"To commit or not the French Guard at Borodino?" Topic

"Ever since Sept 1812 a debate had raged as to whether the emperor refusal to commit his reserve cost him a decisive victory at Borodino and thereby his chances of winning the campaing of 1812. There can be no definitive answer to this. The Russians themselves disagreed about the probable result if Napoleon had sent forward his Guards.
The best of 19th Century Russian historians, General Bogdanovich, believed that he would have secured a decisive victory and thereby seriously damaged Russian morale. On the other hand, Eugen of Wurttemberg wrote that the introduction of the Guards would have turned an almost drawn battle into an unequivocal French victory but that Kutuzov's Army would sitll have got away down the New Smolensk Road and the ultimate strategic outcome of the battle would therefore not have been altered.
My own hunch is that Eugen was probably right.
On the Russian side, the six battalions of the Preobrazhensky and Semenovsky Guards were still in reserve and had together suffered only 300 casualties form artillery fire. The Second Guards Infantry Brigade had already shown the Guards Regiments powers of resistance and the First Guards Brigade was not likely to do worse. As at Semenovskoe, other units would have formed around the Guards. Ivan Paslevich's Division, for example, had been sent to the rear to re-form and was quite capable of renewing the struggle in emergency, as were a number of artillery batteries also withdrawn from the front line to rest and restock with ammunition. A combination of Russian stubbornness, the bushes and broken country behind the Russian lines, and the distance to the main highway probably meant that the Russians would be able to delay the French advance for long enought to allow the armhy to slip away. Given time, Kutuzov could also bring four untouched jäeger regiments and some artillery batteries down from beyond Borodino to form a rearguard. Barclay still believed that his army had a lot of fight left in it and was expecting the battle to be renewed on the next day."
From Dominic Lieven book.

So, if Napoleon decided to move his Guard in atack it would be the same failure as in Waterloo?
Of course we are talking here to much more troops involved , but I had doubts if the Guard, which had not seen action would be stoped so easy.

What do you think?

Amicalement
Armand

Maybe he hadn't finished painting that unit yet.

Nice one sma1941….

I think that Napoleons best chance at a victory that he could turn into some sort of peace settlement would have come from the flank attack Davout wanted. If he committed the guard he most likely would have forced the matter on the field, but the peace he needed pretty badly would still have been impossible. Just the fact that they let him take Moscow shows that they were in it now for the long haul…

I think he probably painted that unit first along with the rest of the Guard units.

On a serious note I think that unless the Guard tunred this into some kind of backbreaking rout the result would have been the same.

Yes I agree with the good Doctor.

The Russians had already been pushed back from their positions by the line slime, what extra might the Guard have achieved, except to weaken Napoleon's bargaining position? If the Russians were going to talk, what had already been achieved should have brought them to the table…

Except this time it was personal….You cross the Dneiper, You cross the line….

Yeah, the vendetta was on from Smolensk.