(Painted for The Historians’ History of the World by Thure de Thulstrup)
At that time the fate of the grande armée was already definitively decided. Having lost all hope of the peace he so desired, Napoleon began to prepare for retreat. The defeat of his vanguard at Tarontin on the 6th of October hastened the departure of the French from Moscow; it began in the evening of the same day. Napoleon’s intention was first to move along the old Kaluga road, to join Murat’s vanguard, and then go on to the new Kaluga road; the emperor thus hoped to go round the Russian army and open a free access for himself to Kaluga. But the partisan Seslavin, who had boldly made his way through on to the Borovsk route discovered Napoleon’s movements. Standing behind a tree in the road, he saw the carriage in which was the emperor himself, surrounded by his marshals and his guards. Not satisfied with this exploit, Seslavin besides caught a non-commissioned officer of the Old Guard, who had got separated from the others in the thickness of the wood, bound him, and throwing him across his saddle, galloped off with him.
The intelligence obtained by Seslavin had for consequences the immediate move of Dokhtorov’s corps to Malo-Iaroslavetz; at the same time Kutuzov decided to follow from Tarontin with the whole army, and these arrangements led, on the 12th of October, to the battle near Malo-Iaroslavetz. The town passed from the hands of one side to the other eight times, and although after a conflict of eighteen hours it was finally given up to the French, yet Kutuzov succeeded in opportunely concentrating the whole army to the south of it, at a distance of two and one-half versts.
Here, as Ségur justly remarks, was stopped the conquest of the universe, here vanished the fruits of twenty years of victory and began the destruction of all that Napoleon had hoped to create. The author of this success, Seslavin, writes: “The enemy was forestalled at Malo-Iaroslavetz; the French were exterminated, Russia was saved, Europe set free, and universal peace established: such are the consequences of this great discovery.”
The field-marshal had now to decide the question whether a general battle should be attempted for the annihilation of the French army, or whether endeavours should be made to attain this object by more cautious means. The leader stopped at the latter decision. “It will all fall through without me,” said Kutuzov, in reply to the impatient partisans of decisive action. He expressed his idea more definitely on this occasion to the English general Wilson, who was then at the Russian headquarters: “I prefer to build a ‘golden bridge,’ as you call it, for my adversary, than to put myself in such a position that I might receive a ‘blow on the neck’ from him. Besides this, I again repeat to you what I have already several times told you—I am not at all sure that the complete annihilation of the emperor Napoleon and his army would be such a great benefit to the universe. His inheritance would give the continent not to Russia or any other power, but to that power which now already rules the seas; and then her predominance would be unbearable.” Wilson replied: “Do what you ought, come what may.” The Russian army began to depart on the night between the 13th and 14th of October for Detchina.[g]
Napoleon on the Road to Smolensk
When, on the 14th of October, Kutuzov and his army approached Detchina, Napoleon turned again from Gorodni in the direction of Malo-Iaroslavetz. Half-way there, a report was brought to him which announced that the Russian outposts had quitted this latter town. Napoleon stopped, and, seating himself near a fire which had been lighted in the open: “What design,” he said, “had Kutuzov in abandoning Malo-Iaroslavetz?” He was silent for a moment and then added: “He wants to stop our road to the south.” And, determined as he was not to fight, Napoleon ordered the army to return along the Smolensk road, preferring to contend with want of provisions rather than find himself on the other track, under the necessity of using force in order to pursue the direction he had intended to take when he quitted Moscow. Thus the whole plan of campaign was thwarted and the fortune of Napoleon compromised. From Malo-Iaroslavetz to Waterloo Napoleon’s career presents nothing but a series of defeats, rarely interrupted by a few victories. It was in profound silence and with dejection painted on every visage that the French army, as though under the presentiment of its fatal destiny, retraced the way to Smolensk. Napoleon marched pensive in the midst of his downcast regiments, reckoning with Marshal Berthier the enormous distances to be traversed and the time it must take him to reach Smolensk and Minsk, the only towns on the Vilna road where food and ammunition had been prepared.
