Kutuzov: A Life in War and Peace

Alexander Mikaberidze
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Kutuzov
ALEXANDER
MIKABERIDZE
Kutuzov
A Life in War and Peace
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the
University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing
worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and
certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

© Alexander Mikaberidze 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in
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You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same
condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mikaberidze, Alexander, author.
Title: Kutuzov : a life in war and peace / Alexander Mikaberidze.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2022. |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2022003428 (print) | LCCN 2022003429 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197546734 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197546741 |
ISBN 9780197546758 (epub) | ISBN 9780197546765
Subjects: LCSH: Kutuzov, Mikhail Illarionovich, svetleĭshiĭ kni︠ a︡ zʹ
Smolenskiĭ, 1745–1813. | Generals—Russia—Biography. |
Napoleonic Wars, 1800–1815—Campaigns—Russia.
Classification: LCC DK 169.K8 M44 2022 (print) |
LCC DK 169.K8 (ebook) |
DDC 355.3/310947—dc23/eng/20220228
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022003428
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022003429

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197546734.001.0001
 For
Frederick C. Schneid
and
Kenneth G. Johnson
CONTENTS

List of Maps
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Prologue

PART I

Chapter 1 A Boy from Pskov Province, 1747–1762

Chapter 2 The Masters and the Apprentice, 1763–1771

Chapter 3 At Death’s Door, 1772–1785

Chapter 4 “An Eagle from the Lofty Flock,” 1786–1789

Chapter 5 “The Gutters Dyed with Blood,” 1790

Chapter 6 “The Glorious Hero of Măcin,” 1791–1792

PART II

Chapter 7 The Envoy of Her Imperial Majesty, 1793

Chapter 8 At the Court of the Sultan, 1794

Chapter 9 Military Philosophe and Courtier, 1794–1797

Chapter 10 The Wrathful Czar, 1796–1801

Chapter 11 Walking the Tightrope, 1801–1804

PART III

Chapter 12 Confronting Napoleon, 1805

Chapter 13 “The Glorious Retreat”

Chapter 14 The Tale of Two Ruses

Chapter 15 The Eclipse of Austerlitz

PART IV

Chapter 16 The Wilderness Years, 1806–1808

Chapter 17 The Carnage on the Danube, 1809

Chapter 18 Call to Arms, 1810–1811

Chapter 19 The Master of War, 1811

Chapter 20 Between War and Peace, January–June 1812

PART V

Chapter 21 The Fateful Year

Chapter 22 The Road to Borodino

Chapter 23 The Hollow Victory

Chapter 24 The Torrent and the Sponge

Chapter 25 “The Old Fox of the North”

Chapter 26 The Turning Point

Chapter 27 “The Golden Bridge”

