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ON THE 24th was fought the battle before the redoubt of Shevardino; on the
25th not a shot was fired on either side; on the 26th was fought the battle of
Borodino.
How and with what object were the battles of Shevardino and Borodino fought?
Why was the battle of Borodino fought? There was not the slightest sense in it,
either for the French or for the Russians. The immediate result of it was, and
was bound to be, for the Russians, that we were brought nearer to the
destruction of Moscow (the very thing we dreaded above everything in the world);
and for the French, that they were brought nearer to the destruction of their
army (which they, too, dreaded above everything in the world). That result was
at the time perfectly obvious, and yet Napoleon offered battle, and Kutuzov
accepted it.
If military leaders were guided by reasonable considerations only, it would
seem that it must have been clear to Napoleon that in advancing two thousand
versts into the heart of the country and giving battle, with the probable
contingency of losing a quarter of his men, he was going to certain destruction;
and that it must have been equally clear to Kutuzov that in accepting that
battle and risking the loss of a fourth of his army, he would infallibly lose
Moscow. For Kutuzov this was mathematically clear, as clear as it is at chess,
that if I have one piece less than my adversary and I exchange pieces, I am
certain to be a loser by it, and therefore must avoid exchanging pieces. When my
adversary has sixteen pieces and I have fourteen, I am only one-eighth weaker
than he; but when we have exchanged thirteen pieces, he is three times as strong
as I am.
Up to the battle of Borodino our forces were approximately five-sixths of the
French, but after that battle they were only one-half—that is, before the battle
a hundred thousand against a hundred and twenty thousand, and after the battle
fifty thousand against a hundred thousand. And yet the shrewd and experienced
Kutuzov fought the battle. Napoleon, a military genius, as he is called, gave
battle, losing a fourth of his army and drawing his line of communications out
further than ever. If we are told that he expected the taking of Moscow to
complete the campaign, as the taking of Vienna had done, we may say that there
are many evidences to the contrary. Napoleon's historians themselves tell us
that he wanted to halt as soon as he reached Smolensk; that he knew the danger
of his extended line, and that he knew that the taking of Moscow would not be
the end of the campaign, because from Smolensk he had learned in what condition
the towns were left when abandoned to him, and he had not received a single
reply to his reiterated expressions of a desire to open negotiations.
In giving and accepting battle at Borodino, Kutuzov and Napoleon acted
without design or rational plan. After the accomplished fact historians have
brought forward cunningly devised evidences of the foresight and genius of the
generals, who of all the involuntary instruments of the world's history were the
most slavish and least independent agents.
The ancients have transmitted to us examples of epic poems in which the whole
interest of history is concentrated in a few heroic figures; and under their
influence we are still unable to accustom our minds to the idea that history of
that kind is meaningless at our stage in the development of humanity.
In answer to the next question, how the battles of Borodino and Shevardino
came to be fought, we have also a very definite, well-known, and utterly false
account. All the historians describe the affair thus:
The Russian army, they say, in its retreat from Smolensk sought out the best
position for a general engagement, and such a position they found in Borodino.
The Russians, they say, fortified the position beforehand, to the left of the
road (from Moscow to Smolensk) at right angles to it, from Borodino to Utitsa,
at the very place where the battle was fought.
In front of this position, they tell us, a fortified earthwork was thrown up
on the Shevardino redoubt as an outpost for observation of the enemy's
movements.
On the 24th, we are told, Napoleon attacked this redoubt, and took it. On the
26th he attacked the whole Russian army, which had taken up its position on the
plain of Borodino.
This is what we are told in the histories, and all that is perfectly
incorrect, as any one may easily see who cares to go into the matter.
The Russians did not seek out the best position; on the contrary, on their
retreat they had passed by many positions better than Borodino. They did not
make a stand at one of these positions, because Kutuzov did not care to take up
a position he had not himself selected, because the popular clamour for a battle
had not yet been so strongly expressed, because Miloradovitch had not yet
arrived with reinforcements of militia, and for countless other reasons.
The fact remains that there were stronger positions on the road the Russian
army had passed along, and that the plain of Borodino, on which the battle was
fought, is in no respect a more suitable position than any other spot in the
Russian empire to which one might point at hazard on the map.
