The emperor's first great coup thus failed. Jerome was replaced by Davout, and the army resumed its march, this time in the hope of surrounding and overwhelming Barclay, whilst Davout dealt with Bagration. The want of mobility, particularly in the cavalry, now began to tell against the French. With horses only just re covering from an epidemic, they proved quite unequal to the task of catching the Cossacks, who swarmed round them in every direction, never accepting an engagement but compelling a con stant watchfulness for which nothing in their previous experience had sufficiently prepared the French.
Before their advance, however, the Russian armies steadily retired, Barclay from Vilna via Drissa to Vitebsk, Bagration narrowly evading Davout—from Wolkowysk to Mohilev. Again arrangements were made for a Napoleonic battle ; behind Murat's cavalry came the "general advanced guard" to attack and hold the enemy, whilst the main body and Davout were held available to swing in on his rear. Napoleon, however, failed to allow for the psychology of his opponents, who refused to be drawn into engage ments and steadily withdrew from every position when the French gained touch with them. Thus the manoeuvre against Vitebsk again miscarried, and Napoleon found himself in a far worse position, numerically and materially, than at the outset of the campaign. Then he had stood with 420,000 men on a front of 16om., now he had only 229,000 men on a 135m. front ; he had missed three great opportunities of destroying his enemy in detail, and in five weeks, during which time he had only traversed zoom., he had seen his troops reduced numerically at least one-third, and, worse still, his army was now far from being the fighting machine it had been at the outset.
Meanwhile the Russians had not lost a single gun and the moral of their men had been improved by the result of the many minor encounters with the enemy; further, the junction of Bagration and Barclay was now assured in the vicinity of Smolensk. Towards this place the French advance was now resumed, and the Russian generals at the head of a united force of 130,000 men marched forward towards Rudnia to meet them. Here, however, the ineffi ciency of the Russian staff actually saved them from the disaster which must certainly have overtaken them had they realized their intention of fighting the French. The Russians marched in two columns, which lost touch of one another, and as it was quite im possible for either to engage the French single-handed, they both retired again towards Smolensk, where with an advanced guard in the town itself—which possessed an old-fashioned brick enceinte not to be breached by field artillery alone—the two columns reunited and deployed for action behind the unfordable Dnieper.
Murat and Ney as "general advanced guard" attacked the town in the morning of Aug. 16, and the main body was swung round to place itself on the Russian rear astride the road to Moscow. The whole of the 17th was required to complete the movement, and as soon as its purpose was sufficiently revealed to the Russians the latter determined to retreat under cover of night. Their manoeuvre was carried out with complete success, and then began a series of rearguard actions and nocturnal re treats which completely accomplished their purpose of wearing down the French army. The Russian government, however, failed to see the matter in its true light, and Marshal Kutusov was sent to the front to assume the chief command. His intention was to occupy a strong position and fight one general action for the possession of Moscow, and to this end he selected the line of the Kalatscha where the stream intersects the great Moscow :oad.
Borodino.—Here he was overtaken by Murat and Ney, but the French columns had straggled so badly that four whole days elapsed before the emperor was able to concentrate his army for battle and then could only oppose 128,00o men to the Russians' 11 0,000. About 6 A.M. on Sept. 7 the battle (see BORODINO) began, but Napoleon was suffering from one of those attacks of illness and depression which henceforth became such an important factor in his fate. Till about midday he followed the course of the action with his usual alertness ; then he appears to have been over come by a kind of stupor and allowed his marshals to fight by themselves. There was no final decisive effort as at Wagram and the Guard was not even called on to move. Ultimately the sun went down on an undecided field on which 38,00o Russians and 25,000 French had fallen, but the moral reaction on the latter was far greater than on the former. Kutusov continued his retreat, and Murat with his now exhausted horsemen followed as best he might. Sebastiani, commanding the advanced guard, overtook the Russians in the act of evacuating Moscow, and agreed with the latter to observe a seven hours' armistice to allow the Russians to clear the town, for experience had shown the French that street fighting in wooden Russian townships always meant fire and the consequent destruction of much-needed shelter and provisions. Towards nightfall Napoleon reached the scene, and the Russians being now clear the troops began to enter, but already fires were observed in the farther part of the city. Napoleon passed the night in a house in the western suburb and next morning rode to the Kremlin, the troops moving to the quarters assigned to them, but in the afternoon a great fire began and, continuing for two days, drove the French out into the country again.