Chapter 28 The Chase

Chapter 29 The Great Escape

Chapter 30 The Last Campaign

Epilogue
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
LIST OF MAPS

1. Western Provinces of the Russian Empire

2. The Danubian Theater, 1770–1774
3. Battle of Kagul
4. Storming of Izmail
5. Battle of Măcin
6. The Campaign of 1805 on the Danube
7. Battle of Krems-Durrenstein
8. Battle of Austerlitz
9. Assault on Brăila
10. The Danubian Principalities
11. Battle of Ruse
12. The Ruse-Slobozia Operation
13. Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia
14. Battle of Borodino
15. The Tarutino Maneuver
16. Battle of Tarutino
17. Napoleon’s Departure from Moscow
18. Battle of Maloyaroslavets
19. Napoleon’s Retreat from Russia
20. Battle of Krasnyi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THIS BOOK WOULD NOT have been possible without the support, advice,
and assistance of an extraordinarily generous group of people and
institutions.
For institutional support I am indebted to the staff of the Boris
Nikolayevich Yeltsin Presidential Library, the Institute of Russian
Literature (Pushkinskii Dom) of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
the Russian State Library, the National Digital Library of the Ministry
of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Nekrasov Central Library of
Moscow, and the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine. Special
thanks go to the staff of the Russian State Military Historical Archive
and Lithuanian State Historical Archives for patiently accommodating
my requests for remote research when the pandemic interrupted my
travel plans. I have been privileged to hold the Ruth Herring Noel
Endowed Chair at Louisiana State University–Shreveport and rely on
support from the Louisiana Board of Regents Endowed
Professor/Chair Program.
Many people read drafts of this book at various stages in its
writing. Brian Smith was the first to examine the manuscript and I
will be forever grateful to him for the many lovely discussions of
Kutuzov’s life. Michael V. Leggiere, John H. Gill, and Frederick C.
Schneid kindly took time from their hectic research schedules to help
me with mine, encouraging me when I felt despondent and sharing
valuable advice on writing and interpretation. Alexander Martin, Lee
Eysturlid, Jonathan North, Jonathan Abel, Natalia Griffon de
Pleineville, Mark Gerges, Emir Yener, Cengiz Fedakar, Kenneth
Johnson, Ernest Blakeney, and Braeden Harris have reviewed parts
of the manuscript, provided ample feedback, and saved me from
misinterpretations and embarrassing gaffes. Eugene Miakinkov kindly
commented on the chapters exploring Kutuzov’s place and role in
the Russian Military Enlightenment. I am grateful to Lidia Ivchenko,
the doyen of Kutuzovian studies in Russia, for offering feedback and
research leads. Zurab Sulaberidze, my compatriot and an astute
scholar of late eighteenth-century Russian foreign policy, shared his
knowledge and scholarship with me. My heartfelt thanks go also to
Dimitri Gorchkoff for his assistance with the documents related to
the French occupation of Moscow.
I want to acknowledge Professor Donald D. Horward, who is the
main reason I have become a historian. A friend, a mentor, a father
figure, and a role model for me, he passed away the day I finished
writing this manuscript. This will be the first book I have written that
I won’t be able to share with him. Still, I know that this book owes
much to my conversations with him and to his loving support over
the years.
This book would not have been possible without the unwavering
support of the board members of the Noel Foundation: Shelby
Smith, Delton Smith, the late Gilbert Shanley, Merritt B. Chastain Jr.,
Steven Walker, Stacy Williams, Richard Bremer, Richard D. Lamb,
Claire Adkins Sevier, George Patton Fritze, and Oliver G. Jenkins. I
have been also very fortunate to have exemplary colleagues—Cheryl
White, Helen Wise, Gary Joiner, and Elisabeth Liebert—who have
patiently borne one too many Napoleonic conversations with me.
Away from the halls of academia, Dmitry and Svitlana Ostanin
and Mikhail and Nataly Khoretonenko bolstered my morale with
ample libations and discussions of Russian history. I am grateful to
Martha Lawler, Robert and Ann Leitz, Janie Richardson, Jerard R.
Martin, and Sara Herrington for their support and encouragement.
Writing well is a skill not easily acquired, especially when dealing
with a foreign language. But I was very fortunate to have an
outstanding team at Oxford University Press. I owe a great debt of
gratitude to my editor, Timothy Bent, whose meticulous and
intelligent editing clarified my prose and helped me grow as a writer.
Zara Cannon-Mohammed, Amy Whitmer, and the entire production
team are the epitome of professionalism. Thanks also to my agent,
Dan Green, who supported the idea of a military biography and
helped the book get off the ground. It was a joy to collaborate with
Richard Britton on the maps.
My deepest appreciation is reserved for my family. Writing a book
is a solitary experience, and I have spent many an evening sitting at
my computer and begging words to arrange themselves on a page.
My wife and children stoically endured my absence, and their love,
patience, and understanding made this book possible.
 This book is dedicated to my dear friends and colleagues,
Frederick C. Schneid and Kenneth G. Johnson, who possess all of
Kutuzov’s virtues and none of his vices.
Alexander Mikaberidze
Shreveport, Louisiana
April 28, 2022
AUTHOR’S NOTE

