Napoleon's Wars_ An International History, 1803-1815 - Charles Esdaile [293]
The impact of all this on the local populace was most severe. Among those who awaited the coming of the emperor was the young Sophie Tisenhaus, whose father was one of Vilna’s most ardent supporters of the restoration of Poland:
The French army, as they entered Vilna, had not taken bread for three days. All the bakers in the town were immediately employed in the service of the troops, and . . . want was cruelly felt by the inhabitants of Vilna . . . The country through which the Grand Army had passed had been ravaged and pillaged, and its corn had been cut green for the cavalry; it could not, therefore, supply the needs of the capital, and the people dared not expose their convoys on the roads, which were infested by marauders. Besides, the disorderly behaviour of the army was a consequence of the sentiments of its chief, for, having crossed the Niemen, Napoleon . . . declared to his troops that they were about to set foot on Russian territory . . . In consequence of this proclamation, Lithuania was treated as a hostile country, while its inhabitants, animated by patriotic enthusiasm, flew to welcome the French. They were soon to be despoiled and outraged by those whom they regarded as the instrument of the deliverance of their country, and compelled to abandon their homes and their property to pillage. Many took refuge in the depths of the forests . . . Each day brought the recital of new excesses committed by the French soldiers in the country . . . In the meantime, French arrogance . . . expected all obstacles to be removed, all difficulties to disappear . . . ‘There is no patriotism among you,’ said the French, ‘no energy, no vigour!’8
Nor was pillage the only public relations disaster suffered by the invaders. Thus, Napoleon not only made no announcement of Lithuania’s incorporation into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw but publicly made slighting remarks about the local nobility and bluntly informed a delegation that reached him from the Polish capital that he would do nothing to disturb his relations with the emperor of Austria - that Poland, in short, would never be restored to the totality of 1772. A provisional administration was established in Vilna, but enthusiasm was notably absent. ‘The inhabitants seemed little disposed to respond to the appeals made to their patriotism,’ wrote Caulaincourt. ‘The pillage and disorders of all kinds in which the army had indulged had put the whole countryside to flight. In the towns the more respectable people kept within doors. Whatever the zeal of those Poles who had come with the army, the emperor had to send for any of the responsible persons of Vilna whom he might require, for not a soul presented himself or offered his services.’9 With great effort, a Lithuanian army was eventually formed, but it never amounted to more than 10,000 men, was the product of hunger rather than enthusiasm and hardly saw action before disintegrating in the horrors of the retreat from Moscow. Indeed, even the nobility were slow to come forward: in June the whole district of Vilna ‘could not furnish more than twenty men for Napoleon’s guard of honour’.10
If Napoleon’s policy was bedevilled by contradictions in Vilna, the same was also true in Warsaw. Great hopes had been fostered among Polish nationalists in the run-up to war, and there was much excitement. ‘As soon as the news spread that war had broken out,’ wrote the Countess Potocka, ‘on all sides