24 Bennigsen’s view is best put in a letter to his wife of 10 Oct. 1812 (OS): no. 177, pp. 223–5 in N. Dubrovin (ed.), Otechestvennaia voina v pis’makh sovremennikov, Moscow, 2006. The casualty figures are from Bessonov, ‘Tarutinskoe’, pp. 142–3, though A. I. Ulianov cites higher ones in Entsiklopediia, p. 694. Kutuzov’s report to Alexander on Tarutino is in Kutuzov, vol. 4ii, no. 16, Kutuzov to Alexander, 7 Oct. 1812 (OS), pp. 16–19.
25 P. de Segur, History of the Expedition to Russia, 1812, 2 vols., Stroud, 2005, vol. 2, pp. 75–8, recalls some of Napoleon’s thinking on the various possibilities. Napoleon himself spelled them out in a number of letters and memorandums written in Moscow in October 1812: see Correspondance de Napoleon Ier, 32 vols., Paris, 1858–70, vol. 24, especially no. 19237, notes, undated, pp. 235–8, but also his letters to Berthier of 5 and 6 Oct. and to Maret of 16 Oct.: nos. 19250, 19258, 19275, pp. 246–7, 252–4, 265–6.
26 Segur, History, vol. 2, pp. 82–3; A. de Caulaincourt, At Napoleon’s Side in Russia, New York, 2003, pp. 136–8; Duc de Fezensac, Souvenirs militaires, Paris, 1863, p. 258. Brett-James, Wilson’s Journal, p. 80. On the astonishing level of plundering in the Italian campaign, see Martin Boycott-Brown, The Road to Rivoli, London, 2001, pp. 287–8, 306, 335–6.
27 The key report from Dokhturov to Kutuzov, written at 9.
30 p.m. on 22 October, is in Kutuzov, vol. 4ii, no. 59, pp. 75–6.
28 The best account of the battle is by A. Vasil’ev, Srazhenie pri Maloiaroslavtse 12/24 oktiabria 1812 goda, Maloiaroslavets, 2002; see p. 27 for the information on the 6th Jaegers. The entries on the battle and the monastery in Entsiklopediia, on pp. 437–9 and 472, are very useful too.
29 Kutuzov’s account is in his report to Alexander of 16 Oct. 1812 (OS), which enclosed his army’s journal of military operations: Kutuzov, vol. 4ii, no. 119, pp. 128–34.
30 Sir Robert Wilson, The French Invasion of Russia, Bridgnorth, 1996, p. 234.
31 His comment about England is cited by Troitskii, Fel’dmarshal Kutuzov, p. 278.
32 Many of Wilson’s letters both to the emperor and to his compatriots are published in Dubrovin (ed.), Otechestvennaia voina. They were drawn from police files. Bennigsen’s letter of 8 October (OS) asking Alexander to return to headquarters is published in MVUA 1812, 19, pp. 344–5.
33 N. Shil’der, Imperator Aleksandr pervyi: Ego zhizn’ i tsarstvovanie, 4 vols., SPB, 1897, vol. 3, p. 124.
34 See e.g. Alexander’s comments to Wilson in Vilna in December 1812 or the Grand Duchess Catherine’s annoyance about Kutuzov’s huge popularity and how unworthy of it he was: Wilson’s Journal, p. 95. Correspondance de l’Empereur Alexandre, no. 46, Catherine to Alexander, 25 Nov. 1812 (OS), pp. 108–9.
35 Kutuzov, vol 4ii, no. 192, pp. 195–201, journal of military operations. MVUA 1812, 19, e.g. Ermolov to Kutuzov, 18 Oct. 1812 (OS), p. 73; Platov to Kutuzov, 20 Oct. 1812 (OS), p. 78.
36 P. B. Austen, 1812: Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia, London, 2000, p. 47.
37 F. Glinka, Pis’ma russkogo ofitsera, Moscow, 1987, p. 371.
38 S. V. Gavrilov, Organizatsiia i snabzheniia russkoi armii nakanune i v khode otechestvennoi voiny 1812 g. i zagranichnykh pokhodov 1813–1815 gg.: Istoricheskie aspekty, candidate’s dissertation, SPB, 2003, p. 109, for the statistics quoted here.
39 Kutuzov, vol 4i, no. 536 and annex, Kutuzov to Lanskoy, 3 Oct. 1812 (OS), pp. 439–40. See also Gavrilov, Organizatsiia, pp. 158–9.
40 RGVIA, Fond 103, Opis 210/4, Sv. 1, Delo 1: fos. 1–2, Kutuzov’s circular to twelve governors of 15 Sept. 1812 (OS); fos. 28–9, Lanskoy’s report to Kutuzov of 9 Oct. (OS).
