn, adjust ranks and such an action would be enough to warn off the Cossacks who were known to be hugely brave against a broken and unarmed foe.
Bourgogne marched for weeks in the cold and mists, often stumbling upon a peasant’s hut and finding warmth and a bit of food which he claims he always paid. The kindest peasants for the Polish ones who saw in Napoleon and change for a free country and his action with the local Jews were always based on strict terms of commerce. He did not differentiate between the various nationalities within the army as he knew that each one had their own strengths and weaknesses. Some of the episodes he writes of are hard to image, such as when a tired soldier is laying in the snow and asks a passing comrade to give him a hand. The walking soldiers say “I have already given two” as he holds out his arms minus his hands which were lost due to frost bite. Later, in Vilnius, soldiers who have lost fingers, toes, even their noses are found and taken care of as best the army could. Regiments are reduced to seven men, battalions to a single individual, yet the belief in Napoleon continues.
An excellent book which tells of the suffering men can endure in war as well as the nobility of their sharing what they have when all seems lost.
Thanks for the review. I don’t know if this will be of interest to you, but I’ll be 40 years old in a few years, I’ve always had an interest in Napoleonic history, but I’d never heard of this book, till last night I was watching the old 1981 BBC series ‘To Serve Them All My Days’, and this book was mentioned.
In that, it was explained a WWI vet used to read it to get him through the Hell of the Somme ect, as in ‘those 19th century soldiers had it even worse than us’.
Don’t know about you, but where I live libraries seem to have a deliberate policy of not stocking any books that aren’t politically correct. You can’t even get a Peter Hitchens title, not just from the local or central library, but from the district directory!
My father lives in a disabled home next to an old stately home, and they had a big roaring fire going in the grounds one morning so we went to look at it. What were they burning? Books! Old beautiful hardbacks with dates on them like 1813, 1756, 1931. I couldn’t believe it.
We really are traveling at warp speed towards barbarianism. I’ve personally felt for years as a Roman circa 1000AD would, that I’m living in the ruins of a superior civilisation, but rapidly everyone is going to realise this.
Thank you for your comments; I ran across this book when I read “To Serve them All My Days”. I decided to look it up for myself and really enjoyed it. Yes, it is so sad to see the destruction of those books; a father of a fried recently died and the local library was contacted to see if they would like his library of over 2,000 books; they received a flat turndown! New Orleans is a great place to find those old fashioned book stores which are run by hermits! When I go there, I can spend hours looking through the musty volumes and always walk away with some real treasures. Once again, thank you for your comments and I hope you find other reviews of interest!