The Unsung Hero Steps Forward — War and Peace

In early October another envoy came to Kutuzov with a letter from Napoleon proposing peace, falsely dated from Moscow though Napoleon was already not far away on the old Kaluga road. Kutuzov replied as he had to Lauriston that there could be no question of peace. Soon Dorokhov's guerrilla detachment, operating to the left of Tarutino, reported Broussier's division at Forminsk, separated and easy to destroy. Soldiers and officers again demanded action. Generals excited by Tarutino urged Kutuzov on. He did not consider an offensive necessary. The inevitable compromise was a small detachment sent to attack Broussier.

By a strange coincidence the task, which turned out most difficult and important, went to Dokhturov, that modest little man whom no one described as drawing up plans, dashing in front of regiments, or showering crosses on batteries, and who was spoken of as undecided and undiscerning. Yet from Austerlitz to 1813 we find him wherever the position was hardest: last at the Augezd dam when all were flying; ill with fever at Smolensk, holding the Malakhov Gate all day; sent to the left flank at Borodino after Bagration fell and nine tenths of the men were gone, when Kutuzov hurried to rectify a mistake in the first choice. Many heroes have been described in verse and prose; of Dokhturov scarcely a word. The silence is the clearest testimony to his merit. A man who does not understand a machine takes a shaving tossing about in it for the most important part, and cannot conceive that the small connecting cogwheel which revolves quietly is essential.

On the tenth of October Dokhturov, halfway to Forminsk, stopped at Aristovo, preparing to execute his orders. The whole French army, having reached Murat's position as if to give battle, suddenly turned left onto the new Kaluga road and began to enter Forminsk, where only Broussier had been. Dokhturov had Dorokhov plus Figner's and Seslavin's small guerrilla parties. On the evening of the eleventh Seslavin brought a captured French guardsman who said the troops entering that day were the vanguard of the whole army, that Napoleon was there, and that Moscow had been left four days earlier. A house serf from Borovsk and Cossacks confirmed an immense army on that road. Dokhturov would not act on his own; he had been ordered to attack a division and now faced the whole army. Ermolov wished to use his own judgment; Dokhturov insisted on Kutuzov's instructions. A capable officer, Bolkhovitinov, was chosen to explain by word of mouth as well as by written report. Toward midnight he galloped for the General Staff with a Cossack and spare horses.