The Girl Who Fought Napoleon: A Novel of the Russian Empire (19 page)

Chapter 27

Near the Village of Austerlitz

December 1805

Tsar Alexander arrived in Olmutz in Moravia, fiercely determined to lead his Russian troops. Not willing to talk with anyone who might try to change his mind, he immediately relieved General Kutuzov of his duties.

“I shall make the tactical decisions,” the Tsar informed the general. Kutuzov, an old bear of a man, knew he could not oppose the Tsar even if he thought him an exquisite fool, vainglorious, and misinformed.

“Your Excellency,” Kutuzov protested. “Please allow me to use my experience in the field. I have fought many battles.”

“No, General Kutuzov,” said Alexander. He thought of the last night his father was alive, entertaining the fat general, the two of them laughing together. “I along with General Weyrother, and my aide-de-camp”—he nodded to Dolgoruky, standing beside him—“shall issue the orders. You will execute them according to our wishes.”

“General Weyrother! An Austrian?” gasped Kutuzov. “We should at least wait for reinforcements, Your Majesty. Our troops are exhausted, living on frozen potatoes with no salt. They haven’t the strength to defeat the Grand Armée.”

“It is thinking like this that assures me I am making the right decision,” said Alexander. “You haven’t the grit! Of course we will defeat Napoleon!
Toute de suite!”

Kutuzov rubbed his blind eye in frustration. He could foresee the bloodshed that awaited them.

After Kutuzov was dismissed, Czartoryski begged Alexander to reconsider.

“Listen to General Kutuzov, Your Majesty! Do not attack unless we have reinforcements, I beg you. Wait for the other regiments to reach us. And for God’s sake, Your Excellency, let Kutuzov take command of his troops! He’s a seasoned soldier, a great commander—”

“Bah! General Slowpoke, the fat old man. That’s what our younger Russians call him,” countered Dolgoruky. “The soldiers shall be inspired to have their tsar lead them. No commander has done such since Peter the Great.”

“Hurrah!” said the sycophants who always clustered around the Tsar. “Tsar Alexander shall lead us into battle as Peter the Great did a hundred years ago!”

Czartoryski looked in disgust at the young officers—Lieven, Volkonsky, Gargarin, and in particular Dolgoruky.

These men in their glittering gold braid and spotless uniforms are just new arrivals, cocky and well fed, unlike the starving soldiers who have just marched here, dead with exhaustion.

“You are dismissed, Minister Czartoryski,” said the Tsar.

Czartoryski jerked his chin up with indignation. “Yes, Your Majesty.” He bowed and threw a quick look over his shoulder at Prince Dolgoruky, who sneered at the departing foreign minister.

On the eve of battle, Alexander sent Dolgoruky as emissary to Napoleon.

Prince Peter Dolgoruky rode to the French encampment dressed in his spotless blue uniform, his gold braid shining.

“I requested a meeting with Tsar Alexander himself,” said Napoleon, surveying the arrogant officer who barely tipped his hat as he approached the French emperor.

“Our Supreme Tsar Alexander of Russia will not attend any negotiations with you, sir,” answered Dolgoruky.

“Do not address me like some common soldier, you wet-eared nincompoop!” bellowed Napoleon. “You are addressing the emperor of France.”

Prince Dolgoruky ignored the remark. “Tsar Alexander demands you renounce your claims on the Kingdom of Italy, the left bank of the Rhine, and Belgium. You must evacuate Vienna immediately. Only then will the Tsar of Russia consider meeting you in person.”

“Enough of your arrogance,” snapped Napoleon. “Tell your tsar I am not accustomed to dealing with underlings, especially one with the manners of a cowherd. We shall meet you and your tsar on the battlefield in the morning. Alexander shall rue the day he sent you in his stead!”

A rider in a red-trimmed green uniform, a plume drooping now with soot and scorch, urged his horse forward against the surging tide of men retreating.

“Advance!” cried Tsar Alexander, though he could barely control his horse amid the grapeshot, falling bodies, and roar of cannons. “Advance, I command you!”

Above on the Pratzen plateau the French artillery fired, cannonballs exploding in thick curtains of black dirt. Russian soldiers threw down their guns to run faster, the torrent of mankind crushing the officers who barked orders in vain from their warhorses. Banners heaved and fell into the trodden earth.

Alexander’s mare moved through the broken bodies, bloody hands rising blindly to supplicate for help, forming a sea of waving arms. “Help me!” they cried, as his mare picked up her feet in a dainty dance to avoid their writhing bodies.

“Over here, Your Excellency!” cried Adam Czartoryski. He maneuvered his horse toward the emperor.

“They are—our army is retreating!” cried Alexander in wonderment. “They are retreating!”

