Russia Against Napoleon_ The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace - Dominic Lieven [94]
On 17 July First Army abandoned Drissa and retreated towards Vitebsk, hoping to reach this city before Napoleon. Two days later Alexander departed for Moscow. The emperor had been urged to take this step in a joint letter signed by three of his most senior advisers, Aleksei Arakcheev, Aleksandr Balashev and Aleksandr Shishkov. Above all, they argued that Alexander’s presence in the two capitals was essential in order to inspire Russian society and mobilize all its resources for war. Before leaving the army the emperor had a one-hour conversation with Barclay. His last words to his commander before he departed were overheard by Vladimir Löwenstern, Barclay’s aide-de-camp: ‘I entrust my army to you. Don’t forget that it is the only army I have. Keep this thought always in mind.’ Two days earlier Alexander had written in similar fashion to Bagration:
Don’t forget that we are still opposed by superior numbers at every point and for this reason we need to be cautious and not deprive ourselves of the means to carry on an effective campaign by risking all on one day. Our entire goal must be directed towards gaining time and drawing out the war as long as possible. Only by this means can we have the chance of defeating so strong an enemy who has mobilised the military resources of all Europe.26
Bagration was much more in need of such advice than Barclay. His system of war is well summed up in a number of his letters and circulars from the summer of 1812. ‘Russians ought not to run away,’ he wrote; ‘we are becoming worse than the Prussians.’ He urged his officers ‘to instil into our soldiers that the enemy’s troops are nothing more than scum drawn from every corner of the earth, whereas we are Russians and Christian believers (edinovernye). They don’t know how to fight bravely and above all they fear our bayonets. So we must attack them.’ To be sure, this was propaganda designed to raise morale, but even in private Bagration stressed aggression, moral superiority and offensive spirit. At the beginning of the war he urged Alexander to allow him to launch his army on a diversionary raid towards Warsaw, which in Bagration’s view would be the most effective way of drawing French troops away from First Army. He conceded that in the end superior enemy forces would concentrate against him and force him to withdraw, and planned then to move southwards to link up with Tormasov’s Third Army and defend the approaches to Volhynia.27
Correctly, Alexander dismissed this proposal, which would have given Napoleon a golden opportunity to surround and destroy Second Army and which even in the most optimistic scenario would have resulted in Bagration’s force moving far to the south and away from the decisive theatre. Instead the emperor urged on Bagration his own strategy: while First Army retreated in the face of superior numbers, Second Army and Platov’s Cossacks must harass Napoleon’s flanks and rear.
In pressing this strategy Alexander was sticking to the basic principles which had guided Barclay’s thinking from early 1810 and which in the end were to bring victory in 1812. Whichever Russian army was threatened by Napoleon’s main body must withdraw and refuse battle, while the other Russian armies must strike into the ever-lengthening enemy flanks and rear. But this strategy was only fully realizable by the autumn of 1812 when Napoleon’s armies had been hugely depleted and their immensely long flanks were vulnerable to the Russian armies brought in from Finland and the Balkans. Launching Bagration into the flank of Napoleon’s main body in June 1812 was almost as sure a recipe for disaster as allowing him to mount a diversion into the Duchy of Warsaw.
In time sense prevailed and Bagration was ordered to retreat and to attempt to join