Chapter 7 Chapter VII

Among these columns, another column was supposed to attack the French from the front, but Kutuzov was in this column.Knowing perfectly well that this battle, fought against his will, would lead to nothing but great confusion, he did everything in his power to prevent the advance of the troops, and he stood still. Kutuzov rode silently on his little gray horse, idly answering the suggestion to attack him. "You always talk about offense, you don't see that we are not yet good at complex mobile warfare," he said to Miloradovich, who asked to advance. "Failed to capture Murat alive this morning, the troops did not arrive at the appointed place on time, and now nothing can be done!" he replied to another.

Kutuzov heard that, according to Cossack information, there was no one in the rear of the French army before, but now there are two battalions of Polish soldiers. He turned his face and looked sideways at Ermolov behind him ( He hasn't spoken a word to him since yesterday). "You see, they still demanded an attack, and made various battle plans, but once they did it, nothing was ready, but the vigilant enemy took countermeasures." Ermolov narrowed his eyes at these words, and smiled faintly. He understood that for him the storm was over, and Kutuzov was content only with this hint.

"He's making fun of me," whispered Ermolov, touching the knee of Raevsky, who was standing beside him. After a while Ermolov approached Kutuzov and reported respectfully: "Your Excellency, it is not too late, the enemy has not left yet. Did you give the order to attack? Otherwise, the guards would not even see the smoke." Kutuzov said nothing, and when it was reported to him that Murat's troops were retreating, he gave the order to attack; however, he stopped for three quarters of an hour after every hundred paces. The whole battle consisted only of what Orlov Denisov's Cossacks did, and the rest of the army lost hundreds of men for nothing.

For this campaign Kutuzov received a diamond medal, Bennigsen also received some diamonds and a hundred thousand rubles, and the rest received many pleasant benefits according to rank. After this campaign, The staff department has made new transfers. "We've always done it like this, we've turned it upside down!" Russian officers and generals said after the Battle of Tarutino, and they still say it, which gives the impression that there was a fool As if messing things up, if we were, it wouldn't be like this.But those who say such things are either ignorant of what they are talking about, or deliberately deceive themselves.None of the battles—Tarutino, Borodino, Austerlitz, etc.—was conducted not according to the designs of the framers of the campaigns.This is the most essential situation.

Innumerable free forces (for nowhere is there more freedom than when men are fighting to the death) influence the tendency of battle, which is never predictable, and never coincides with the tendency of a force. If there are many different forces acting on a certain object at the same time, the direction of motion of the object cannot be consistent with the direction of motion of any force; it is always the shortest direction on average, that is, the direction of the parallelogram in mechanics. diagonal. If we find in the writings of historians, especially those of France, that wars and battles were carried out according to a preconceived plan, the only conclusion we can draw is that these statements are unreal.

The Battle of Tarutino obviously did not achieve what Thor wanted to achieve, the army did not go into battle in the order he prescribed; nor did it achieve Count Orlov's goal of capturing Murat alive, or, nor did it achieve Bennigsen's goal. and others wanted to annihilate entire divisions at one blow, and the officers did not achieve their goal of participating in the battle and being honored, or the Cossacks did not achieve their goal of getting more spoils than they had already got. , and so on.If the purpose of that campaign was what was actually achieved, then the common desire of all Russians at that time (to drive the French out of Russia and destroy their army), then the problem is quite obvious, Tarutdin The Battle of Nuo was born precisely because of contradictions, so it happened to be a necessary battle at that time.It is difficult and impossible to conceive of a more favorable outcome than that of the campaign.With the least effort, in great confusion, and with negligible losses, the best results were obtained throughout the campaign, that is, turning the retreat into an attack, exposing the weakness of the French, against the approaching Napoleonic army. The escape was the impetus.