Pion des Loches, "My Campaigns" - Part 3: Invading Russia, 1812

"In bivouac before Vitebsk, 5-8 August. It is already five days as we repose here, if one may call it repose. Namely, a bivouac established in the middle of the fields, with burning heat, almost no shelter, ten minutes from the city of Vitebsk, where general headquarters are established. Nevertheless I continue to remain in excellent health. I am among those very few people who are no afflicted with diarrhea. thanks to the care and precautions that I take. The food not being of the best quality, especially the bread, I eat very little. I do not quite know how I survive and I how I sustain myself so I have not much strength... Oxen and sheep abound in our camp, but was is the only drink we ever have.  Fortunately I have some reserves if strong liquors and of chocolate which prevents my stomach from becoming ruined."

On 11 August, I left Vitebsk at the head of fourteen pieces of artillery  of which eight are in my company and six in that of Fradiel. On the 17th, we bivouacked behind Smolensk, to the right. [Our troops] took the city that day but we were not engaged in the fighting. There was no conflagrations as at Vitebsk but all of inhabitants had fled. At a review, which the Emperor held in a little hamlet on the 23rd, there was not a single spectator present. We continued to live and march in the same manner. Everywhere we mowed down the green grain to feed our horses but most often we found only deserts and smoldering ruins. Thus far I had not seen a single Russian in a house and at the outskirts of Vyazma I thought I perceived clearly that the enemy sought to lure us as far as possible, in order to surprise us dying of hunger and cold. Fire were seen only in the general direction of the army but at great distances to the right and to the left. At night all the horizon seemed aflame. Did not the Emperor perceive the trap the [Russians] were arranging for him? Since nowhere except at Ostrovno and Smolensk did he encounter the enemy. Not the less did the season advance and no one asked himself where he would stop or how would he live on the way back. So I became the bird of bad omen for all the regiment because I loudly predicted that we would never return to France. Habituated to great victories, the army already saw the Emperor entering Moscow and St. Petersburg in triumph and dictating peace. Never did blindness extend so far.

Moyle Sherer - Recolletions of the Peninsula

Born in Southhampton in 1789, Sherer received education at Winchester College and entered the army as an ensign in the 34th Regiment of Foot in 1807. he was soon on his way to the Iberian Peninsula, landing in Lisbon (Portugal) shortly after its liberation from the French.  He spent four years campaigning with his regiment in Portugal and Spain until he was captured by the French in 1813. After the Napoleonic Wars, Sherer continued to served as an office and eventually rose to the rank of captain in the 96th Regiment in 1831 before retiring in 1836. He produced a number of interesting travels accounts and his memoir Recollections of the Peninsula came out in 1823.


The news of this battle of Salamanca [fought on 22 July 1812] made me anxious to join my regiment, still under General Hill, with as much expedition as possible, for it was natural to suppose that this event, and Lord Wellington's advance into the very heart of Spain, would either compel Soult to raise the siege of Cadiz, and retire from Andalusia, or would lead to some offensive movements on our part to free the south from the presence of the enemy.

I left Lisbon for Estremadura, happily unincumbered by any detachment. At Abrantes I met a column of three thousand of the [French] prisoners taken at Salamanca. They were in a very exhausted state, from the length of their march, the heat of the weather, and the want of shoes and other necessaries; and, unlike my friends at Arroyo-de-Molinos, they had neither a word or a laugh to disguise their mortification. I never saw Frenchmen more thoroughly cut down; and, what appeared not a little to increase their vexation, they were escorted by four hundred awkward-looking, ill-appointed Portuguese militia-men, whose air of pride and importance, as they regulated the motions of these " vainqueurs d'Austerlitz," was truly entertaining. It is not generous to exult over fallen foes, but it is difficult to pity them, when your eyes have rested on scenes of desolation and ruin caused by many, perhaps, whose appearance would otherwise interest you in their favour. Not a town or a village had I passed, on my route from Lisbon, but affecting traces of the invasion of this smiling country were every where to be seen. Cottages all roofless and untenanted, the unpruned vine, growing in rank luxuriance over their ruined walls, neglected gardens, the shells of fine houses, half destroyed by fire, convents and churches, too solid to be demolished, standing open and neglected, with the ornametal wood or stone work, which once adorned them, broken down and defaced; all proclaimed silently, but forcibly, that I was travelling through a country which had been the theatre of war, and exposed to the ravages of contending armies. Such are the scenes which, not only in Portugal, but throughout Spain, arrest the eye at every step, and make the Briton, while he sighs over the miseries of the peaceful citizens, and laborious peasants, whose towns and villages have been thus visited by violence and rapine, offer up many a grateful prayer for the secure and heaven-defended position of his happier countrymen.

