monastery was available when night fell. He worked all day long, even
when in motion, since the carriage was fitted with a desk and lights. Such
luxury might have been excusable in the Emperor but was barely
tolerable in the case of the host of hangers-on who accompanied him: for
their transport the huge imperial staff of aides and bureaucrats used up
52 carriages, 650 horses and innumerable carts.
On 5 September Napoleon found the Russians waiting in entrenched
positions on the banks of the river Moskova, with their centre around the
village ofBorodino, and under a new commander. On 20 August the Czar
had finally listened to the clamour against Barclay and the protests about
continual retreat and appointed a new commander. General Michael
Kutusov was a corpulent sixty-seven-year-old one-eyed w9manizer and
bon viveur but unquestionably the Russians' best captain. Lazy, lethargic,
cautious, jealous of subordinates, reluctant to read or sign orders and
generally wilful and unmalleable, Kutusov was none the less a soldier of
deep cunning, shrewd intuition and keen instinct. Alexander, who
blamed him for the debacle at Austerlitz, never liked him, but was
advised by his military council that no one else would do. A reluctant
Czar made him Commander-in-Chief but with orders to abandon
Barclay's Fabian approach and face the French in battle. Kutusov
thought this was poor advice and, left to himself, would not have
confronted Napoleon at Borodino. But faced with a direct order and
under pressure of public opinion, he had no choice but to give battle.
He spent the 5th and 6th of September preparing his battle positions.
The field of combat he chose was mainly open farmland from which the
corn had just been harvested, with small copses of fir and birch dotted
about. His right (under the demoted Barclay) was behind the river
Kalatsha and his left on Borodino village astride the old post road
between Moscow and Smolensk. In the centre was the Great Redoubt
with eighteen big guns and flanking this the main army was drawn up on
undulating countryside broken by streams and ravines which ran down to
the new Smolensk-Moscow road. The Russian left-centre was deployed
around the three redoubts of Semonovski and the left wing itself, under
Bagration, covered the village of Utitsa. It was a very strong defensive
position, manned by rzo,ooo Russian troops with 640 guns.
Napoleon took up station at the Schivardino redoubt (captured on 5
August), d miles west. He had fewer guns than the enemy (587) and his
numbers were down to IJO,ooo, less than a third of the front-line
strength with which he had crossed the Niemen. Many of his men were
sick, exhausted and half-starved by the endless marches that had
outstripped convoy supplies. He needed all his ingenuity to overcome
marcin
(Marcin)
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