affair at
Valutino or Lubino: the French lost heavily, but finally gained the
position: and the hope that the foe were determined to fight the
decisive battle at Dorogobuzh lured Napoleon on, despite his earlier
decision.[265] Besides, his position seemed less hazardous than it was
before Austerlitz. The Grand Army was decidedly superior to the united
forces of Barclay and Bagration. On the Dwina, Oudinot held the
Russians at bay; and when he was wounded, his successor, Gouvion St.
Cyr, displayed a tactical skill which enabled him easily to foil a
mere fighter like Wittgenstein. On the French right flank, affairs
were less promising; for the ending of the Russo-Turkish war now left
the Russian army of the Pruth free to march into Volhynia. But, for
the present, Napoleon was able to summon up strong reserves under
Victor, and assure his rear.

With full confidence, then, he pressed onwards to wrest from Fortune
one last favour. It was granted to him at Borodino. There the Russians
made a determined stand. National jealousy of Barclay, inflamed by his
protracted retreat, had at last led to his being superseded by
Kutusoff; and, having about 110,000 troops, the old fighting general
now turned fiercely to bay. His position on the low convex curve of
hills that rise behind the village of Borodino was of great strength.
On his right was the winding valley of the Kolotza, an affluent of the
Moskwa, and before his centre and left the ground sloped down to a
stream. On this more exposed side the Russians had hastily thrown up
earthworks, that at the centre being known as the Great Redoubt,
though it had no rear defences.

Napoleon halted for two days, until his gathering forces mustered some
125,000 men, and he now prepared to end the war at a blow. After
surveying the Russian position, he saw Kutusoff's error in widely
extending his lines to the north; and while making feints on that
side, so as to prevent any concentration of the Muscovite array, he
planned to overwhelm the more exposed centre and left, by the assaults
of Davoust and Poniatowski on the south, and of Ney's corps and
Eugene's Italians on the redoubts at the centre. Davoust begged to be
allowed to outflank the Russian left; but Napoleon refused, perhaps
owing to a fear that the Russians might retreat early in the day, and
decided on dealing direct blows at the left and centre. As the 7th of
September dawned with all the splendour of a protracted summer, cannon