‘That’s right.’ Napoleon regarded the man carefully. Montfort’s left hand was twitching at his side. Napoleon patted him on the shoulder and smiled reassuringly. ‘Just do your duty, Colonel, and we’ll all be able to thumb our noses at the enemy, eh?’
The soldiers continued to file across the bridge as the last hours of the morning passed, until only the rearguard, some twenty thousand men, remained on the eastern bank. The sounds of fighting gradually drew closer to the bridge but Poniatowski reported that the rearguard was falling back in good order. Then, shortly before one o’clock, a party of Austrian soldiers appeared at the windows of a house overlooking the river. At once they opened fire on the men crossing the bridge. The range was long, and most of the rounds cracked into the stonework or zipped over the heads of the intended targets. Only a handful of men were struck, but it still caused a ripple of panic amongst those packed on the bridge.
Napoleon saw the danger at once and hurried over to the nearest gun covering the bridge, close to the position where the engineers stood by their fuse.
‘Sergeant! You see that house there?’ Napoleon pointed across the river, and a moment later there was a flash and a puff of smoke from one of the windows.
‘I see ’em, sire.’The sergeant nodded.
‘Then traverse your gun and put some case shot through those windows,’ Napoleon ordered.
‘With pleasure, sire.’
As soon as the gun was laid, and the elevation screw adjusted, the sergeant ordered his crew back and touched the portfire to the fuse cone. The field gun kicked back as a short jet of flame stabbed towards the house. Glass shattered and plaster exploded from the wall, splashing down into the river below. As Napoleon had hoped, the enemy musket fire ceased for an instant, but then a musket barrel appeared at the window and a shot was fired. The ball smacked into the bridge close by Colonel Montfort and he cried out as a stone chip grazed his cheek.
‘Sweet Jesus!’ he shouted, eyes wide with fear.‘The enemy are on us!’ He turned quickly to one of his men, no more than a youth, holding the smouldering taper. ‘Light the fuse! Do it now!’
Then he turned and scrambled up the bank, brushing past Napoleon as he ran along the causeway. Another shot struck the surface of the river close to the young engineer and he ducked and lit the end of the fuse.
‘No! Don’t!’ Napoleon shouted, thrusting out his hands.
There was a bright flare, and then the spark raced along the fuse, hissing and spitting like a demon as it followed the loops of cord towards the central arches of the bridge. One of the guardsmen escorting Napoleon grabbed his sleeve and hauled him away.
‘Take cover, sire!’
They stumbled across the bank of the river, making for the shelter of a low stone wall. The guardsman heaved Napoleon over the wall and dived after him, just as there was a blinding flash that shot jets of flame and smoke into the air. The concussion hit them with a deafening roar. Napoleon glanced up and saw chunks of masonry, men and limbs blasted into the air, where they hung for an instant before tumbling back down. A slab of paving smashed through the tiled roof of the house adjoining the wall.
For a moment Napoleon sat on his hands and knees, stunned by the ferocity of the blast. Then he scrambled up and looked over the wall. The central arches of the bridge had gone and the water beneath was churning as the lighter bits of debris rained down. A gap nearly a hundred feet wide had been blown out of the bridge and on either end the stonework was scorched black. Further back the bodies of his men lay heaped on the cobbles of the roadway. Here and there a dazed survivor struggled to free himself from the bloody carnage. On the far bank a crowd of men stood and stared, aghast. Their only escape route from Leipzig was gone. A collective groan reached Napoleon’s ears from across the river.
‘Oh, shit,’ the guardsman muttered. ‘They’re fucked.’
Napoleon nodded. Already he could hear the sounds of musketry increasing in intensity as the enemy pressed forward against the French rearguard. Some of the men on the far bank looked round anxiously and then the first of them threw down his musket and struggled out of his backpack. Stripped down to shirt, breeches and boots, he clambered down into the current and struck out for the opposite bank. More followed suit, some clinging to small kegs and other items that would give them buoyancy. Most made it across, heaving themselves up on to the grassy bank either side of Napoleon. Some, poor swimmers or injured, were carried away by the current, and thrashed for a moment before being dragged beneath the surface by the weight of their uniforms and equipment.
‘Look!’ The guardsman thrust out his arm. ‘Look there, sire. It’s Marshal Poniatowski!’
Napoleon scanned the far bank and quickly caught sight of the marshal, his left arm in a sling, urging his horse through the throng, accompanied by a handful of his staff officers. All around him the French soldiers were throwing down their muskets and waiting to be taken prisoner. Poniatowski reached the edge of the river and reined in, gazing down at the men attempting to swim across the current. He looked up, in Napoleon’s direction. For an instant Napoleon stared back, his first impulse bitterness to see the capture of such a fine officer. Just when France needed every worthy man, to save her from her enemies.
Napoleon cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted,‘Swim for it!’
He saw Poniatowski nod and turn to his officers. The nearest shook his head and there was a heated exchange before Poniatowski waved his uninjured hand dismissively, grasped his reins and spurred his mount down the bank into the river. The horse slithered the last few feet and splashed into the water, kicking out for the far bank. Poniatowski leaned forward, urging it on as he clung to the reins with his good hand. Napoleon watched, willing them on. Enemy soldiers further along the river bank were busy firing at the hundreds of Frenchmen in the current, struggling to escape captivity. Spouts of water leaped into the air amid the splashing from flailing arms and legs. Just as the marshal reached the middle of the river his horse was hit in the neck. There was a welter of blood, and the animal thrashed wildly, rearing up in the water. Poniatowski was thrown from his saddle and Napoleon watched helplessly as the man’s head surfaced a short distance downstream from the stricken horse. The Pole managed a few desperate strokes with his good arm, and then slid beneath the whirling eddies and splashes of the surface and was gone.
Napoleon desperately looked for any further sign of him, to no avail, and then took a deep breath. Poniatowski was lost to him, together with scores more of his most experienced generals and over twenty thousand men and all their cannon, equipment and stores.
The campaign was lost. The thought struck him like a physical blow, dazing him momentarily. This was the kind of crushing defeat he had inflicted on his enemies in the past. He had been humbled. Napoleon felt sickened by the realisation. There was nothing he could do to save his empire east of the Rhine. The Grand Army would have to retreat, leaving behind tens of thousands of men still holding out in the towns and fortresses of Prussia and the other German states.
He needed time to prepare for what was to come. The war to hold the French empire together was lost. Soon, very soon, Napoleon and his battered and weary men would be forced to fight for the very survival of France.
Chapter 45
Arthur
St-Jean-de-Luz, 10 November 1813
As he rode through the camp of the Light Division that night, Arthur could see the good humour in the faces of the men, lit warm and red by the glow of the camp fires. The week’s fighting had gone well and Soult’s line of forts barring the way into France had been successfully stormed with a combination of courage and audacity that had warmed Arthur’s heart. The allied army had crossed the Bidassoa and Nivelle rivers and crossed the enemy’s border. They were now settling in for the night on French soil, and the thought filled Arthur with pride. Even so, he was already planning the next stage of his campaign. Bonaparte was unlikely to tolerate the damage done to his prestige by the incursion across the border from Spain. The French Emperor would be sure to order his forces to hurl Arthur and his soldiers back across the frontier.