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_ In the early days of October another envoy came to Kutuzov with a
letter from Napoleon proposing peace and falsely dated from Moscow,
though Napoleon was already not far from Kutuzov on the old Kaluga
road. Kutuzov replied to this letter as he had done to the one
formerly brought by Lauriston, saying that there could be no
question of peace.
Soon after that a report was received from Dorokhov's guerrilla
detachment operating to the left of Tarutino that troops of
Broussier's division had been seen at Forminsk and that being
separated from the rest of the French army they might easily be
destroyed. The soldiers and officers again demanded action. Generals
on the staff, excited by the memory of the easy victory at Tarutino,
urged Kutuzov to carry out Dorokhov's suggestion. Kutuzov did not
consider any offensive necessary. The result was a compromise which
was inevitable: a small detachment was sent to Forminsk to attack
Broussier.
By a strange coincidence, this task, which turned out to be a most
difficult and important one, was entrusted to Dokhturov- that same
modest little Dokhturov whom no one had described to us as drawing
up plans of battles, dashing about in front of regiments, showering
crosses on batteries, and so on, and who was thought to be and was
spoken of as undecided and undiscerning- but whom we find commanding
wherever the position was most difficult all through the
Russo-French wars from Austerlitz to the year 1813. At Austerlitz he
remained last at the Augezd dam, rallying the regiments, saving what
was possible when all were flying and perishing and not a single
general was left in the rear guard. Ill with fever he went to Smolensk
with twenty thousand men to defend the town against Napoleon's whole
army. In Smolensk, at the Malakhov Gate, he had hardly dozed off in
a paroxysm of fever before he was awakened by the bombardment of the
town- and Smolensk held out all day long. At the battle of Borodino,
when Bagration was killed and nine tenths of the men of our left flank
had fallen and the full force of the French artillery fire was
directed against it, the man sent there was this same irresolute and
undiscerning Dokhturov- Kutuzov hastening to rectify a mistake he
had made by sending someone else there first. And the quiet little
Dokhturov rode thither, and Borodino became the greatest glory of
the Russian army. Many heroes have been described to us in verse and
prose, but of Dokhturov scarcely a word has been said.
It was Dokhturov again whom they sent to Forminsk and from there
to Malo-Yaroslavets, the place where the last battle with the French
was fought and where the obvious disintegration of the French army
began; and we are told of many geniuses and heroes of that period of
the campaign, but of Dokhturov nothing or very little is said and that
dubiously. And this silence about Dokhturov is the clearest
testimony to his merit.
It is natural for a man who does not understand the workings of a
machine to imagine that a shaving that has fallen into it by chance
and is interfering with its action and tossing about in it is its most
important part. The man who does not understand the construction of
the machine cannot conceive that the small connecting cogwheel which
revolves quietly is one of the most essential parts of the machine,
and not the shaving which merely harms and hinders the working.
On the tenth of October when Dokhturov had gone halfway to
Forminsk and stopped at the village of Aristovo, preparing
faithfully to execute the orders he had received, the whole French
army having, in its convulsive movement, reached Murat's position
apparently in order to give battle- suddenly without any reason turned
off to the left onto the new Kaluga road and began to enter
Forminsk, where only Broussier had been till then. At that time
Dokhturov had under his command, besides Dorokhov's detachment, the
two small guerrilla detachments of Figner and Seslavin.
On the evening of October 11 Seslavin came to the Aristovo
headquarters with a French guardsman he had captured. The prisoner
said that the troops that had entered Forminsk that day were the
vanguard of the whole army, that Napoleon was there and the whole army
had left Moscow four days previously. That same evening a house serf
who had come from Borovsk said he had seen an immense army entering
the town. Some Cossacks of Dokhturov's detachment reported having
sighted the French Guards marching along the road to Borovsk. From all
these reports it was evident that where they had expected to meet a
single division there was now the whole French army marching from
Moscow in an unexpected direction- along the Kaluga road. Dokhturov
was unwilling to undertake any action, as it was not clear to him
now what he ought to do. He had been ordered to attack Forminsk. But
only Broussier had been there at that time and now the whole French
army was there. Ermolov wished to act on his own judgment, but
Dokhturov insisted that he must have Kutuzov's instructions. So it was
decided to send a dispatch to the staff.
For this purpose a capable officer, Bolkhovitinov, was chosen, who
was to explain the whole affair by word of mouth, besides delivering a
written report. Toward midnight Bolkhovitinov, having received the
dispatch and verbal instructions, galloped off to the General Staff
accompanied by a Cossack with spare horses. _
Read next: Book Thirteen: 1812: Chapter 16
Read previous: Book Thirteen: 1812: Chapter 14
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