Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796.

"But there are always some enemies whose movements are unclear, and Napoleon showed weakness before, which was at Austerlitz."

Solovyov couldn't hold it in any longer. According to his thinking, even if he had to stay in Smolensk and wait for the French to come, he should not take the initiative to attack now, and the reason he found was particularly legitimate.

Many of the older Russian generals present here were on the battlefield during the Battle of Austerlitz.

He should be the youngest among these generals on the battlefield at that time. After all, he and Bagration fought two rearguard battles. One preserved the main force, and the other simply covered the Tsar himself to safely withdraw from the battlefield.

Before that battle, Napoleon's show of weakness made Alexander too inflated.

"Mishka, what made you think of this?"

"You were trying to persuade the Emperor to leave the front, Peter Ivanovich. The attitude of the Austrians then was like ours today."

"You know that Vienna, the capital of Austria, was occupied at the time. It is hard for everyone here to accept that the French were wreaking havoc on our land."

There is indeed a morale problem. Bagration stood up at this time, obviously he also wanted to express his position.

Among the army commanders, only Solovyov supported Barclay's opinion. Osterman-Tolstoy did not express his opinion, and his attitude at this time was rather wavering.

As for the others, they all looked like they wanted a fight.

It would be hard to explain if we don't fight a war.

Moreover, Murat's cavalry unit was so obvious that when fighting in Poland and East Prussia, Solovyov commanded a part of the Russian army to frequently harass and lure the enemy, and finally Murat's cavalry was almost fooled. Although he did not succeed in the end, it also caused him considerable losses.

In a state of indecision, the Russian army seemed to have to fight against Murat, who often advanced recklessly and was not very smart.

Solovyov saw everyone's opinions and didn't know what to say.

He is not Baili Xi, and he has to make bad remarks together with Jian Shu when the Qin army goes out.

Therefore, he chose to remain silent. Barclay seemed unable to suppress the generals, at least he did not have the prestige to do so. Moreover, the Russian army did encounter major problems because it had been retreating.

Mentally, if the Russian army does not fight a few times before retreating, there may be problems.

Some Russian soldiers naturally complained during the continuous retreat.

"Five commanders of the infantry corps have agreed to launch a counterattack against the French, and all commanders of the cavalry corps have agreed. So, let's make arrangements for the counterattack. Neverovsky's 5th Division will stay and operate in the Smolensk and Krasny areas to protect the flanks and rear of the two armies."

Barclay also realized that Solovyov probably didn't want to attack, so he left his troops on the flank to ensure that Smolensk was in their own hands, and the other armies would take the initiative to attack Murat in Rudnia.

However, whether this action can be kept secret is also a question.

The French army was able to leak secrets. When in Poland, even though the Russian army was on the road, it was able to intercept French intelligence many times. At the beginning, Langgeron relied on this intelligence to change the operational deployment many times. In the end, it was able to ensure that the Russian army did not suffer a serious setback, and naturally had more confidence in the talks on the Neman River.

According to Barclay's deployment, the offensive mission was mainly carried out by the 1st Army, which was now in the northwest, while the troops of the 2nd Army were all in the south.

Neverovsky went to Krasny, and Solovyov was worried that there were too many new recruits in his division.

So, when the deployment first came out, he raised objections.

"If we want to protect the flanks, we should use elite troops, just like the 100-man squad in the Roman legion, so that we can serve as the axis. I still think that we should have grenadiers here, and they can also be used as decoys to make the enemy unable to figure out our movements."

He thought so because the firepower of the Grenadier Division was comparable to that of the Guards, and the weapons used by the infantry alone seemed to be slightly superior to any other French unit.

However, in the era of the Napoleonic Wars, that slight advantage in weapons was obviously of little use, and without machine guns, the role of cavalry was still very obvious.

But it was obvious that these people were not satisfied with his opinion.

When Christian saw this situation, he knew that Solovyov would be in trouble. His identity as a brother-in-law was also rather awkward, as he was caught right between the two factions.

On the one hand, he came from Mecklenburg, and because he was a royal relative who joined the army, his stance was different from that of ordinary German officers, and he advocated fighting as well.

But on the other hand, he commanded the elite 8nd Grenadier Division under the 2th Army, and generally had to follow the instructions of the army group commander and the army commander.

"You're still fussing about this now. You're so young, but you act like an old man when you're fighting. It's really strange."

Nikolay Tuchkov could not help but ridicule him. Christian knew that Solovyov's close friend Prince Mikhail had a dispute with Tuchkov during the siege of the fortress. The two almost dueled, and in the end, each led a team to attack the fortress and was killed in the end.

Moreover, Tuchkov was involved in the conspiracy group at the beginning. Although he did not take part in the final action and was therefore not held accountable by Alexander, Solovyov, as a close confidant of Tsar Paul, naturally had some opinions about these people.

Two combined into one, it is very likely that they will be unable to hold back, as the two people's status are similar.

"General Tuchkov, at this time we should not have any disagreements with each other, but should unite against the enemy, and in the end we must act according to Mikhail Bogdanovich's orders."

He was Her Highness Elena's brother-in-law, and with this identity, Tuchkov naturally had nothing to say.

Apart from his personal conflicts, Nikolai Tuchkov was a good general, but he had a bad temper.

All five of their brothers are generals, four of whom are in active service, three are in the frontal combat group, and one is in the south.

After Christian came out, Solovyov became more sober. He couldn't continue to cause trouble at this time.

Here Barclay himself is the target of everyone, especially his senior brother Bagration. There are conflicts between Tuchkov and Konovnitsyn. It is okay when he acts as a lubricant, but not now.

