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Updated: May 13, 2025
On the twenty-fourth the Russian van appeared. Had Kutusoff acted on his correct information and thrown forward his whole army, a decisive battle might have ended the invasion. As it was, Eugène, after a bloody conflict at Malojaroslavetz, remained master of the field, and the timid Kutusoff drew back his force. Meantime the truth leaked out in Moscow.
Still uneasy, however, he went at night through the ranks: he was delighted to hear Kutusoff swear that he was at length going to fight; he triumphed on seeing all the Russian generals preparing for a terrible conflict; Beningsen alone had still his doubts on the subject.
The immediate result of the success of this rather doubtful artifice would have been the destruction of the corps of Kutusoff; but Murat in his turn was deceived by Bagration into belief in an armistice.
For which purpose they shall bring with them, to act as their esquires, umpires, and heralds, their most enlightened ministers and able generals, as Thugut, Pitt, and Bernstorff. He will bring, on his part, Counts Pahlen and Kutusoff." The first impression on the appearance of this singular document was surprise; the next, of course, was ridicule. The man must have utterly lost his senses.
Towns were burned, crops were destroyed and cattle were driven away, as Napoleon led his forces toward the ancient and historic city of Moscow. When the French had advanced a long distance into Russia, the Russian general named Kutusoff offered them battle in a place called Borodino.
Lauriston's instructions purported that he was to address himself to no one but Kutusoff. He therefore 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, and determined to return to Moscow.
Having made these dispositions, the Russian commander must have believed that the French army was entirely in his power; but this belief saved us. Kutusoff was wanting to himself at the moment of action; his old age executed only half, and that badly, the plans which it had wisely combined.
Kutusoff, irritated at this, replied, that "he would certainly rather make a bridge of gold for the enemy than compromise his army, and with it the fate of the whole empire. Was not Napoleon fleeing? why then stop him and force him to conquer?
But the sight of our distress emboldened Beningsen; this chief of the staff prevailed upon Strogonof, Gallitzin, and Miloradowitch, with a force of more than fifty thousand Russians, and one hundred pieces of cannon, to venture to attack at daylight, in spite of Kutusoff, fourteen thousand famished, enfeebled, and half-frozen French and Italians.
It seems to be generally accepted that the name of Napoleon saved whatever part of his host finally escaped from the territory of Russia; in a word, that had Kutusoff been able to shake off that awe which had been the growth of a hundred victories, the Emperor himself must have either died on some bloody field between Smolensko and the Beresina, or revisited, as a prisoner, the interior of the country which, three months before, he had invaded at the head of half a million of warriors.
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