Although the grand army had mustered 120,000 when it left Moscow, and the fragments of various divisions besides had met the Emperor at Smolensko, it was with great difficulty that 40,000 men could now be brought together in anything like fighting condition.  These Napoleon divided into four columns, nearly equal in numbers:  of the first, which included 6000 of the imperial guard, he himself took the command, and marched with it towards Krasnoi, the first town on the way to Minsk:  the second corps was that of Eugene Beauharnois; the third, Davoust’s; and the fourth, destined for the perilous service of the rear, and accordingly strengthened with 3000 of the guard, was entrusted to the heroic guidance of Ney.  The Emperor left Smolensko on the 13th of November, having ordered that the other corps should follow him on the 14th, 15th, and 16th, respectively; thus interposing a day’s march between every two divisions.

It is not to be questioned that Napoleon, in thus arranging his march, was influenced by the pressing difficulty of finding provisions, and also by the enfeebled condition of the greater part of his remaining troops.  The division of his force, however, was so complete, that had he been opposed by a general adequate to the occasion, his total and immediate ruin could hardly have been avoided.  But Kutusoff appears to have exhausted the better part of his daring at Borodino, and thenceforth to have adhered to the plan of avoiding battle—­originally wise and necessary—­with a pertinacity savouring of superstition.  It must be admitted, that hitherto, in suffering the climate to waste his enemy’s numbers, and merely heightening the misery of the elemental war by his clouds of Cossacks, and occasional assaults of other light troops, he had reaped almost every advantage which could have resulted from another course.  But the army of Napoleon had been already reduced to a very small fragment of its original strength; and even that fragment was now split into four divisions, against any one of which it would have been easy to concentrate a force overwhelmingly superior.  It seems to be generally accepted that the name of Napoleon saved whatever part of his host finally escaped from the territory of Russia; in a word, that had Kutusoff been able to shake off that awe which had been the growth of a hundred victories, the Emperor himself must have either died on some bloody field between Smolensko and the Beresina, or revisited, as a prisoner, the interior of the country which, three months before, he had invaded at the head of half a million of warriors.