When Barclay de Tolly decided to retreat to Moscow road he could not do it directly as his army was to march 4 versts along the right bank of Dnepr under the fire of French that were on the left bank. That why he undertook the rounding maneuver: at first he advanced along the Petersburg road and later he returned to the Moscow road near the village of Loubin. Meanwhile the enemy did not loose time and having built the bridges across Dnepr on the night of the 7th (19th ) of August appeared at the shorter distance from Loubin then Russian army that was marching along bed road crossed by small rivers and ravines. It was a very attractive task to cut the Russian army of Moscow road. The corps of Ney and Junot , cavalry of Murat rushed our troops. Later the Davout's corps joined them. But their hopes were not justified. Not far from Loubin they had met the detachment under command of General Touchkov the 3rd. The last one on his own initiative fulfilled absolutely different movement from what was ordered to him according to disposition: namely he had reached the main road and instead of turning to the left to Bredikhin, he turned right closer to Smolensk and blocked the way to Loubin. It was absolutely determined task before Touchkov the 3rd - to restrain the enemy till all Russian corps proceed by Loubin. When Touchkov was just taking the position he had only 3.000 in his disposal. This number later after two reinforcements was increased just up to 8.000. In spite of it Touchkov courageously resisted the offence of enemy in number of 20.000. The skillful location of the forces on the area assisted the successful defence. The cannons were mounted on hights and the jaegers lay in the rich bushes along the banks of Strogan river. Our artillery fire caused painful losses to enemy that also could not manage the jaegers. And when the Russians were to retreat to the other bank of the river the only bridge that was there was disassembled. It prevented the cavalry attack. Meanwhile Marshal Ney was spending incredible efforts to throw back Touchkov's detachment behind Loubin. He renewed on attack after another reinforcing them by fresh troops. But Touchkov was not left alone. When Barclay de Tolly had arrived to the place of action he immediately ordered the Konovnitstin's division and Count Orlov-Denisov with the 1st cavalry corps to help Touchkov and to prevent the attack of Murat cavalry that was aiming to round our left wing. Reasonable and provident orders of Count Orlov-Denisov and energetic efforts of all his cavalry regiments prevented enemies success in spite of all their numerous attacks. The infantry was also resolutely acting did not admitting French forward. And at last the task of this courageous venture was successfully completed: the last Russian troops under command of Baggovut and Baron Korf had reached the main road. It was already evening. The battle continued as Marshal Ney was stubborn in his attacks. When it became dark division of Gudin unexpectedly attacked our forces with a swift thrust but also without success, That was the last effort from French side. The battle was over.

Strategically skillful planning of our commanders, their personal courage, that was contagiously effecting subordinates, heroism and fortitude of soldiers, accuracy of the artillery fire, desperate bayonet fighting - everything combined here to provide superiority to Russian arms. The disagreement among Murat and Junot in a decisive moment, caused by the Napoleon absence at the battlefield, also had greatly helped us. From our side the affair had been overshadowed by the bayonet attack of Touchkov the 3rd with grenadier regiment. He was defeated and himself wounded was captured. But anyway the goal was achieved: stopped by the heroic resistance of Russians the enemy advanced further and our main troops had successfully retreated along the Moscow road.

The battle was very bloody. We lost from 5 to 6 thousand, meanwhile the French losses were about 9 thousand. The French General Gudin that aggressively attacked our troops was also killed.

The picture of the battle reproduced here perfectly transmits terrible feelings created by horrors of war. Hilly, overgrown with forests, quiet Russian plain, where the calmness of peaceful peasant labor was reigning before, in a moment had been turned in an arena of bloody fighting between the people. The dense smoke covered all the area, the thunder of cannons rocked far over the hills, the skirmish started to crackle, the balls rained downed, the bullets whined, the earth was shuddered by clatter of galloping horses hoofs and measured steps of thousands of feet, the blood was shed moistening the ground that was earlier fed just by rain water and early-dews and groans of wounded and sighs of dying flied to heavens. The death reaped reach harvest… And all this caused by one man that came from the distant, alien country, for whom was not enough to conquer the Europe but was necessary to step by his foot over half of the world. And hundreds of thousand, millions of precious lives were sacrificed to him…