Battle of Borodino
Introduction
The battle of Borodino was fought on the 7th of September 1812 near the western side of Moscow. As a Russian artilleryman and a devoted soldier of the motherland, I witnessed how Napoleon had an intention to invade the Russian country with an aim of making the Russians to declare war. He wanted to show the Russians that the French were strong and that he would defeat the Russians in a decisive manner. This military strategy according to Napoleon would force the Russians to come to the peace table. According to my observation as a veteran soldier of Czar, Napoleon claimed to have won as it was never a decisive defeat. The people of Moscow did not come to the peace table. The resulting poor performance in the battle …show more content…
Napoleon wasted a number of chances in Old Town in an excuse that he was waiting for more armed forces to arrive. We the French army was consequently got off-guard Valutino on the 19th of August. Barclay de Tolly searched for a suitable position to launch a defense. The commander had then been replaced but he continued serving. The authority of Barclay de Tolly was greatly undermined by top army officers who had been angered by the long-term retreat and by the frequent nationalism that was common among the old officers in the army (Reid, 2002, 37). The commanders resented taking orders from what they termed as a foreigner as Barclay de Tollyhad a Scottish ancestry. His family had however settled for a long time in the city of Livonia which was part of the Russian Empire (Duffy,1972, 38).The leadership of Barclay continued for a longer period after he had been replaced. The leadership instructed Vyazma to supply reserves that were burned toward the end of August. Barclay wanted to fight at Tsarevo but Kutuzov convinced the army not to obey the decision. Barclay decided that a retreat was better and he continued with it in an effort to find a place to launch a defense. Our Russian army reached Gzhatsk and this made Kutuzov change his mind citing the reason that the place was too big for the relatively small …show more content…
I am completely unaware of it. As it is, a regular artilleryman is hardly informed about these details. These are the headache of the generals. However, the soldiers in the camp mentioned that some of the rough estimates indicate that there were 103000 men in the infantry and about 30000 men in the cavalry. The battles along the way had, however, reduced the number to 110000. We were stretched a lot in the battle of Borodino. Napoleon had an extra 180000 men in Smolensk, which enabled the French army to receive a frequent reinforcement (Van Creveld, 2004, 58). This, however, did not mean that we out-numbered the Russian troops. The Grand Armée’s march across Russia caused confusion even to the army (Palmer, 1972, 60). It was an international force having a unique arrangement to guard as Imperial Guard. Lefebvre and Mortier commanded the Old and the Young guard
Introduction
The battle of Borodino was fought on the 7th of September 1812 near the western side of Moscow. As a Russian artilleryman and a devoted soldier of the motherland, I witnessed how Napoleon had an intention to invade the Russian country with an aim of making the Russians to declare war. He wanted to show the Russians that the French were strong and that he would defeat the Russians in a decisive manner. This military strategy according to Napoleon would force the Russians to come to the peace table. According to my observation as a veteran soldier of Czar, Napoleon claimed to have won as it was never a decisive defeat. The people of Moscow did not come to the peace table. The resulting poor performance in the battle …show more content…
Napoleon wasted a number of chances in Old Town in an excuse that he was waiting for more armed forces to arrive. We the French army was consequently got off-guard Valutino on the 19th of August. Barclay de Tolly searched for a suitable position to launch a defense. The commander had then been replaced but he continued serving. The authority of Barclay de Tolly was greatly undermined by top army officers who had been angered by the long-term retreat and by the frequent nationalism that was common among the old officers in the army (Reid, 2002, 37). The commanders resented taking orders from what they termed as a foreigner as Barclay de Tollyhad a Scottish ancestry. His family had however settled for a long time in the city of Livonia which was part of the Russian Empire (Duffy,1972, 38).The leadership of Barclay continued for a longer period after he had been replaced. The leadership instructed Vyazma to supply reserves that were burned toward the end of August. Barclay wanted to fight at Tsarevo but Kutuzov convinced the army not to obey the decision. Barclay decided that a retreat was better and he continued with it in an effort to find a place to launch a defense. Our Russian army reached Gzhatsk and this made Kutuzov change his mind citing the reason that the place was too big for the relatively small …show more content…
I am completely unaware of it. As it is, a regular artilleryman is hardly informed about these details. These are the headache of the generals. However, the soldiers in the camp mentioned that some of the rough estimates indicate that there were 103000 men in the infantry and about 30000 men in the cavalry. The battles along the way had, however, reduced the number to 110000. We were stretched a lot in the battle of Borodino. Napoleon had an extra 180000 men in Smolensk, which enabled the French army to receive a frequent reinforcement (Van Creveld, 2004, 58). This, however, did not mean that we out-numbered the Russian troops. The Grand Armée’s march across Russia caused confusion even to the army (Palmer, 1972, 60). It was an international force having a unique arrangement to guard as Imperial Guard. Lefebvre and Mortier commanded the Old and the Young guard