RUSSIANS HAVE TRADITIONALLY BEEN given a first name and their father’s
name as patronymic; thus, Mikhail Illarionovich refers to Mikhail the
son of Illarion. To make it easier for the reader, I omitted patronymic
names and used Anglicized versions of names if they had been
already established in the English-language historiography (i.e.,
Peter instead of Petr, Paul for Pavel, Catherine for Ekaterina); I do,
however, use Nikolai and Mikhail, rather than Nicholas and Michael.
Kutuzov’s last name has been spelled in a myriad of different ways—
Kutusow, Kutusoff, Koutousoff, Koutosoff, Koutouzow, Kutusov—but I
chose Kutuzov since it the version widely used today.
Until 1917, Russia continued to employ the Julian Old Style
calendar that was progressively falling behind the Gregorian New
Style calendar used in the West; in the eighteenth century, it was
eleven days behind, and in the nineteenth, twelve days. In the main
text, I use the Gregorian calendar for all dates, but in references,
both Old and New Style dates are shown.
Russia’s main currency was the ruble, but estimating the income
of officials remains complicated by diverse factors. It varied
tremendously. One advertisement in 1800 offered an unmarried clerk
an annual salary of 150 rubles plus accommodation (clothing and
food). A decade later it cost almost 500 rubles a year to be a
member of the third merchant guild, which put it beyond the means
of almost all townspeople. Feeding a family of four would have cost
about 250–750 rubles a year, and if we account for costs of rent and
firewood, a small family required upward of 800 rubles per year to
lead a decent life in a town. In the military, a soldier’s annual pay
was about 10 rubles, while a junior officer’s, on average, was
twenty-five to thirty times higher. During the Napoleonic Wars,
majors earned about 500–600 rubles a year, lieutenant colonels
700–800, and colonels 1,000–1,200; general officers’ pay was, of
course, higher, 2,000–2,500 rubles for a major general and some
8,000–9,000 rubles for a field marshal. Officers holding a military
command received an additional allowance: a regimental
commander received 3,000 rubles per year, and a corps commander
10,000 rubles.
Throughout the book I variously refer to the Russian ruler as the
czar, emperor, autocrat, and sovereign. The ruler’s children held the
titles of grand prince (velikii knyaz) and grand princess (velikaya
knyazhnya), which are traditionally translated as grand duke and
grand duchess.
The Russian sovereigns had a diverse set of orders and
decorations with which to acknowledge and reward their loyal
officials and military leaders. The highest of them was the Order of
Apostle St. Andrew the First Called, established in 1698. Next in
hierarchy came the Order of St. Alexander of Neva (1725), the Order
of St. Vladimir (1782, four grades), the Order of St. Anna (created as
a dynastic order in 1735 but declared an imperial order in 1797, four
grades), and finally the Order of St. John of Jerusalem (the Maltese
Cross), which was awarded only during the reign of Emperor Paul.
As an exclusively military award, the Order of St. George (1769) was
treated differently than other decorations. The fourth and third
grades recognized military valor and were bestowed on junior
officers. The higher grades, however, were reserved for senior officer
corps only; as a rule, the second grade was granted to a
commanding officer for a victorious combat, while the first grade,
the rarest of the awards, recognized a triumph in a campaign. Thus,
while there were thousands of recipients of the two lowest grades,
only 125 earned the second grade and just 25 garnered the first
grade during the entire Russian imperial era. Only four individuals
ever earned the complete set of all four grades: Kutuzov, Mikhail
Barclay de Tolly, Ivan Paskevich, and Ivan Diebitsch.
During the imperial era, Russian military ranks were similar to
those in other European powers but were regulated by the Table of
Ranks, a hierarchy of fourteen categories of positions and ranks that
Peter the Great adopted as the foundation for a system of promotion
based on personal ability and performance rather than on birth and
genealogy. In addition to regular military ranks, the Russian army
utilized administrative and staff ranks, such as adjutant general and
flügel adjutant.

