MARSHAL NEY
Commander of the 3rd French Army Corps. The hero of the Retreat
After the picture by Langlois at Versailles
As he saw Bagration’s line driven in, Kutuzov had ordered the 4th Corps also to draw in to the centre. By noon the Russian position was peculiar. Dokhturov on the right and Tuchkov on the left still faced the French in nearly their old positions, while the rest of the army stretched in a convex between them. To drive back Dokhturov and Tuchkov was Napoleon’s next object, and he was about to order forward part of his Guard when, apparently a little after noon, he received intelligence that his left was being attacked.
Early in the day Platov, reconnoitring towards the right, had ascertained that there were comparatively few French troops north of the Kolotza, and had proposed to the commander-in-chief a cavalry attack on their flank and rear. Kutuzov assented, and for the purpose detailed Uvarov’s cavalry corps,[6] some 3500 sabres strong. Clausewitz, who was then on Uvarov’s staff, criticises the movement severely. Certainly 3500 regular, and 4000 irregular, horsemen could not of themselves effect much; but it is a little difficult to concur in his opinion that the detachment of Uvarov’s corps was a rash weakening of the line. It is easier to agree with him when he says that the movement was made too early in the day. Uvarov, however, was very slow and did not cross the Kolotza until past eleven. About 11.30 he approached the Voïna (a little stream which enters the Kolotza at Borodino), at Besubovo, about a mile and a half from the former village. On the Russian side of the stream stood Guyon’s cavalry brigade and a regiment of the Italian Guard, which withdrew over a mill dam before the fire of Uvarov’s artillery to join the rest of the Guard and Delzons’ division, which occupied Borodino. Platov now came up, and his wild horsemen dashed through a ford and among the Italian infantry, followed, without orders, by the Cossacks of the Guard, who lost heavily in charging the squares. Uvarov, however, would not risk his regulars, halted, sent for orders and finally withdrew. Clausewitz’s comment is that he was not the man to lead such an attack. Löwenstern fumes at his slowness and hesitation. More, undoubtedly, might have been achieved with a bolder commander. Even so his feeble diversion brought Eugène back across the Kolotza with Broussier’s division, and delayed the advance against the Great Redoubt. He finally withdrew about 3 p.m., but before this Eugène had returned across the Kolotza.
All this time a tremendous and unprecedented cannonade was being kept up. Between Borodino and Utitza some 900 guns were in action. The Great Redoubt was being furiously bombarded by Eugène’s artillery, while Ney’s batteries brought a converging fire to bear upon it from the southward. To storm it Eugène detailed Gérard’s division, hitherto but lightly engaged, while Morand and Broussier supported; and Napoleon ordered Montbrun, with his Cuirassier divisions, to charge the Russian line on Gérard’s right. Montbrun was killed as he led forward his men, and General Caulaincourt, brother of the Duke of Vicenza, came hastily from the Emperor to take up the command. “Don’t stop to lament!” he said to the dead general’s aides. “Follow and avenge him!” The mass of mail-clad horsemen broke through the Russian line south of the redoubt, wheeled to the left and came thundering upon its rear, just as Eugène’s infantry reached it in front. For the four regiments of Likhachev’s division which held it there was no escape—at least as regards the major part. Some of them who were outside the work succeeded in saving themselves; but those within were trapped and, after maintaining a desperate resistance against the charges in front and rear, were almost all cut to pieces. Likhachev, who was very ill, flung himself among the assailants, and had almost found the death which he sought when some French soldiers, attracted by his insignia, took him prisoner, severely wounded. Caulaincourt was struck down as he led the triumphant charge of his Cuirassiers—one more victim of the fatal “Battle of the Generals.”
The capture of the redoubt opened a huge gap in the Russian line, through which Eugène’s and Grouchy’s cavalry poured to complete the victory. Against them Barclay hurled all the horsemen whom he had under his hand—the 2nd and 3rd Cavalry Corps and the Cuirassiers of the Guard—leading more than one charge in person, while Ostermann-Tolstoï’s corps, supported by the yet unengaged portions of the 5th Corps, was ordered to make a counter-attack towards Semenovskoï. Ostermann-Tolstoï, as he had shown at Ostrovno, was not the man for an emergency; Löwenstern says that he appeared to have entirely lost his head. He moved forward so slowly that Ney, Davout and Murat were able to make preparations to receive him. The French infantry were almost fought out; the cavalry had literally “foamed themselves away” in endeavouring to shatter the resistance of the stubborn Russian infantry; the fire of the Russian artillery was as steady and effective as ever. The Marshals sent again and again for some part of the Guard to support their weary men, but Napoleon refused to risk it. The Russian writers express astonishment at his caution. All that he would do was to send forward the reserve of heavy artillery, under Comte Sorbier. Sorbier swore at Lejeune, who brought the order to advance. “I ought to have had it an hour ago!” was his comment.
