Note 206 — Chapter LXII

Colonel Boutourlin praises the address of Koutousoff, who, he says, managed with such skill as always to present a superior force to that which the French had upon the field of battle, although his army was on the whole inferior to that of Napoleon. Without admitting the exactness of the last statement, which there is considerable cause to dispute, little merit can be assumed for the Russian general's dexterity in obtaining a numerical superiority at Wiazma, Krasnoi, and elsewhere, when it is considered that Napoleon himself had divided his army into four columns, and placed one day's march betwixt each. The Russians had, therefore, only one column of ten or twelve thousand men to deal with at once.—S.