On the twenty-fourth of August the battle of the Shevardino Redoubt was fought, on the twenty-fifth not a shot was fired by either side, and on the twenty-sixth the battle of Borodino itself took place. Why were those battles given and accepted? There was not the least sense in it for either side. For the Russians the immediate result was to be brought nearer the destruction of Moscow, which they feared more than anything. For the French it was to be brought nearer the destruction of their whole army. What the result must be was obvious, yet Napoleon offered and Kutuzov accepted. If the commanders had been guided by reason, it must have been obvious to Napoleon that by advancing thirteen hundred miles and giving battle with a probability of losing a quarter of his army he was advancing to certain destruction, and to Kutuzov that by risking a quarter of his army he would certainly lose Moscow. Before Borodino the strength was about as five to six; afterwards little more than one to two: a hundred thousand against a hundred and twenty thousand, then little more than fifty thousand against a hundred thousand. Yet shrewd Kutuzov accepted, and Napoleon, said to be a genius, gave it, lengthening his communications still more. If it is said he expected to end the campaign by occupying Moscow as he had ended another by occupying Vienna, his own historians tell us that from Smolensk onwards he wished to stop, knew occupation of Moscow would not end the campaign, had seen the state of Russian towns, and had received not one reply to his wish to negotiate. In giving and accepting battle both acted involuntarily. Later, to fit what had occurred, historians provided evidence of foresight in the men who of all the blind tools of history were the most enslaved.
On how the battles were fought there exists a definite and well-known, but quite false, conception. Histories say the Russian army, retreating from Smolensk, sought the best position and found it at Borodino, fortified it in advance on the left of the highroad from Moscow to Smolensk, almost at a right angle, from Borodino to Utitsa, set up a fortified outpost on the Shevardino mound, lost that post on the twenty-fourth, and on the twenty-sixth was attacked in position. It is all quite wrong. The Russians passed many stronger positions and did not stop, because Kutuzov would not occupy a position he had not himself chosen, because the popular demand for a battle had not yet expressed itself strongly enough, because Miloradovich had not arrived with the militia, and for many other reasons. The position at Borodino was no more a position than any other spot found by sticking a pin into the map at hazard. They did not fortify the field to the left of the highroad. Never till the twenty-fifth did they think a battle might be fought there. Entrenchments begun that day and the next were not completed. The Shevardino Redoubt was senseless as an advanced post of that position; why sacrifice six thousand men till late at night on the twenty-fourth when a Cossack patrol would have sufficed to observe? Up to the twenty-fifth Barclay and Bagration were convinced Shevardino was the left flank, and Kutuzov himself in his hasty report after the battle speaks of it as the left flank. Only later, to represent the commander in chief as infallible, was it invented that Shevardino was an advanced post and that Borodino was fought on a previously selected entrenched position.
The case was this: a position was selected along the Kolocha, which crosses the highroad at an acute angle, left flank at Shevardino, right near Novoe, centre at Borodino at the confluence with the Voyna. Napoleon, riding to Valuevo on the twenty-fourth, did not see a position from Utitsa to Borodino, because it did not exist. Pursuing the rearguard he came upon the left flank at Shevardino and unexpectedly moved his army across the Kolocha. The Russians withdrew the left wing and took up a new position neither foreseen nor fortified. By crossing to the left of the highroad Napoleon shifted the forthcoming battle from right to left onto the plain between Utitsa, Semenovsk, and Borodino. Had he waited till morning, Shevardino would have been recognized as the left flank, and the fight would have been where the Russians intended, on the twenty-fifth. Because the attack came in the evening after Gridneva, the first and chief action of Borodino was already lost on the twenty-fourth. On the morning of the twenty-fifth the Russians had no position for the left flank, bent it back, and hastily entrenched it where it chanced to be. Throughout the twenty-sixth they opposed the entire French army launched against the left with but half as many men. Poniatowski against Utitsa and Uvarov on the right were distinct from the main course. Borodino was not fought on a chosen entrenched position with forces only slightly weaker, but, after the loss of Shevardino, on an open almost unentrenched position with forces only half as numerous as the French: conditions in which it was unthinkable to fight for ten hours and secure an indecisive result, unthinkable even to keep an army from complete disintegration and flight.
