said that he expected to end the
campaign by occupying Moscow as he had ended a previous campaign by
occupying Vienna, there is much evidence to the contrary. Napoleon's
historians themselves tell us that from Smolensk onwards he wished
to stop, knew the danger of his extended position, and knew that the
occupation of Moscow would not be the end of the campaign, for he had
seen at Smolensk the state in which Russian towns were left to him, and
had not received a single reply to his repeated announcements of his
wish to negotiate.

In giving and accepting battle at Borodino, Kutuzov acted involuntarily
and irrationally. But later on, to fit what had occurred, the historians
provided cunningly devised evidence of the foresight and genius of the
generals who, of all the blind tools of history were the most enslaved
and involuntary.

The ancients have left us model heroic poems in which the heroes furnish
the whole interest of the story, and we are still unable to accustom
ourselves to the fact that for our epoch histories of that kind are
meaningless.

On the other question, how the battle of Borodino and the preceding
battle of Shevardino were fought, there also exists a definite and
well-known, but quite false, conception. All the historians describe the
affair as follows:

The Russian army, they say, in its retreat from Smolensk sought out
for itself the best position for a general engagement and found such a
position at Borodino.

The Russians, they say, fortified this position in advance on the left
of the highroad (from Moscow to Smolensk) and almost at a right angle
to it, from Borodino to Utitsa, at the very place where the battle was
fought.

In front of this position, they say, a fortified outpost was set up on
the Shevardino mound to observe the enemy. On the twenty-fourth, we
are told, Napoleon attacked this advanced post and took it, and, on the
twenty-sixth, attacked the whole Russian army, which was in position on
the field of Borodino.

So the histories say, and it is all quite wrong, as anyone who cares to
look into the matter can easily convince himself.

The Russians did not seek out the best position but, on the contrary,
during the retreat passed many positions better than Borodino. They did
not stop at any one of these positions because Kutuzov did not wish to
occupy a position he had not himself chosen, because the popular demand
for a battle had not yet expressed itself strongly enough, a