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 generations would say of each, "He was in that great battle under the walls of Moscow." Next morning a courier arrived, bringing a portrait of the little King of Rome. The Emperor hung it before his tent, and invited his officers to admire it. But at night the sinister news of Marmont's defeat at Salamanca arrived. Napoleon said nothing, but was heard in self-communing to deplore the barbarity of war. All night he seemed restless, fearing lest the Russians should elude him as they had in other crises; but, rising at five, and discerning their lines, he called aloud: "They are ours at last! March on; let us open the gates of Moscow."