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On the twenty-fourth of August the battle of the Shevardino
Redoubt was fought, on the twenty-fifth not a shot was fired by
either side, and on the twenty-sixth the battle of Borodino itself
took place.
Why and how were the battles of Shevardino and Borodino given
and accepted? Why was the battle of Borodino fought? There was
not the least sense in it for either the French or the Russians.
Its immediate result for the Russians was, and was bound to be,
that we were brought nearer to the destruction of Moscow- which
we feared more than anything in the world; and for the French
its immediate result was that they were brought nearer to the
destruction of their whole army- which they feared more than anything
in the world. What the result must be was quite obvious, and yet
Napoleon offered and Kutuzov accepted that battle.
If the commanders had been guided by reason, it would seem
that it must have been obvious to Napoleon that by advancing thirteen
hundred miles and giving battle with a probability of losing a
quarter of his army, he was advancing to certain destruction,
and it must have been equally clear to Kutuzov that by accepting
battle and risking the loss of a quarter of his army he would
certainly lose Moscow. For Kutuzov this was mathematically clear,
as it is that if when playing draughts I have one man less and
go on exchanging, I shall certainly lose, and therefore should
not exchange. When my opponent has sixteen men and I have fourteen,
I am only one eighth weaker than he, but when I have exchanged
thirteen more men he will be three times as strong as I am.
Before the battle of Borodino our strength in proportion to
the French was about as five to six, but after that battle it
was little more than one to two: previously we had a hundred thousand
against a hundred and twenty thousand; afterwards little more
than fifty thousand against a hundred thousand. Yet the shrewd
and experienced Kutuzov accepted the battle, while Napoleon, who
was said to be a commander of genius, gave it, losing a quarter
of his army and lengthening his lines of communication still more.
If it is said that he expected to end the campaign by occupying
Moscow as he had ended a previous campaign by occupying Vienna,
there is much evidence to the contrary. Napoleon's historians
themselves tell us that from Smolensk onwards he wished to stop,
knew the danger of his extended position, and knew that the occupation
of Moscow would not be the end of the campaign, for he had seen
at Smolensk the state in which Russian towns were left to him,
and had not received a single reply to his repeated announcements
of his wish to negotiate.
In giving and accepting battle at Borodino, Kutuzov acted
involuntarily and irrationally. But later on, to fit what had
occurred, the historians provided cunningly devised evidence of
the foresight and genius the generals who, of all the blind tools
of history were the most enslaved and involuntary.
The ancients have left us model heroic poems in which the
heroes furnish the whole interest of the story, and we are still
unable to accustom ourselves to the fact that for our epoch histories
of that kind are meaningless.
On the other question, how the battle of Borodino and the
preceding battle of Shevardino were fought, there also exists
a definite and well-known, but quite false, conception. All the
historians describe the affair as follows:
The Russian army, they say, in its retreat from Smolensk sought
out for itself the best position for a general engagement and
found such a position at Borodino.
The Russians, they say, fortified this position in advance
on the left of the highroad (from Moscow to Smolensk) and almost
at a right angle to it, from Borodino to Utitsa, at the very place
where the battle was fought.
In front of this position, they say, a fortified outpost was
set up on the Shevardino mound to observe the enemy. On the twenty-fourth,
we are told, Napoleon attacked this advanced post and took it,
and, on the twenty-sixth, attacked the whole Russian army, which
was in position on the field of Borodino.
So the histories say, and it is all quite wrong, as anyone
who cares to look into the matter can easily convince himself.
The Russians did not seek out the best position but, on the
contrary, during the retreat passed many positions better than
Borodino. They did not stop at any one of these positions because
Kutuzov did not wish to occupy a position he had not himself chosen,
because the popular demand for a battle had not yet expressed
itself strongly enough, and because Miloradovich had not yet arrived
with the militia, and for many other reasons. The fact is that
other positions they had passed were stronger, and that the position
at Borodino (the one where the battle was fought), far from being
strong, was no more a position than any other spot one might find
in the Russian Empire by sticking a pin into the map at hazard.
