Lastly, in 1812, the Russians might have directed their army of Moldavia upon Volhynia and Lithuania in order to move it forward afterwards against the rear of the principal French army, because it was quite certain that Moscow must be the extreme point of the French line of operations. For any part of Russia beyond Moscow there was nothing to fear in that campaign, therefore the Russian main army had no cause to consider itself too weak.
This same scheme formed part of the disposition of the forces laid down in the first defensive plan proposed by General Phul, according to which the army of Barclay was to occupy the camp at Drissa, whilst that under Bragathion was to press forward against the rear of the main French army. But what a difference of circumstances in the two cases! In the first of them the French were three times as strong as the Russians; in the second, the Russians were decidedly superior. In the first, Buonaparte’s great army had in it an impulsive force which carried it to Moscow 80 miles beyond Drissa: in the second, it is unfit to make a day’s march beyond Moscow; in the first, the line of retreat on the Niemen did not exceed 30 miles: