Others of the Imperial orders were simply incapable of execution. One of them, for example, gives directions for exploring the country for two or three leagues on each side of the highway so as to find parallel roads passing by villages and cultivated tracts. It would have been extremely difficult to find such roads in fertile and well-peopled Germany, and to expect to discover them in Russia was merely absurd. As a fact, had they existed, the country was laid waste for a breadth of forty or fifty miles by the destructive passage of two great armies. The only criticisms that can be made in reading this order is that Napoleon’s intellect was either failing or so affected by pride and over-confidence as to be fatally debilitated.
Yet in spite of his fatal optimism Napoleon was growing uneasy. On his return to Moscow he induced Tutulmin, the director of the Foundling Hospital, to be the bearer of a letter to Alexander. It was a diplomatic document after Napoleon’s fashion, compounded of blandishments and threats; a characteristic touch is the careful detailing of the war material which has been captured. The Tzar would not deign to reply. Napoleon waited for a fortnight and then sent General Lauriston to endeavour to open negotiations with Kutuzov.
However, gloomy as the prospect might appear to intelligent observers, the bulk of the army was at rest, and, save in the vital matter of horses, increasing in strength. During the latter half of September there entered Moscow Laborde’s division, the 1st battalion of Hesse-Darmstadt Guards, three battalions of the 33rd Léger, and several régiments de marche—in all some 10,000 infantry and over 4000 cavalry. In the first half of October there arrived nearly 17,000 men—régiments de marche, mostly infantry, and the battalions which had been left in garrison at Orsha, Dorogobuzh, Viasma, and elsewhere. The muster rolls were also swelled by a certain number of convalescents. The fighting strength of the 5th and 8th Corps, which were harassed by constant skirmishing, remained stationary or declined; and the number of mounted horsemen steadily dwindled. But in the 1st and 3rd Corps there was a steady increase in the numbers of the infantry and artillery. Reinforcements of artillery also arrived; there were, indeed, more guns in Moscow than the enfeebled teams could draw.
The movements of the French main army during this period of comparative quiescence were not very important. Eugène early in October pushed an advance-guard to Dmitrov, some miles north of Moscow, while Ney moved to Boghorodsk, about 25 miles eastward on the road to Vladimir. The Russian cavalry screen, under Winzingerode, gave back before the advance of the French columns, and there was little fighting. Ney ordered the construction of barracks for winter quarters at Boghorodsk, but De Fezensac pessimistically remarks that the sham deceived nobody. Ney and Eugène were soon recalled to Moscow, and the entire army, except Murat’s advance-guard, was concentrated there on the 15th.
Meanwhile Murat, isolated on the Chernishnia at a distance of nearly 50 miles from the main army, and with a vastly superior army in his front, was in a position of great danger. The peril was aggravated by the scantiness of supplies and by the lack of forage, which was steadily killing the over-worked horses. Skirmishing was continually taking place, with general ill fortune to the invaders. Foraging parties had to be pushed farther and farther afield, and needed larger and larger escorts to protect them against the enterprising regular and irregular cavalry of the Russians. On one occasion a foraging party of Dragoons of the Guard, under Major Marthod, accompanied by a detachment of the 33rd Léger, was attacked and cut up. On October 9th Colonel Kudachev with two regiments of Cossacks made a successful attack upon a large foraging party, and carried off 200 prisoners. Similar skirmishes were continually occurring. On October 10th Dorokhov, who had been reinforced by five battalions and some more cavalry and artillery, stormed Vereia, killing or capturing its garrison of 500 Westphalians, and thus establishing himself dangerously near the Moscow-Smolensk road.
It has been seen that on October 4th Kutuzov had begun to entrench himself at Tarutino. Bennigsen criticises the position severely. The Nara in its front was everywhere fordable, and on the left there were some unoccupied heights which might be seized by an assailant. However, as matters went, there was little fear of an immediate attack, and the Russians were so strong in cavalry that they could obtain early warning of any move of the French from Moscow.
