Authors: Adam Zamoyski
Kutuzov’s northern or right wing, up to and including the Raevsky redoubt, was manned by Barclay’s First Army. The entrenched batteries were protected by screens of
jaeger
light infantry, skirmisher sharpshooters like the French
tirailleurs
, occupying forward positions in the village of Borodino and dispersed throughout the bushes and brushwood along the banks of the Kolocha, then by massed ranks of infantry drawn up in columns and by units of cavalry, deployed in
front of the earthworks. Behind, Barclay had a strong cavalry force in the shape of General Fyodor Uvarov’s corps and Platov’s cossacks, as well as a number of infantry reserves to call on. This sector was thus more than adequately defended.
The same could not be said of the centre and left, occupied by Bagration with his Second Army. Bagration, with no more than about 25,000 men at his immediate disposal, was seriously overstretched, and the positions he was occupying were poor in natural defences. The only obstacles his attackers would face were the marshy ground in the area at the confluence of the Kamionka and Semeonovka streams, the waist-high walls of the dismantled village of Semeonovskoie, and the three hurriedly built
flèches
. Kutuzov reinforced the southern wing with General Nikolai Alekseievich Tuchkov’s 3rd Corps, consisting of eight thousand regulars, seven thousand Moscow militia and 1500 cossacks, which he positioned in the woods behind the village of Utitsa. They were concealed from the enemy, and were to remain so until the last moment, as their purpose was to suddenly rise up and launch a flank attack at any French force that tried to turn Bagration’s flank.
Both Bennigsen and Barclay, neither of whom had been informed of the Tuchkov ruse, saw the weakness of the left wing and badgered Kutuzov to reinforce it. Characteristically, he listened to them but said and did nothing. In this case, his disdain for his subordinates worked against him. While riding around the positions later that day, Bennigsen stumbled on Tuchkov’s corps and, as its purpose had not been explained to him, proceeded to reposition it, bringing it out into the open further forward and making it close up with Bagration’s left flank. ‘I have resorted to artifice to strengthen the one weak sector in my line, on the left wing,’ Kutuzov wrote to the Tsar that evening, unaware that his ambush had been dismantled. ‘I only hope that the enemy will attack our frontal positions: if he does, then I am confident that we shall win.’ To Rostopchin he wrote assuring him that if he were beaten he would fall back on Moscow and stake everything on a defence of the ancient capital.
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Had Napoleon been in anything approaching his usual form, Kutuzov would undoubtedly have been routed and the Russian army destroyed. Kutuzov had taken up entirely passive positions which did not give him much scope for manoeuvre and were flawed by the weak underbelly to the south of the Raevsky redoubt. He had compounded the problem by overmanning his right wing, which Napoleon was evidently ignoring, and leaving his vulnerable left wing seriously denuded. Luckily for him, Napoleon was to deliver probably the most lacklustre performance of his military career.
The Emperor had also been busy reconnoitring the field. He was in the saddle at two o’clock in the morning. Accompanied by a suite of staff officers, he had gone to see the redoubt captured the night before, and then rode along the whole line, dismounting several times to observe various points along the Russian line through his telescope. He could not get a clear enough view, and, as it later turned out, made some mistaken assumptions about the terrain. He did not get back to his tent until nine o’clock that morning, and spent the next few hours poring over maps and figures.
He was feeling ill. He had caught a cold, and this had precipitated an attack of dysuria, a condition affecting the bladder from which he suffered periodically. On the previous night he had summoned his personal physician, Dr Mestivier, who had noted that Napoleon had a bad cough and was breathing with difficulty. He could only pass water with great pain, and the urine came in drops, thick with sediment. His legs had swollen and his pulse was feverish. The Emperor’s valet, Constant, recorded that his master had shivering fits and complained of feeling sick. Others noted similar complaints, and all those around him could see that he was unwell over the three vital days of 5, 6 and 7 September.
