Konovnitsyn was as courageous as Ostermann-Tolstoy but a much more skilful rearguard commander. His men kept the French at bay for most of 26 July. That night, however, Bagration’s aide-de-camp, Prince Aleksandr Menshikov, arrived at Barclay’s headquarters with news that transformed the situation. At Saltanovka on 23 July Davout had blocked Bagration’s attempts to march northwards via Mogilev to join up with Barclay. As a result, Second Army was being forced to march still further eastwards and there was no chance of any link-up between the two Russian armies in the immediate future.
Even after receiving this news Barclay still wanted to fight at Vitebsk but he was dissuaded by Ermolov and the other senior generals. As Barclay later acknowledged, Ermolov’s advice was correct. The position at Vitebsk had its weaknesses and the Russians would have been outnumbered by more than two to one. Moreover, even if they had beaten off Napoleon’s attacks for a day this would have served no purpose. In fact it would merely have widened the distance between First and Second armies and allowed Napoleon to push between them and take Smolensk. Orders therefore went out for First Army to retreat. With Napoleon’s entire army deployed under the Russians’ noses, slipping away unscathed would be no easy matter, however.32
First Army’s retreat began at four in the afternoon of 27 July. All that day the Russian rearguard commanded by Peter Pahlen kept the French at bay, manoeuvring with skill and calmly giving ground when necessary but mounting a number of sharp counter-attacks to deter any attempt to press too hard. Barclay de Tolly was not at all inclined to excessive praise of subordinates but in his reports to Alexander he stressed Pahlen’s great achievement in disengaging First Army from Napoleon and covering its tracks during the retreat from Vitebsk to Smolensk. French sources are more inclined to argue that Napoleon missed a great opportunity on 27 July by taking it for granted that the Russians would stand and fight on the following day and not pressing Pahlen very hard. That night the Cossacks kept all the bonfires burning in the Russian bivouacs, which convinced the French that Barclay was still in position and awaiting battle. When they woke the next morning to discover that the Russians had gone there was much dismay, increased by the fact that Pahlen covered Barclay’s tracks with such skill that for a time Napoleon had no idea in which direction his enemy had retreated.33
The Duc de Fezensac, who was serving as aide-de-camp to Marshal Berthier, recalls in his memoirs that the wiser and more experienced French officers began to feel uneasy at Vitebsk: ‘They were struck by the admirable order in which the Russian army had made its retreat, always covered by its numerous Cossacks, and without abandoning a single cannon, cart or sick man.’ The Count de Segur was on Napoleon’s staff and recalls an inspection of Barclay’s camp on the day after the Russians had departed: ‘nothing left behind, not one weapon, nor a single valuable; no trace, nothing in short, in this sudden nocturnal march, which could demonstrate, beyond the bounds of the camp, the route which the Russians had taken; there appeared more order in their defeat than in our victory!’34
After abandoning Vitebsk Barclay’s army headed for Smolensk. Initially there were fears that the French might get there first and Preradovich’s detachment of Guards cavalry and jaegers covered 80 kilometres in thirty- eight hours in order to forestall them. In fact this was something of a false alarm since Napoleon’s troops were exhausted and needed a rest. On 2 August Barclay and Bagration met in Smolensk and the two main Russian armies were united at last.
Both generals did their best to put past grievances behind them and act in a united fashion. Barclay went to meet Bagration outside his headquarters in full uniform, hat in hand. He took Bagration round the regiments of First Army, showing him to the soldiers and making great show of the two commanders’ unity and friendship. Meanwhile Bagration conceded the overall command to Barclay. Since he was marginally senior, came from the ancient royal family of Georgia and had married into the heart of the Russian aristocracy, by the standards of the time this represented great self-sacrifice. But unity and subordination were always conditional. In the end, as Barclay well understood, Bagration would only go along with his plans if he chose to do so.
In reality, despite goodwill on both sides, unity could not last. The fiery Georgian and the cool and cerebral ‘German’ were simply too different in temperament and this fed directly into contrasting views on what strategy to adopt. Bagration, supported by almost all the leading generals, was for an immediate, decisive offensive. Quite apart from all the military reasons which inspired them to support this strategy, it is clear from many officers’ memoirs that once they reached Smolensk the army became acutely aware that they were now defending Russian national soil.
