Everything about The Battle Of Tarutino totally explained
The
Battle of Tarutino was a part of
Napoleon's invasion of Russia. The battle is sometimes called the
Battle of Vinkovo or the
Battle of Chernishnya after the local river. Many historians claim that the latter name is more fitting because the village of
Tarutino was 8
km from the described events. In the battle
Russian troops under the command of
Bennigsen defeated
French troops under the command of
Joachim Murat.
Preceding events
After the
battle of Borodino,
Kutuzov realized that the Russian army wouldn't survive one more large engagement and ordered the army to leave Moscow and retreat. At first it retreated in the south-east direction along the Ryazanskaya road. When the army reached the
Moskva it crossed it and turned to the west to the Old Kaluzhskaya road. The army pitched camp in a village of Tarutino near
Kaluga. At the same time small units of
Cossacks continued moving along the Ryazanskaya road misleading French troops under the command of Murat. When he discovered his error he didn't retreat but made camp not far from Tarutino in order to keep his eye on the Russian camp.
The battle
On
October 18, 1812 Kutuzov ordered Bennigsen and
Miloradovich to attack
Murat's corps (26,000 men) with two columns stealthily crossing the forest in the dead of night. Bennigsen's main column included three columns led by
Vasily Orlov-Denisov,
Karl Baggovut and
Alexander Osterman-Tolstoy respectively. The other column was supposed to play an auxiliary role. In the darkness most of the troops got lost. By the morning only Cossack troops under the command of
general Orlov-Denisov reached the original destination, suddenly attacked the French troops and captured the French camp with transports and cannons. Since other Russian units came late the French were able to recover. When the Russians emerged from the forest they came under French fire and suffered casualties (among others the commander of the 2nd Corps, General Baggovut, was killed). Finally Murat had to retreat but he escaped being surrounded. The French forces suffered 2,500 dead and 2,000 prisoners, the Russians lost 1,200 dead. This Russian victory is considered to have hastened
Napoleon's retreat from
Moscow.
The total number of cannon captured by the Russians at Tarutino -- 38 pieces in all -- was noteworthy because until this point in the war, neither side had lost nearly as many guns in a single encounter. This was regarded by the Russian rank-and-file as a sign that the tide of the war was finally turning in their favor.
The battle of Tarutino is depicted in
Leo Tolstoy's
War and Peace. Tolstoy, who frequently argued throughout the novel that an individual can't change history or manage historical processes, described the battle as nothing but a chain of accidents and coincidences.
Further Information
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