Napoleon, probably greatly exasperated, returned to Gorodnia until the way should be safe. At ten o’clock he again started, examined the battle-field and then returned to Gorodnia, having practically wasted a whole day--this when every hour was precious. This may have been because he was still undecided as to what he should do. At his quarters he held a final and stormy council. Murat, bold to the last, advocated advance, and offered to clear a way if the Guard cavalry were added to the remnant of his horsemen. Bessières, however, opposed him, observing that the transport was already failing and that the advance could not be rapid enough to be effective. Davout advised that the Medyn-Smolensk road should be adopted as the main line of retreat, but this was sufficient to provoke the opposition of Murat, who insisted that it was not safe from Russian flank attacks. The end was that Napoleon decided to fall back by the main road to Smolensk, and ordered the whole army to move on to it by way of Mozhaïsk. The road by Medyn, Yukhnov and Ielnia is about 40 miles shorter than the route adopted; the country which it traversed was not yet entirely devastated, and it is strange that Napoleon did not take it, braving the chance of a flank attack by the cautious, and by no means confident, Russian commander-in-chief. It is possible that, whichever route the army might take, it would have been prevented from foraging by the Cossacks. Perhaps also Napoleon hoped to give Kutuzov the impression that he was retreating upon Vitebsk--as, in fact, he at first did. Kutuzov was, indeed, so little confident that on the 26th he retreated towards Kaluga. His decision has been violently criticised, and not without much show of reason. The only reply is that what we know very well to-day was not so plain to Kutuzov in 1812. He did not believe that his army was a match for Napoleon’s, and that the correct policy was to “play hide and seek” with the invaders, as Clausewitz expresses it, and so wear them out. Having come to this conclusion, Kutuzov proceeded to carry out his design regardless of opposition. He was perhaps wrong, but it cannot be pronounced on the evidence which lay before him at the time that he was. Had Napoleon followed, his army would but have been weakened; had he turned westward the Russians would still have been on his flank. Wherever he went his line of march would be infested by Cossacks. Kutuzov was undoubtedly too cautious; he might have risked more, but he might equally have exposed himself to the counter-strokes of his mighty antagonist, now driven to desperation, and have lost everything. His operations were conducted on the basal idea that Napoleon was not to be beaten by open force, but by steady evasion and constant harassing. From this point of view his retirement was natural. His really serious blunder was committed two days later, and was the direct outcome of Napoleon’s retreat by Mozhaïsk.