taken Smolensk. Our troops have fought and are fighting as never before. With fifteen thousand men I have held the enemy in check for thirty-five hours and beaten them, but he wouldn’t hold his ground for fourteen hours. It is a shame and a stain on our army, and as for himself, I consider he ought not to be alive. If he reports that our losses were great, it is false; perhaps about four thousand, not that, but that is nothing: if it had been ten thousand, what of it, that’s war. But on the other hand the enemy’s losses were immense.

“What would it have cost him to hold his ground for a couple of days? In any case they must have retired of their own accord; for they had no water for their men or their horses. He gave me his word he would not retreat, but all of a sudden sent an announcement that he was withdrawing in the night. We cannot fight in this way, and we may soon bring the enemy on to Moscow.…

“There is a rumour afloat that you are thinking of peace. To make peace, God preserve us! After all the sacrifices that have been made and after such mad retreats—to make peace, you will set all Russia against you, and every one of us will feel it a disgrace to wear the uniform. If it has come to that, we ought to fight as long as Russia can, and as long as there are men able to stand.…

“There must be one man in command, not two. Your minister, may be, is very well in the ministry; but as a general, he’s not simply useless, but contemptible, and the fate of all our fatherland has been put in his hands…I am frantic, truly, with rage; forgive me for writing abusively. It is plain that the man does not love his sovereign, and desires the ruin of us all, who advises peace to be concluded and the minister to be put in command of the army. And so I write to you plainly: get the militia ready. For the minister is leading our visitors to the capital in the most skilful manner. The object of chief suspicion to the whole army is the aide-de-camp Woltzogen. They say he’s more for Napoleon than for us, and everything the minister does is by his advice. I am not merely civil to him, but obey him like a corporal, though I am his senior. It is hard: but loving my sovereign and benefactor, I obey. And I grieve for the Tsar that he intrusts his gallant army to such a man. Consider that on our retreat we have lost more than fifteen thousand men from fatigue, or left sick in the hospitals; if we had attacked, that would not have been so. Tell me for God’s sake what will Russia—our mother—say at our displaying such cowardice, and why are we abandoning our good and gallant country to the rabble and rousing the hatred and shame of every Russian? Why are we in a panic? what are we afraid of? It is not my fault that the minister is vacillating, cowardly, unreasonable, dilatory, and has every vice. All the army is bewailing it and loading him with abuse.…”