Captain Elzear Blaze - Education at Fontainebleau Military School

Elzear Jean Luis Joseph Blaze was born at Cavaillon in 1788 and studied at the Fontaineableau Military School. After graduating, he served with the Grande Armee in Poland (1807), Austria (1809), Spain (1811), Russia (1813) and Hamburg (1814). After the Bourbon Restauration, he retired with the rank of captain. He left a number of literary works, including his memoir La vie militaire: sous le premier empire. The text below is based on the 1911 English edition of Blaze's memoirs. 

During the Empire, one could enter the [military] service in three different ways: one could enlist, which was the simplest and least expensive way; one could enroll in the velites; and finally, one could enter the Fontainebleau Military School as a pupil. The Fontainebleau Military School opened its doors for 1,200 francs a year, but the crowd of young men blocked them; everyone could not enter. Those who had not the time to await their turn of admission entered the velites; it was a harder way, one won the epaulet with greater difficulty, but he wore a uniform sooner; at eighteen that meant something.

One must have been a soldier at that time to understand what magic there was in a uniform. What a vision of a glorious future there was in every young head wearing a plume for the first time! Every French soldier carried his baton of marshal of France in his cartridge-box; it was only a question of getting it out. We saw nothing difficult in that; to-day I even think that at that time we would not have limited to that our ambitious dreams.

One thing worried us. "The devil!" we said, "suppose Napoleon should stop when in so fine a way. If he should conceive the unhappy idea of making peace, farewell to all our hopes." Fortunately our fears were not realised, for he cut out more work for us than we were able to perform.

Two weeks after my arrival, I had worked so well that I was considered worthy of mounting guard for the first time. Once installed at the post, the old soldiers who happened to be with me made the enumeration of all the young velites who, in a position equal to mine, had paid for their welcome by treating their comrades at a neighbouring inn. Such a one had done things in fine style; another had behaved like a pekin, he had hardly given enough to drink; one had entertained lavishly: fresh pork-chops, sealed wine, coffee, liqueurs. ... I then decided that I should do as the last mentioned.

That day I wrote my name on the walls, behind the sentry-box, with my bayonet; chance having lately led me to the gate of the Champ-de-Mars, I tried to see if I could still read it; after having sought for a long time, I finally found it all covered with moss. The guard-house luncheon came back to my mind with all its joyous circumstances. Is there left another guest beside me, said I, thinking of all the events that had followed one another in the interval of thirty years. If some old soldier had shown his face burned by the sun of the Pyramids, I should have embraced him heartily; oh! the good dinner we should have had together!
Many velites found the soldier's life tedious: to become officers sooner, they went to the Fontainebleau Military School; I was among the latter. My turn came to go to Fontainebleau. . . . I departed. I was then obliged to recommence my education: in the velites we had mounted drills, there we drilled on foot; from the carbine I had to change to the musket. That was a small matter.

In the imperial guards the hair was worn short in front, and the queue in the back; at the military school we wore the forelock without queue; so that for six months, cut in front or cut in the back, I was always cut; my head remained bald and much resembled that of a choir boy.

