CHAPTER LIX.
Napoleon detaches Murat and other Generals in pursuit of the Russians—Bloody, but indecisive Action, at Valoutina—Barclay de Tolly's defensive system relinquished, and Koutousoff appointed to the chief command of the Russian Army—Napoleon advances from Smolensk—Battle of Borodino fought, on 5th September—Prince Bagration slain—Koutousoff retreats upon Mojaisk, and thence upon Moscow—Napoleon continues his advance on the 12th—Count Rostopchin, Governor of Moscow—His Character—The Russians abandon Moscow, which is evacuated by the Inhabitants—The Grand Russian Army marches through Moscow—Last public Court of Justice held there by Rostopchin, after which he follows the march of the Army.
Without communicating his purpose of advancing in person from Smolensk, and completing, without any interval of delay, his great undertaking, Napoleon failed not to detach Murat, Ney, Junot, and Davoust, in pursuit of the Russians, as they retired from Smolensk. Either, however, his own mind was not made up, or he did not wish his purpose of going onward to be known. He represented this demonstration as arising merely out of the desire of pressing the Russian retreat, though in fact it was preliminary to his own advance.
Barclay de Tolly having performed the stern duty of burning Smolensk, had retired for two or three miles along the road to St. Petersburgh, which route he chose in order to avoid a cannonade from the left side of the Dnieper. Having proceeded a little way in this direction, he turned southward to regain the road to Moscow, which he would have taken at first, but for its exposing him to loss from the enemy's artillery, where it bordered on the river. The French could not for some time determine on which route they were to pursue the Russians. At length, finding the track, they overtook the rear-guard at a place called Valoutina, encumbered as it was with guns and baggage. Here a desperate action took place, the Russians reinforcing their rear-guard as fast as the French brought new bodies to attack them. Both parties fought most obstinately, and the distinguished French general Gudin was mortally wounded. The French blamed Junot,[142] who having been despatched across the Dnieper, showed no alertness in advancing to charge the enemy. There was seen, indeed, in this affair of Valoutina, or Lombino, that the marshals and the great officers who had been accustomed each to command a separate corps d'armée, disdained to receive either orders, or even advice or hints, from a brother of the same rank. Wherever there were two or three of these dignitaries on the field, it was necessary Buonaparte should be within reach, to issue the necessary orders; for no voice save that of the Emperor was implicitly obeyed by all.[143]
ACTION AT VALOUTINA.
In the meantime, the bloody action of Valoutina had an unsatisfactory result. The Russians, whose rear-guard had been attacked, had moved off without losing either guns, prisoners, or baggage. They had lost equal numbers with the French, but the time was fast approaching when they must possess a numerical superiority, and when, of course, an equal loss would tell in favour of the party which was nearest to its resources.[144]
The plan of Barclay de Tolly had hitherto been scrupulously adhered to. All general actions had been cautiously avoided; and while no means were left unemployed to weaken the enemy in partial actions, and to draw him on from swamp to swamp, from conflagration to conflagration, from one wild and waste scene to another of equal sterility and disconsolation, the end had been in a great measure attained, of undermining the force and breaking the moral courage of the invading army, who wandered forward like men in a dream, feeling on all hands a sense of oppressive and stifling opposition, yet unable to encounter any thing substantial which the slumberer can struggle with and overcome. Barclay de Tolly, if he had made some faults by extending his line too much at the commencement of the campaign, and afterwards by his false movements upon Rudneia, had more than atoned for these errors by the dexterity with which he had manœuvred before Smolensk, and the advantages which he had gained over the enemy on various other occasions. But they were now approaching Moscow the Grand, the Sanctified—and the military councils of Russia were about to change their character.
The spirit of the Russians, especially of the new levies, was more and more exasperated at the retreat, which seemed to have no end; and at the style of defence, which seemed only to consist in inflicting on the country, by the hands of Cossacks or Tartars, the very desolation which was perhaps the worst evil they could experience from the French. The natural zeal of the new levies, their confidence and their desire to be led to fight in the cause for which they were enlisted, eagerly declared against further retreat; and they demanded a halt, and a battle under a Russian general, more interested, as they supposed such must be, in the defence of the country, than a German stranger. The Emperor almost alone continued to adhere to the opinion of Barclay de Tolly. But he could not bid defiance to the united voice of his people and his military council. The political causes which demanded a great battle in defence of Moscow, were strong and numerous, and overcame the military reasons which certainly recommended that a risk so tremendous should not be incurred.
In compliance, therefore, with the necessity of the case, the Emperor sacrificed his own opinion. General Koutousoff, an officer high in military esteem among the Russians, was sent for from the corps which had been employed on the Danube against the Turks, to take the chief command of the grand army; and it was to Barclay's great honour, that, thus superseded, he continued to serve with the utmost zeal and good faith in a subordinate situation.
The French were not long of learning that their enemy's system of war was to be changed, and that the new Russian general was to give them battle, the object which they had so long panted for. Buonaparte, who had halted six days at Smolensk, moved from thence on the 24th August, and now pressed forward to join the advanced guard of his army at Gjatz. In this place his followers found a Frenchman who had dwelt long in Russia. They learned from this man the promotion of Koutousoff to the chief command of the army opposed to them, and that he was placed there for the express purpose of giving battle to the French army. The news were confirmed by the manner of a Russian officer, who arrived under some pretext with a flag of truce, but probably to espy the state of the invader's army. There was defiance in the look of this man; and when he was asked by a French general what they would find between Wiazma and Moscow, he answered sternly, "Pultowa." There was, therefore, no doubt, that battle was approaching.[145]