The Battle of Borodino: Napoleon Against Kutuzov

by Alexander Mikaberidze

  Meanwhile, Nikolai Muravyev, standing near Gorki,

  saw a squadron of enemy Horse Jägers that galloped to the valley in front of our right lank. The cavalrymen dismounted and engaged in a skirmish with our Jägers, who had crossed the Kolocha. Count Osterman-Tolstoy ordered a few cannon-balls to be sent into the horsemen …

  Around 5.30am Eugène ordered Delzon’s 13th Division to attack the Russian right flank.225 As Pelet indicates, the French scouts already knew that the village Borodino was ‘well protected from the west but had weaker defences from the north’, where Delzon decided to attack after crossing the Voina brook near Bezzubovo. Delzon split his division, in order to attempt a two-pronged attack from the north, and moving in a fog, his troops approached the village of Borodino around 6am, halting there to await the signal before advancing further. When the signal came – an artillery salvo – Delzon quickly ordered his troops forward.

  Delzon’s first column attacked the village from the north, while the second proceeded along the main road. On the Russian side, the soldiers of the 3rd Battalion of the Life Guard Jäger Regiment were stationed on the northern edge of the village, while some their comrades served on patrol duty along the Voina rivulet. Behind them, the 1st and 2nd Battalions were camped out, supported by an artillery battery.226 The northern approach was blockaded by barricades and various fences, while the eastern side was reinforced by a series of trenches. The bridge across the Kolocha was defended by the Guard Equipage, which had been established from the crews of the court yacht and galleys in St Petersburg only two years before. In 1812 some 500 of these sailors were assigned to the Guard Jägers of the 1st Western Army. At Borodino the Guard Equipage commander, Captain (2nd class) Ivan Kartsev, selected thirty of his most experienced men (led by Midshipman Lermontov) to destroy the crossing over the Kolocha, should the enemy break through the Guard Jägers. The rest of the Guard Equipage was with V Corps.

  As the dawn mist hugged the ground, concealing Napoleon’s columns, Barclay de Tolly’s adjutant, Vladimir Löwenstern, observed that:

  General Barclay, in complete parade uniform, with all his orders and wearing a bicorn with a black feather, was standing with his entire staff at the battery behind the village of Borodino […] An artillery cannonade was thundering all around. The village of Borodino, located in front of us, was occupied by the courageous Life Guard Jäger Regiment.227

  And Pavel Grabbe, Yermolov’s adjutant, who was standing on the hill behind the Russian right lank – noticed that:

  Everyone’s attention was directed to Borodino […] Barclay de Tolly insisted it was dangerous and futile to defend this village and suggested recalling the Jägers at once. Duke Alexander of Württemberg argued otherwise and Kutuzov silently listened to both of them.228

  Realizing the futility of persuading Kutuzov, Barclay de Tolly acted on his own, as Löwenstern recalled:

  General Barclay, reconnoitring the entire vale from the hill, understood the grave danger the Life Guard Jäger Regiment was facing and dispatched me with orders to have it immediately withdrawn from the village and the bridge destroyed.

  The French 106th Line was first to reach the village. They were met by a bayonet charge, courtesy of the 3rd Grenadier and 9th Jäger Companies of the Life Guard’s 3rd Battalion. This action was ordered by Captain Petin, who, though wounded, deployed his companies ‘in battle formation under heavy enemy ire and made a second bayonet charge’.229 The French repelled two further attacks, forcing the Russian battalion to retreat. The Russians were supported by the 2nd Battalion of Colonel Richter – ‘a charming lad and brave like a Bayard’230 – which opened fire before charging with bayonets, in order to delay the enemy. Richter’s men even captured two French staff officers.231

  In the meantime, Bistrom deployed skirmishers under Staff Captain Rall III (from the 1st Battalion), who covered the retreat of the 3rd Battalion and briefly halted the French. The 106th rallied and launched another attack, only to be countered by a bayonet charge from the 2nd Battalion (supported by the troops of the Guard Equipage). Captain Saint Priest III, who saw ‘that the enemy was occupying the bridge and trying to cut off the 2nd Battalion from the 1st and the 3rd, which were already under protection of artillery batteries’, led his company in a desperate charge that bought enough time for the rest of the battalion to escape. Simultaneously, Colonel Grabovsky’s 1st Battalion defended the artillery battery (twelve guns), which the French tried several times to seize. The battery was soon ordered to withdraw from its position.232

  The initial French success was due to two major factors, one of them being their superiority in numbers. Equally important, however, was the Russian failure to properly prepare for the attack. Yermolov criticized the commanding officers of the Life Guard Jäger Regiment for:

  the disorder in which the Regiment was caught […] There was such widespread carelessness on the outposts of this battalion that many lower ranks were asleep, having taken off their uniforms. Other battalions were equally careless, but only few were as disorganized.