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At two o’clock that afternoon Napoleon rode out once more for a final survey of the enemy’s positions, during which he explained to his marshals his plan for the morrow. He had spotted the weakness of the Russian left wing, and meant to exploit it. Davout and Ney were to attack the
flèches
(Napoleon had only spotted two of them through
his telescope) while Poniatowski turned the Russian left wing, and then all three, supported by Junot, were to roll up the whole Russian army in a northerly direction, pinning it against the Moskva river and annihilating it completely. Davout suggested an even deeper flanking move, to be delivered by himself and Poniatowski while Ney tied down the Russians, which would have achieved even more spectacular results with greater economy.
But Napoleon was uncharacteristically cautious. He feared that a force sent into the Russian rear might get lost in the unfamiliar terrain. Also, the Russians might retreat the moment they saw their flank threatened, cheating him once more of a chance to annihilate them. He would deliver a strong frontal attack that would suck in Kutuzov’s main forces and defeat them, and in order to deliver this, he actually weakened Davout’s 1st Corps by transferring two of his best divisions, Morand’s and Gérard’s, to the command of Prince Eugène on the left wing, who was to launch the main attack on the Russian centre.
Napoleon’s caution was dictated in part by the number and condition of troops under his command. On 2 September, at Gzhatsk, he had ordered a roll call, and this had yielded a figure of 128,000 men, with another six thousand capable of rejoining the ranks within a couple of days, giving a total of 134,000. It is questionable whether this was an accurate figure, given the well-known tendency of unit commanders to inflate their numbers. Anecdotal evidence supplied by officers who had no interest in magnifying or diminishing the figures would suggest that the official ones are on the high side, particularly where the cavalry was concerned. One officer noted that his squadron of Chasseurs à Cheval was down from an initial strength of 108 men at the outset to no more than thirty-four; several regiments, with an original strength of 1600, were down to no more than 250; one cavalry division had dwindled from 7500 to one thousand. Russian historians currently estimate the French forces at no more than 126,000.
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Either way, the French were outnumbered. While earlier accounts by Russian historians rated Kutuzov’s forces at no more than 112,000,
current estimates vary between 154,800 and 157,000. It is true that these include about 10,000 cossacks and 30,000 militia, whose role in the battle would be limited. But if one discounts these, one Russian historian has recently argued, then one must exclude from the French tally the 25,000 or so men of the Imperial Guard, who never fired a shot all day.
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In the event, apart from taking an active part in the fighting, the militia performed the vital task of carrying away the wounded, which meant that regular soldiers could not use this as an excuse to leave the front line – often never to return. The militia also made a cordon behind the front line, which prevented anyone, even senior officers, who were not obviously wounded from leaving it. ‘This measure too was highly salutary, and many soldiers, and, I am sorry to have to say it, even officers, were thus forced to rejoin their colours,’ wrote Löwenstern.
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More significant than the disparity in numbers was the condition of the two armies facing each other. The French units were depleted and disorganised by the need to keep themselves fed, and although they put on their fine parade uniforms and pipeclayed their crossbelts, a great many went into battle virtually barefoot, as their shoes had long since fallen apart. They had not been properly fed for days, and, as one officer in the Grenadiers of the Old Guard pointed out, ‘If General Kutuzov had been able to put off the battle for several days, there is no doubt that he would have vanquished us without a fight, for an enemy mightier than all the arms of the world had laid siege to our camp: that enemy was a vicious hunger which was destroying us.’
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The Russians, on the other hand, were relatively well fed and supplied by a flow of carts coming out of Moscow.
The horses of the French cavalry were in particularly bad condition, and many a charge on the next day would never break into anything more urgent than a trot. The less numerous Russian cavalry were better mounted, and were able to deliver some fierce attacks on the following day.
The greatest discrepancy between the two armies was in the quality
of their artillery. The Russians, with 640 pieces, enjoyed outright superiority over the French, who had 584, and a far greater proportion of their guns were heavy-calibre battery pieces, many of them
licornes
with a longer range than any French gun. Over three-quarters of the 584 French guns were light battalion pieces, useful only in close support of infantry attacks.
