Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 13, 2025
He quitted Borowsk, therefore, late and leisurely, when the noise of a very smart engagement reached where he was; he then became uneasy, hastened to an eminence and listened. "Had the Russians anticipated him? Was his manoeuvre thwarted? Had he not used sufficient expedition in that march, the object of which was to pass the left flank of Kutusoff?"
There the Russians made a determined stand. National jealousy of Barclay, inflamed by his protracted retreat, had at last led to his being superseded by Kutusoff; and, having about 110,000 troops, the old fighting general now turned fiercely to bay. His position on the low convex curve of hills that rise behind the village of Borodino was of great strength.
It was possible that the latter would then become aware of his superiority: and the Emperor, who at Orcha, on the 20th of November, saw his rear-guard, lost, his left flank menaced by Kutusoff, and his advance column stopped at the Berezina by the army of Volhynia, learned that Wittgenstein and forty thousand more enemies, far from being beaten and repulsed, were ready to fall upon his right, and that he had no time to lose.
In this desperate situation, in which all France seemed destined to be taken prisoner in Russia, where every thing was against us and in favour of the Russians, the latter did nothing but by halves. Kutusoff did not reach the Dnieper, at Kopis, until the very day that Napoleon approached the Berezina.
They are still unacquainted with the motives of such a deception, which at first procured Kutusoff unbounded favours, that were not withdrawn from him, and afterwards, it is said, dreadful menaces, that were not put in execution. If we may credit several of his countrymen, who were perhaps his enemies, it would appear that he had two motives.
The inhabitants of this estate, to the number of 1720, leave it on your approach, while I have set fire to my house, that it may not be polluted by your presence. Frenchmen, I have relinquished to you my two houses at Moscow, with their furniture, worth half a million of rubles. Here you will find nothing but ashes!" It was near this place that Murat came up with Kutusoff.
The latter's advance was, however, slow; Tchitchagoff was completely deceived, as many of the French believe, by a feint of Oudinot's, but, as he himself declared, both by false information concerning the movements of Schwarzenberg, and by misrepresentations concerning Napoleon's march as communicated through both Kutusoff and Wittgenstein.
That Marshal detached a division towards the northern slopes of the plateau; for he divined that there his master would need every man to deal the final blows. In truth, Alexander and Kutusoff were struggling hard to regain the Pratzenberg. Four times did the Muscovites fling themselves on the French centre, and not without some passing gleams of success.
Kutusoff, boasting that he had held his ground overnight, had persuaded the inhabitants of Moscow, and even the Czar, that he had been the victor, and that he was withdrawing merely to await the arrival of the victorious and veteran legions from the Danube, when he would choose his field and annihilate the invaders.
As Lauriston's instructions purported that he was to address himself to no one but Kutusoff, he peremptorily rejected any intermediate communication; and seizing, as he said, this occasion for breaking off a negotiation which he disapproved, he retired, in spite of all the solicitations of Wolkonsky, with the intention of returning to Moscow.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking