You will not see such battles …
M. Yu. Lermontov. Borodino
Documents and history. Of course, it is desirable that the date on the calendar is different now. Let's say 2022. Then we would have had the 210th anniversary of the Battle of Borodino, and any round date in our country is a very special thing in terms of information. But what is not, that is not. But September 8 is the Day of Military Glory of Russia (although it would be more correct to establish it on the 7th). There is also a lot of interest in the battle, and it is not waning, as evidenced by the comments of the activists of "VO" in the articles devoted to the weapons of the war of 1812. Weapons! And then what to say about the war itself or the same Borodino battle? But what do we know about it if the theory of nuclear war from 1780 to 1816 is in vogue now, into which the Battle of Borodino simply does not fit. However, let's begin our acquaintance with this event, seemingly known to all of us. Who in school did not memorize "Borodino" by M. Yu. Lermontov?.. Let's start with what any research usually begins with, with historiography: who, what and when has already written about this event and how exactly the views of one historian differ from the views of the other. And God bless them, with views. Let's take a look at the numbers, which are usually never taken out of the head, but are always based on some kind of documents.
Well, this time the photocopies of pages from the popular Russian magazine "Niva" for 1912 will serve as the design for this material of ours. I am sure that few VO readers have ever seen this magazine or held it in their hands. Meanwhile, this is a very, very interesting source of our knowledge about the past, both textual and illustrative, since many photographs have been placed in it since the end of the 19th century, and, of course, there were also a lot of drawings and engravings in it. As a child, I just loved looking at the stitched binders of this magazine, which were collected in our old wooden house from 1898 to 1917! Now, alas, they have been gone for a long time (as a student, I dragged them all to the second-hand shop), but the library of the Penza Regional Museum of Local Lore is now at my service, so the loss turned out to be, in general, not so great.
Well, now let's think about what issue related to the history of the Battle of Borodino is the most controversial up to the present time? The question of the number of participants in the battle and the losses incurred by the parties! In the Soviet historiography of the 1950s, data on the ratio of the types of troops on the eve of the battle were given as follows:
French / Russians
Infantry: 86,000 / 72,000
Regular Cavalry: 28,000 / 17,000
Cossacks: - / 7000
Gunners: 16,000 / 14,000
Militia: - / 10,000
Cannons: 587/640
Total: 130,000 / 120,000
(Source: V. V. Pruntsov. Borodino battle. Popular essay. Military publishing house of the Ministry of the armed forces of the Soviet Union. M., 1947.)
However, has this data always and everywhere been and is being used? Well, anyone can look into Wikipedia today, libraries still keep the "Soviet Military Encyclopedia" in 8 volumes, so it's easy to check these numbers. But are there others and to whom, I wonder, do they belong? Let's look at both the numbers themselves and the personalities of those who named them, as well as the works that they devoted to the theme of the war of 1812. Let's start from the very beginning, that is, with eyewitnesses and direct participants in those heroic events.
1. Dmitry Petrovich Buturlin (1790-1849), Russian military historian, major general from cavalry, actual privy councilor, senator, author of “History of the invasion of the emperor Napoleon to Russia in 1812. Part 1. SPb.: in military type., 1837.415 + 9 p., Appendices; Part 2. SPb.: in military type., 1838.418 p. In his opinion, the numbers of those participating in the battle were as follows: the French - 190 thousand, the Russians - 132 thousand. Year of judgment: 1824.
2. Philippe-Paul de Segur (1780-1873), French brigadier general from Napoleon's entourage. Author of the book “A Trip to Russia. Notes of the Adjutant of Emperor Napoleon I , Smolensk: Rusich, 2003. He believed that the French were 130 thousand, Russians - 120 thousand. Year: 1824.
3. Georges de Chambray (1783-1848), marquis, French general of artillery. He left a work on the history of the Napoleonic wars, based on a huge amount of materials from French archives. He has 133 thousand Frenchmen, 130 thousand Russians. The year of publication of these figures is 1825.
4. Karl Philip Gottlieb von Clausewitz (1780-1831), Prussian military leader, military theorist and historian. In 1812-1814 he served in the Russian army. The author of the essay "1812". Moscow: State Publishing House of the USSR People's Commissariat for Defense, 1937; reprint: 2004. He has 130 thousand French, 120 thousand Russians. 30s of the XIX century.
5. Alexander Ivanovich Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky (1789-1848), lieutenant general, senator, Russian military writer, historian, author of the first official history of the Patriotic War of 1812, written in four volumes on the personal assignment of Emperor Nicholas I, and published in 1839 … In his books, the French at Borodino - 160 thousand, Russians - 128 thousand.
6. Modest Ivanovich Bogdanovich (1805-1882), Russian military historian; lieutenant general, member of the Military Council of the Russian Empire, author of the work "History of the Patriotic War of 1812" in 3 volumes - SPb.: Type. trading house S. Strugovshchik, G. Pokhitonov, N. Vodov and Co., 1859-1860. French - 130 thousand, Russians - 120 thousand. Year 1859.
7. Jean-Baptiste Antoine Marcelin Marbeau (1782-1854), French general and military writer, author of memoirs about the Napoleonic wars "Memoirs of General Baron de Marbeau" / Per. with French M.: Eksmo, 2005. He has 140 thousand French, but 160 thousand Russians. Year 1860.