The Marshals had got together 80 guns wherewith to oppose the Russian advance; and when Sorbier came up the 4th Corps was overwhelmed with a crushing cannonade, against which it could not make way. Its losses were terrible. General Bakhmetiev had his leg carried away; Ostermann-Tolstoï himself and several of his staff were wounded. The supporting cavalry charged with splendid audacity, and some of them actually re-entered the Semenovskoï redans. All was in vain. Sorbier’s battery had turned the scale against the Russians, and by about 4 o’clock they were in full retreat. The infantry and cavalry on both sides were fairly fought out, and the struggle was maintained only by the artillery, except on the extreme left of the Russian line, where Tuchkov’s force, now commanded by Baggohufwudt, was practically isolated. The Polish Corps, supported by the Westphalians on the left, succeeded about 5 p.m. in carrying the Utitza knoll, and Baggohufwudt, still barring the road, drew back into line with the centre and left. There was a last flicker of hostility near Semenovskoï, where the Finnish Guards repulsed an advance of some French battalions, and then the battle died away in a dwindling cannonade, until a thick fog shrouded in a merciful veil the awful scene of slaughter. The Russian line, reformed by Barclay, stretched from beyond Gorki along the edge of the Tzarévo plateau to the old Moscow road. Four Chasseur regiments, under Colonel Potemkin, were on the right with Platov’s Cossacks. The remains of Dokhturov’s corps, supported by Uvarov, held Gorki. Next came Ostermann-Tolstoï’s corps; and thence Raievski and Borozdin, with Prince Eugen’s and Shakovski’s (late Tuchkov IV’s) divisions, continued the line to Baggohufwudt’s position. The cavalry was in rear, and the 5th Corps in reserve behind the centre. The French lay opposite, Delzons and Lecchi north of the Kolotza and, to the south of the river, the 4th, 3rd, 1st, 8th and 5th Corps in succession from Borodino through Semenovskoï to a point about 1200 yards east of Utitza.
The consensus of opinion of eyewitnesses on the Russian side is that the spirit of the Russians was unbroken, and that there was little confusion in the ranks. Löwenstern says that he offered to attack the Great Redoubt at break of day, and that Barclay approved. Kutuzov, however, when he learned the extent of the slaughter in his army, decided to retreat. It is quite certain that he must have retired in a day or two, since he had no reserves, while Napoleon had 11,000 fresh troops (Laborde and Pino) approaching the field. Barclay, however, was bitterly angry; and when he received the order to retreat broke into a fierce invective against Bennigsen, to whose influence he attributed Kutuzov’s resolution.
Under cover of darkness the Russian army quietly withdrew, and on the 8th took up a position in front of Mozhaïsk. The retreat was effectually covered by the Cossacks, who displayed great audacity, and in the night of the 7th-8th repeatedly disturbed the French bivouacs. The French cavalry, shattered and exhausted, could do little or nothing, and the Russians remained all through the 8th at Mozhaïsk, employing the time in reorganising, and in evacuating towards Moscow as many as possible of their wounded. Nevertheless many were left to inevitable death on the field, and thousands more abandoned at Mozhaïsk to the mercy of the French, who, themselves in a sorely distressed condition, simply cast them out to die of misery in the fields.
Regarding the major tactics of the battle of Borodino there is little to say. Napoleon had deliberately chosen to make a frontal attack upon the Russian army in place of turning it; and in the practical absence of his personal supervision the battle almost fought itself. The idea of taking advantage of the extension of the Russian right by overwhelming the left was an excellent one. It was foiled by the determination of Bagration’s resistance, which permitted Baggohufwudt’s corps to be moved across to his support. On the part of the Russians the occupation in force of the position north of the new road proved a blunder, which the remarkable solidity of the Russian resistance enabled the generals to repair in time.