Not only did the Russians not fortify the position on the
field of Borodino to the left of, and at a right angle to, the
highroad (that is, the position on which the battle took place),
but never till the twenty-fifth of August, 1812, did they think
that a battle might be fought there. This was shown first by the
fact that there were no entrenchments there by the twenty fifth
and that those begun on the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth were
not completed, and secondly, by the position of the Shevardino
Redoubt. That redoubt was quite senseless in front of the position
where the battle was accepted. Why was it more strongly fortified
than any other post? And why were all efforts exhausted and six
thousand men sacrificed to defend it till late at night on the
twenty-fourth? A Cossack patrol would have sufficed to observe
the enemy. Thirdly, as proof that the position on which the battle
was fought had not been foreseen and that the Shevardino Redoubt
was not an advanced post of that position, we have the fact that
up to the twenty-fifth, Barclay de Tolly and Bagration were convinced
that the Shevardino Redoubt was the left flank of the position,
and that Kutuzov himself in his report, written in hot haste after
the battle, speaks of the Shevardino Redoubt as the left flank
of the position. It was much later, when reports on the battle
of Borodino were written at leisure, that the incorrect and extraordinary
statement was invented (probably to justify the mistakes of a
commander in chief who had to be represented as infallible) that
the Shevardino Redoubt was an advanced post- whereas in reality
it was simply a fortified point on the left flank- and that the
battle of Borodino was fought by us on an entrenched position
previously selected, where as it was fought on a quite unexpected
spot which was almost unentrenched.
The case was evidently this: a position was selected along
the river Kolocha- which crosses the highroad not at a right angle
but at an acute angle- so that the left flank was at Shevardino,
the right flank near the village of Novoe, and the center at Borodino
at the confluence of the rivers Kolocha and Voyna.
To anyone who looks at the field of Borodino without thinking
of how the battle was actually fought, this position, protected
by the river Kolocha, presents itself as obvious for an army whose
object was to prevent an enemy from advancing along the Smolensk
road to Moscow.
Napoleon, riding to Valuevo on the twenty-fourth, did not
see (as the history books say he did) the position of the Russians
from Utitsa to Borodino (he could not have seen that position
because it did not exist), nor did he see an advanced post of
the Russian army, but while pursuing the Russian rearguard he
came upon the left flank of the Russian position- at the Shevardino
Redoubt- and unexpectedly for the Russians moved his army across
the Kolocha. And the Russians, not having time to begin 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 other side
of the Kolocha to the left of the highroad, Napoleon shifted the
whole forthcoming battle from right to left (looking from the
Russian side) and transferred it to the plain between Utitsa,
Semenovsk, and Borodino- a plain no more advantageous as a position
than any other plain in Russia- and there the whole battle of
the twenty-sixth of August took place.
Had Napoleon not ridden out on the evening of the twenty-fourth
to the Kolocha, and had he not then ordered an immediate attack
on the redoubt but had begun the attack next morning, no one would
have doubted that the Shevardino Redoubt was the left flank of
our and the battle would have taken place where we expected it.
In that case we should probably have defended the Shevardino Redoubt-
our left flank- still more obstinately. We should have attacked
Napoleon in the center or on the right, and the engagement would
have taken place on the twenty-fifth, in the position we intended
and had fortified. But as the attack on our left flank took place
in the evening after the retreat of our rea guard (that is, immediately
after the fight at Gridneva), and as the Russian commanders did
not wish, or were not in time, to begin a general engagement then
on the evening of the twenty-fourth, the first and chief action
of the battle of Borodino was already lost on the twenty-fourth,
and obviously led to the loss of the one fought on the twenty-sixth.
After the loss of the Shevardino Redoubt, we found ourselves
on the morning of the twenty-fifth without a position for our
left flank, and were forced to bend it back and hastily entrench
it where it chanced to be.
Not only was the Russian army on the twenty-sixth defended
by weak, unfinished entrenchments, but the disadvantage of that
position was increased by the fact that the Russian commanders-
not having fully realized what had happened, namely the loss of
our position on the left flank and the shifting of the whole field
of the forthcoming battle from right to left- maintained their
extended position from the village of Novoe to Utitsa, and consequently
had to move their forces from right to left during the battle.
So it happened that throughout the whole battle the Russians opposed
the entire French army launched against our left flank with but
half as many men. (Poniatowski's action against Utitsa, and Uvarov's
on the right flank against the French, were actions distinct from
the main course of the battle.) So the battle of Borodino did
not take place at all as (in an effort to conceal our commanders'
mistakes even at the cost of diminishing the glory due to the
Russian army and people) it has been described. The battle of
Borodino was not fought on a chosen and entrenched position with
forces only slightly weaker than those of the enemy, but, as a
result of the loss of the Shevardino Redoubt, the Russians fought
the battle of Borodino on an open and almost unentrenched position,
with forces only half as numerous as the French; that is to say,
under conditions in which it was not merely unthinkable to fight
for ten hours and secure an indecisive result, but unthinkable
to keep an army even from complete disintegration and flight.
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