Kutuzov how many victories and defeats. Kutuzov vs. Napoleon: Who Won the Battle of Borodino. Ishmael. "He was my right hand!"

Press the Prussian in the trench

And if it is with a bayonet, and if it is with a bayonet!

And beat the Frenchman ... on the hat,

Will run at a run, run at a run!

Soldier's Song (Yu Kim)

But which way should we go, what goal should we strive for? And why hasn't anyone found the right target? After all, if someone offered something reasonable, would they not follow him? Aren't the people wise? Why doesn't he see the way out himself?

The answer, in my opinion, is obvious. The way out of the situation is not visible to society, because it does not correspond to its desires, its mentality. But does this happen?

And have there been cases in our history when everyone wanted to act in a certain (wrong) way, but a different path led to success, which was not visible to society as a whole? And why did the society not see him?

In my opinion, we have had this situation more than once, and this is perhaps one of the most striking cases.

Everyone knows that Kutuzov - great commander... But few people thought about what he was great. He fought all his life, but did not win a single famous battle, he has nothing like the loud victories of Napoleon or Suvorov - neither Ishmael, nor Austerlitz. Either defeats, now retreats, now rather controversial victories with a draw. When you think about it, at first some unpleasant feeling arises - or maybe Kutuzov's authority is exaggerated? Maybe he just floated with the flow, and the people and the Russian winter did everything themselves? Tolstoy's interpretation of his personality, it must be said, is in line with just such a view of this historical figure.

Here is Napoleon - yes. The armies under his control were head and shoulders above their rivals on the battlefield. They beat everyone - the Russians, the British, the Saxons, the Austrians, the Prussians, and the Janissaries. They fought with artillery, "like a man with his fists," huge cavalry masses (a revolutionary innovation!) Swept away both the infantry and the well-trained, but small cavalry of the European armies. Napoleon's battle tactics were advanced, Suvorov's, and it was not for nothing that Suvorov's ardent desire was "to meet the boy in order to return everything he had taken." By "taken" was meant just Suvorov's innovations. Suvorov beat Napoleon's marshals, but they did not meet face to face with Napoleon, and the question - who is stronger - remained open.

At the same time, Napoleon was nobody as a strategist. His armies, even in Europe, even before meeting the enemy, lost up to a quarter of their strength, due to disease and hunger! He was not at all interested in the fate of his soldiers. Napoleon had no idea about state structure and the peculiarities of Russia. The Great Army that invaded Russia had neither field kitchens, nor tents, nor normal hospitals - already in Smolensk, parchments from the city archives were used for bandaging.

But if Napoleon managed to lead his army to a general battle, he could not do anything with him - on the battlefield he controlled his soldiers better than anyone else, and they did not let him down.

How different from him was Kutuzov! Before Borodin, Kutuzov prepared ten thousand carts for the wounded and ten thousand orderlies for their evacuation from the battlefield, and Napoleon simply abandoned his wounded.

Both Suvorov and Napoleon called Kutuzov a cunning fox and a cunning fox, respectively - such a coincidence of responses from different people says that this assessment of Kutuzov's personality is objective, and, since it comes from the commanders, it means not only the qualities of a "cunning courtier." When, after the disaster of the Austrian army allied to us at Ulm, Kutuzov had to withdraw from the destruction of the Russian army by the Danube valley, from Braunau to Brunn, the French could not do anything with him. Lying down like a horse, Kutuzov did not give anything and did not sacrifice anyone - and retreat, whatever you say, is the most difficult type of action. Acting constantly with only a part of the forces (the rest must leave), it is necessary to restrain all the enemy's forces, and part of the cover must, constantly alternating, then deploy into battle formation, then turn into a marching one, and even from an inverted front. The troops that have completed their task, without allowing a delay, must be allowed into the column through the deployed replaceable units. All this is technically very difficult, here a commander must be, first of all, just a military professional, but he also needs an understanding of the terrain, and composure, and, of course. cunning. The slightest hitch - and the "tail", or even the entire army, would be lost. I'm not even talking about such a "trifle" that the rearguard of the Russian army had to win unconditionally in every clash with the French vanguard.

This retreat is a masterpiece of the art of war.

But at the same time - and there was a lot of evidence of this - Kutuzov in every possible way avoided a general battle with Napoleon, even at the end of the 1812 campaign.

So that is why we say that in general, in that era, Napoleon lost, and Kutuzov won? The fact is that, without losing outright a single battle, Napoleon lost his main war. You can speculate on this topic as much as you like, but Napoleon lost not only the greatest (up to Hitler) all-European army, but also the work of his whole life, and not because of his stupidity, but because of the mind of Kutuzov.

Kutuzov's intelligence manifested itself in a simple recognition of the obvious fact: Napoleon was the greatest tactical commander of that time, and having fought with him, at best you can resist, but you cannot defeat him by maneuvering on the battlefield, attacking. He does it better! And the battle with him, which ended in a draw, does not at all guarantee that the next one will not end in disaster. To retreat, fighting off, Kutuzov knew how, as it turned out, he could withstand the blow of Napoleon in a general battle. They say that Kutuzov considered it risky in the course of a decisive war to learn to defeat Napoleon on the battlefield. No, it's not about risk. Kutuzov was absolutely sure that he would inevitably be defeated if he tried to defeat Napoleon's army.

That is why Kutuzov "built a golden bridge" for Napoleon to leave Russia, and did not try to shut down his army. Yes, Kutuzov's plans cannot be called majestic - he did not want a loud victory, but only the complete extermination of the enemy and the salvation of the fatherland. Yes, Kutuzov retreated, dodged, he never seriously attacked Napoleon, did not destroy him with artillery fire and a valiant bayonet attack. But Napoleon could not do anything with Kutuzov, that is, Kutuzov was not a bad commander! The French attacked - the Russians fought back. The French were building up their blow - it already fell on an empty spot. The French were leaving - the Russians were grabbing them from behind.

The French generals recalled with resentment that they would have made it to Maloyaroslavets before Kutuzov had he not put his soldiers on carts. It was not by the rules!

But, at the decisive moment of the war, Kutuzov had several thousand carts with draft horses at hand ... And the Great Army had to go not along the fertile Ukraine, but along the scorched Smolensk road.

Napoleon, by his own admission, won battles because he thought them out in advance in all the details, unlike his opponents. But in the war as a whole, he acted in accordance with his other principle: "you have to get involved in a battle, and then we'll see." And Kutuzov had an idea, he implemented it, and this idea turned out to be correct.

Kutuzov, as I understand it, accurately calculated that Napoleon would not be able to provide more than 50 thousand horses with fodder. And the old professional turned out to be right - even before trying to break through to the south, Napoleon had to send horseless cavalry to the West on foot. And it was only September!

Kutuzov understood the war, but Napoleon did not. What is the joy of Napoleon that he is invincible? From his "Grand Army" 5,000 people survived. This is from five hundred or six hundred thousand!

By the way, Kutuzov's plan was not the plan of a lone genius - Defense Minister Barclay de Tolly adhered to the same views as Mikhail Illarionovich. He, apparently, was the author of this plan, because in general it was Barclay de Tolly who was the generator of non-standard solutions to remember at least his invasion of Sweden ... through the frozen Baltic! The most surprising thing was not that the operation was successful and led to the neutrality of Sweden, but how the thought itself could have occurred to a military professional - a march of an entire army for several days, with overnight stays on ice ... there were no analogues in history either before or after was not expected.

Let's return to the plan of the war with Napoleon: why did society as a whole not see this plan and did not accept it from the "German" (the Scotsman Barclay), and obey Kutuzov with great creak?

Because the most important prerequisite for this plan was the recognition of a fact that was unpleasant and unacceptable for the entire Russian society of that time: we cannot defeat Napoleon in the way that was considered correct at that time - by defeating his army in a general battle. Kutuzov knew that this could not be done. That is why his war plan was unpopular. Russian society could not come to this plan "with its own mind." We lost one of the capitals, lost a significant part of the country, we suffered national humiliation in the fall of 1812 - for the first time in 200 years the enemy invaded the heart of Russia. But Kutuzov consistently and purposefully carried out his plan.

