Barclay alone was against fighting.  His plan, erroneously attributed to England, had been formed in his mind so far back as the year 1807; but he had to combat his own army as well as ours; and though commander-in-chief and minister, he was neither Russian enough, nor victorious enough, to win the confidence of the Russians.  He possessed that of Alexander alone.

Bagration and his officers hesitated to obey him.  The point was to defend their native land, to devote themselves for the salvation of all:  it was the affair of each, and all imagined that they had a right to examine.  Thus their ill fortune distrusted the prudence of their general; whilst, with the exception of a few chiefs, our good fortune trusted implicitly to the boldness, hitherto always prosperous of ours; for in success to command is easy; no one inquires whether it is prudence or fortune that guides.  Such is the situation of military chiefs; when successful, they are blindly obeyed by all; when unfortunate, they are criticized by all.

Hurried away notwithstanding, by the general impulse, Barclay had just yielded to it for a moment, collected his forces near Rudnia, and attempted to surprise the French army, dispersed as it was.  But the feeble blow which his advanced guard had just struck at Inkowo had alarmed him.  He trembled, paused, and imagining every moment that he saw Napoleon approaching in front of him, on his right and every where excepting on his left, which was covered as he thought by the Dnieper, he lost several days in marches and counter-marches.  He was thus hesitating, when all at once Newerowskoi’s cries of distress resounded in his camp.  To attack was now entirely out of the question:  his troops ran to arms, and hurried towards Smolensk for the purpose of defending it.

Murat and Ney were already attacking that city:  the former with his cavalry, at the place where the Boristhenes enters its walls; the latter, with his infantry, where it issues from them, and on woody ground intersected by deep ravines.  The marshal’s left was supported by the river, and his right by Murat, whom Poniatowski, coming direct from Mohilef, arrived to reinforce.

In this place two steep hills contract the channel of the Boristhenes; on these hills Smolensk is built.  That city has the appearance of two towns, separated by the river and connected by two bridges.  That on the right bank, the most modern, is wholly occupied by traders; it is open, but overlooks the other, of which it is nevertheless but a dependency.

The old town, occupying the plateau and slopes of the left bank, is surrounded by a wall twenty-five feet high, eighteen thick, three thousand fathoms in length, and defended by twenty-nine massive towers, a miserable earthen citadel of five bastions, which commands the Orcha road, and a wide ditch, which serves as a covered way.  Some outworks and the suburbs intercept the view of the approaches to the Mohilef and Dnieper gates; they are defended by a ravine, which, after encompassing a great part of the town, becomes deeper and steeper as it approaches the Dnieper, on the side next to the citadel.