Luka Simansky, for example, was a lieutenant in the Izmailovsky Guards. In the first weeks of the war his diary shows little emotion and is largely a record of everyday conversations and minor pleasures and frustrations. Only when Simansky gets to the Russian city of Smolensk, views the miracle-working icon of the Mother of God and writes of its saving grace in earlier times of national emergency do strong emotions emerge. For Ivan Paskevich, the commander of the 26th Division in Bagration’s army, nature rather than anything man-made provided the first great reminder that this was a ‘national’ war: ‘now we were fighting in old Russia, as every birch-tree standing by the side of the road reminded us’.35
In many ways the most cogent justification for Bagration’s line was set out in a letter from Ermolov to Alexander. He argued that the armies would find it hard to remain united and static at Smolensk for long. Since it had never been envisaged that they would concentrate here, few supplies had been gathered and they would be hard pressed to feed themselves. Smolensk was in any case not a strong defensive position. The slightest threat to the army’s communications back to Moscow would force a further retreat. Now was the time to strike while Napoleon’s army was dispersed. The enemy’s inactivity must be caused by weakness, having had to make many detachments to fend off threats from Wittgenstein and Tormasov on the northern and southern flanks.
Ermolov stated that the main obstacle to an offensive was Barclay: ‘The commander-in-chief…as far as possible will avoid a major battle and will not agree to one unless it is absolutely and unavoidably necessary.’ Alexander by now knew from many sources how deeply unpopular Barclay’s strategy was among the generals and soldiers alike. An expert at avoiding responsibility for unpopular policies, the emperor cannot have been pleased to read Ermolov’s comment that Barclay ‘did not hide from me Your Majesty’s will in this matter’.36
In fact, by the time the two armies had united at Smolensk Alexander’s position had changed radically and he himself was putting Barclay under heavy pressure to advance against Napoleon. Probably the emperor was sincere in stating that he had never expected retreat to reach Smolensk before risking a battle but he will also have been aware of the political risks if Barclay continued to retreat without fighting. On 9 August he wrote to the commander-in-chief that ‘I now hope that with the help of the Supreme Being you will be able to take the offensive and thereby stop the invasion of our provinces. I have placed the safety of Russia in your hands, general, and I like to hope that you will justify all my confidence in you.’ Two days later Alexander repeated his calls for an attack, adding without any apparent sense of irony that ‘you are free to act without any impediment or interference’. Under great pressure to attack from his own generals and Bagration, Barclay was in no position to ignore his master also. In any case he was the captive of his own earlier promise to Alexander that he would attack once the armies joined.37
Barclay was therefore forced to agree that the army would go over to the offensive but it is clear from both his words and his actions that he had strong doubts about the wisdom of this policy. In part this reflected his fear that Napoleon would take the opportunity to sweep round the flanks of the advancing Russians and cut them off from their communications back to Moscow. The Russian cavalry had lost contact with Napoleon’s forces and Barclay would be advancing without a clear idea where the enemy was concentrated or definite knowledge about their numbers. In addition, Barclay had some concerns about the Russian army’s own quality when compared to its enemy.
He wrote to Alexander that ‘the simple soldier of Your Imperial Majesty’s army is without doubt the best in the world’ but that this was not true of the officers. In particular, the junior officers were usually too young and inexperienced. This was a little unfair since any criticism of the army’s subalterns needed to be qualified by recognition of their great courage, their loyalty to their comrades and regiments, and their impatience to get to grips with the French. Much more solidly based were doubts about the Russian army’s high command. Barclay would also have been less than human had he not experienced some fears about facing the greatest commander of the era.38
Moreover, it was one thing to take up a strong defensive position and invite Napoleon to attack, as Bennigsen had done successfully at Eylau and the Archduke Charles at Aspern, and as Wellington was to do at Waterloo. It was quite another to attempt to outmanoeuvre Napoleon and defeat him on the offensive. So long as Napoleon was present in person, his authority over his commanders, the power of his reputation, and his exceptional military
