The French, retreating in 1812⁠—though according to tactics they should have separated into detachments to defend themselves⁠—congregated into a mass because the spirit of the army had so fallen that only the mass held the army together. The Russians, on the contrary, ought according to tactics to have attacked in mass, but in fact they split up into small units, because their spirit had so risen that separate individuals, without orders, dealt blows at the French without needing any compulsion to induce them to expose themselves to hardships and dangers.

The so-called partisan war began with the entry of the French into Smolénsk.