General Bellavenne was governor of the Fontainbleau Military School. All those who have known him can say that the place seemed to have been created for him. We considered him strict, but we were wrong; when one has six hundred eighteen-year-old heads to lead, it is difficult to do so without being strict. His alter ego, the brave Kuhmann, seconded him capitally. This epithet of brave had been given him by a man who was a judge, by Napoleon himself. He was a good, excellent Alsatian, who mangled the French language, a stickler on discipline, and thinking only of drills. I can still see him on the threshold of his door, at the moment when the battalion took their arms, making himself taller by three inches, and shouting: "Heads erect, heads erect; immobility in the most beautiful part of the drill!"

At five in the morning, the drum awoke us. The courses in history, geography, mathematics, drawing and fortifications kept us busy from hour to hour; change of work was our relaxation and, to vary our pleasures, four hours of drill, cleverly arranged, divided our day in a most agreeable manner; so that on going to bed, we had our heads full of the heroes of Greece and Rome, of rivers and mountains, of angles and tangents, of trenches and bastions. All these things were a bit mixed in our minds, the drill alone was positive; our shoulders, our knees, and our hands prevented us from mixing it with the rest.

Novels were prohibited at the military school: one of our officers held them in horror. When he walked through the study-rooms, he confiscated everything that looked to him like a novel. He knew the titles of the books we were supposed to have, the remainder was reputed novels, forbidden, and confiscated for good.
The pupils were expected to know Latin; it was not taught at the school; consequently Virgil was not on our officer's list; one evening, in the study room, I was reading the "iEneid"; he stepped behind me, and seized my book as a vulture would carry away a nightingale.
"Another novel!" he exclaimed with a triumphant air.
"You are mistaken, it is Virgil."
"What does that Virgil talk about?"
"Of the siege of Troy, of wars, of battles
"Troy! Troy! It is fabulous; another novel, didn't I say so! Read I'Ecole de Peloton (the platoon school) ; that's the best book to form the youth. If you need diversion, imitate your neighbour. He is acquiring knowledge, he is a young man who employs his time usefully; if he stops the reading, and mighty interesting reading it is, of the roster of 1791, it is to take up books of philosophy; he does not waste his time, as you do, in reading twaddle." And my neighbour was reading Therese Philosophe, a [pornographic] book anything but philosophical.

"See how sharp all those pupils are! To baffle me, they have novels printed in ciphers." This is what our good officer used to say as he confiscated the Tables of Logarithms.

Our mess at the school was the same as that of the soldiers at the barracks: army-bread, and bean alternating with lentil soup; it was the necessary without extra, as you see. The bringing in of all sorts of dainties was prohibited. Young people are greedy, and our minds were always strained in inventing new ways of smuggling. The door keeper, a most strict custom's man, seized everything that had the least resemblance to dainties; they were not taken with the idea of sending them back, but were retained by him, and the Lord knows how watchful he was!

Once a week we went into the forest of Fontainebleau, either to draw plans, or for the cannon manoeuvres. The artillery officers or professors of mathematics with whom we were on those days, much more indulgent than the officers detailed to keep order in the school, permitted us to patronise a swarm of pastry-cooks and miscellaneous food venders who surrounded us with baskets filled with good things, the prices of which soared as the supply decreased.

Just as those who go outside of the barriers to get tipsy, we were unable to bring in anything fraudulently except in our stomachs. On returning we were always examined by piercing eyes, searched by clever hands, and the smugglers were punished. Nevertheless it was disagreeable, after having had poultry, pates and ham ad libitum during one day, to go back the next day to a dish of plain lentils. The difference was enormous, much too decided; to allow of its disappearing by gradual and insensible changes, and to prolong our gastronomic enjoyments, I invented the pates de giberne. This sublimity drew to me from my comrades the most flattering compliments and placed my name among those of the benefactors of the school. You may or may not know how a giberne (cartridge-box) is constructed: it is a leather box containing a piece of wood pierced with holes to receive the cartridges. On leaving the school we had our guns and our cartridge-boxes, but they were empty. One day when, in the forest of Fontainebleau, I was negotiating with all proper seriousness a certain affair with a pastry boy, a luminous idea struck me: the most ordinary men have at times flashes of genius. I took out the piece of wood of which I have just spoken; and showing it to the boy I told him to make pates for us having exactly the same shape. I notified all my comrades. The following week, everyone, before leaving, left the piece of wood pierced with holes under his bed, and we returned to the beat of drums, each with a smuggled pate which we had the pleasure of concealing from the glances of all the custom's men of the school. We repeated this every week. During the time of my stay at Fontainebleau, the secret was well kept. I do not know what took place later, but as everything has an end in the best possible world, even the most useful things, the pates de giberne must have had their day of mourning.

Duels were frequent at the military school. Before I came there fighting was done with the bayonets, but a pupil having been killed, this weapon was suppressed. This was no hindrance: pieces of foils were procured, and if necessary compasses were fastened to the ends of sticks, all this to appear bold. When through a duel one had acquired this title, and could add to it that of smoker, one was at the height of glory.

One fine day, during a review, General Bellavenne announced the names of those who the next day were to depart for the army. Oh! what emotion while he was reading his list! our hearts beat to bursting in our breasts. What joy among the chosen! what anxiety among those whose names had not yet been called! To put on an officer's coat, wear the epaulet, carry a sword, oh! what fine things when one is eighteen! We were privates; a moment after we became officers: a single word had produced this happy metamorphosis. Man is always a child, at all ages he needs a plaything; he often esteems himself according to the coat he wears; he is perhaps right, since the multitude judges according to the clothes. However that may be, with our second-lieutenant's epaulets, we considered ourselves something.

A captain of the school was detailed to conduct us to the Emperor's general headquarters. We travelled post, so we said; the fact is that we were piled by the dozen lots in wagons, and that by going at a walking pace from morning until night we made two stages a day.

In all the towns, our greatest occupation was to have the sentinels present arms to us; nothing was so funny as the serious air and especially the indifference we affected when saluting them; all the old soldiers before whom we passed and repassed ceaselessly must have made great sport of our childishness.

The ambition of each of us was to have a certain rakish air: we smoked, we drank liquor; we imagined that these good habits would give us a military appearance. Our clothes, our epaulets, everything was new, everything was fresh from the shop. We exposed them to the rain and the sun to give them something of the look of the bivouac. In spite of this, the buttons of the school, our beardless faces, betrayed us and Captain Dornier, who marched at our head, showed sufficiently that with our week-old epaulets, we were still but school-boys.

We traveled merrily, for we were young, without cares and full of hope. While going through Prussia, then through Poland, then again through Prussia, now well, now badly, we always laughed.

It was at the birth-place of Copernicus, at Thorn, that we noticed that we were in the neighborhood of Napoleon's army. That city, encumbered with men from almost all the regiments, had half of its houses transformed into hospitals. We were obliged to take lodgings in granaries or in stables; there was nothing available between the two. We were beginning to think that war might possibly not be the most beautiful thing in the world.

The army at that time occupied the cantonment which it had taken after the battle of Eylau, won by the French . . . and by the Russians, as they said. Napoleon was at Finkenstein, reviewing [troops] and repairing the losses of the month of February, imparting to all his extraordinary activity. It is there that for the first time I saw that astonishing man, of whom some have attempted to make a god, and whom certain imbeciles have called a fool. He has proved that he was neither one nor the other. The judgments passed on him to this day have been too close to the events to be free from partiality. For a long time to come it will be impossible to write a good history of Napoleon; for such a thing to be, his contemporaries and their sons will have to be dead; enthusiasm cooled, hatred dead. Then, and not till then, a man free from prejudice, consulting the thousands of volumes already written and those to be, will be able to find truth in the well. Out of these materials, a monument shall arise superb, imperishable. To assist in this grand construction, I bring a grain of sand.