Russian Military Ranks

1st Grade General Field Marshal
2nd Grade Général-en-chef (1730–1796)
General of the Infantry (1796–1917)
General of the Cavalry
General of the Artillery (1796–1917, replaced General Feldzeugmeister)
Engineer-General
General Provisionsmeister
Quartermaster General
3rd Grade General-Poruchik (1741–1796, though retained in artillery)
Lieutenant General (1796–1917)
4th Grade Major General
5th Grade Brigadier (1722–1798)
6th Grade Colonel
7th Grade Lieutenant Colonel
8th Grade Premier/First Major
Second Major
Major
9th Grade Captain; Rittmeister (rotmistr) in cavalry; Captain Lieutenant in artillery
10th Grade Staff Captain; Staff-Rittmeister
11th Grade Lieutenant
12th Grade Sub-lieutenant
PROLOGUE

ANY RUSSIAN WOULD IMMEDIATELY recognize him by his patronym alone.

He was the general who led the victory over Napoleon’s Grande
Armée during the Patriotic War of 1812 and helped restore Russia’s
pride. More than its pride, its very sense of national purpose and
identity. The triumph over Napoleonic France raised Russia’s prestige
to unprecedented heights, helping shape both its destiny and that of
world history, and his role in it all, at least from the Russian
perspective, is unquestioned. More than a national hero, he became
a legend, achieving a stature few military leaders, in Russia or
elsewhere, in any era, could rival.
For half a century Mikhail Illarionovich Golenischev-Kutuzov, or
simply Kutuzov, as he is widely known, served in almost every major
conflict in which Russia and its empresses and emperors engaged.
He was a man of contrasts, inspiring and exasperating, of
considerable personal charm and keen intellect, but calculating and
artful; а loving father of five daughters who relished life with great
enthusiasm and a strong sense of fun, but whom contemporaries
castigated as a “one-eyed old satyr” and an inveterate womanizer.
His mentality was cosmopolitan yet he was an unabashed proponent
of the Russian imperialism who could not fully express with what
“pleasure and gratitude” he received the news of the partitioning of
the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1793. He also handsomely
profited from it, gaining vast tracts of lands in western Ukraine; it is
not surprising, therefore, that with the outbreak of the Russo-
Ukranian War in 2014, Kutuzov came to personify the Russian
colonialism, leading to some of his monuments being dismantled in
Ukraine. As a commander he was sometimes accused, particularly
late in his military career, of being too cautious, even cowardly, yet
over his lifetime he displayed great personal courage on the
battlefield, where he was seriously wounded twice and not expected
to survive. The scars on his face, along with sixteen medals,
including the complete set of the Order of Saint George for gallantry
and military prowess—the first ever to be garnered by an individual
—testified to his heroism and daring. Yet he was equally a courtier,
cunning and compliant, full of obsequious flattery and deference to
those above his station. To many of his contemporaries, he was the
embodiment of fading standards, a relic of a bygone era. In death,
he was transformed from a flawed figure into a national monument.
Long celebrated in Russia, particularly during the Soviet era,
when he was lionized, Kutuzov’s life and career remain overlooked in
the West, in part because he has not been well served by his
biographers. Of the handful of English, French, or German
biographies that exist, all show their age or lack scholarly rigor; most
are translations of Soviet publications or entirely derived from them.1
For example, Kutuzov’s standard English biography—Roger
Parkinson’s The Fox of the North—is nearly fifty years old and suffers
from shortcomings, including a good number of factual mistakes and
uncritical acceptance of Soviet embellishments.2 Though more even-
handed, the most recent French biography, published in 1990, has
become a bibliographic curiosity.3 Western narratives of the
Napoleonic Wars usually mention only Kutuzov’s involvement in the
battles at Austerlitz in 1805 and Borodino in 1812; both were major
engagements, but they do not reflect the full extent of his
accomplishments and importance. This is largely because of critical
commentaries found in letters and memoirs of those who felt he had
missed opportunities to defeat Napoleon in battle. Writing in October
1812, Sir Robert Wilson, the British commissioner to the Russian
army, lamented that “Kutuzov affords a memorable instance of
incapacity in a chief, of an absence of any quality that ought to
distinguish a commander.”4 Kutuzov has received a more balanced,
albeit cursory, treatment in recent studies of Russia during the
Napoleonic Wars, most notably by British historian Dominic Lieven,
who calls him a “charismatic leader who knew how to win his men’s
confidence and affection,” a “sly and far-sighted politician and
negotiator,” and “a skillful, courageous, and experienced soldier.”
Lieven captures Kutuzov’s contradictions when he adds (somewhat
unjustly) that he was also a “lazy and inefficient administrator,” with
limitations as a tactician but mastery of “public relations.”5