The battle of Borodino was a violation of his plan, it was a concession to public opinion, Kutuzov did not want the battle, but even he could not resist. The Russian army longed for one thing - to die under the walls of Moscow - who could resist?

Did Kutuzov want to win at Borodino? In no case. He only hoped to save as many soldiers and officers as possible. Having retained half of the army, Kutuzov won - he could now realize his plan.

Here is the dilemma - the entire Russian society was eager to fight. There was no soldier, officer, general who was afraid of battle, who would like to let go of Napoleon's army, as it later turned out, to die a natural death. But it was impossible to accept the right battle. Kutuzov recognized the superiority of Napoleon in tactics and operational art and certainly destroyed him.

Few understood Kutuzov, but it was not because of his excessive wisdom that the premise for Kutuzov's plan was offensive to any Russian, only that was the whole point. It is not always difficult to recognize the real state of affairs, but sometimes it is very offensive, and resentment interferes with acting correctly. And Sun Tzu said: "If a commander is overly touchy, he can be provoked."

After all, even Kutuzov did not manage to fulfill his duty to Russia to the end, he did not manage to save all of us from a terrible mistake. All strata of Russian society - both the tsar and the nobleman, and, possibly, the peasant - most of all wanted then to free Europe from the "usurper." But in fact, there was no need to "liberate" Europe, the Europeans fell under Napoleon, even if they themselves tumbled with him as they wanted, what does it matter to us? The second time in Russia "Buonaparte" on the lasso would not be dragged!

This was the opinion of Kutuzov, and on his deathbed in the spring of 1813 he asked the tsar. And the king asked for forgiveness from him for not obeying. Kutuzov replied, "I will forgive, will Russia forgive?"

We know about this conversation from the words of only one person - an official for assignments, who overheard him, hiding behind a screen. Its reliability is not one hundred percent, but even if it was invented, the very idea of ​​this dialogue could not appear out of nowhere. There was nothing for us to do in Europe, Kutuzov knew Europe and understood that, trying to play some role there, Russian society was mistaken.

And one can only guess what would have happened if Alexander had heeded Kutuzov's pleas and had not gone to Europe after Napoleon. It's not even about the heavy defeats of our army in 1813 from the same French, the same Napoleon. The whole history of Russia would have turned in a different direction! There would be no financial crisis caused by the need to maintain the Russian army abroad, there would be no Holy Union, there would be no shameful role of the "European gendarme", there would probably not be the Crimean War.

This I mean that our entire society passionately wants the Russian currency to be the best. So that they are not chasing after the dollar in the world, but for the ruble, and so that the ruble is more reliable than gold. Because it is believed that the correct victory in economic competition is when the ruble is freely convertible, and besides, it is constantly growing in relation to other currencies. But are these ideas true?

Knowledge about history is drawn from documents, analyzed using logic, and conclusions are compared with what we understand from own experience... All my life I have been researching the theme of the war of 1812, participated in dozens of scientific conferences, as well as talk shows on TV and radio: and I will try to write this article in extremely simple and clear terms, using exclusively primary sources, and not "water" and speculation ( what my "opponents" are famous for).

It must be stated: there are no two opinions among scientists today - the Battle of Borodino is the defeat of the Russian army and the victory of Napoleon. Some comrades dependent on the budget are still trying by demagogic means to call it “not quite a complete defeat of the Russians,” or “just a tactical victory of Napoleon,” but the Russian army lost almost half of its regular troops, soon after the battle it completely disintegrated (thousands of marauders who plundered their own villages and first plundered Moscow), and the "shrine" - Moscow were forced to surrender without a fight at the mercy of the winner. Army M.I. Kutuzova fled so quickly that about 30,000 Russian wounded were abandoned there (after which his own governor-general FV Rostopchin burned the city, and Kutuzov himself contributed to this by ordering to take out the fire-fighting tool). The hourly (!) History of the burning of the city has already been described by me in the past documentary research, and now we will consider the sources concerning the goals, plans and assessments of M.I. Kutuzov regarding the Borodino battle (that is, exclusively his direct speech in personal letters and in official documents of the headquarters, not French sources and not later texts).

