e when the advantage was his, not
theirs. Making all allowance for troops to be left in garrison,
Napoleon would still have a hundred and fifty-seven thousand men,
hardened veterans who, though murmuring and grumbling after the
soldier's manner, were nevertheless altogether trustworthy, and would
turn sulky if compelled to retreat.

If this were Napoleon's reasoning, it proved to be fallacious, because
the Russians were constantly increasing their strength, while that of
the French, both on the base of operations and on the line of march,
was diminishing. The Austrian troops, moreover, behaved toward Russia
as the Russian soldiers had behaved toward Austria in the last
campaign; that is, as a friendly exploring guard, and not as hostile
invaders. It is now easy to say that to lengthen the French line of
operation was a military blunder. It was certainly wrong. The reasons
are, however, not altogether strategic; they are chiefly moral, and
were not so clearly discernible then. In the face of national feeling,
before the march of national regeneration, a single man,
world-conqueror though he may have been during a period of national
disorganization, is an object of microscopic size. The French emperor
did not know the strength of Russian feeling, the great revolutionist
was ignorant of the Europe he had unconsciously regenerated. If he
blundered as a strategist in not confessing defeat at Smolensk, he
behaved like a tyro in statesmanship when he courted an overthrow at
Moscow.

Barclay was charged by the old Russians with being too German in
feeling, with manoeuvering timidly when he ought to fight,
and--sacrilege of sacrileges!--with leaving the sacred image of the
Virgin at Smolensk to fall into hostile hands. Yielding to the storm
of popular feeling, Alexander appointed in his stead Kutusoff, the
darling of the conservative Slavonic party; but Barclay was persuaded
to remain as adviser, and his policy was sustained. The Russians
withdrew before the French advance, until, on September third, their
van halted on the right bank of the Kalatscha, opposite Borodino, to
strike the decisive blow in defense of Moscow. On the fourth
Napoleon's van attacked and drove before it the Russian rear, which
was just closing in. He had a hundred and twenty-eight thousand men at
hand, and six thousand more within reach. That night he issued a
ringing address: recalling Austerlitz, he summoned the soldiers to
behave so that future gene