It would be wrong just to dwell on Russian failings at Ostrovno, however. Fourth Corps fulfilled its task by delaying the French and inflicting heavy casualties despite facing increasingly superior numbers. Though not very skilful, Ostermann-Tolstoy was nevertheless an inspiring commander. Ostrovno was young Ivan Radozhitsky’s first battle, as was true for very many of Fourth Corps’s soldiers. He recalled scenes of growing desolation and potential panic as enemy pressure mounted and men’s bodies were eviscerated and torn limb from limb by French cannon balls. In the thick of the fire Ostermann-Tolstoy sat unmoved on his horse, sniffing his tobacco. To messengers of doom requesting permission to retreat or warning that more and more Russian guns were being put out of action, Ostermann-Tolstoy responded by his own example of calm and by orders to ‘stand and die’. Radozhitsky commented that ‘this unshakeable strength of our commander at a time when everyone around him was being struck down was truly part of the character of a Russian infuriated by the sufferings being inflicted on his country. Looking at him, we ourselves grew strong and went to our posts to die.’31
That evening Fourth Corps retired 7 kilometres towards Kakuviachino where responsibility for delaying the French was handed over to Lieutenant-General Petr Konovnitsyn, the commander of 3rd Infantry Division. Konovnitsyn was as courageous as Ostermann-Tolstoy but a much more skilful rearguard commander. His men kept the French at bay for most of 26 July. That night, however, Bagration’s aide-de-camp, Prince Aleksandr Menshikov, arrived at Barclay’s headquarters with news that transformed the situation. At Saltanovka on 23 July Davout had blocked Bagration’s attempts to march northwards via Mogilev to join up with Barclay. As a result, Second Army was being forced to march still further eastwards and there was no chance of any link-up between the two Russian armies in the immediate future.
Even after receiving this news Barclay still wanted to fight at Vitebsk but he was dissuaded by Ermolov and the other senior generals. As Barclay later acknowledged, Ermolov’s advice was correct. The position at Vitebsk had its weaknesses and the Russians would have been outnumbered by more than two to one. Moreover, even if they had beaten off Napoleon’s attacks for a day this would have served no purpose. In fact it would merely have widened the distance between First and Second armies and allowed Napoleon to push between them and take Smolensk. Orders therefore went out for First Army to retreat. With Napoleon’s entire army deployed under the Russians’ noses, slipping away unscathed would be no easy matter, however.32
First Army’s retreat began at four in the afternoon of 27 July. All that day the Russian rearguard commanded by Peter Pahlen kept the French at bay, manoeuvring with skill and calmly giving ground when necessary but mounting a number of sharp counter-attacks to deter any attempt to press too hard. Barclay de Tolly was not at all inclined to excessive praise of subordinates but in his reports to Alexander he stressed Pahlen’s great achievement in disengaging First Army from Napoleon and covering its tracks during the retreat from Vitebsk to Smolensk. French sources are more inclined to argue that Napoleon missed a great opportunity on 27 July by taking it for granted that the Russians would stand and fight on the following day and not pressing Pahlen very hard. That night the Cossacks kept all the bonfires burning in the Russian bivouacs, which convinced the French that Barclay was still in position and awaiting battle. When they woke the next morning to discover that the Russians had gone there was much dismay, increased by the fact that Pahlen covered Barclay’s tracks with such skill that for a time Napoleon had no idea in which direction his enemy had retreated.33
The Duc de Fezensac, who was serving as aide-de-camp to Marshal Berthier, recalls in his memoirs that the wiser and more experienced French officers began to feel uneasy at Vitebsk: ‘They were struck by the admirable order in which the Russian army had made its retreat, always covered by its numerous Cossacks, and without abandoning a single cannon, cart or sick man.’ The Count de Segur was on Napoleon’s staff and recalls an inspection of Barclay’s camp on the day after the Russians had departed: ‘nothing left behind, not one weapon, nor a single valuable; no trace, nothing in short, in this sudden nocturnal march, which could demonstrate, beyond the bounds of the camp, the route which the Russians had taken; there appeared more order in their defeat than in our victory!’34
