From Vyázma through the battle at Krásnoe, very rapid troop movement caused great attrition to both armies. The Russians were victorious at Krásnoe, although Kutúzov would have preferred they had not fought.
From Vyázma through the battle at Krásnoe, very rapid troop movement caused great attrition to both armies. The Russians were victorious at Krásnoe, although Kutúzov would have preferred they had not fought.
Book 15, Chapter 4
From Vyázma through the battle at Krásnoe, very rapid troop movement caused great attrition to both armies. The Russians were victorious at Krásnoe, although Kutúzov would have preferred they had not fought.
Summary:
After the encounter at Vyázma, the fleeing French and the Russians who pursued them continued as far as Krásnoe without a battle. Continuous marching at the rate of twenty-seven miles a day took a huge toll on both armies. The rapidity of the Russian pursuit, unparalleled for such a time of the year, was equally destructive to both sides. The Russian army which left that place a hundred thousand strong reached Krásnoe with only fifty thousand men. Along the way, various plans for Russian attacks and maneuvers were put forward to the Russian commander-in-chief, but Kutúzov wisely tried instead to hasten the French on while doing his best to ease the burden on the Russian army. Russian military commander’s longed to distinguish themselves particularly whenever the Russians stumbled on the French army. So, it was at Krásnoe, where the Russians happened upon Napoleon himself along with a French army of sixteen thousand men. Despite all Kutúzov’s efforts to avoid that ruinous encounter and to preserve his troops, the pitiful massacre of the broken mob of French soldiers by worn-out Russians continued at Krásnoe for three days. There the Russians took twenty-six thousand prisoners, several hundred cannon, and a marshal’s staff, but failed to capture Napoleon or any other well-known French military leader. For this and other supposed failings, Kutúzov was roundly reproached by historians while Napoleon is undeservedly praised.
quote from the chapter:
They blamed Kutúzov and said that from the very beginning of the campaign he had prevented their vanquishing Napoleon, that he thought of nothing but satisfying his passions and would not advance from the Linen Factories because he was comfortable there, that at Krásnoe he checked the advance because on learning that Napoleon was there he had quite lost his head, and that it was probable that he had an understanding with Napoleon and had been bribed by him, and so on, and so on.
Not only did his contemporaries, carried away by their passions, talk in this way, but posterity and history have acclaimed Napoleon as grand, while Kutúzov is described by foreigners as a crafty, dissolute, weak old courtier, and by Russians as something indefinite-a sort of puppet useful only because he had a Russian name.
Click here to read full text of this chapter.
Please help improve this shared document by posting your suggested corrections, clarifications, and changes below. Thank you!