Unhappily there was no unity of command. Barclay, as minister of war, was the hierarchical chief, but both Bagration and himself were Generals of Infantry, and the former was the senior in rank. Though a Georgian by birth he posed as an ultra Russian and received accordingly the willing, not to say eager and unscrupulous, support of the many officers who chose to regard Barclay as a half-hearted and even treacherous foreigner. His fighting record was a good one, and he might, with some justice, consider that he had the better title to the command-in-chief. Barclay also, with all his fine qualities, appears to have been deficient in tact. He does not appear to have fully realised the difficulties with which Bagration had had to contend, nor the very creditable attempts which he had made to effect a junction. After crossing the Dnieper Bagration appears to have considered that his best service would be performed in operating upon Napoleon’s flank. Von Wollzogen, sent to urge him to hasten the union of the two armies, found him, according to his own account, by no means willing to do so, and informed Barclay. The latter thereupon wrote pressing him to hasten, in phrases which, though hardly beyond what the urgency of the case required, were perhaps unjust in their implications, and were certainly fiercely resented by Bagration. He reached Smolensk in a frame of mind which would find cause of offence in every trifle. Barclay, however, displayed unusual tact, for which his aide-de-camp Löwenstern gives himself the credit. When Bagration came to report himself the War-Minister met him in his antechamber in full uniform, and expressed his regret that he had been anticipated in calling upon him. The two chiefs then had a conversation, as the result of which Barclay apologised by letter for any injustice which he might have done his colleague. For the moment good relations were established, and Barclay wrote to the Tzar expressing his admiration of Bagration’s character. But it is to be feared that Bagration’s friendly feelings were of no very long continuance, and a sense of injury still rankled in his mind. What was worse, many of the general officers were almost openly intriguing for the definite appointment of Bagration to the supreme command. Yermólov actually wrote to the Tzar urging him to make it. The chief of the malcontents was the Grand Duke Constantine, who, as the Tzar’s brother and heir apparent, was the most important commander in the army. Constantine was a violent and irrational person, bearing, both in disposition and in the exceeding ugliness of his features, a strong resemblance to his ill-fated father. Barclay’s position rapidly became almost an intolerable one.