ABSTRACT
The victory of Smoliany was, however, considered as a mere defensive action, which did not admit of being prosecuted so as to become an important passage of the campaign. The latter general seems certainly to have exhibited no great capacity for command in this campaign. It is however true, that every man was possessed with the idea that the enemy would take the direction of Bobruisk. Even from Kutusow advices were forwarded to this effect. Kutusow saw that the result of the campaign must in any case be a colossal one; he foresaw with much acuteness the total destruction of his enemy: "Tout cela se fondra sans moi," were his words to those about him. If Moscow remained in the hands of the Russians, perhaps a resistance for the next campaign might form itself on that basis to which the necessarily weakened force of Buonaparte would be unequal.
