Galveston Tribune. (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 32, No. 148, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 16, 1912 Page: 13 of 85
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Be sure to demand this
label, and you ’ll
surely be best
dressed
It means 57 years
of knowing how.
GALvESTOX
TRIBUNE:
CAUSEWAY EDITION.
SECTION TWO.
RETREAT OF
BONAPARTE
■ Napoleon’s Failure At
Moscow Retold.
SPLENDID ARMY
MEETS DISASTER
One Hundred Years Ago Cam-
paign That Ended in Dis-
aster Was Begun.
Two men were arguing hotly, stand-
ing in the garden of a palace. One
spoke earnesily, almost frantically,
begginig the other not to undertake a
certain matter, while the other, a little
stubby, black-haired man, listened, ob-
stinate and unmoved, and only shook
his head, he man who had been speak-
ing looked at him lor, a moment; then
in a fury snatched his own watch from
bis pocket and dashed It to the ground,
exclaiming:
“You will destroy yourself as I have
destroyed that watch; and the time
will come when your family and
friends will not know where to shel-
ter their heads.’’
The man who smashed his watch to
emphasize his argument was Lucien
Bonaparte. He who would not be dis-
suaded was Napoleon. They were dis-
cussing Napoleon's plan to invade Rus-
sia and capture Moscow, which all the
world knows resulted so disastrously.
But Napoleon did not believe such a
thing could happen, and lie refused to
believe that his star was so near its
setting. So it happened that one hun-
dred years ago today he was marshal-
ing an army to lead into the broad do-
min of the czar of all the ltussias.
MARCH BEGAN IN JUNE.
That was in IS 12, and in June of
that year the French army of invasion,
more than 400,000 strong, crossed the
Biver Niemen into Russian territory,
the soldiers shouting with joy. It was
a very different army and a pitifully
smaller one that fought its way back
through the czar's dominions less than
six months later. But now all was
hope and confidence.
During July the French army ad-
vanced steadily, fighting a number of
battles, in all of which they were suc-
cessful. But it was 600 miles to Mos-
cow, a long, hard march, and the very
nature of the country operated as more
of a barrier than did the Russian
troops that defended It. Provisions
were scarce, and often the soldiers had
to subsist by raids on the country
through which the army travelled, a
country none too rich at any time, ana
that year more than unusually barren.
The roads were wretched and the
troops floundered aong through the
mud, daily growing niore and more ex-
hausted. Many dropped out, unable to
keep up with the heart-breaking
march. Horses died by the score.
CAPTURED SMOLENSK.
But the army of invasion kept on.
The city of - Smolensk was reached in
the middle of August, and captured
after a stiff battle, jjiit while the Rus-
sians lost 4,000 men, 1,200 Frenchmen
were killed and 3,000 more wounded.
The Russian forces retreated to-
ward Moscow, and the French caught
up with them early in September.
Preparations' were made to fight and
September 7 a great battle took place.
The sun rose that day at half past
five in a clear sky, after several days
of gray ness and rain, and Napoleon,
early astir, exclaimed, "This is the sun
of Austerlitz!” Then he sent an order
to the troops that bade them;
“Behave yourselves as you did at
Austerlitz, at Friedland, at VVitsepek.
and Smolensk, that the latest posterity
may speak of your conduct this day
With pride and may say of each of you,
'He was at that great battle under the
walls of Moscow.’ ”
'pt A few of the men who followed the
emperor into battle that day returned
to France to tell of it, but there were
more for whom there was no returing
In that battle 30.000 Russians were
killed or wounded and 20,000 followers
of Napoleon. Thirty-five Russian gen-
erals fell and seven generals of the
French army, and even then the French
did not gain Moscow. For the Russian
army had time to retreat that night to-
ward the capital, which it reached
September 13, stopped a day and fled.
The departure of the army was the
signal for setting fire to Moscow.
THE BURNING OF THE CITY.
At first the French troops thought
little of the numerous fires, which
were extinguished almost as promptly
as they were started; then there came
a day of high wind, when in a score
of places' the flames broke out afresh,
started by patriots who preferred to
see their city In ashes to seeing it in
the hands of the French. Every effort
to extinguish the fire was in vain; Na-
poleon himself, leading his men against
the flames, came ‘near meeting his
death. Two hundred residents of the
doomed city who had been caught set-
ting fire to houses were shot by the
French, but the damage was done. Na-
poleon himself fled to a country house
three miles from Moscow. and even
theire he eouic£ feel the heat of the
flames. Describing It afterward, theh
emperor said:
“It was the spectacle of a sea and
billows of fire, a sky and clouds of
flame; mountains of red, rolling flames,
like immense waves of the sea, alter-
nately bursting forth and elevating
themselves to skies of fire and then
sinking into the ocean of flame below.
Oh. it was the most grand, the most
sublime, tne most terrific sight the
world ever beheld.’’
