Russia Against Napoleon

Napoleon had entered Moscow on 15 September, and left the city on 19 October. During that period the relative strength of the rival armies changed in ways that had a decisive impact on the autumn campaign. While in Moscow Napoleon was reinforced by substantial numbers of infantry, which brought his overall numbers back over 100,000 and filled most of the gaps left by Borodino. Some of these infantry units were of good quality. They included, for example, the First Guards division, which had not been present at Borodino. By definition, infantry which had marched all the way from central and western Europe to Moscow was relatively tough. The core of Napoleon’s army was his Guards. Very few of these excellent troops had seen any action since the beginning of the campaign, as Kutuzov knew.

The Russian infantry was weaker than Napoleon’s in both numbers and quality. On 5 October Kutuzov had 63,000 officers and men in the ranks of his infantry regiments. Of these men, 15,000 were Moscow militiamen and 7,500 were new recruits. In addition, almost 11,000 men from Lobanov-Rostovsky’s new units were with Kutuzov’s army but had not yet been assigned to his regiments. These men were much better armed and trained than militia but none of them had ever been in action. The Russian commander-in-chief had good reason to avoid pitched battles with Napoleon, in which infantry always played the key role. In particular, he was right to worry about his regiments’ ability to carry out complicated manoeuvres. If he had to fight Napoleon, it would be wise to do so in a strong defensive position. The Russian army traditionally fought with a higher ratio of artillery to infantry than was the case elsewhere in Europe. Given his infantry’s rawness, Kutuzov was unlikely to break with this tradition. His army therefore set off on the autumn campaign with a vast train of 620 guns, which soon far outnumbered Napoleon’s artillery and had inevitable consequences as regards its speed, manoeuvrability and supply.¹⁴

The situation as regards cavalry was totally reversed. Napoleon had too few horsemen and, much more importantly, far too few viable horses. Even before he left Moscow some of his cavalry were dismounted. During these six weeks Kutuzov’s regular cavalry had received just 150 recruits and no reinforcements from the militia. This made good sense since useful cavalrymen could not be trained in a hurry. But many new horses had arrived for his 10,000 regular cavalrymen, often donated by the nobility of the neighbouring provinces.¹⁵

Above all, Kutuzov’s army was reinforced by twenty-six regiments of Don Cossacks, a total of 15,000 new irregular cavalry. The total mobilization of the Don Cossack reserves was a great success, for which the Cossack ataman, Matvei Platov, was made a count. Sometimes these new Cossack regiments are described as militia but this is misleading. Ordinary Russian militiamen in 1812 had no previous military experience. All able-bodied Cossacks had served in the army, however, and were expected to bring their own weapons as and when they were recalled to service. The twenty-six new Cossack regiments were therefore well armed, and packed with veterans. In normal circumstances such an enormous number of irregular cavalry might have been excessive but in the conditions of the autumn and winter campaign of 1812 their impact was to be devastating. Back in April 1812 Colonel Chuikevich’s memorandum had stressed the damage that Russian cavalry would do to a retreating enemy. Kutuzov was a shrewd and experienced campaigner. He knew that his cavalry would confine the enemy to the road on which they were retreating, force them to march at great speed, and deny them any chance of foraging away from their column. It took little imagination to realize what this would imply for an army marching into the Russian winter. Kutuzov therefore allowed his Cossacks, hunger, the weather and French indiscipline to do his work for him. Quite rightly, he was in no hurry to commit his infantry to battle.¹⁶