Napoleon's Campaign in Russia, Anno 1812; Medico-Historical

There is no campaign in the history of the world which has left such a deep impression upon the heart of the people than that of Napoleon in Russia, Anno 1812.

Of the soldiers of other wars who had not come home it was reported where they had ended on the field of honor. Of the great majority of the 600 thousand who had crossed the Niemen in the month of June Anno 1812, there was recorded in the list of their regiments, in the archives “Disappeared during the Retreat” and nothing else.

When the few who had come home, those hollow eyed specters with their frozen hands, were asked about these comrades who had disappeared during the retreat, they could give no information, but they would speak of endless, of never-heard-of sufferings in the icy deserts of the north, of the cruelty of the Cossacks, of the atrocious acts of the Moushiks and the peasants of Lithuania, and, worst of all, of the infernal acts of the people of Wilna. And it would break the heart of those who listened to them.

There is a medical history of the hundreds of thousands who have perished Anno 1812 in Russia from cold, hunger, fatigue or misery.

Such medical history cannot be intelligible without some details of the history of events causing and surrounding the deaths from cold and hunger and fatigue. And such a history I have attempted to write.

Casting a glance on the map on which the battle fields on the march to and from Moscow are marked, we notice that it was not a deep thrust which the attack of the French army had made into the colossus of Russia. From the Niemen to Mohilew, Ostrowno, Polotsk, Krasnoi, the first time, Smolensk, Walutina, Borodino, Conflagration of Moscow, and on the retreat the battles of Winkonow, Jaroslawetz, Wiasma, Vop, Krasnoi, the second time, Beresina, Wilna, Kowno; this is not a great distance, says Paul Holzhausen in his book “Die Deutschen in Russland 1812” but a great piece of history.

Holzhausen, whose book has furnished the most valuable material of which I could avail myself besides the dissertation of von Scherer, the book of Beaupré and the report of Krantz, and numerous monographs, has brought to light valuable papers of soldiers who had returned and had left their remembrances of life of the soldiers during the Russian campaign to their descendants and relatives who had kept these papers a sacred inheritance during one hundred years.

The picture in the foreground of all histories of the Russian campaign is the shadow of the great warrior who led the troops, in whose invincibility all men who followed him Anno 1812 believed and by whom they stood in their soldier’s honor, with a constancy without equal, a steadfastness which merits our admiration.

Three fourths of the whole army belonged to nations whose real interests were in direct opposition to the war against Russia. Notwithstanding that many were aware of this fact, they fought as brave in battle as if their own highest interests were at stake. All wanted to uphold their own honor as men and the honor of their nations. And no matter how the individual soldier was thinking of Napoleon, whether he loved or hated him, there was not a single one in the whole army who did not have implicit confidence in his talent. Wherever the Emperor showed himself the soldiers believed in victory, where he appeared thousands of men shouted from the depth of their heart and with all the power of their voices Vive l’Empereur!