In my own publications, from a trilogy on Napoleon’s invasion of
Russia in 1812 to a recent book on the global nature of the
Napoleonic Wars, I reconsidered the contributions of all the major
Russian commanders, including Barclay de Tolly and Peter Bagration,
colorful and significant figures. Yet Kutuzov was the one who stood
out, if only because he lay at the heart of so much triumph and
controversy. Curiosity motivates most historians. Years ago, looking
at the magnificent bronze statue of Kutuzov in front of the Cathedral
of Our Lady of Kazan in St. Petersburg, a monument to the Russian
triumph over Napoleon, I felt the challenge of seeking what lay
beneath that degree of adulation. More recently, I found myself no
less curious about a figure both so exalted and so dismissed. The
recent bicentennial celebration of the Napoleonic era produced a
wave of new publications on the French, British, Prussian, Austrian,
and Spanish political and military leaders. So many have been the
subject of new works—Emperor Napoleon, Field Marshal Gebhard
Leberecht von Blücher, Gerhard von Scharnhorst, and the Duke of
Wellington, as well as French marshals Louis-Alexandre Berthier,
Joachim Murat, and Auguste Viesse de Marmont, and even the
“unfortunate” Austrian general Karl Mack von Leiberich—that enrich
our understanding of their lives and contributions.6 On the other
hand, Russian figures (aside from Czar Alexander) are entirely
overlooked, even though they played a crucial role in defeating
Napoleon and shaping Europe’s destiny.7 Kutuzov’s life provides a
unique opportunity to reflect on and perhaps even rectify this.
What little the Western public knows about Kutuzov mainly is due
to Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Among its vast catalog of wisdom about
the human condition, the novel reflects a vision of war that is
anything but triumphant or monumental. War is, instead, chaotic,
impenetrable, and unmanageable, minimizing the relevance of even
the greatest military leaders in the face of forces over which they
have no control. Tolstoy’s portrait of Kutuzov—pensive and even
existential, overweight, and morose—undermines credence in the
science of war. In a famous scene, Kutuzov falls asleep in front of
the allied commander at the council of war on the eve of Austerlitz;
at Borodino, the novel’s climax, Kutuzov indulges in eating a roasted
chicken while carnage unfolds in front of him. Describing a meeting
between Prince Andrei Bolkonskii and Kutuzov, Tolstoy writes that
the more Prince Andrei “realized the absence of all personal motive
in that old man—in whom there seemed to remain only the habit of
passions, and in place of an intellect (grouping events and drawing
conclusions) only the capacity calmly to contemplate the course of
events—the more reassured he was that everything would be as it
should.” It is clear to Prince Andrei that Kutuzov “will not devise or
undertake anything,” but that he “will hear everything, remember
everything, and put everything in its place.” In Tolstoy’s telling,
Kutuzov recognizes that there are forces in the universe that are
“stronger and more important than his own will.”8
In passages like these, Tolstoy offers a great-man view of history,
though a portrait radically different from that of Napoleon, a rational
practitioner of war, a man who seeks to understand and control
events. Kutuzov, by contrast, has a clear vision of the true nature of
warfare, the impenetrable fog of it, and therefore suppresses his
own will, eschews decision-making on the battlefield, and assumes
the stance of a passive observer.9
The Tolstoyean view of Kutuzov, fascinating and haunting as it is,
cast a shadow that endures to the present day. Many now remember
Kutuzov mainly for napping on the eve of Austerlitz and little else.
Few are aware of his diplomatic successes, his campaigns against
the Ottomans, or his contributions to the Russian Military
Enlightenment. It is time to lift him out of Tolstoy’s novel—endlessly
rich a universe though it is—and place him in the world he helped to
shape.
If Western historical literature has dismissed Kutuzov, the reverse
is true of the Russian publications. There Kutuzov retains his stature.
This mythologizing started early. On the whole, his Russian
contemporaries were critical of Kutuzov during most of his long
career, but by the time of his death in the spring of 1813 there had
been a change. He was not only held in high regard in Russian
society at large but eulogized as Спаситель Отечества, “the Savior
of the Nation,” and buried in the imposing Cathedral of Our Lady of
Kazan, the central memorial to the Russian triumph over Napoleon.
The exaltation obscured less attractive traits of the man who rarely
spoke his mind openly and was notorious for double-dealing. The
mythmaking reached new heights starting in the mid-twentieth
century, when the Soviet regime deliberately crafted an image of his
greatness for the purposes of state consolidation amid a devastating
war. Joseph Stalin’s insistence that Kutuzov was the brilliant
strategist who had routed Napoleon with a brilliantly executed
