War and Peace (151 page)

But before he had time to grasp that the colonel had been killed, that the soldier shouting “Mates!” was a prisoner, another soldier was stabbed in the back by a bayonet before his eyes. He had hardly run up into the redoubt when a thin man with a yellow, perspiring face, in a blue uniform, ran up to him with a sword in his hand, shouting something. Pierre, instinctively defending himself, as they came full tilt against each other, put out his hands and clutched the man (it was a French officer) by the shoulder and the throat. The officer, dropping his sword, seized Pierre by the collar.

For several seconds both gazed with frightened eyes at each other’s unfamiliar-looking faces, and both were bewildered, not knowing what they were doing or what they were to do. “Am I taken prisoner or am I taking him prisoner?” each of them was wondering. But the French officer was undoubtedly more disposed to believe he was taken prisoner, because Pierre’s powerful hand, moved by instinctive terror, was tightening
its grip on his throat. The Frenchman tried to speak, when suddenly a cannon ball flew with a fearful whiz close over their heads, and it seemed to Pierre that the Frenchman’s head had been carried off by it, so swiftly had he ducked it.

Pierre, too, ducked and let go with his hands. Giving no more thought to the question which was taken prisoner, the Frenchman ran back to the battery, while Pierre dashed downhill, stumbling over the dead and wounded, who seemed to him to be clutching at his feet.

But before he had reached the bottom he was met by dense crowds of Russian soldiers, who, stumbling against each other and tripping up, were running in wild merriment towards the battery. (This was the attack of which Yermolov claimed the credit, declaring that it was only his valour and good luck that made this feat of arms possible; it was the attack in which he is supposed to have strewn the redoubt with the St. George’s crosses that were in his pocket.)

The French, who had captured the battery, fled. Our soldiers pursued them so far beyond the battery that they were with difficulty stopped. They were bringing the prisoners down from the battery, among them a wounded French general, surrounded by officers. Crowds of wounded, both French and Russians—among them men Pierre recognised—walked, or crawled, or were borne on stretchers from the battery, their faces distorted by suffering.

Pierre went up into the battery, where he had spent over an hour; and found no one left of that little fraternal group that had accepted him as one of themselves. There were many dead there, whom he had not seen before. But several he recognised. The boy-officer was still sitting huddled up in a pool of blood at the edge of the earth wall. The red-faced, merry soldier was still twitching convulsively; but they did not carry him away.

Pierre ran down the slope.

“Oh, now they will stop it, now they will be horrified at what they have done!” thought Pierre, aimlessly following the crowds of stretchers moving off the battlefield.

But the sun still stood high behind the veil of smoke, and in front, and even more so to the left, about Semyonovskoye, there was still a turmoil seething in the smoke; and the roar of cannon and musketry, far from slackening, grew louder and more desperate, like a man putting all his force into one deafening outcry as a last despairing effort.

The chief action of the battle of Borodino was fought on the space seven thousand feet in width between Borodino and Bagration’s flèches. Outside that region, on one side there was the action on the part of Uvarov’s cavalry in the middle of the day; on the other side, behind Utitsa, there was the skirmish between Poniatovsky and Tutchkov; but those two actions were detached and of little importance in comparison with what took place in the centre of the battlefield. The chief action of the day was fought in the simplest and the most artless fashion on the open space, visible from both sides, between Borodino and the flèches by the copse.

The battle began with a cannonade from several hundreds of guns on both sides. Then, when the whole plain was covered with smoke, on the French side the two divisions of Desaix and Compans advanced on the right upon the flèches, and on the left the viceroy’s regiments advanced upon Borodino. The flèches were a verst from the Shevardino redoubt, where Napoleon was standing; but Borodino was more than two versts further, in a straight line, and therefore Napoleon could not see what was passing there, especially as the smoke, mingling with the fog, completely hid the whole of that part of the plain. The soldiers of Desaix’s division, advancing upon the flèches, were in sight till they disappeared from view in the hollow that lay between them and the flèches. As soon as they dropped down into the hollow, the smoke of the cannon and muskets on the flèches became so thick that it concealed the whole slope of that side of the hollow. Through the smoke could be caught glimpses of something black, probably men, and sometimes the gleam of bayonets. But whether they were stationary or moving, whether they were French or Russian, could not be seen from Shevardino.