8. Evgeny Viktorovich Tarle (1874-1955), Russian and Soviet historian, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1927), author of the famous works "Napoleon" and "Napoleon's Invasion of Russia". Its numbers are 130 and 127, 8. The year they were named is 1962.
9. Nikolai Alekseevich Troitsky (1931, Saratov), Soviet and Russian historian, expert on the problems of the revolutionary movement in the 19th century and the history of the Patriotic War of 1812. Doctor of Historical Sciences (1971), professor, author of several works on the history of the war of 1812. His figures are as follows: French - 134 thousand, Russians - 154, 8 thousand. Year - 1988.
10. Digby Smith (1935), British military historian, specialist in the history of the Napoleonic wars and the history of uniforms, author of many interesting works, among them: “An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Uniforms of the Napoleonic Wars: An Expert, in-Depth Reference to the Officers and Soldiers of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Period ", 1792-1815 (" Illustrated Encyclopedia of Uniforms of the Napoleonic Wars 1792-1815 "). Illustrated encyclopaedia. London: Lorenz, 2006. He has 130 and 120, 8. Year 1998.
11. Vladimir Nikolaevich Zemtsov (1960), Soviet and Russian historian, Doctor of Historical Sciences (2002), Professor (2010), Head of the Department of General History of the Faculty of History of the Ural State Pedagogical University (since 2005). Member of the dissertation councils on history at the UrFU and the Institute of History and History of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He defended his doctoral dissertation on the Battle of Borodino: “The great army of Napoleon in the Battle of Borodino: dissertation … doctor of historical sciences. - Yekaterinburg, 2002.-- 571 p. Author of the book: "The Great Army of Napoleon in the Battle of Borodino." M.: Yauza; Anchor; Eksmo, 2018. His data: French - 127 thousand, Russians - 154 thousand. Year 1999.
12. Viktor Mikhailovich Bezotosny (1954), Soviet and Russian historian, specialist in the field of military history of Russia, the history of the Napoleonic wars and the history of the Cossacks. Doctor of Historical Sciences. Head of the exposition department of the State Historical Museum. Defended his dissertation: "French and Russian intelligence and the plans of the parties in 1812" (dissertation of the candidate of historical sciences: 07.00.02), M., 1987, and "Russia in the Napoleonic wars of 1805-1815." (dissertation of Doctor of Historical Sciences: 07.00.02), M., 2013. Its figures: French - 135 thousand, Russians - 150 thousand. Year 2004.
So, all the numbers are different, although the sources for all are approximately the same.
For example, General Toll reports on the number of Russian troops in his memoirs: 95 thousand regular troops, 7 thousand Cossacks and 10 thousand militia warriors, and "this army has 640 artillery pieces."
The number of the French is known from the roll call held on August 21 (September 2) in Gzhatsk. According to her data, there were 133 815 combat ranks of the French (but there were also lagging soldiers, and their comrades responded for them in the hope that they would catch up with the army). But this did not include 1,500 horsemen of General Pajol, who came later, and 3 thousand combat ranks who were at Napoleon's headquarters. Although it is unlikely that they took part in the battle at all …
As for the French historiography of the Battle of Borodino, it would be more correct to start with Napoleon himself. In the 18th Bulletin of the Great Army of September 10, which was compiled with his undoubted participation, Napoleon presented the "Battle of the Moscow River" as a decisive victory over the Russian army. It was written there that by 8 o'clock in the morning the enemy was shot down from all his positions, tried to return them, but unsuccessfully; and that by two o'clock in the afternoon this battle was actually over. The same 18th Bulletin of the Great Army says about 12-13 thousand killed, 5 thousand prisoners, 40 generals, wounded, killed or taken prisoner, and 60 guns captured by the French. But F. Segur, an officer who was directly at Napoleon's headquarters, reports the following about the trophies: prisoners from 700 to 800 people and about 20 cannons. The losses of the Russians were said to be 40-50 thousand people, the losses of the French - 10 thousand. Napoleon gave approximately the same figures in a letter dated September 9 to the Austrian emperor Franz I. But for some reason he wrote in a letter to Empress Marie-Louise a day earlier about 30 thousand losses among the Russians, and about his own he wrote: "I had many killed and wounded." It is interesting that in all these three documents the strength of the Russian army was estimated by Napoleon at 120-130 thousand people, no more. But only five years passed, and in 1817 the same Napoleon began to assert something completely different: "With an 80-thousandth army, I rushed to the Russians, consisting of 250,000, armed to the teeth, and defeated them …"
So the expression "lying as an eyewitness" did not appear out of nowhere, it is clear. Although, on the other hand, there are many such eyewitnesses who had nothing to embellish, and in their memoirs they wrote down what is. For example, that very few trophies were taken by the French was testified by an important eyewitness - Napoleon's adjutant Armand Colencourt, who recorded that the emperor repeated many times that he could not understand how the redoubts and positions that were captured with such courage "gave we have only a small number of prisoners. " He asked many times the officers who had arrived with reports where the prisoners were to be taken. He even sent to the appropriate points to make sure that no other prisoners had been taken. These successes without prisoners, without trophies did not satisfy him …
"The enemy carried off the overwhelming majority of his wounded, and we got only those prisoners of whom I have already spoken, 12 guns of the redoubt … and three or four others taken during the first attacks."
But we can still find out some exact figures regarding the Battle of Borodino? Yes, we can, but more on that in the next article.
