War and Peace (156 page)

The Russians retreat one hundred and twenty versts beyond Moscow; the French reach Moscow and there halt. For five weeks after this there is not a single battle. The French do not move. Like a wild beast mortally wounded, bleeding and licking its wounds, for five weeks the French remain in Moscow, attempting nothing; and all at once, with nothing new to account for it, they flee back; they make a dash for the Kaluga road (after a victory, too, for they remained in possession of the field of battle at Maley Yaroslavets); and then, without a single serious engagement, fly more and more rapidly back to Smolensk, to Vilna, to the Berezina, and beyond it.

On the evening of the 26th of August, Kutuzov and the whole Russian army were convinced that the battle of Borodino was a victory. Kutuzov wrote to that effect to the Tsar. He ordered the troops to be in readiness for another battle, to complete the defeat of the enemy, not because he wanted to deceive any one, but because he knew that the enemy was vanquished, as every one who had taken part in the battle knew it.

But all that evening and next day news was coming in of unheard-of losses, of the loss of one-half of the army, and another battle turned out to be physically impossible.

It was impossible
to give battle when information had not yet come in, the wounded had not been removed, the ammunition stores had not been filled up, the slain had not been counted, new officers had not been appointed to replace the dead, and the men had had neither food nor sleep. And meanwhile, the very next morning after the battle, the French army of itself moved down upon the Russians, carried on by the force of its own impetus, accelerated now in inverse ratio to the square of the distance from its goal. Kutuzov’s wish was to attack next day, and all the army shared this desire. But to make an attack it is not sufficient to desire to do so; there must also be a possibility of doing so, and this possibility there was not. It was impossible not to retreat one day’s march, and then it was as impossible not to retreat a second and a third day’s march, and finally, on the 1st of September, when the army reached Moscow, despite the force of the growing feeling in the troops, the force of circumstances compelled those troops to retreat beyond Moscow. And the troops retreated one more last day’s march, and abandoned Moscow to the enemy.

Persons who are accustomed to suppose that plans of campaigns and of battles are made by generals in the same way as any of us sitting over a map in our study make plans of how we would have acted in such and such a position, will be perplexed by questions why Kutuzov, if he had to retreat, did not take this or that course, why he did not take up a position before Fili, why he did not at once retreat to the Kaluga road, leaving Moscow, and so on. Persons accustomed to think in this way forget, or do not know, the inevitable conditions which always limit the action of any commander-in-chief. The action of a commander-in-chief in the field has no sort of resemblance to the action we imagine to ourselves, sitting at our ease in our study, going over some campaign on the map with a certain given number of soldiers on each side, in a certain known
locality, starting our plans from a certain moment. The general is never in the position of the
beginning
of any event, from which we always contemplate the event. The general is always in the very middle of a changing series of events, so that he is never at any moment in a position to deliberate on all the bearings of the event that is taking place. Imperceptibly, moment by moment, an event takes shape in all its bearings, and at every moment in that uninterrupted, consecutive shaping of events the commander-in-chief is in the centre of a most complex play of intrigues, of cares, of dependence and of power, of projects, counsels, threats, and conceptions, with one thing depending on another, and is under the continual necessity of answering the immense number of mutually contradictory inquiries addressed to him.