master plan—ostensibly what Stalin himself did to the invading Nazi
armies during World War II—was instrumental in the amplification of
the Kutuzovian legend; it was no accident that during the Great
Patriotic War, as World War II is known in Russia, the Order of
Kutuzov was introduced as one of the highest military awards,
recognizing the military prowess of a new generation of Soviet
military commanders. Kutuzov was effectively enlisted into the Soviet
government’s propaganda campaign, and this, in turn, determined
the direction of Russian scholarship for decades to come.
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the turbulent decade that
followed it left a deep scar on the Russian national psyche. Vladimir
Putin’s narrative of the era of national decline and humiliation set the
stage for his mission to restore Russia’s greatness and strength. In
forging a new national identity, the Russian government continues to
employ history to mediate the complex relations between the state
and the people. In this process, the Napoleonic-era events and
personalities still play an important role, as showcased by the
bicentennial celebrations in 2012. Kutuzov holds a special place in
the pantheon of Russian heroes. A survey conducted during the
bicentennial celebrations in 2012 showed that almost two-thirds of
people credited Kutuzov with saving Russia from the Napoleonic
threat. In fact, in the Russian public’s imagination, he has eclipsed
almost all his contemporaries. In 2000, a poll showed that the
majority of the Russians considered Kutuzov as “the greatest figure
of the 19th century,” ahead of Pushkin, Tchaikovskii, Dmitry
Mendeleyev, even Tolstoy.10 In more recent surveys (2016–2021),
Russian citizens dependably voted Kutuzov among the top three
most distinguished Russian commanders (after Georgi Zhukov, the
Soviet commander during World War II, and Alexander Suvorov, the
last generalissimo of the Russian Empire) and, at number fifteen, in
the top twenty of the world’s most distinguished historical figures,
slightly behind Napoleon (number fourteen) but ahead of Isaac
Newton (number nineteen) and Mikhail Gorbachev (number
twenty).Remarkably, some political observers even contend that in
confronting the West, Putin has adopted Kutuzov’s grand strategy of
avoiding decisive confrontation with a stronger opponent and
exhausting it through attrition and asymmetrical engagement.11
This book undertakes a thorough reassessment of Kutuzov, who
deserves better than either disparaging dismissal or hero worship. I
am determined not merely to offer a clear-eyed account of the life of
this singular individual but also to show that his story embodies the
saga of Russian military history and imperial endeavors at the onset
of the modern era. This work thus intertwines three core
components—an honest portrait of Kutuzov’s life and career; a
survey of those aspects of Russian history in which he was so
central, including relations with Poland and the Ottoman Empire;
and, finally, an attempt to understand how he was perceived, both
by his contemporaries and by later generations. I hope the last will
show how powerful the process of mythmaking can be, and how it
can supplant historical truth.
Ultimately, this is a life, and like so many who have attempted to
write a biography, I have tried to follow James Boswell’s advice. The
best biographies, he writes in his Life of Samuel Johnson, enable the
reader to accompany the subject, “as it were to see him live, and to
‘live o’er each scene’ with him, as he actually advanced through the
several stages of his life.” Kutuzov left behind a considerable body of
public and private correspondence, military orders, and other
documents. I consulted the voluminous anthologies of his papers
and was privileged to gain access to thousands of pages of
documents from the Lithuanian, Russian, and French archives. These
allowed me to reexamine Kutuzov’s career in detail, based on
original sources. But even when there is a wealth of information,
there are always the pitfalls of interpretation. I have tried to be
judicious, making allowance for Kutuzov’s motives, while trying to
express what he “might” have felt, thought, or done. A close
examination of numerous diaries, letters, and memoirs of his
contemporaries helped me glean insights into both his character and
how it was interpreted even during the course of his life. In short, I
have sought to look at him from as many perspectives as possible—
those of friends and foes alike—adhering as closely as possible to
the German historian Leopold von Ranke’s dictum wie es eigentlich
gewesen, “to show what actually happened.”12
PART I
CHAPTER 1
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 sash, First-floor, §61, p28
-sash hardware, §55, p77
sash, Second-floor, §61, p29
Windows, Cost of window frames and, §60, p63
Wire brads, §55, p9
gauge, §55, p4
glass, §55, p161; §64, p54
nails, §55, p2
nails, Special, §55, p8
nails, Table of sizes of, §55, p7
Wiring, Cost of electric, §61, p41
Wood screws, §55, p11
screws, Table of sizes of, §55, p13
Wooden door knobs, §55, p71
floors, Table of labor cost of laying, §60, p44