The sun had risen brightly, and its slanting rays shone straight in Napoleon’s face as he looked from under his hand towards the flèches. The smoke hung over the flèches, and at one moment it seemed as though it were the smoke that was moving, at the next, the troops moving in the smoke. Sometimes cries could be heard through the firing; but it was impossible to tell what was being done there.

Napoleon, standing on the redoubt, was looking through a field-glass, and in the tiny circle of the glass saw smoke and men, sometimes his own, sometimes Russians. But where what he had seen was, he could not tell when he looked again with the naked eye.

He came down from the redoubt, and began walking up and down before it.

At intervals he stood still, listening to the firing and looking intently at the battlefield.

It was not simply impossible from below, where he was standing, and from the redoubt above, where several of his generals were standing, to make out what was passing at the flèches; but on the flèches themselves, occupied now together, now alternately by French and Russians, living, dead, and wounded, the frightened and frantic soldiers had no idea what they were doing. For several hours together, in the midst of incessant cannon and musket fire, Russians and French, infantry and cavalry, had captured the place in turn; they rushed upon it, fell, fired, came into collision, did not know what to do with each other, screamed, and ran back again.

From the battlefield adjutants were continually galloping up to Napoleon with reports from his marshals of the progress of the action. But all those reports were deceptive; both because in the heat of battle it is impossible to say what is happening at any given moment, and because many of the adjutants never reached the actual battlefield, but simply repeated what they heard from others, and also because, while the adjutant was galloping the two or three versts to Napoleon, circumstances had changed, and the news he brought had already become untrue. Thus an adjutant came galloping from the viceroy with the news that Borodino had been taken and the bridge on the Kolotcha was in the hands of the French. The adjutant asked Napoleon should the troops cross the bridge. Napoleon’s command was to form on the further side and wait; but long before he gave that command, when the adjutant indeed had only just started from Borodino, the bridge had been broken down and burnt by the Russians in the very skirmish Pierre had taken part in at the beginning of the day.

An adjutant, galloping up from the flèches with a pale and frightened face, brought Napoleon word that the attack had been repulsed, and Compans wounded and Davoust killed; while meantime the flèches had been captured by another division of the troops, and Davoust was alive and well, except for a slight bruise. Upon such inevitably misleading reports Napoleon based his instructions, which had mostly been carried out before he made them, or else were never, and could never, be carried out at all.

The marshals and generals who were closer to the scene of action,
but, like Napoleon, not actually taking part in it, and only at intervals riding within bullet range, made their plans without asking Napoleon, and gave their orders from where and in what direction to fire, and where the cavalry were to gallop and the infantry to run. But even their orders, like Napoleon’s, were but rarely, and to a slight extent, carried out.

For the most part what happened was the opposite of what they commanded to be done. The soldiers ordered to advance found themselves under grapeshot fire, and ran back. The soldiers commanded to stand still in one place seeing the Russians appear suddenly before them, either ran away or rushed upon them; and the cavalry unbidden galloped in after the flying Russians. In this way two cavalry regiments galloped across the Semyonovskoye hollow, and as soon as they reached the top of the hill, turned and galloped headlong back again. The infantry, in the same way, moved sometimes in the direction opposite to that in which they were commanded to move.

All decisions as to when and where to move the cannons, when to send infantry to fire, when to send cavalry to trample down the Russian infantry—all such decisions were made by the nearest officers in the ranks, without any reference to Ney, Davoust, and Murat, far less to Napoleon himself. They did not dread getting into trouble for nonfulfilment of orders, nor for assuming responsibility, because in battle what is at stake is what is most precious to every man—his own life; and at one time it seems as though safety is to be found in flying back, sometimes in flying forward; and these men placed in the very thick of the fray acted in accordance with the temper of the moment.