  One-third of soldiers and almost half the officers of the Life Guard Jägers were either killed or wounded in this brief combat. How did this happen? According to Liprandi, the answer lay in the fact that when the Jägers occupied the village, they

  were jubilant to ind large bathhouses in this opulent village and decided to use them that night. Thus, when the French attacked, [the] entire battalion was still in [the] baths. This is why thirty officers and half of the men were lost [in the subsequent fighting]. Many, leaping out from the bathhouses, barely had time to dress and, grasping their muskets, entered the fighting at once.233

  Liprandi’s account (published in the 1860s) naturally caused a scandal and was bitterly criticized for tarnishing the official version of the battle. But other participants also left an unflattering picture of the commanding Jäger officers, especially of Colonel Makarov. According to Mitarevsky: ‘Even I, an artillery officer, thought the Guard Jägers abandoned Borodino too hastily, while the infantry officers were even more unforgiving in their assessment.’ Indeed, Sherbinin wrote: ‘Oh yes, there was indeed a mist that day, not in the air, but rather in the head of the drunken Makarov, who passed out around 6am and could not order his battalion to arms.’ Durnovo explained: ‘Makarov was in a state of such intoxication that [it] was simply unpardonable for the commander.’234 It seems the 3rd Battalion was actually commanded not by Makarov but Colonel Dellagarde, whom Bistrom praised for ‘greatly assisting with advices in commanding the 3rd Battalion’.235 Pushin was also critical of the leadership of the Life Guard Jäger Regiment, which resulted in the loss of so many lives:

  Our Jägers, joining us in the morning, earned severe reprimand for their carelessness and inattentiveness on advance posts, as a result of which, the enemy exacted heavy casualties on them; the Jägers lost many men, without inflicting any heavy damage on the French.

  Official reports and other materials contain no criticism of the Life Guard Jägers, one of the élite units of the Russian Army, and Makarov, who was accused of such gross ineptitude, was later awarded the Order of St Vladimir (3rd class) and given command of another élite unit, the famous Pavlograd Grenadiers. The whole affair was largely suppressed, but it did find voice in personal memoirs and letters of participants. It also reveals intrigues and personal relations between officers who sought to justify themselves and tarnish their opponents. Thus Barclay de Tolly remains silent on Makarov’s incompetence and instead blames Yermolov, ‘who suggested to Bennigsen and Kutuzov to deploy this Regiment [at Borodino]’.236

  In the meantime, Mitarevsky, standing on the eastern bank of the Kolocha, was anxiously listening to the sounds coming from Borodino. ‘The smoke of musket fire soon covered the village,’ he recalled, ‘A confused fighting occurred on the way out of Borodino, near the bridge; although it was in front of us, and so close that some bullets whizzed by us, we could not see what was happening there because of smoke, dust and fog.’ Löwenstern, whom, a
s you may recall, Barclay de Tolly dispatched to withdraw the Jägers, arrived a minute too late:

  I rushed to the commander of the [Jäger] regiment but General Delzon’s column, moving on the main road, was already entering the village […] It was marching quickly [‘beglym shagom’] and with a drumbeat. The order to retreat was quickly issued but the withdrawal could not be executed fast enough to prevent the other French column from reaching the riverbank and deploying a chain of skirmishers, who opened fire at [the] Jägers as they were crossing the bridge. The ire was [very] effective and deadly. The second enemy column, moving quickly along the main road from the village, also approached the bridge and opened the longitudinal ire. We were so crammed [on the bridge] that not a single enemy shot missed its target […] the combat continued no more than fifteen minutes.