Far from having fortified the position on the left at right angles to the
road—that is the spot on which the battle was fought—the Russians never, till
the 25th of August, 1812, dreamed of a battle being possible on that spot. The
proof of this is, first, that there were no fortifications there before the
25th, and that the earthworks begun on that day were not completed by the 26th;
and, secondly, the Shevardino redoubt, owing to its situation in front of the
position on which the battle was actually fought, was of no real value. With
what object was that redoubt more strongly fortified than any of the other
points? And with what object was every effort exhausted and six thousand men
sacrificed to defend it till late at night on the 24th? A picket of Cossacks
would have been enough to keep watch on the enemy's movements. And a third proof
that the position of the battlefield was not foreseen, and that the redoubt of
Shevardino was not the foremost point of that position, is to be found in the
fact that Barclay de Tolly and Bagration were, till the 25th, under the
impression that the Shevardino redoubt was the left flank of the position, and
that Kutuzov himself, in the report written in hot haste after the battle,
speaks of Shevardino as the left flank of the position. Only a good time later,
when reports of the battle were written at leisure, the incorrect and strange
statement was invented (probably to cover the blunders of the
commander-in-chief, who had, of course, to appear infallible) that the
Shevardino redoubt served as an advance post, though it was in reality simply
the fortified point of the left flank, and that the battle of Borodino was
fought by us on a fortified position selected beforehand for it, though it was
in reality fought on a position quite unforeseen, and almost unfortified.
The affair obviously took place in this way. A position had been pitched upon
on the stream Kolotcha, which intersects the high-road, not at a right angle,
but at an acute angle, so that the left flank was at Shevardino, the right near
the village of Novoe, and the centre at Borodino, near the confluence of the
Kolotcha and the Voina. Any one looking at the plain of Borodino, and not
considering how the battle actually was fought, would pick out this position,
covered by the Kolotcha, as the obvious one for an army, whose object was to
check the advance of an enemy marching along the Smolensk road towards
Moscow.
Napoleon, riding up on the 24th to Valuev, did not (we are told in the
histories) see the position of the Russians from Utitsa to Borodino (he could
not have seen that position since it did not exist), and did not see the advance
posts of the Russian army, but in the pursuit of the Russian rearguard stumbled
upon the left flank of the Russian position at the redoubt of Shevardino, and,
to the surprise of the Russians, his troops crossed the Kolotcha. And the
Russians, since it was too late for a general engagement, withdrew their left
wing from the position they had intended to occupy, and took up a new position,
which had not been foreseen, and was not fortified. By crossing to the left bank
of the Kolotcha, on the left of the road, Napoleon shifted the whole battle from
right to left (looking from the Russian side), and transferred it to the plain
between Utitsa, Semyonovskoye and Borodino—a plain which in itself was a no more
favourable position than any other plain in Russia—and on that plain was fought
the whole battle of the 26th.
Had Napoleon not reached the Kolotcha on the evening of the 24th, and had he
not ordered the redoubt to be attacked at once that evening, had he begun the
attack next morning, no one could have doubted that the Shevardino redoubt was
the left flank of the Russian position; and the battle would have been fought as
we expected. In that case we should probably have defended the Shevardino
redoubt by our left flank even more obstinately; we should have attacked
Napoleon in the centre or on the right, and the general engagement would have
been fought on the 24th on the position prepared and fortified for it. But as
the attack was made on our left flank in the evening after the retreat of our
rearguard, that is, immediately after the action at Gridnevo, and as the Russian
generals would not, or could not, begin the general engagement on the evening of
the 24th, the first and most important action of the battle of Borodino was lost
on the 24th, and that loss led inevitably to the loss of the battle fought on
the 26th.
After the loss of the Shevardino redoubt, we found ourselves on the morning
of the 25th with our left flank driven from its position, and were forced to
draw in the left wing of our position and hurriedly fortify it were we
could.
So that on the 26th of August the Russian troops were only defended by weak,
unfinished earthworks, and the disadvantage of that position was aggravated by
the fact that the Russian generals, not fully recognising the facts of the
position (the loss of the position on the left flank, and the shifting of the
whole field of the coming battle from right to left), retained their extended
formation from Novoe to Utitsa, and, consequently, had to transfer their troops
from right to left during the battle. Consequently, we had during the whole
battle to face the whole French army attacking our left wing, with our forces of
half the strength.
(Poniatovsky's action facing Utitsa and Uvarov's action against the French
right flank were quite independent of the general course of the battle.)
And so the battle of Borodino was fought, not at all as, in order to cover
the blunders of our commanders, it is described by our historians, whose
accounts, consequently, diminish the credit due to the Russian army and the
Russian people. The battle of Borodino was not fought on a carefully picked and
fortified position, with forces only slightly weaker on the Russian side. After
the loss of the Shevardino redoubt, the Russians fought on an open, almost
unfortified position, with forces half the strength of the French, that is, in
conditions in which it was not merely senseless to fight for ten hours and gain
a drawn battle, but incredibly difficult to keep the army for three hours
together from absolute rout and flight.
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