We are, with perfect seriousness, told by those learned in military matters that Kutuzov ought to have marched his army towards the Kaluga road long before reaching Fili; that somebody did, indeed, suggest such a plan. But the commander of an army has before him, especially at a difficult moment, not one, but dozens of plans. And each of those plans, based on the rules of strategy and tactics, contradicts all the rest. The commander’s duty would, one would suppose, be merely to select one out of those plans; but even this he cannot do. Time and events will not wait. It is suggested to him, let us suppose, on the 28th to move towards the Kaluga road, but at that moment an adjutant gallops up from Miloradovitch to inquire whether to join battle at once with the French or to retire. He must be given instructions at once, at the instant. And the order to retire hinders us from turning to the Kaluga road. And then after the adjutant comes the commissariat commissioner to inquire where the stores are to be taken, and the ambulance director to ask where the wounded are to be moved to, and a courier from Petersburg with a letter from the Tsar, not admitting the possibility of abandoning Moscow, and the commander’s rival, who is trying to cut the ground from under his feet (and there are always more than one such) proposes a new project, diametrically opposed to the plan of marching upon the Kaluga road. The commander’s own energies, too, require sleep and support. And a respectable general, who has been overlooked when decorations were bestowed, presents a complaint, and the inhabitants of the district implore protection, and the officer sent to inspect the locality comes back with a report utterly unlike that of the officer sent on the same commission just previously; and a spy, and a prisoner, and a general who has made a reconnaissance, all describe the position of the
enemy’s army quite differently. Persons who forget, or fail to comprehend, those inevitable conditions under which a commander has to act, present to us, for instance, the position of the troops at Fili, and assume that the commander-in-chief was quite free on the 1st of September to decide the question whether to abandon or to defend Moscow, though, with the position of the Russian army, only five versts from Moscow, there could no longer be any question on the subject. When was that question decided? At Drissa, and at Smolensk, and most palpably of all on August the 24th at Shevardino, and on the 26th at Borodino, and every day and hour and minute of the retreat from Borodino to Fili.

The Russian army, retreating from Borodino, halted at Fili. Yermolov, who had been inspecting the position, rode up to the commander-in-chief.

“There is no possibility of fighting in this position,” he said.

Kutuzov looked at him in wonder, and made him repeat the words he had just uttered. When he had done so, he put out his hand to him.

“Give me your hand,” he said; and turning it so as to feel his pulse, he said: “You are not well, my dear boy. Think what you are saying.”

Kutuzov could not yet take in the idea of its being possible to retreat, abandoning Moscow without a battle.

On the Poklonnaya Hill, six versts from Dorogomilovsky gate, Kutuzov got out of his carriage and sat down on a bench by the side of the road. A great crowd of generals gathered about him. Count Rastoptchin, who had come out from Moscow, joined them. All this brilliant company broke up into several circles, and talked among themselves of the advantages and disadvantages of the position, of the condition of the troops, of the plans proposed, of the situation of Moscow—in fact, of military questions generally. All felt that though they had not been summoned for the purpose, it was really, if not ostensibly, a military council. All conversation was confined to public questions. If any one did repeat or inquire any piece of personal news, it was in a whisper, and the talk passed at once back to general topics. There was not a jest, not a laugh, not even a smile, to be seen among all these men. They were all making an obvious effort to rise to the level of the situation. And all the groups, while talking among themselves, tried to keep close to the commander-in-chief,
whose bench formed the centre of the whole crowd, and tried to talk so that he might hear them. The commander-in-chief listened, and sometimes asked what had been said near him, but did not himself enter into conversation or express any opinion. For the most part, after listening to the talk of some group, he turned away with an air of disappointment, as though they were not speaking of anything he cared to hear about at all. Some were discussing the position, criticising not so much the position itself as the intellectual qualifications of those who had selected it. Others argued that a blunder had been made earlier, that a battle ought to have been fought two days before. Others talked of the battle of Salamanca, which a Frenchman, Crosart, wearing a Spanish uniform, was describing to them. (This Frenchman, who had just arrived, had with one of the German princes serving in the Russian army been criticising the siege of Saragossa, foreseeing a possibility of a similar defence of Moscow.) In the fourth group, Count Rastoptchin was saying that he, with the Moscow city guard, was ready to die under the walls of the city, but that still he could not but complain of the uncertainty in which he had been left, and that had he known it earlier, things would have been different.… A fifth group was manifesting the profundity of their tactical insight by discussing the direction the troops should certainly take now. A sixth group were talking arrant nonsense.

Kutuzov’s face grew more and more careworn and gloomy. From all this talk Kutuzov saw one thing only: the defence of Moscow was a
physical impossibility
in the fullest sense of the words. It was so utterly impossible that even if some insane commander were to give orders for a battle, all that would follow would be a muddle, and no battle would be fought. There would be no battle, because all the officers in command, not merely recognised the position to be impossible, but were only engaged now in discussing what was to be done after the inevitable abandonment of that position. How could officers lead their men to a field of battle which they considered it impossible to hold? The officers of lower rank, and even the soldiers themselves (they too form their conclusions), recognised that the position could not be held, and so they could not advance into battle with the conviction that they would be defeated. That Bennigsen urged the defence of this position, and others still discussed it, was a fact that had no significance in itself, but only as a pretext for dissension and intrigue. Kutuzov knew that.