In reality all these movements forward and back again hardly improved or affected the position of the troops. All their onslaughts on one another did little harm; the harm, the death and disablement was the work of the cannon balls and bullets, that were flying all about the open space, where those men ran to and fro. As soon as they got out of that exposed space, over which the balls and bullets were flying, their superior officer promptly formed them in good order, and restored discipline, and under the influence of that discipline led them back under fire again; and there again, under the influence of the terror of death, they lost all discipline, and dashed to and fro at the chance promptings of the crowd.

Napoleon’s generals, Davoust, Ney, and Murat, who were close to that region of fire, and sometimes even rode into it, several times led immense masses of orderly troops into that region. But instead of what had invariably happened in all their previous battles, instead of hearing that the enemy were in flight, the disciplined masses of troops came back in undisciplined, panic-stricken crowds. They formed them in good order again, but their number was steadily dwindling. In the middle of the day Murat sent his adjutant to Napoleon with a request for reinforcements.

Napoleon was sitting under the redoubt, drinking punch, when Murat’s adjutant galloped to him with the message that the Russians would be routed if his majesty would let them have another division.

“Reinforcements?” said Napoleon, with stern astonishment, staring, as though failing to comprehend his words, at the handsome, boyish adjutant, who wore his black hair in floating curls, like Murat’s own. “Reinforcements!” thought Napoleon. “How can they want reinforcements when they have half the army already, concentrated against one weak, unsupported flank of the Russians?”

“Tell the King of Naples,” said Napoleon sternly, “that it is not midday, and I don’t yet see clearly over my chess-board. You can go.”

The handsome, boyish adjutant with the long curls heaved a deep sigh, and still holding his hand to his hat, galloped back to the slaughter.

Napoleon got up, and summoning Caulaincourt and Berthier, began conversing with them of matters not connected with the battle.

In the middle of the conversation, which began to interest Napoleon, Berthier’s eye was caught by a general, who was galloping on a steaming horse to the redoubt, followed by his suite. It was Beliard. Dismounting from his horse, he walked rapidly up to the Emperor, and, in a loud voice, began boldly explaining the absolute necessity of reinforcements. He swore on his honour that the Russians would be annihilated if the Emperor would let them have another division.

Napoleon shrugged his shoulders, and continued walking up and down, without answering. Beliard began loudly and eagerly talking with the generals of the suite standing round him.

“You are very hasty, Beliard,” said Napoleon, going back again to him. “It is easy to make a mistake in the heat of the fray. Go and look again and then come to me.” Before Beliard was out of sight another messenger came galloping up from another part of the battlefield.

“Well, what is it now?” said Napoleon, in the tone of a man irritated by repeated interruptions.

“Sire, the prince …” began the adjutant.

“Asks for reinforcements?” said Napoleon, with a wrathful gesture. The adjutant bent his head affirmatively and was proceeding to give his message, but the Emperor turned and walked a couple of steps away, stopped, turned back, and beckoned to Berthier. “We must send the reserves,” he said with a slight gesticulation. “Whom shall we send there? what do you think?” he asked Berthier, that “gosling I have made an eagle,” as he afterwards called him.

“Claparède’s division, sire,” said Berthier, who knew all the divisions, regiments, and battalions by heart.

Napoleon nodded his head in assent.

The adjutant galloped off to Claparède’s division. And a few moments later the Young Guards, stationed behind the redoubt, were moving out. Napoleon gazed in that direction in silence.

“No,” he said suddenly to Berthier, “I can’t send Claparède. Send Friant’s division.”

Though there was no advantage of any kind in sending Friant’s division rather than Claparède’s, and there was obvious inconvenience and delay now in turning back Claparède and despatching Friant, the order was carried out. Napoleon did not see that in relation to his troops he played the part of the doctor, whose action in hindering the course of nature with his nostrums he so truly gauged and condemned.