41 RGVIA, Fond 103, Opis 210/4, Sv. 1, Delo 1: fos. 38–9: Major-General Potulov to Bennigsen, 11 Oct. 1812 (OS); NB the letter was received on 16 Oct.; fos. 77–8, Lanskoy to Kutuzov, 11 Nov. (OS); fo. 97, Santi to Kutuzov, November but no day given; fos. 113–14, Lanskoy to Kutuzov, 11 Dec. (OS); fos. 126–7, Lanskoy to Kutuzov, 15 Dec. (OS); fos. 137–8, Lanskoy to Kutuzov, 23 Jan. 1813 (OS). On winter clothing, see e.g. Kutuzov, vol. 4i, no. 387, Kutuzov to Kaverin, 13 Sept. 1812 (OS), p. 305.
42 See e.g. Kutuzov’s letters to Nikolai Bogdanov, the governor of Tula, of 19 and 24 Oct. (OS): Kutuzov, vol. 4ii, nos. 159 and 196, pp. 169–70 and 205–6.
43 Kutuzov, vol. 4ii, no. 195, pp. 203–4, 24 Oct. 1812 (OS): an Order of the Day. Mikhailovskii-Danilevskii, Opisanie 1812, p. 457, writes that 74 million rubles’ worth of property was destroyed in Smolensk province in 1812. Gavrilov, Organizatsiia, p. 159.
44 Eugen, Memoiren, vol. 2, pp. 204–7. Entsiklopediia, p. 170, states that the Russians lost 1,800 men, the enemy 7,000. Radozhitskii, Pokhodnyia zapiski, vol. 1, pp. 250–51.
45 Kutuzov, vol. 4ii, prilozhenie 21, p. 719, has a table showing the temperature month-by-month in 1812 in various places with statistics indicating how much this diverged from the norm. Anyone using this table must remember that the months are according to the Russian calendar. R. M. Zotov, Sochineniia, Moscow, n.d., p. 611, on how winter came suddenly in 1812. It would be tedious to list all the Russian sources which criticize French excuses about the weather, but see e.g. V. Kharkevich (ed.), 1812 god v dnevnikakh, zapiskakh i vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, 4 vols., Vilna, 1900–1907, vol. 1, pp. 80–81, for General Kreutz’s comments. Baron Fain, Manuscrit de Mil Huit CentDouze, Paris, 1827, pp. 151–2.
46 Radozhitskii, Pokhodnyia zapiski, vol. 1, pp. 256–67.
47 Puybusque, Lettres, pp. 105–15: 7, 10, 12 Nov. 1812. Fezensac, Souvenirs, p. 276.
48 T. von Bernhardi, Denkwurdigkeiten aus dem Leben des kaiserlichen russischen Generals der Infanterie Carl Friedrich Grafen von Toll, 5 vols., Leipzig, 1858, vol. 4, p. 307.
49 Eugen, Memoiren, vol. 2, pp. 241–50. Lowenstern, Memoires, vol. 1, p. 348.
50 Both M. I. Bogdanovich, Istoriia otechestvennoi voiny 1812 goda, 3 vols., SPB, 1859–60, vol. 3, pp. 101–46, and Entsiklopediia, pp. 379–80, give accurate and fair accounts. Eugen, Memoiren, vol. 2, pp. 268–70 explains Ney’s escape from the Russian perspective.
51 Dnevnik Pavla Pushchina, Leningrad, 1987, pp. 71–2.
52 Eugen, Memoiren, vol. 2, p. 275.
53 Gavrilov, Organizatsiia, pp. 154–71. Upravlenie General-Intendanta Kankrina: Generalnyi sokrashchennyi otchet po armiiam…za pokhody Frantsuzov, 1812, 1813, 1814 godov, Warsaw, 1815, p. 79. On the troops’ exhausting marches down snow-bound side roads, see Zapiski o pokhodakh 1812 i 1813 godov ot Tarutinskago srazheniia do Kul’mskago boia, SPB, 1834, part 1, p. 40. The book is anonymous because its author, V. S. Norov, had been imprisoned after the Decembrist rising of 1825 and wrote it in custody.
54 There are interesting sidelights on this from Kutuzov’s discussions with the captured Puybusque: Lettres, especially as recorded in his letters of 11 and 18 Dec. 1812 (OS), pp. 141 ff. Note too Kutuzov’s earlier comments to Wilson and Bennigsen discussed in this chapter and his later conversations with Alexander and Shishkov which I will discuss in Ch. 9.
55 The letter is in a footnote on p. 282 of Kutuzov, vol. 4ii, no. 295.
56 Kutuzov’s two letters to Chichagov are in Kutuzov, vol. 4ii, no. 295, 3 Nov. 1812 (OS), pp. 282–3, and no. 363, 10 Nov. 1812 (OS), pp. 344–5. His letter to Wittgenstein of 8–9 November is in the same volume, no. 349, pp. 334–5. His comment to Ermolov is cited by V. S. Norov who was an aide-de-camp and an officer of the Guards Jaegers, one of the Guards regiments entrusted to Ermolov. See Norov’s
