Through Fire, Frost & Failure

The Russian campaign is the theatre of war for the third volume of this series of compiled French eyewitness accounts from the Napoleonic Wars. Compared to the previously published books, we will follow the story of an Italian officer in the Grande Armée’s fatal expedition to the East. Whilst the French perspective for the 1812 campaign is well represented, testimonies by French allies are often overlooked and, most of the time, have not found the authors to translate them either to French or English. Of the many non-French contingents that marched to the Russian plains, the fate of the Italian IV Corps, led by Napoleon’s stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais, has been described before in the memoirs of engineer officer Eugène Labaume. Now, we have the opportunity to expand our knowledge of the exploits and suffering of this corps through the words of Adjutant-Major Césare de Laugier. This officer’s account has featured before in the brilliant Russia 1812 trilogy written by Paul Britten Austin, however not in full. The following pages will fill in the gap and the text has been expanded with useful notes, where de Laugier’s testimony is compared to those of compatriots and recollections of French soldiers and officers. While the famous military clashes of the campaign are featured, de Laugier pays great attention to the life of the soldiers and their attempts to not only take on their enemies, but also the plethora of illnesses, supply issues, weather conditions, … Topographic descriptions enliven the account as well. The latter however does not negate the narration of the general hardship the men were subjected to. The Russian campaign of 1812 certainly made its mark in history, as it most certainly did on the life of de Laugier.