Napoleon, after dividing up the army, moved on into the heart of the country, letting slip several opportunities of an engagement. In August he was in Smolensk and thinking of nothing but advancing further, though, as we see now, that advance meant inevitable ruin.
The facts show perfectly clearly that Napoleon foresaw no danger in the advance on Moscow, and that Alexander and the Russian generals did not dream at the time of luring Napoleon on, but aimed at the very opposite. Napoleon was drawn on into Russia, not through any plans —no one dreamed of the possibility of it—but simply through the complex play of intrigues and desires and motives of the actors in the war, who had no conception of what was to come and of what was the sole means of saving Russia. Everything came to pass by chance. The army was split up early in the campaign. We tried to effect a junction between the parts with the obvious intention of fighting a battle and checking the enemy’s advance; and in this effort to effect a junction, avoiding a battle with a far stronger enemy, we were forced to retreat at an acute angle, and so drew the French after us to Smolensk. But it is not enough to say that both parts of the army retreated on lines inclined at an acute angle, because the French were advancing between the two armies. The angle was made the more acute and we retreated further because Barclay de Tolly, an unpopular German, was detested by Bagration, and the latter, in command of the second half of the army, did his utmost to delay a junction with Barclay de Tolly in order to avoid being under his command. Bagration delayed the junction of the armies, though this was the chief aim of all the authorities, because he believed that he would expose his army to danger on the march, and that it would be more advantageous for him to retreat more to the left and the south, annoying the enemy on the flank and rear, and reinforcing his army in Ukraine. And he believed this, because he did not want to put himself under the command of the German Barclay, who was his junior in the service, and personally disliked by him.
The Emperor accompanied the army in order to excite its patriotic
ardour; but his presence and inability to decide on any course of j action and the immense number of counsellors and plans that swarmed about him, nullified all action on the part of the first army, and that army too had to retreat.
At the camp at Drissa it was proposed to take a stand. But the energy of Paulucci, scheming to become a leading general, affected Alexander; and Pfuhl’s whole plan was abandoned, and the scheme of campaign intrusted to Barclay. But as the latter did not inspire complete confidence, his power too was limited. The armies were split up, there was no unity, no supreme command: Barclay was unpopular. But on one side the confusion and division and unpopularity of the German commander-in-chief led to vacillation and to avoiding a battle, which would have been inevitable had the armies been united and any one but Barclay in command of them. And on the other hand, it all led to a growing indignation with the Germans and a growing fervour of patriotism.
At last the Tsar left the army, and, as the only suitable excuse to get rid of him, the happy suggestion was made that he must rouse up the people in the capitals to wage the war on a truly national scale. And the Tsar’s visit to Moscow did in fact treble the forces of the Russian army. The Tsar left the army in the hope that the commander- in-chief would be able to act alone, and that more decisive measures would be taken. But the commander’s position became weaker and even more difficult. Bennigsen, the Grand Duke, and a swarm of adjutant generals, remained with the army to watch over the actions of the commander-in-chief, and to urge him to greater activity; and Barclay, feeling less than ever free to act under the watchful gaze of all these ‘eyes of the Tsar,’ became still more cautious and anxious to avoid a pitched battle, and clung to a prudent inaction. The Grand Duke hinted at treachery, and demanded a general engagement. Lubo- mirsky, Bronnitsky, Vlotsky, and others of the same sort, helped to swell the clamour to such a point that Barclay, on the pretext of sending papers to the Tsar in Petersburg, got rid of the Polish generals, and entered into open conflict with Bennigsen and the Grand Duke.
In Smolensk, in spite of Bagration’s wishes to the contrary, the armies were at last united.