Y
Yale master-key lock, §55, p52

Footnotes:
[1] In place of the mortise turnbuckle any of the following hardware can be used:
Casement fasts or locks; Cremorne bolts, locking top, bottom, and center; or,
Espagnolette bars, either rim or mortise.
[2] The block F is taken as a triangle. The block G is a semicircle, and its area is
found, as will be noticed, by finding the area of a circle and dividing it by 2.
[3] The block F is taken as a triangle. The block G is a semicircle, and its area is
found, as will be noticed, by finding the area of a circle and dividing it by 2.
[4] Lengths scaled along center line of walls.
[5] Lengths scaled along center line of walls.
[6] External measurements with no deduction for openings.
[7] Although these are made continuous, to carry the base, or ground sill,
independent piers, under the porch columns might be substituted, at a
somewhat less cost.
[8] Although these are made continuous, to carry the base, or ground sill,
independent piers, under the porch columns might be substituted, at a
somewhat less cost.
[9] The walls between the base sill and the water-table are faced with ashlar,
which extends around the main walls to the porches, and all porch piers are built
of ashlar.
[10] One joist will be left over here, but this cannot easily be helped.
[11] In the attic plan, which shows the lines of the roof, the lines of the dormers
are omitted so as to make the important hips and valleys more prominent.
[12] Where studs over 20 feet are required, it is sometimes more economical to
use two short studs, inserting a plate over the first-story studs and resting the
feet of the second-story studs thereon.
[13] This value would appear high if compared with Table VI, Estimating and
Calculating Quantities, Part 1, but this table represents ideal conditions, where
there are no delays, mistakes, legitimate office expenses, nor foreman's time
included.
[14] Usually a man can lay more than 700 shingles per day, but the roof under
consideration is very much cut up.
[15] The cost of this hemlock is $1 cheaper per thousand than that used in the
framing, since shorter lengths may be employed.
[16] The prices given include the cost of labor.
[17] The prices of doors do not include hardware, which item will be found in the
hardware bill, but they include putting on the hardware.
[18] This door opens to the balcony.
 Transcriber’s Notes:

The cover image was created by the transcriber, and is in the public domain.
The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs and so
that they are next to the text they illustrate.
Typographical and punctuation errors have been silently corrected.
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