Soon after reaching Tarutino Barclay left the army. He had been deeply wounded by the rancorous attacks made upon him by the ultra Russians, and his relations with Bennigsen were very strained. Kutuzov had treated him with great respect, and after Borodino had given him the chief command of both Russian armies. But when a supreme commander is present at the head-quarters of an army difficulties are certain to arise. In 1864 the presence of General Grant with Meade’s army of the Potomac did not make for unity of command, though both officers were men of the finest character. Barclay soon found his position intolerable, and resigned. He was bitterly hurt, and told Clausewitz, who had just been appointed to a post on Wittgenstein’s staff, that he might thank heaven that he was well out of it. It is impossible not to sympathise with him, and at the same time not difficult to see that his departure made for unity of command. Whether Kutuzov was the right man for the post of commander-in-chief is another question. Barclay was abominably ill-treated and insulted by the populace on his way to St. Petersburg, but Alexander never lost confidence in him, and he emerged from his retirement in 1813 to take command of the Russian armies in Germany. His departure occasioned a show at least of regret among the officers of the army, many of whom perhaps felt conscience-stricken at the memory of ill-conditioned murmuring and mutiny. Most of the generals came to bid him farewell; and Yermólov, who had been his worst and most treacherous enemy, actually wept—an episode to which allusion has elsewhere been made.
On the 24th of September, at a mansion on the road to Vladimir, Bagration died. It is probable that travelling on the bad Russian roads had brought on gangrene. On his death-bed he was visited by Wilson, who was returning from his visit to Alexander. The Tzar, very wisely, had judged it best to overlook the insubordination of the generals, and had sent by Wilson the strongest assurances of his determination to continue the resistance. He would, he said, sooner let his beard grow to the waist and eat potatoes in Siberia, than permit any negotiations so long as an armed Frenchman remained in Russia. The language may perhaps be thought a little high-flown, but it possesses dignity in that it was the expression of the firm resolution of the united Russian nation. To the dying soldier Wilson repeated the brave words of the Tzar. Bagration pressed his hand convulsively. “Dear general,” he said, “you have made me die happy, for now Russia will assuredly not be dishonoured. Accipio solatium mortis.” So passes from the scene the fine Georgian soldier whose life had been spent in faithful service to his adopted country. Wilson eulogises his good qualities, the kindness and graciousness which his fiery temper perhaps at times concealed, his generosity and chivalrous courage. Wilson was his devoted admirer—the two had much in common. But in sober fact Bagration, whatever his faults, had ever proved himself a worthy descendant of the warrior-kings of the Bagratid line; and having adopted Russia, the steady protector of the Caucasian Christians, as his country, he had served her faithfully to the end. It is difficult not to feel a sense of decline in passing from Barclay, the simple, devoted servant of his country, and Bagration, the chivalrous descendant of kings, to the caution and cunning of the pleasure-loving old aristocrat Kutuzov, and the hardly disguised self-seeking of the soldier of fortune Bennigsen.
Kutuzov, from the field of Borodino, had sent a first brief and hasty despatch stating that he had held his own and captured some guns. As has been seen, the statement was only true in a general sense, since the Russian troops had certainly been driven back a short distance. This report was perhaps hurriedly penned in the exultation of finding that he had fought the terrible conqueror for a long day without real ill-success. A second despatch told the truth or something near it, describing the battle as a drawn one—which it tactically was—estimating Napoleon’s loss as probably the greater, and insisting upon the necessity of retreating in order to reorganise after the tremendous losses. A third despatch attributed the chief merit of the balanced success of the day to Barclay and Bennigsen. Alexander did not publish the second despatch—whether wisely or not it is difficult for an Englishman to judge. Kutuzov was promoted Field Marshal, and received a grant of 100,000 rúbles. Barclay was decorated with the order of St. George (2nd Class), and Bennigsen with that of St. Vladimir (1st Class). Bagration, who wore all the Orders of Russia, received a grant of 50,000 rúbles. Miloradovich, Dokhturov, Ostermann, and Raievski received the order of St. Alexander Nevski. Each soldier was awarded a gratuity of 5 rúbles—which, it may be hoped, was paid in silver, not in the depreciated paper currency.
When in the midst of announcements of victory and of rewards the news arrived that Moscow had been abandoned, the discouragement was naturally great. In the army itself Kutuzov certainly felt very dubious of success. At St. Petersburg the state archives were sent into the interior, and the fleet was sent to winter in England. The Empress Dowager, the Grand Duke Constantine, and the Grand Chancellor Rumiantzev, were strongly in favour of peace; but neither domestic nor political pressure, nor public alarm, appear to have shaken for a moment the stern resolution of the commonly yielding, sensitive, and dreamy Tzar.