  The Russian battery of Lieutenant Colonel Yefremov, deployed on the other end of the bridge, opened a canister ire to silence the enemy and help the Jägers to destroy the bridge. The French countered by a battery from the reserve artillery of IV Corps, which fired at the bridge and the Russian positions on the eastern bank of the Kolocha. Their effective ire forced Yefremov to withdraw his outgunned battery, leaving the Russians struggling to dismantle the bridge under the murderous ire of the French skirmishers. Lieutenant Vonogradsky noted: ‘The bridge was destroyed and ignited by the marines with the help of Jägers, acting under heavy enemy ire.’ However, in reality, the Guard Equipage troops barely managed to ignite and remove half of the bridge flooring when the French carried the bridge and forced them to lee. Major Petrov later described how:

  the enemy infantry from the Italian Corps, supported by reinforcements, made a vigorous attack on the village of Borodino […] where the Life Guard Jäger Regiment was forced to abandon the village and the bridge, which was still intact, and allowed the enemy to cross to the right bank of the Kolocha, towards the centre of the general position of our armies.

  Thus, by 7.30am, Delzon’s division achieved its initial goal of seizing Borodino. As Lejeune noted: ‘Prince Eugène, who had, of course, not foreseen that this attack would succeed beyond his hopes, had ordered nothing more than the taking of Borodino.’ But with the village already seized, the 106th Line, ‘carried away by its bravery’,237 crossed the Kolocha by the mill bridge, as the Russians had done before it, and pursued them to the heights beyond, scaling them rapidly. This was a major mistake, since this riverbank was well defended by the Russians. Colonel Vuich’s brigade (19th and 40th Jägers) was deployed in a chain from the bridge to the Stonets stream, with its reserves camped out in front of the bridge. The 1st and 18th Jägers held positions between the Stonets and Semeyonovskii stream and their reserves stood in the ravine of the Ognik brook. The position was further defended by twenty-four guns of the 13th, 45th and 46th Light Companies, which were protected by minor earthworks and trenches.

  As the French crossed the Kolocha, Colonel Moses Karpenko, commander of the 1st Jäger Regiment, moved his troops to support the Guard Jägers and drive the French back. Karpenko himself recalled receiving such order from Colonel A. P. Nikitin, although he mistakenly referred to Compans’ division assaulting Borodino. According to Major Petrov, Bennigsen personally ordered Karpenko to attack with the 1st Jägers Regiment, since he: ‘remembered the regiment’s celebrated service in the battles of 1806 and 1807 campaigns’.238 Karpenko marched at once towards the Stonets stream, where he concealed his troops behind a small hill, while he and his senior officers ascended it to reconnoitre the enemy position. He then instructed Bistrom, who led the remnants of the Life Guard Jäger Regiment, and Captain Raal, who directed the skirmishers, to withdraw ‘in a column to remain in reserve and clear the battle front around the bridge for the 1st Jäger Regiment’s attack’. Barclay de Tolly meantime instructed Vuich to attack the French flank with his Jäger brigade.

  The 106th Line soon found itself in the crossfire of Russian batteries. In the immediate vicinity of Borodino there were six guns of the 13th Light Company, six guns of the 12th Light Company and eighteen guns (led by Yefremov) of the 24th Brigade, which engaged the French with a canister ire. They were supported by Major Ditterix III’s eight guns of the 7th Battery Company, set up on the heights west of Gorki. General Kutaisov also diverted two Horse Artillery companies to this front, the 22nd Horse Company (Colonel Khoven), and six guns of the 4th Horse Company (Colonel Merlin).239

  Thus, within a short time, the Russians managed to gather some fifty-six guns against the French regiment, which, obliged to continue its assault across the bridge, consequently suffered heavy casualties. Lieutenant Grabbe described how he was sent ‘to Khoven’s Horse Artillery Company with the order to occupy the hill overlooking the bridge […] This was accomplished very quickly and the attacking French were showered with canister.’ Nikolai Divov recalled the arrival of Khoven’s guns, which were ‘deployed with an unusual fearlessness and opened a devastating ire’.240 Merlin, reaching the bridge with his 4th Company, deployed four of his guns on the right lank, while two guns led by Sub Lieutenant Zhitov were set up near the bridge. Merlin recalled how Zhitov’s division, ‘through its skilled and targeted fire, greatly contributed to disordering and repelling an enemy column, as well as in the recapture and destruction of the bridge’.241 Kutuzov seems to have noticed the actions of Merlin’s company, since one of his adjutants soon delivered the Commander-in-Chief’s word of commendation and rewarded one of the privates with a military cross.

