Retreat through Russia
The one and only aim of all our operations was
to do everything we possibly could to annihilate the enemy," and he
could do the French most harm "by moving along a parallel route."
--Field Marshal M.I. Kutusov
Kutusov's strategy was to avoid a major engagement
with Napoleon's army on a battlefield such as at Borodino, and merely to
interpose his army between Napoleon and the fertile, unspoiled lands to
the south of the main road, leaving hunger, fatigue, sickness, and the
onslaught of winter to do what his armies could not. Any stragglers or
foragers off the main road were to be cut down by flying columns of Cossacks
and bands of peasants, restricting the area from which Napoleon could draw
his supplies.
Following this method, Kutusov turned north
and west in limited pursuit of the Grande Armee. On November 3 Marshal
Davout's I Corps were cut off from the main body of the French army at
Viazma. French troops under Eugene, Poniatowski, and Ney turned back to
free their comrades, but at a cost of 6,000 casualties, 2,500 prisoners
and, more significantly, the total disarray of the once highly-disciplined
I Corps.
Retreat
Advance