I beg your Highness to have faith in what he says,
I pray God, Monsieur le Prince Kutuzov, to maintain you in His holy and powerful keeping.
(Signed) NAPOLEON.
Moscow, 3rd October 1812.
Kutuzov replied as follows:
I should be cursed by posterity if I were regarded as the initiator of any kind of settlement.
And he carried on doing everything in his power to hold the Russian army back from any attack.
A month of French army looting in Moscow, together with Russian army quietude at Tarutino, had brought about a change in the relative strengths of the two armies, a change in morale and sheer numbers, all of which told in favour of the Russians. Although the position of the French army and its numerical strength were unknown to the Russians, as soon as this change came about the inevitability of an eventual attack soon made itself felt in all manner of ways. These were: Lauriston’s mission; the availability of generous supplies at Tarutino; persistent reports of inactivity and poor discipline in the French army; new recruitment bringing our regiments up to strength; the fine weather; the long spell of rest enjoyed by the Russian soldiers, and the usual eagerness of well-rested troops to finish the job they were there to do; curiosity about what was happening in the French army, which had been out of sight for so long; the sheer audacity shown by the Russian outposts nipping in and out among the French encamped at Tarutino; stories about easy victories over the French enjoyed by peasants and guerrilla groups, and the envy that this caused; a desire for revenge that lay in every heart while ever the French remained in Moscow; and, what mattered most of all, a vague awareness rising in every soldier’s heart that there had been a shift in the relative strength of the armies, and the advantage now lay with us. A substantial change of this nature really had come about, and advance was now inevitable. And straightaway, as surely as a clock begins to chime and strike when the minute hand has completed a full circle, this change was reflected among the top brass in increased activity, the whirring of wheels within wheels.
CHAPTER 3
The Russian army was commanded by Kutuzov and his staff, and also by the Tsar from Petersburg. Before the news of the abandonment of Moscow reached Petersburg, a detailed plan for the whole campaign had been drawn up and sent to Kutuzov for him to follow. Even though this plan had been put together on the assumption that Moscow was still in our hands, it was endorsed by the staff and accepted as the basis for action. Kutuzov’s response was limited to a comment that movements planned at a distance were always difficult to put into practice. In order to resolve any difficulties as and when they arose, further instructions were issued, and new staff were sent down to Kutuzov with the sole duty of keeping an eye on his movements and reporting back.
Besides this, the high command of the Russian army was completely reshuffled. The places of Bagration, who had been killed, and Barclay, who had stalked off in high dudgeon, had to be filled. Much serious thought went into consideration of the best thing to do: whether A should take over from B, and B from D, or whether it ought to be the other way round, with D taking over from A, and so on, as if this had an impact on anything at all beyond the self-esteem of A and B.
Given Kutuzov’s hostility towards his chief of staff, Bennigsen, the presence of the Tsar’s confidential advisers and all these various new appointments, party in-fighting at headquarters was even more complicated than usual. A was trying to undermine B’s position, D was getting at C, and so on, in all conceivable combinations and permutations. And everybody was undermining everybody else mainly over the course of the war, which all these men thought they were in control of, though in practice the war ignored them and went its own inevitable way. In other words, it never corresponded with what they were thinking; it was the essential outcome of interacting forces among the masses. And all these machinations, with everybody at daggers drawn and cross-purposes, were accepted at high command as a true reflection of developments that were inevitable.
Prince Kutuzov! [wrote the Tsar on the 2nd of October in a letter received by Kutuzov after the battle of Tarutino]