“They have no choice, Your Highness,” Czartoryski shouted over the roar of cannons and screams of dying soldiers. “The casualties! We have lost almost a third of our men.”

A half dozen horses beyond them on a picket screamed. A cannonball had landed squarely on the center of the line. The first few fell like toys to the ground, silent. Some reared in panic—others, white eyed, rolled in pain, their intestines spilling out.

Alexander shuddered, vomiting into his rein hand.

“Follow me!” shouted Czartoryski, tugging at Alexander’s rein. “We’ll find cover and I’ll fetch the physician.”

Czartoryski left the Tsar in the care of the imperial physician, James Wylie. Then the Pole wheeled his horse around and galloped back to the Russian battle line.

Alexander sat hunched by an icy ditch under a linden tree, his head buried in his hands, sobbing.

“Your Majesty?” asked Doctor Wylie.

Alexander choked. This doctor, this voice. The hands who had dressed the corpse of his father.

“Please remount, sire,” said the doctor. “We must move from this spot.”

“Leave me be!”

The doctor looked at the young squire who stood nearby, holding the Tsar’s mare.

“There is a hamlet just a few versts away,” said the young squire. “Please, I beg you to remount, Your Majesty.”

The sobs had turned to convulsions, the Tsar now desperately ill.

“We have to get him to shelter,” said the doctor to the squire. “I will prepare a potion to calm him. His Majesty is ill.” He turned again to the Tsar, authority creeping into his voice. “You must remount. The Grand Armée is advancing.”

Little by little the doctor and squire managed to coax the Tsar onto his mare. The squire jumped his horse back and forth across the little ditch as an example, urging the shaken emperor to follow close behind.

Then the squire rode on to find shelter in the hamlet.

“This is all we can manage?” asked the doctor when he arrived with the Tsar at a peasant’s hut that the squire had found.

“The Austrians have requisitioned all the other buildings,” said the young man.

“Outrageous!” said Doctor Wylie. He turned to see the Tsar hunched in his saddle, listing to one side, about to fall.

“All right. Strew the floor with straw. Keep watch while I find wine for the medicine.”

King Charles of Austria was housed in the same town. The doctor pounded on the door of his temporary residence. “Open up in the name of Tsar Alexander of Russia!”

After several minutes the door finally unlatched.

“Please!” said an Austrian aide-de-camp. “I beg you not to make such noise! The king of Austria sleeps.”

“Give me wine and I shall stop my bellowing. I need to prepare the Tsar’s medication.”

“Wine? Oh, no, sir!” said the officer. “I cannot procure wine from the king’s storeroom without his express permission. And I cannot wake him, of course.”

“You must! This is the Tsar of Russia, your ally!”

“Please go away. The king of Austria must not be disturbed.”

“Did you not hear me? The wine is for the Tsar of Russia, Alexander I!”

“Go away, I must insist!”

Doctor Wylie rode away, his heart pulsing in rage. A few minutes away he found a campfire surrounded by Cossacks.

“Please!” he implored the men. He looked at their dirty faces, scarred and bloody. One had lost his eye, and another writhed on a filthy blanket.

“Please give me a draft of wine that I might make the Tsar a potion!”

The eldest man, dressed in a dirty blue
chekmen
, nodded. He lurched to his feet in agony, staggering forward. He reached for a bladder tied up in his leather kit, giving it to the doctor.

“To our Tsar’s health,” he croaked, his arm shaking wildly as he made his offering.

The doctor nodded solemnly, accepting the old Cossack’s gift to an emperor.

Back at the hovel, he prepared a draft of opium in the wretched wine.

“Drink, I beg you, Your Excellency,” the doctor said. “You will wake refreshed.”

The first news that reached St. Petersburg was that Austerlitz was a Russian victory. As Alexander rode back into the capital, citizens lauded him and peasants kissed his boots.

It was not long before the truth became known. With thousands of casualties, the defeat hit Russia hard.

Czartoryski penned a letter to his friend Tsar Alexander, reproaching him for pushing General Kutuzov aside and for his own vainglorious but useless presence on the battlefield. Alexander received the missive and read, his hands shaking with emotion:

. . . instead of moving ahead to the advance posts, or later exposing yourself in front of the columns, Your Majesty, far from helping, if I may speak the truth.

The Tsar closed his eyes, shaking with emotion. Of course that impertinent Pole would speak the truth. He always had—even to the detriment of their friendship:

You only upset and impeded the generals. It would have been better had Your Majesty stayed clear and let the army march forward without you. You were a distraction and the charm of your accompaniment lost its power. It was precisely at that place in the battlefield of Austerlitz where you rode that the rout was so immediate and complete. Yes, Your Majesty had his share of that chaos, but you ought to have hastily ridden away from the engagement without demonstrating your terror. To see your predicament only increased the sense of panicked retreat and general demoralization.