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In the early days of October another envoy came to Kutuzov
with a letter from Napoleon proposing peace and falsely dated
from Moscow, though Napoleon was already not far from Kutuzov
on the old Kaluga road. Kutuzov replied to this letter as he had
done to the one formerly brought by Lauriston, saying that there
could be no question of peace.
Soon after that a report was received from Dorokhov's guerrilla
detachment operating to the left of Tarutino that troops of Broussier's
division had been seen at Forminsk and that being separated from
the rest of the French army they might easily be destroyed. The
soldiers and officers again demanded action. Generals on the staff,
excited by the memory of the easy victory at Tarutino, urged Kutuzov
to carry out Dorokhov's suggestion. Kutuzov did not consider any
offensive necessary. The result was a compromise which was inevitable:
a small detachment was sent to Forminsk to attack Broussier.
By a strange coincidence, this task, which turned out to be
a most difficult and important one, was entrusted to Dokhturov-
that same modest little Dokhturov whom no one had described to
us as drawing up plans of battles, dashing about in front of regiments,
showering crosses on batteries, and so on, and who was thought
to be and was spoken of as undecided and undiscerning- but whom
we find commanding wherever the position was most difficult all
through the Russo-French wars from Austerlitz to the year 1813.
At Austerlitz he remained last at the Augezd dam, rallying the
regiments, saving what was possible when all were flying and perishing
and not a single general was left in the rear guard. Ill with
fever he went to Smolensk with twenty thousand men to defend the
town against Napoleon's whole army. In Smolensk, at the Malakhov
Gate, he had hardly dozed off in a paroxysm of fever before he
was awakened by the bombardment of the town- and Smolensk held
out all day long. At the battle of Borodino, when Bagration was
killed and nine tenths of the men of our left flank had fallen
and the full force of the French artillery fire was directed against
it, the man sent there was this same irresolute and undiscerning
Dokhturov- Kutuzov hastening to rectify a mistake he had made
by sending someone else there first. And the quiet little Dokhturov
rode thither, and Borodino became the greatest glory of the Russian
army. Many heroes have been described to us in verse and prose,
but of Dokhturov scarcely a word has been said.
It was Dokhturov again whom they sent to Forminsk and from
there to Malo-Yaroslavets, the place where the last battle with
the French was fought and where the obvious disintegration of
the French army began; and we are told of many geniuses and heroes
of that period of the campaign, but of Dokhturov nothing or very
little is said and that dubiously. And this silence about Dokhturov
is the clearest testimony to his merit.
It is natural for a man who does not understand the workings
of a machine to imagine that a shaving that has fallen into it
by chance and is interfering with its action and tossing about
in it is its most important part. The man who does not understand
the construction of the machine cannot conceive that the small
connecting cogwheel which revolves quietly is one of the most
essential parts of the machine, and not the shaving which merely
harms and hinders the working.
On the tenth of October when Dokhturov had gone halfway to
Forminsk and stopped at the village of Aristovo, preparing faithfully
to execute the orders he had received, the whole French army having,
in its convulsive movement, reached Murat's position apparently
in order to give battle- suddenly without any reason turned off
to the left onto the new Kaluga road and began to enter Forminsk,
where only Broussier had been till then. At that time Dokhturov
had under his command, besides Dorokhov's detachment, the two
small guerrilla detachments of Figner and Seslavin.
On the evening of October 11 Seslavin came to the Aristovo
headquarters with a French guardsman he had captured. The prisoner
said that the troops that had entered Forminsk that day were the
vanguard of the whole army, that Napoleon was there and the whole
army had left Moscow four days previously. That same evening a
house serf who had come from Borovsk said he had seen an immense
army entering the town. Some Cossacks of Dokhturov's detachment
reported having sighted the French Guards marching along the road
to Borovsk. From all these reports it was evident that where they
had expected to meet a single division there was now the whole
French army marching from Moscow in an unexpected direction- along
the Kaluga road. Dokhturov was unwilling to undertake any action,
as it was not clear to him now what he ought to do. He had been
ordered to attack Forminsk. But only Broussier had been there
at that time and now the whole French army was there. Ermolov
wished to act on his own judgment, but Dokhturov insisted that
he must have Kutuzov's instructions. So it was decided to send
a dispatch to the staff.
For this purpose a capable officer, Bolkhovitinov, was chosen,
who was to explain the whole affair by word of mouth, besides
delivering a written report. Toward midnight Bolkhovitinov, having
received the dispatch and verbal instructions, galloped off to
the General Staff accompanied by a Cossack with spare horses.
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