I will quote the primary sources, the documents: they must forever bury the ravings of cheap demagogues who, taking advantage of the ignorance of ordinary readers, hang noodles on their ears, trying to convince them that Kutuzov did not want to defend Moscow from the very beginning (although he was appointed with the obligation to do so). At the same time, I will immediately emphasize: you never know what a talentless general did not want to protect: his duty to win battles and protect native land, especially a point of colossal material, political and moral significance. In addition, you will learn Kutuzov's own criterion for evaluating the Battle of Borodino as a victory or defeat for the Russians.

So, on the day of his arrival at the army (August 17 according to the old style - on the 29th according to the new), the commander-in-chief of the Russian army M.I. Kutuzov wrote to F.V. Rostopchin: “In my opinion, the loss of Russia is connected with the loss of Moscow” (MI Kutuzov. Collection of documents. M., 1955, vol. 4, part 1, p. 90).

The next day, Kutuzov assured Field Marshal N.I. Saltykov and the tsar himself in the fact that he will give battle to Napoleon for the sake of saving Moscow. A day later, he wrote to the commander of the Moldavian army (recently it began to be called the Danube), Admiral P.V. Chichagov: "My real subject is the salvation of Moscow."

I.I. Markov (head of the Moscow militia) handed over to F.V. Rostopchin's definition of Kutuzov: “You can't let him (Napoleon) get to Moscow. Letting him go, all of Russia will be his "( Civil uprising v Patriotic War 1812: Collection of documents. M., 1962, p. 71).

Moreover, as if specifically for historians, Kutuzov personally formulated his own criterion of defeat, failure - and this is a retreat. In the official disposition of September 5 (August 24, old style), he wrote: “It is not a case of an unsuccessful business that several roads are open, which will be communicated to Messrs. commander-in-chief (Barclay and Bagration) and by whom the armies will have to retreat "(MI Kutuzov. Collection of documents ... p. 129).

I will strongly repeat the only documented criterion for assessing the results of the battle, formulated personally by Kutuzov, and, officially and in writing: "... if I am defeated, I will go to Moscow, and there I will defend the Capital" / from a letter to Rostopchin dated September 3 - August 22. under Art. style / (Moscow in 1812. Memoirs, letters and official documents from the collection of the department of written sources of the State Historical Museum. M., 2012, p. 297).

Let's continue the analysis of the battle results. Many Russian soldiers, who left us written evidence, recognized Borodino as a defeat for their army - and a victory for Napoleon. Among them, for example, the brave and principled A.P. Ermolov, who declared: “the enemy won a victory” (Patriotic War and Russian society. 1812 - 1912. Moscow, 1912, vol. IV, p. 29).

Soon after the battle, the adjutant of Vladimir Ivanovich Levenshtern (1777-1858) officer Fadeev wrote to A.D. Bestuzhev-Ryumin "The enemy will certainly enter Moscow, because our army has completely perished." The Governor-General of Moscow Rostopchin reported: "I wrote a note to the Minister of Police that I do not understand this victory, because our armies retreated to Mozhaisk ..." (Ibid.).

And who declared about the "victory" of the Russians? Who initiated the formation of a completely mentally and practically inadequate myth about "victory", after which the army that had lost half of it flees to Moscow, surrenders Moscow, and then dissolves and barely gathers in a distant camp? The answer is simple: this is the same "Zubov's coffee pot", who "slept through" the entire battle, the person who is largely responsible for the terrible defeat - Kutuzov. He very, very cunningly (in the spirit of a courtier of the eighteenth century) wrote a beautiful report to the tsar with the words “the enemy has not won a single step of the ground anywhere” (which, as we already know, was an absolute, one hundred percent lie). Thus, in St. Petersburg they had time to rejoice, they judged that Napoleon had been stopped, that Moscow had been saved! (Patriotic War and Russian society…. P. 29).