  Yefremov’s 46th Light Battery particularly distinguished itself and he was later commended for ‘defending the crossing under heavy enemy fire […] and containing the enemy attack with canister, driving [the French] back on several occasions and forcing the enemy columns to lee’. After being wounded in his left thigh, Yefremov was replaced by Captain Bulashevich, who received two severe contusions to his leg and chest but continued commanding. He was assisted by Staff Captain Kharlamov, who skilfully directed the ire of his six guns, and Lieutenant Lukyanovich, who boldly moved a further six guns closer to the French column, ‘forcing it to retreat three times’. His comrade, Lieutenant Sestretsov, commanded the licornes ranged against a French battery set up near the village of Borodino. He was later praised for ‘twice forcing the battery to retreat and, finally, approaching it at a canister range, he cleared the position from enemy guns, which did not appear there anymore’.242

  Watching as this massive artillery firepower was directed against his comrades, Adam could see them ‘suffering from a devastating fire from the front and flanks. It was horrible to see as the extended line [of French infantrymen] was ravaged and broken by enemy cannon-balls’.243 The 106th was saved by the 92nd Line, whose soldiers rushed across the bridge to rescue their comrades.244 General Plauzonne, who commanded a brigade of the 13th Division, led the charge and, as Labaume described, he ‘ran to the bridge to recall [the 106th] when a ball struck him in the middle of his body’. The 38-year-old Plauzonne’s death threw his men into momentary confusion, allowing the Russians to sweep down on them. Plauzonne was replaced by Adjutant Commandant Boisserolle, who ordered a retreat and, as Eugène reported, ‘took some excellent dispositions for the conservation of the village of Borodino’.245

  Russian participants provide more details on this counter-attack. Colonel Karpenko – whom Yermolov acidly described as a ‘fearless commander, but with intellectual abilities limited to a single order, “Forward!” ‘ – later wrote that he deployed his regiment in columns, instructing the men to lay down and feign hesitancy about attacking: ‘The French, not seeing any resistance on my part, rushed with a drum beat across the bridge and began crossing [to the left bank of the Kolocha].’ One of his subordinates described the sequel thus:

  the brave Karpenko could inspire the soldiers to march to their death and gain their good will with silence. After issuing orders to staff and junior officers, and having made the sign of the cross, blessing his regiment, which was ready for battle, he rushed forward to set an example in person.246
>
  Major Petrov, serving in the 1st Battalion of the 1st Jäger, recalled Karpenko deploying the 1st Battalion in line in the front, while the 3rd Battalion (led by Major Sibirtsev) remained in a column ‘some fifteen steps behind the last line of [the 1st] Battalion’. As mentioned above, these troops were deployed behind a small hill near the bridge and were effectively hidden from the French. Karpenko then quickly rushed with the 1st Battalion on this hillock and made a close-range salvo into the French ranks, which became confused and disordered. The smoke barely cleared when the 3rd Battalion, moving in a column, and the 19th and 40th Jägers of Vuich’s brigade, attacking from a lank, made a bayonet charge against the French, who found themselves trapped between the attacking enemy and a narrow, half-destroyed bridge. Worst of all, the Jägers brought up artillery, which opened a near point-blank fire that ‘destroyed enemy units with their general, staff and junior officers, and forced them to retreat to the left bank of the Kolocha towards the village of Borodino’.247 Pursuing them, Karpenko’s soldiers found the body of General Plauzonne, whose epaulettes were torn off and sent back to Barclay de Tolly.

  Crossing on the heels of the 106th and 92nd Line, the Russians rushed towards Borodino, the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Jäger Regiment entering the village. But many French accounts either dispute or fail to mention this episode. The Russian progress was checked by Yermolov, who, upon reaching the village, realized that ‘isolated from the rest of our forces, the 1st Jäger Regiment was now in a dangerous situation […] of being cut off’. So he ordered them to abandon the village, withdraw across the river, and burn the bridge. A light artillery company, deployed nearby, drove the enemy tirailleurs back and the action in this area was then limited to an occasional exchange of ire. Prince Eugène’s troops secured control over the crossing on the Kolocha and Voina and Delzon’s brigade, still skirmishing with the Russian Jägers, halted north of Borodino.