Borodino - Was Napoleon Sick On the Fateful Day?

The Black Virgin of Smolensk

Napoleon had begun the invasion of 
Russia with great expectations. Confident of his military genius, he could not conceive of a battle in which he would not be victorious. On September 5, his troops crossed the Kolocha. In “a murderous affair” they took the Shevardino Redoubt on the Russian left, leaving 5,000 French and 6,000 Russians dead on the field and dangerously exposing the Russian army’s left flank to French attack.
There followed a day of quiet preparation. Napoleon spent the day riding three of his horses, Lutzelberg, Emir, and Courtois. He commented that “this poor army is sadly depleted, but what remains is good” and later in the day that “the chessmen are set up, the game will begin tomorrow.”1 Towards the evening he addressed his troops: “Soldiers,” he proclaimed, “this is the battle you have looked forward to so much! Now victory depends on you.”1 The soldiers responded by crying, “Long live the emperor!” Then Napoleon wrote out in great detail his orders for the disposition and movement of his troops. In his epic novel War and Peace, Tolstoy commented that such orders would have been impossible to obey, were never followed, and were often carried out to the very contrary of what had been intended.    MORE