The tsar, on false joys, granted Kutuzov a field marshal's assignment and 100,000 rubles! However, when soon the deception about the "victory" was revealed, Kutuzov did not return all this (although the tsar wrote him irritated letters!) ...

Context

If Napoleon had won

Le Mond: Napoleon is still held in high esteem in Russia

Why didn't Putin quote Borodino?

In the footsteps of Napoleon: Borodino - Russian mirage

Russia and France 2012: "electoral Borodino" 200 years later

But the main consequence of Borodin was the catastrophe of Moscow's surrender! Soon the already mentioned battalion commander of the 17th line regiment Zh.P.M. Barier said in a letter to his wife: “On the 14th (September, my comment, E.P.) we entered Moscow. They took many prisoners in the city. Their army no longer exists. Their soldiers defect, not wanting to fight, retreating all the time and seeing themselves beaten in all cases when they decide to confront us "(VN Zemtsov, Battle of the Moscow River. M., 2001, p. 265).

This document unequivocally testifies to the state of complete defeat and disintegration of the Russian army after Borodin.

We also find information about mass desertions in many Russian official army documents.

When we know the testimonies of the Russians, the French and outside observers, we ask ourselves the question: how did Napoleon himself assess the battle? We have a number of documentary evidence. The first is official: in the eighteenth bulletin of the Great Army, which presented a description of the Battle of Borodino as a brilliant victory of the French ("War of the Feathers": official reports on the hostilities of 1812-1814: collection of documents. St. Petersburg, 2014, p. 332 -334).

The second testimony is purely personal, intimate. In a letter to his wife Marie-Louise, Napoleon said (immediately after the battle) that he “beat the Russians” (Castello A. Napoleon. M., 2004, p. 318). As for the phony phrase that was published in Soviet propaganda campaigns, and which migrated to the garbage Wikipedia (about "the least success was won"), this falsification was exposed three decades ago by Doctor of Historical Sciences N.A. Troitsky (Troitsky N.A. 1812. The Great Year of Russia. M., 2007, p. 295-296).

Multimedia

During the reconstruction of the Battle of Borodino, "horses, people were mingled in a heap ..."

Where did the reverse phrase of Kutuzov come from, "with the loss of Moscow, the army was not lost"? And it is very simple: it was pronounced at the council in Fili by Barclay de Tolly (Ermolov A.P. Decree op., P. 205), who understood that if we give a new battle, then already.

the defeated army will be wiped out, and all the generals will face either death or a tribunal. Kutuzov heard this - and with great joy he clung to something like that, simply solidarizing with Barclay: and shifting all responsibility to him. Moreover, the decision to leave Moscow, Kutuzov, pronounced in French. The general who lost everything, who destroyed the army, simply tried to cover up his shame with demagogy - but with the support of state propaganda, he succeeded.

Now let's talk about the Meaning. In Russia, much simply loses its meaning. Yes, yes - pay attention to this. You can win all the battles (as in 1812), but you will not achieve the fulfillment of the Tilsit world from a bald and half-deaf schizophrenic, because he has an immense senseless space and a population of serfs scattered over it (who rebelled against the authorities - but were divided precisely by space ). You may be the great poet Marina Tsvetaeva - but you end up in poverty, in a noose - and not even a grave will be found. You can be the great scientist N.I. Vavilov - but you will die in Stalin's prison (and Stalin, as you know, was the creator of the myth about Kutuzov - until the 1940s, historians did not value him and not a single monograph about him came out!). It is perfectly clear to everyone that, for example, people come to the rallies gathered by Navalny mainly because of the meaning, and to the return gatherings - state employees on obligation or marginals for 300 rubles. But the meaning still does not win: a huge territory, everyone is disunited, then frosts, and if necessary, the meaning will be rolled into the asphalt with armored vehicles. As you know (easy to check on Youtube), I won all talk shows, published all the documents in a monograph (back in 2004), in dozens of articles, but the propaganda machine can print propaganda textbooks in millions of copies - and a lie will fill the truth with an amount ... In addition, the slavish mindless biomass a priori hates the truth.