Bennigsen was warmly manifesting his Russian patriotism (Kutuzov could not listen to him without wincing), by insisting on the defence of
Moscow. To Kutuzov, his object was as clear as daylight: in case of the defence being unsuccessful, to throw the blame on Kutuzov, who had brought the army as far as the Sparrow Hills without a battle; in case of its being successful, to claim the credit; in case of it not being attempted, to clear himself of the crime of abandoning Moscow.

But these questions of intrigue did not occupy the old man’s mind now. One terrible question absorbed him. And to that question he heard no reply from any one. The question for him now was this: “Can it be that I have let Napoleon get to Moscow, and when did I do it? When did it happen? Was it yesterday, when I sent word to Platov to retreat, or the evening before when I had a nap and bade Bennigsen give instructions? Or earlier still?… When, when was it this fearful thing happened? Moscow must be abandoned. The army must retire, and I must give the order for it.”

To give that terrible order seemed to him equivalent to resigning the command of the army. And apart from the fact that he loved power, and was used to it (the honours paid to Prince Prozorovsky, under whom he had been serving in Turkey, galled him), he was convinced that he was destined to deliver Russia, and had only for that cause been chosen commander-in-chief contrary to the Tsar’s wishes by the will of the people. He was persuaded that in these difficult circumstances he was the one man who could maintain his position at the head of the army, that he was the only man in the world capable of meeting Napoleon as an antagonist without panic. And he was in terror at the idea of having to resign the command. But he must decide on some step, he must cut short this chatter round him, which was beginning to assume too free a character.

He beckoned the senior generals to him.

“Ma tête, fût-elle bonne ou mauvaise, n’a qu’à s’aider d’elle-même,”
he said, getting up from his bench, and he rode off to Fili, where his carriages were waiting.

In the large best room of the peasant Andrey Savostyanov’s cottage, at two o’clock, a council met. The men and women and children of the peasant’s big family all crowded together in the room on the other side of the passage. Only Andrey’s little grandchild, Malasha, a child of six,
whom his highness had petted, giving her sugar while he drank his tea, stayed behind by the big stove in the best room. Malasha peeped out from on the stove with shy delight at the faces, the uniforms, and the crosses of the generals, who kept coming into the room one after another, and sitting in a row on the broad benches in the best corner under the holy images. “Granddad” himself, as Malasha in her own mind called Kutuzov, was sitting apart from the rest in the dark corner behind the stove. He sat sunk all of a heap in a folding armchair, and was continually clearing his throat and straightening the collar of his coat, which, though it was unbuttoned, still seemed to gall his neck. The generals, as they came in one after another, walked up to the commander-in-chief: he shook hands with some, to others he merely nodded.

The adjutant, Kaisarov, would have drawn back a curtain from the window facing Kutuzov, but the latter shook his hand angrily at him, and Kaisarov saw that his highness did not care for them to see his face.

Round the peasant’s deal table, on which lay maps, plans, pencils, and papers, there was such a crowd that the orderlies brought in another bench, and set it near the table. Yermolov, Kaisarov, and Toll seated themselves on this bench. In the foremost place, under the holy images, sat Barclay de Tolly, with his Order of St. George on his neck, with his pale, sickly face and high forehead that met his bald head. He had been in the throes of fever for the last two days, and was shivering and shaking now. Beside him sat Uvarov, speaking to him with rapid gesticulations in the same low voice in which everybody spoke. Little chubby Dohturov was listening attentively with his eyebrows raised and his hands clasped over his stomach. On the other side, resting his broad head on his hand, sat Count Osterman-Tolstoy, with his bold features and brilliant eyes, apparently plunged in his own thoughts. Raevsky sat twisting his black curls on his temples, as he always did, and looking with impatience from Kutuzov to the door. Konovnitsyn’s firm, handsome, good-humoured face was bright with a sly and kindly smile. He caught Malasha’s eye, and made signs to her with his eyes, that set the little girl smiling.