Fightin' and Writin'
2010; Hoover Institution; Issue: 163 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0146-5945
Autores Tópico(s)Military History and Strategy
ResumoWHEN IT COMES to purveying Napoleonic dash, few can match charm and literary flair of Baron de Marbot's memoirs. Marbot was wounded thirteen times on battlefields across continent, by every weapon imaginable: sword cuts, bayonet thrusts, grapeshot. At one point, a cannonball even smashed through his chako. Fighting against Austrians near village of Essling, he recalls in a typical passage, was myself struck in thigh by grapeshot, which tore out a piece of flesh as large as an egg; but wound was not dangerous and I was able to return and report to Marshal: I found him with Emperor who, seeing me covered with blood, remarked, 'Your turn comes round pretty often!' Thus after battle of Austerlitz, we find him on banks of frozen Satschan Lake, where French artillery had been bombarding ice holding fleeing Russians. A wounded Russian sergeant drifts by on an ice floe, appealing for help to Napoleon who is watching. On emperor's command, two French troopers dive in to save Russian, but weight of their uniforms almost drowns them. Having remarked that they ought to have stripped beforehand, Marbot feels compelled to give it a go himself. He resolutely tears off his uniform and plunges into icy waters. With assistance of another trooper, and battling newly formed razor-sharp ice, he manages to get Russian safely back to shore, almost perishing himself in attempt. As he admits, it was not so much love of his fellow man as Napoleon's presence that had motivated him. Another incident features his fiery little mare Lisette, who has a habit of attacking people she does not like, and whom only Marbot can handle. During battle of Eylau, Marbot is sent on a suicide mission to reach a regiment that was encircled by Cossacks with orders for it to retreat. To save themselves proves impossible, and officer in charge asks Marbot to bring their imperial eagle back to emperor. Half-stunned by aforesaid can-nonball, Marbot and Lisette are surrounded by Russians, one of whom plunges a bayonet into her thigh. Her ferocity restored by pain, she sprang at Russian and at one mouthful tore off his nose and all skin of his face, making of him a living deaths head, dripping with blood. Kicking and biting, Lisette knocks over everyone in her path. A Russian officer, who has wounded Marbot in arm and who attempts to hold Lisette's bridle, pays price: The horse seized him by his belly, and carrying him off with ease, bore him out of crush to foot of hillock, where having torn out his entrails and mashed his body under her feet, she leaves him dying in snow. In a final burst, she brings Marbot back to cemetery of Eylau, where both collapse with exhaustion. Here Marbot is assumed dead and stripped of his clothes, until spotted by a valet of Marshal Augereau. In turn, he is reunited with his faithful mare. Unreflective, no intellectual, Marbot is epitome of happy warrior. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called his memoirs the best picture by far of Napoleonic soldier and used him as model for his hussar, Brigadier Gerard. Under heading of Bonaparte's Blessed Fool, Marbot of course rates his own chapter in Warriors, Max Hastings's study of military valor. Marbot's memoirs are a bloody marvelous read, but to modern soldier, exposed to wayside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are about as useful as The Three Musketeers. The war memoir becomes fashionable THE INTEREST IN memoir-writing got a boost with Napoleonic wars, when one went from looking at war mainly as an art to also looking at it as a science. Afterward, theoreticians like Baron de Jomini and Carl von Clausewitz would distill abstract rules, while generals and colonels on all sides would line up to describe it in practice. Not everyone got chance, of course. …
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