ing the "good battle" for which he so
longed. The older officers with long memories compared the Russian
Smolensk with the Syrian Acre. Murat had foreseen that an affair at
Smolensk would amount to nothing, and had begged Napoleon to avoid a
conflict. Rapp came in after the victory, and recalled the scenes of
distress which had marked every step of his long journey from the
Niemen: the numerous victims of dysentery and typhus who lay dying
along the roadsides, the desperate bands of marauders and deserters
who were eking out a doubtful existence by ravaging the villages, the
maddened hordes of peasants and tradespeople who were shooting or
striking down the enfeebled stragglers from the army like bullocks in
the shambles. Recounting all these horrors, he pleaded with the
Emperor to desist. But Napoleon remembered that his transport barges
had been wrecked on the river bars, and that his wagon-trains were
without horses or oxen to draw them. The counterfeit paper money he
had brought from Paris would no longer pass; where was he to find
sustenance for his still numerous force of a hundred and eighty-five
thousand men at least? Only by pressing on to some populous city; and
on the twenty-fourth his army was in motion eastward. If Alexander
could be brought to terms, he would yield more quickly with one of his
capitals in the enemy's grasp. In the attempt to form a calm judgment
concerning this conclusion it must be remembered that the French base
was secure; there were garrisons of about fourteen thousand men each
in Vitebsk, Orscha, and Mohileff; another was left at Smolensk. 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.
If the great captain had halted at Smolensk and strengthened himself
on the double line of the Dwina and Dnieper, as was perhaps possible
in spite of all difficulties, he would have been quite as strong in a
military way as before Austerlitz or Eylau. But had Russia learned
nothing from these two experiences, and would she come on again a
third time as on those two occasions to certain defeat? To have acted
on the affirmative hypothesis would have been to expect much. The Czar
would rather take time to raise the whole nation; if need be, to
organize, discipline, and drill his numerous levies; to wear out the
patience of the invaders and strik