Napoleon had a pleasant surprise when he returned from his afternoon reconnaissance. The Prefect of the imperial palace, Louis Jean François de Bausset, had just arrived from Paris with administrative papers. Before his departure, Bausset had gone to François Gérard’s studio to see the painter finish his latest portrait of the King of Rome, lying in his cradle, toying with a miniature orb and sceptre. He had taken the picture in his carriage as he set off on the thirty-seven-day journey to Napoleon’s headquarters. ‘I had thought that being on the eve of fighting the great battle he had so looked forward to, he would put off for a few days opening the case in which the portrait was packed,’ Bausset wrote. ‘I was mistaken: eager to experience the joy of a sight so dear to his heart, he ordered me to have it brought into his tent immediately. I cannot express the pleasure which that sight gave him. Regret at not being able to press his son to his heart was the only thought which troubled such a sweet joy.’
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Like any doting father, Napoleon called in his entourage to have a look, and then had the portrait placed on a folding stool outside his tent, so that everyone could share in his private joy. The troops began to queue up. ‘The soldiers, and above all the veterans, seemed to be deeply moved by this exhibition,’ wrote one staff officer, ‘the officers on the other hand seemed more preoccupied with the fate of the campaign, and one could see anxiety on their faces.’
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‘
Ma bonne amie,
’ Napoleon scrawled to Marie-Louise that evening, ‘I am very tired. Bausset delivered the portrait of the king. It is a masterpiece. I thank you warmly for thinking of it. It is as beautiful as you are. I will write to you in more detail tomorrow. I am tir[ed].
Adio, mio bene
. Nap.’
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Napoleon was not only ill and tired. He was deeply preoccupied. Another who had arrived along with Bausset was Colonel Fabvier, bearing despatches from Spain with details of Wellington’s victory over Marmont at Salamanca. The reverse itself was of no great consequence, but its propaganda value was tremendous, as the Emperor well knew. All his enemies would take heart, as they had after Essling, and this meant that the next day’s battle must be decisive.
He was not the only one who realised this. ‘Many a mind was anxious, many eyes remained open, many reflections were made on the importance of the drama which had been announced for the morrow and whose stage, so far from our motherland, allowed us the choice of either winning or perishing,’ in the words of Julien Combe. Colonel Boulart, of the artillery of the Guard, felt similar forebodings. ‘If we are beaten, what terrible risks will we not run! Can a single one of us expect to return to his native country?’ Captain von Linsingen, who had walked over to where his Westphalians were sleeping or sitting around campfires, wondered how many would be alive the following evening. ‘And suddenly I found myself hoping that this time too the Russians would decamp during the night,’ he noted in his diary. ‘But no, the sufferings of the past days had been too great, it was better to end it all. Let the battle begin, and our success will assure our salvation!’ Raymond de Fezensac put it more succinctly: ‘Both sides realised they had to win or perish: for us, a defeat meant total destruction, for them, it meant the loss of Moscow and the destruction of their main army, the only hope of Russia.’
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Such reflections were not lightened by the circumstances. There was no bolstering spirits with a shot of drink and a good pipe. They were in an arid place which had been trampled by two armies. ‘Not a blade of grass or of straw, not a tree; not a village that has not been looted inside out,’ noted Cesare de Laugier. ‘Impossible to find the slightest nourishment for the horses, to find anything for oneself to eat, or even to light a fire.’ The men settled down to a cheerless and cold night. ‘A miserable plateful of bread soup oiled with the stump of a tallow candle was all I had to eat on the eve of the big
battle,’ recalled Lieutenant Heinrich Vossler of the Württemberg Chasseurs. ‘But in my famished condition even this revolting dish seemed quite appetising.’
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The Russians were more fortunate, as they had plenty of food, and looked forward to the next day with greater enthusiasm. ‘We all knew that the battle would be a terrible one, but we did not despair,’ recalled Lieutenant Nikolai Mitarevsky of the artillery. ‘My head was full of things remembered from books about war – the “
Trojan War
” in particular would not leave my thoughts. I was eager to take part in a great battle, to experience all the feelings of being in one, and to be able to say afterwards that I had been in such a battle.’ As they lay beside their campfires gazing up at the stars, they wondered about what it felt like to be dead.
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