Who can blather "won in the end"? Only a flawed, notorious creature can value not talent, not honor, not an open battle, but self-immolation, deception, a terrible climate and meaningless space. Only those who live, excuse me, in shit can enviously hate those who gave civilization. Let us compare how Russians lived and live with how Europeans live in the countries from which Napoleon's Great Army was formed? Have you compared? And so it will be until they learn to respect and appreciate meaning and talent, and not lies, not self-immolation, etc.

InoSMI materials contain estimates exclusively foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors of Inosmi.

As you know, August 26 (September 7) 1812 year, the battle took place near the village of Borodino. In Russia for many years the assertion was unshakable that Kutuzov won in this; the genius of Field Marshal Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov as a commander was not in doubt.

But in Paris, on the Arc de Triomphe, you can still see a wreath in honor of Napoleon's victory "in the Battle of Moscow."

At the present time and among Russian historianswe have at least two opinions about the outcome of the Patriotic War 1812 d: classical, which is known to every schoolchild and, the so-called,« anti-kutuzovskaya». Let's try to open the veil of Mystery: who won at Borodino?

So, a word to historians:

“There were 154.8 thousand Russians and 640 guns, the enemy - 134 K vs 587 guns. Despite the fact that Napoleon's army was in the minority, the French constantly attacked and by the evening took possession of many Russian positions.

Field marshals used up their reserves by midday, and the enemy still had the "Old Guard" - about 20 thousand people. " The losses were as follows: the defending Russians lost 55 thousand people, the French came - 34 thousand. Our army left the battlefield, which did not prevent Kutuzov from sending a report of victory to St. Petersburg. In the troops, however, there was no satisfaction, after Borodin mass desertion and looting began among Russian soldiers.

What was Kutuzov's plan: to defend Moscow or surrender the city to the enemy, wait for winter and freeze the French to death?

Documents show that 28 August, three days before the Council in Fili and the surrender of Moscow, Kutuzov did not make a final decision: he ordered the Kaluga governor to bring food supplies to the city, as if believing that Moscow is a safer place than Kaluga.

While military operations were approaching Moscow, Moscow Governor-General Fyodor Rostopchin (in our time this position can be attributed to Mayor Luzhkov) asked what would happen to Moscow. After all, as the mayor, he should have known what to prepare for 200- thousandth city: for defense or evacuation. But Rostopchin did not receive a clear answer from Kutuzov, and at his own peril and risk began the evacuation of state institutions: the Senate, the sacristy, the Armory, archives. In fear, the people fled, they did not have time to leave the city about 10 thousand Muscovites. Most terrible of all, in retreating 22.5 thousand wounded.

Rostopchin was not allowed to the council in Fili, because by this time Kutuzov had firmly decided to leave Moscow and did not want an influential and eloquent opponent to speak. Kutuzov did not consider it necessary to inform even the emperor about the decision to leave Moscow. Rostopchin reported this to St. Petersburg. 1 September in St. Petersburg continued celebrations on the occasion of the Borodino victory. Therefore, the news of the surrender of Moscow to the French plunged the capital into shock.

But why, today, only one Kutuzov personifies the victory of Russian weapons in the Patriotic War?

First, after the war 1812 years, the Russian people felt their strength and they needed their own hero. These are the main points of the field marshal's censure theory.

And yet the situation needs to be examined« without anger and addiction».

In fact, Kutuzov unsuccessfully placed his forces on the Borodino field, which led to more losses than the enemy's. But Napoleon, who lost a smaller number of soldiers after Borodin, was left practically without cavalry.

So the answer to the question« Who won the Battle of Borodino?» - the secret of Her Majesty History.

The point of view of French historians is as follows: Napoleon in the war 1812 year did not suffer a single defeat. Even on the Berezina, he withdrew part of his combat-ready troops. But the paradox of history is that, without losing a single battle, he lost the campaign. And Kutuzov, who did not win a single battle, won the war.

It remains for us to decide what is more important to us?

L iteration:

http://humanities.edu.ru/db/msg