If he were to join in the conflict between the generals, it would be detrimental to the entire army.

Moreover, the generals were very resentful about the continuous retreat, and problems had already arisen within the 1st Army in the previous battles in Vitebsk and Ostrovno.

The members of the 2nd Army are not bad. They all have some relationship with each other, including relatives, brothers, superiors and subordinates, and friends. The internal atmosphere is quite good.

Even though Bagration saw that his junior fellow disciple was not in favor of attacking, he did not blame him. After all, everyone had his own ideas, and Solovyov was now considering things more cautiously.

If the French had stayed in Smolensk and not attacked, their actions might not have been so aggressive and their losses would have been great.

But if they take the initiative, they will inevitably follow Napoleon's wishes. But this time the French are probably not showing weakness, they are indeed a little tired. Although they are on the plains, they give people the feeling of the Egyptian and Syrian deserts.

Although the French army was tired, so was the Russian army. They just had a day or two to rest and replenish.

It is not a wise choice to really fight back.

For this reason, after the meeting, Clausewitz also mentioned the problem on the way back from the 8th Army.

"Mick, I think your concerns are valid."

"It's good that you think so. You don't need to make any statement."

"But I do have some thoughts, and I wonder if you think the same as I do."

“Karl, you can express your opinion. We have all worked together before.”

When Clausewitz heard Solovyov say this, he was about to express his opinion.

"It is difficult for this attack to bring real victory. What I mean is that we may temporarily force the French to retreat, but it may also turn into a desperate counterattack."

"You mean, the enemy's main force will come up. Or... like Napoleon often did, when he was in Italy, he liked to attack the enemy's flanks or transportation lines. When the total force is relatively large, it may not be so easy to mobilize the troops, but he can do it."

"Yes, it looks like we may be able to repel the enemy, and even capture a lot of prisoners, and even some cannons and flags, but this is only useful for momentum, and it cannot shake Napoleon's determination. And if possible, when we attack Murat, the enemy's troops will also come up. At that time, we will either choose to withdraw from the battle, or we will have to fight the French in a place other than the preset battlefield."

"It would be better to fight with Smolensk. At least we can retreat to Vyazma or even Mozhaysk."

"I'm not saying you"

Christian had just used his special identity to help Solovyov out, and now he had to speak up.

"You always think about retreating, and then you will be targeted."

"We want to defeat the French. Retreat will only lengthen the enemy's transportation lines. The French will suffer in the future."

Although Solovyov was not a cold-blooded person, he did have to adopt a more prudent and conservative strategy at this time.

It’s really troublesome now just because of the attitude problem within the Russian army.

He was also having a headache. If he attacked this time, something would inevitably happen.

Therefore, he looked at the three infantry division commanders on his side. Vorontsov had not expressed any opinions. His Combined Grenadier Division was serving as a reserve in the rear. Neverovsky had given a clear assignment this time, which must be in Krasny on the south bank of the Dnieper River.

On his side, only Christian can command the troops.

"I think if you receive an order, don't move so quickly."

Solovyov's current approach is just like Kutuzov's on the Pratzen Heights, always keeping some tricks up his sleeve.

"what do you mean?"

"I am worried that this operation will end in vain. It will be better to fight the French after they have been weakened to a certain extent, or when they have reached our preset positions. If we fight in a place where the enemy may have an advantage, the initiative may eventually fall to them."

In short, his current attitude is definitely not based on a more ideal state.

It was right to be pessimistic, because the French chasseurs intercepted a private letter from an unknown Russian officer, which clearly mentioned that the Russian army would set out from Smolensk and take action against the French.

Napoleon discovered the problem, so he had to change his deployment. Since he was heading in the direction of Rudnia, the Russian army would naturally have to concentrate a lot of forces to deal with him.

In this way, he could move from the southwest and move the 17 troops currently available to the Grand Army from Krasnoy in the southwest to Smolensk.

He adopted this posture in the hope that when the Russian army took action, he would cut off the Russian army's transportation lines and even control the road to Moscow.

This created an opportunity to actively engage the Russian army and destroy its main force west of Smolensk.

If any other posture were adopted, the Russian army would definitely run away.

Napoleon is now very confident. Since the Russian army chooses not to escape and takes the initiative to attack, he must also take action.

However, his operation of changing positions had to be quick. While the Russian army was still advancing towards Rudnia, he had to use Murat and Ney's troops to quickly head towards Krasnoy.

During this time, the French army also had to quickly build several pontoon bridges in the upper reaches of the Dnieper River to cross the Dnieper River.

Although in hindsight, some might criticize Napoleon for not acting directly from the front but rather taking a roundabout approach.

However, this action was also the only chance for the French army to trap the main force of the Russian army.

The French acted so quickly that the Russians were certainly unaware of it before the exchange of fire.

Barclay's action was aimed at the Rudnia line. He deployed troops, but the action was not so quick.

After all, he really didn't want to take the initiative to fight the French army at this time. If he really wanted to fight, he should rely on Smolensk to ensure his retreat.

However, the problem is that even his two chiefs of staff, Lavrov and Yermolov, do not agree with this plan. Now the call among the Russian army is to fight the French army. If they can win, it will also help to save the current low morale.

But being determined to change does not necessarily lead to good results.

For both sides, Napoleon, who had originally planned to stay in Vitebsk, now had to go to Smolensk for a decisive battle.

The Russian army, which had been retreating, turned around to fight the French army.

This is not good. If the determination changes, the direction of the entire battle may change, and it will always lead to the unknown. (End of this chapter)