Kutuzov, learning on the 14th of October that Napoleon had left Malo-Iaroslavetz, immediately advanced his army on the Miadin road in the direction of some linen factories, and detached Platov with fifteen Cossack regiments and some flying squadrons, that they might inform him of Napoleon’s movements. The next day he received from these squadrons the assurance that the latter was indeed effecting his retreat by the Smolensk route. Thus the manœuvres of Kutuzov were crowned with complete success. Thus it happened that just two months after the 17th of August, the day on which he had assumed command of the armies, the conqueror’s eagles were flying with all speed towards the place whence they had taken flight. The movement carried out on the enemy’s left flank as far as Malo-Iaroslavetz, and thence to the linen factories, disconcerted all Napoleon’s plans, closed to him the road to Kaluga and Iukhnov, and forced him to follow a route which two months before had been ruined from end to end, and which led across deserts that Napoleon seemed to have prepared for himself. The enemy’s army, which still amounted to one hundred thousand men, continued to bear a threatening aspect, but the want of provisions and the attacks it had to repulse must diminish its forces and hasten its disorganisation. Hunger, like a gnawing worm, was exhausting the enemy, while Russian steel completed his destruction. The nearest French magazines were at Smolensk, eight hundred versts away. To cross this distance with the little food he possessed, to suffer an immense loss, and, in addition, to be continually exposed to attacks—such were the exploits now before Napoleon and such was the position in which Kutuzov had placed him.
The question was: How is Napoleon to be pursued? What direction shall the army take in order to derive all the advantage possible from the retreat of the French? To follow the enemy’s steps in columns was impossible without exposing the army to the pangs of hunger. “I think,” said Kutuzov, “that I shall do Napoleon most harm by marching parallel with him and acting on the way according to the movements he may execute.” This happy idea seemed to be a basis for the manœuvres which Kutuzov subsequently effected. He gave orders to the army to march on Viazmabi Kussov, Suleïka, Dubrova, and Bikov; to Miloradovitch to direct his way, with two corps of infantry and two of cavalry, between the army and the route to Smolensk, and to approach this route in the neighbourhood of Gzhatsk, and then, proceeding in the direction of Viazma, along the same road, to take advantage of every favourable opportunity of attacking the enemy; to Platov, who had been reinforced by Paskevitch’s division, to follow the French in the rear; and finally to the guerilla corps to fall on the enemy’s columns in front and in flank. In ordering these dispositions Kutuzov addressed the following order of the day to the army: “Napoleon, who thought only of ardently pursuing a war which has become national, without foreseeing that it might in one moment annihilate his whole army, now finding in every inhabitant a soldier ready to repulse his perfidious seductions, and seeing the firm resolution of the whole population to present, if need be, their breasts to the sword directed against their beloved country—Napoleon, in fine, after having attained the object of his vain and foolhardy thoughts, namely that of shaking all Russia by rendering himself master of Moscow, has suddenly made up his mind to beat a retreat. We are at this moment in pursuit of him, whilst other Russian armies occupy Lithuania anew and are ready to act in concert with us to complete the ruin of the enemy who has ventured to menace Russia. In his flight he abandons his caissons, blows up his projectiles, and covers the ground with the treasures carried off from our churches. Already Napoleon hears murmurs raised by all ranks of his army; already hunger is making itself felt, while desertion and disorder of every kind are manifested amongst the soldiers. Already the voice of our august monarch rings out, crying to us, ‘Extinguish the fire of Moscow in the blood of the enemy. Warriors, let us accomplish that task, and Russia will be content with us—a solid peace will be again established within the circle of her immense frontiers! Brave soldiers of Russia, God will aid us in so righteous an achievement!’”
Immediately, as Kutuzov had ordered, a general movement of the army began in the enemy’s rear. The French left on the road sick, wounded—all this might delay the march of the retiring troops. The cavalry began no longer to show themselves in the rearguard. For lack of food and shoeing the horses became so enfeebled that the cavalry were outdistanced by the infantry, who continued to hasten their retreat. Speed was the enemy’s only means of escaping from the deserts in which no nourishment could be procured, and of reaching the Dnieper, where the French counted on finding some corn magazines, and forming a junction with the corps of Victor and St. Cyr and the battalions on the march, the various columns which were there at the moment, the depots, and a great number of soldiers who had fallen off from the army and were following it. Convinced of the necessity of hurrying their steps, all, from the marshals down to the meanest soldiers, went forward at full speed.