At 4 o'clock on the morning of the 7th the French advanced under cover of a thick fog, and assaulted at once the centre, the right, and the left of Kutusoff's position. Such was the impetuosity of the charge that they drove the Russians from their redoubts but this was for a short time only as they rallied under every line of the fire from the French, and instantly advanced. Russian peasants who, till that hour, had never seen war, and who still wore their usual rustic dress, distinguished only by a cross sewed on it in front, threw themselves into the thickest of the combat. As they fell, others rushed on and filled their places. Some idea may be formed of the obstinacy of the contest from the fact that one division of the Russians which mustered 30,000 in the morning only 8,000 survived. These men had fought in close order, and unshaken, under the fire of eighty pieces of artillery. The Russians had the advantage of ground, of speaking but one language, of one uniform, of being a single nation, and fighting for the same cause. By 2 o'clock, however, according to the imperial bulletin, all hope had abandoned the enemy; the battle was at an end, although the cannonade was not yet discontinued. The Russians fought for their retreat and safety, but no longer for the victory.
The result of this terrible day, in which the French fired sixty-six thousand cannon balls, was that while the Russians were defeated they were far from routed. "However great may have been the success of this day," says Ségur, "it might have been still more so if Napoleon, instead of finishing the battle at 4 o'clock in the afternoon had profited by the remainder of the day to bring his Guard into the field, and thus changed the defeat of the enemy into a complete rout."
That the Emperor suffered intensely during the day is well-known. He had passed a restless night and a violent and incessant cough cut short his breathing.
As to his desire of preserving a reserve uninjured, and forming it from a chosen and devoted body, such as his Guard, Napoleon explained it to his marshals by saying: "And if there should be a second battle tomorrow, what could I oppose to it?"
General Gourgaud has added: "If the Guard had been destroyed at the battle of Moskowa, the French army, of which their guard constantly formed the core, and whose courage it supported during the retreat, could scarcely have ever repassed the Niemen."
This refusal of Napoleon to engage his Guard is generally held to have been one of his greatest military lapses. At the time they were demanded by Ney and others the enemy was all but beaten and the appearance of the Emperor at their head would in all probability have closed the day with a great victory to his credit, and, according to the opinions of many military men of this day, have ended the Russian campaign by this one battle.
Night found either army on the ground they had occupied at daybreak. The number of guns and prisoners taken by the French and the Russians was about equal; and of either host there had fallen not less than 40,000 men. Some accounts give the total number of the slain as 100,000.
The Russian commander fought desperately but was at last compelled to retire. His army was the mainstay of the country and had it been destroyed, the Czar would have found it difficult to form another. Having ascertained then the extent of his loss and buried his dead, among whom was the gallant Bagration, the Russian withdrew from his intrenchment and marched on Mojaisk. Marshal Ney was rewarded for the noble share he had in the success of this battle, by the title of Prince of the Moskowa.
The small number of prisoners taken at Moskowa,—or Borodino as the battle is frequently called,—the circumstance of the Russians being able to carry away their wounded, and many other considerations amply prove that such another contest would have ruined Napoleon. The Russians ordered Te Deums to be chanted at Moscow in honor of what they termed a victory for themselves and Napoleon sent similar instructions to his bishops in France.