Many historians say the French did not win Borodino because Napoleon had a cold, and that if he had not had a cold the orders he gave before and during the battle would have been still more full of genius, Russia would have been lost, and the face of the world have been changed. To historians who believe Russia was shaped by the will of one man, Peter the Great, and that France from a republic became an empire and French armies went to Russia at the will of one man, Napoleon, it may seem logical that Russia remained a power because Napoleon had a bad cold on the twenty-fourth of August. If it had depended on his will to fight or not, and if this or that arrangement depended on his will, then a cold affecting the manifestation of his will might have saved Russia, and the valet who omitted to bring waterproof boots on the twenty-fourth would have been the saviour of Russia. Along that line the deduction is as indubitable as Voltaire's jest that the Massacre of St. Bartholomew was due to Charles IX's stomach being deranged.
To men who do not admit that Russia was formed by Peter I's will, or the French Empire and the war by Napoleon's, the argument is not merely untrue but contrary to all human reality. Another answer presents itself: the course of human events is predetermined from on high, depends on the coincidence of the wills of all who take part, and a Napoleon's influence is purely external and fictitious. Strange as it may seem to suppose that the slaughter of eighty thousand men at Borodino was not due to Napoleon's will, though he ordered the commencement and conduct of the battle and thought it was done because he ordered it, yet human dignity, which tells me that each of us is, if not more at least not less a man than the great Napoleon, demands that solution, and historic investigation abundantly confirms it.
At Borodino Napoleon shot at no one and killed no one. That was all done by the soldiers. Therefore it was not he who killed people. The French soldiers went to kill and be killed not because of Napoleon's orders but by their own volition. The whole army, French, Italian, German, Polish, and Dutch, hungry, ragged, and weary, felt at the sight of an army blocking their road to Moscow that the wine was drawn and must be drunk. Had Napoleon forbidden them to fight, they would have killed him and proceeded to fight the Russians because it was inevitable. When they heard his proclamation offering, as compensation for mutilation and death, the words of posterity about having been in the battle before Moscow, they cried Vive l'Empereur just as they had at the portrait of the boy piercing the globe with a toy stick, and just as they would have at any nonsense. There was nothing left but to cry Vive l'Empereur and go to fight, in order to get food and rest as conquerors in Moscow. So it was not because of Napoleon's commands that they killed their fellow men.
It was not Napoleon who directed the course of the battle, for none of his orders were executed and during the battle he did not know what was going on before him. The way these people killed one another occurred independently of him, in accord with the will of hundreds of thousands. It only seemed to Napoleon that it all took place by his will. Whether he had a cold has no more historic interest than the cold of the least of the transport soldiers. The assertion that the cold made his dispositions worse is baseless. The dispositions cited are not worse, but even better, than previous ones by which he had won victories. His pseudo-orders during the battle were much the same as usual. They only seem worse because Borodino was the first battle Napoleon did not win. The profoundest dispositions seem very bad when they relate to a battle that has been lost, and the very worst seem very good when they relate to a battle that has been won. Weyrother's dispositions for Austerlitz were a model of perfection and were criticized for their very minuteness. At Borodino Napoleon fulfilled his office as representative of authority as well as, and even better than, at other battles. He did nothing harmful to the progress of the fight, inclined to the most reasonable opinions, made no confusion, did not contradict himself, did not get frightened or run away, but with great tact and military experience carried out his role of appearing to command, calmly and with dignity.
