It was Kutuzov's decisive battle to force Napoleon to retreat northwest over Mozhaisk to Smolensk on the devastated route of his advance with a higher probability of starvation.

[4] A great part of the large mob of non-combatants, invalids from the hospitals, women, fugitive inhabitants of Moscow, whose number can only be guessed at, was directed upon Vereya and the straight road to Smolensk and only the fighting force was to march towards Kaluga.

During the course of the engagement the town changed hands no fewer than eight times and it was quoted that in particular the Italian Royal Guard under Eugène de Beauharnais 'had displayed qualities which entitled it evermore to take rank amongst the bravest troops of Europe'.

This allowed Kutuzov to fulfill his strategic plans to force Napoleon on the way of retreat in the north, through Mozhaisk and Smolensk, the route of his advance that he had wished to avoid.

Kutuzov replied to him, here simplified for a better understanding: "I am by no means sure that the total destruction of the Emperor Napoleon and his army would be such a benefit to Russia; his succession would fall to the United Kingdom whose domination would then be intolerable.

Before Napoleon could come to such a conclusion he must have been very conscious of the extreme weakness of his army, for the march he now decided on undertaking was one of two hundred and sixty miles through a devastated country, whose towns, sacked and burnt, offered no shelter or supply against the inclemency of winter.

[13] On the night of October 27, the rear guard of the Grand Army left the ruins of the city, crossed to the northern bank of the Luzha and joined the general retreat.