And with the towers of Moscow
crumbled Napoleon’s hopes and plans
for the conquest of Russia. Little
chance was there now of bringing the
“I guess there’s no doubt about what
age were living in,” commented Jo-
seph Marks, a traveling man, at the
Coates House yesterday afternoon, ac-
cording to the Kansas City Star. “It’s
the Sanitary Age,’ and sometimes I’m
not sure the porter on my train com-
ing into Kansas City is far wrong
when he describes the new laws as the
•New Insanity Law.’
“As 1 am travelinig most of the time,
I manage to keep up with the new in-
novations in the crusade againist the
germ fairly well, but I see lqts of
amusing incidents on the Pullman cars
and in hotels, and the man who has to
find a porter and get him to unlock a
glass before he can get a drink, or
has to dry his face and hands on
paper after washing in some of the
hotels, frequently expresses the opin-
ion that he would just as soon take a
chance with the germ and live in com-
fort. as long as he has the best of
the round.
“The most violent denouncer of
modern methods I have seen was on
the train this morning. He came,
with disheveled hair and most of his
clothes under his arm, into the dress-
ing room of the car and described an
extreme degree of thirst, which might
have been caused by drinking some-
thing besides water the night before.
There was no glass.
“ ‘Now, where do you suppose4 that
glass is?,’ be stormed. ‘I guess these
blamed Pullman people are getting
too tight to even provide a glass for
their passengers.
COMPANY PROHIBITED.
"One of the men in thfe car Informed
him that the new law prohibited the
‘ company from leaving a glass out.
‘ ’Against the law? Do you mean to
say our legislature was flimflammed
Into passlnig any such law as that?’
And the man’s wrath was alarming.
■Just another graft of the railroads at
the expense of the public.’
“Then the man wanted to wash. All
the basin were in use except the
small one for brushing teeth The man
turned to that and painfully held the
level down so the weak stream of wat-
er came, but there was no way to
close the bottom of the basin.
“‘Now*what do you know about a
contraption like that? How could a
baby, much less a man, use such a
thing as that?- And his disgust when
told that that also was a device pre-
scribed by the new Sanitation Daw was
boundless.
He wanted to brush his hair and
there was no comb or brush. He was j
too mad even to speak while he tried
to smooth his hair down with his j
fingers, but his lips were moving and i
we "uessed the nature of his remarks. 1
Finally he picked up the whiskbroom j
and combed his hair with that. Then,
with blazinig eyes and a voice so full i
of sarcasm tiiat it shook, he said:
" ’And do they actually still pro- 1
vide the guests with whiskbrooms?
Now we’ll have to wash our faces with
them, too, because the water basins
are not sterilized after each man uses
them.’
“The porter had poked his head be-
tween the curtaiins and was smilinig.
" ‘Hain’t these yere new insanity
laws a sight, boss?’ he remarked.
EXPRESS COMPANY RETICENT.
Officials Refuse to Make Public Sum
Secured by Robbers.
By Associated Press.
New Orleans, May 16.—Express offi-
cers here admitted that the safe con-
tained the following valuables;
Two sacks of silver dollars contain-
ing $1,000 each, one-half dozen pack-
ages of jewelry, one package of bonds,
one package of stock certificates, sev-
eral miscellaneous packages agregat-
ing a few thousand dollars.’’
The officials here are extremely ret-
icent about discussing .the amount of
money and valuables secured by the j
robbers, and dismiss reporters by say- i
ing “Exactly how much the robbers j
secured we will not be able to deter- I
mine until a thorough examination
has been made.”
One of the chief detectives of the
Southern Express Company was on the
train, in a shleeper, but htis name was^
withheld by the company.
Tiie extra guard in the car, whose
presence may be considered confirm-
atory of the reports that the safe con-
tained extra large shipments of cur-
rency company, officials declare was
merely “dead-heading” back to his
home in Chatanooga.
RECLAIMING EL SUD CARGO.
Agent of Steamablp Company Work-
ing at Rockport.
By Associated Press.
Rockport, Tex., May 16.—A Southern
Pacific Steamship Company claim
agent is here recoverin wreckage
from the steamer El Sud, which was
rammed off Galveston harbor April
20. He already has recovered several
barrels of brandy and six bales of
cotton. One hundred bales of cotton,
100 barrels of brandy and several car-
loads of lumber were lost from El
Sud.
FOREIGN WHEAT PLENTIFUL.
Department of Agriculture Says Thera
Will Re No Shortage.
By Associated Press.
Washington, May 16.—The depart-
ment of agriculture summary of the
foreign wheat situation, issued yes-
terday says:
“Taking into account the wheat
crop already secured In the southern
hemisphere and that for the most part
secured in Indian in connection with
the outlook for winter and spring
wheat together in Europe and in Can-
ada, there does not at present seem to
be any reason for aprehension of a
shortage in the foreign portion of the
world’s wheat supply for the coming
harvest year.”
czar to terms. It had been Napoleon’s
plan to winter his army in Moscow,
where warm and well fed they would
be able to recuperate from their long
hard march, and be ready for another
campaign in the spring. Now their
shelter was gone and their food with
it, and to add to their sufferings, the
weather turned cold far earlier than
was usual, even in Russia. Napoleon
sent to the czar asking him for terms
of peace, and tor a little while there
was a truce. Then the czar sent back
word that he desired no peace and
October 17 the fighting began again,
with a battle in which the French lost
2.000 men. A week later came the bat-
tle of Malo Jaroslawitz, in which 4,000
more o fthe followers of Napoleon
were clain, while between 8,000 and
10.000 Russians were killed or wounded.
. BODIES MARKED THE TRAIL. .
At Viazma, a few days later, four
thousand more Frenchmen fell. The
army of Napoleon, reduced to less than
one hundred thousand, was now In full
retreat, and the bitter cold added ter-
ribly to the suffering of the men. The
wretched roads were deep In snow;
the bodies of those who had fallen
along the way served as grisly mile-
stones to the rear guard of the army.
Men threw away their weapons, their
hands too stiff to hold them any longer,
and wandered from the line of march
to perish in the snow or wander away
over the desolate hills to fall a prey
’ to wolves.
Fierce bands of Cossacks rode
through the driving snow. A feeble
volley of musket fire would drive them
away, only to return in a little time
and again attack the straggling lines
of the French army. Men lost their
senses and horrible tales were told of
men who fell, were robbed of what lit-
tle food they might possess and thrust
aside by their comrades to die. A half
dozen Russian horsemen were some-
times enough to throw a whole battal-
ion into confusion, Napoleon said aft-
erward. Parties sent out in advance
wandered about in search of fire or
got into the houses to warm them-
selves, where they fell an easy prey
to the savage Russians, who, clad In
fur and inured to the bitter climate,
circled continually to and fro around
the French line of march.
NAPOLEON WALKED WITH HIS MEN
The little emperor himself plodded
through the snow, taking all the hard-
ships that fell, to the commonest sol-
dier. November 9 the army reached
Smolensk—and only sixty thousand
men survived. Four days they rested
and then the retreat began again.
When they reached the Beresina river
the army was in two distinct bodies.
All the bridges were down. Men set to
work building two temporary bridges
and hardly were they completed when
the Russian general, Wittgenstein, ar-
rived at the bridge, where Napoleon
and his half of the army were en-
camped. The emperor, accompanied
by his chief staff officers and a small
guard, rode across the bridge and was
followed by a miscellaneous crowd of
soldiers, who crowded the bridge in
such numbers that it was soon jammed
and none could cross. Then the Rus-
sians attacked and hundreds of the
French troopers threw themselves into
the river. The Russians set fire to the
bridge and added to the tortures of the
fleeing French. A large part of this
division of the French army was cap-
tured by the Russian forces.
HORSES KEPT THEM ALIVE. '
Thus wretchedly the French army of
invasion came back from Russia—a
crowd of stragglers. Generals, officers
and common soldiers walked side by
sidej cavalry, infantry and artillery
regiments were hopelessly mixed. Each
man carried on his shoulder a bag with
a little meal and a cooking put'hung at
his belt. Others led starved horses,
and when the horses fell they were
torn apart to furnish food for the fam-
ishing soldiers. In little parties of
eight or ten they struggled along, hag-
gard, their faces grimmed by the soot
of camp fires, their hungry eyes look-
ing savagely out from gaunt faces cov-
ered with beards of weeks’ growth.
Their uniforms hung in tatters. They
slept where night overtook them, seek-
ing what shelter they could find from
the wind and snow; sometimes the
shelter was a house or barn, sometimes
only a stone wall. Broiled horseflesh
and snow water kept some of them
alive; thousands mor$ died in the
snow.
So ended in misery the invasion of
Russia that had begun so bravely, and
with its disaster began Napoleon’s
downfall. Within three years the
prophecy that Lucien Bonaparte made
that day he dashed his watch to pieces
on the garden walk came true. ' The
house of Bonaparte had not where to
lay its head.
“CONVENIENCES”
TOO NUMEROUS
One Traveling Man Finds That
They Are Often Really
Inconveniences.
TF you’ll see that the
I STEIN-BLOCH label is
in the Summer suit you buy,
you’ll see yourself looking
easy and breezy and smartly
dressed despite the wilting
weather.
For STEIN-BLOCH, with
their 57 years of experience,
have mastered the art of
tailoring clothes that make
a man both comfortable and
well dressed.
It’s an extravagant habit and
an unnecessary worry to de-
pend on the custom tailor
when such clothes are ready
for you to slip into at an
easily afforded price.
$18 to $3 0
A “try on” in front of our
big mirror will convince
you of the superiority of
these clothes.
This ©tore is Headquarters for High-Grade Furnishings-
Hats—Shoes—Shirts—Neckwear, etc. - at Moderate Prices.
T T has been our experience that in Furnishings too, as we’l as in Clothing, it is unnecessary to spend as much mon-
I ey even to get hkh-grade -stylish goods. Here ap-ain, a little money goes a long ways when spent with good
judgment. We make it our business to search the markets of the country for ihe best values in all tnese
specialties, realizing that the average man is looking for that—Best Values—at modest expenditures.
■v
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Galveston Tribune. (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 32, No. 148, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 16, 1912, newspaper, May 16, 1912; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth871897/m1/13/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting San Jacinto Museum of History.