War and Peace (186 page)

After the battle of Borodino, and the taking and burning of Moscow, historians consider the most important episode of the war of 1812 to be the movement of the Russian army from the Ryazan to the Kaluga road
and to the Tarutino camp, the so-called oblique march behind Krasnaya Pahra. Historians ascribe the credit of this stroke of genius to various persons, and dispute to whom it is rightfully due. Even foreign, even French historians, admit the genius of the Russian generals when they mention this flank march. But why military writers, and others following their lead, assume this oblique movement to be a project profoundly planned by some one person for the deliverance of Russia and the overthrow of Napoleon it is very difficult to see. It is difficult in the first place to see wherein the profound wisdom and genius of this march lies; for no great intellectual effort is needed to guess that the best position for an army, when not being attacked, is where supplies are most plentiful. And every one, even a stupid boy of thirteen, could have guessed that the most advantageous position for the army in 1812, after the retreat from Moscow, would be on the Kaluga road. And so one cannot understand, in the first place, what conclusions led the historians to see some deep wisdom in this manœuvre. Secondly, it is even more difficult to understand why the historians ascribe to this manœuvre the deliverance of Russia and the overthrow of the French; for, had other circumstances preceded, accompanied, or followed it, this flank movement might as well have led to the destruction of the Russian army and the deliverance of the French. If the position of the Russian army did, in fact, begin to improve from the time of that march, it does not at all follow that the improvement was caused by it.

That oblique march might have been not simply of no use; it might have led to the destruction of the Russian army, but for the conjunction of other circumstances. What would have happened if Moscow had not been burnt? If Murat had not lost sight of the Russians? If Napoleon had not remained inactive? If, as Bennigsen and Barclay advised, the Russians had given battle near Krasnaya Pahra? What would have happened if the French had attacked the Russians when they were marching behind Pahra? What would have happened if later on Napoleon, on reaching Tarutino, had attacked the Russians with one-tenth of the energy with which he had attacked them at Smolensk? What would have happened if the French had marched to Petersburg?… On any of these hypotheses, the oblique march might have led to ruin instead of to safety.

The third point, most difficult of all to understand, is that students of history seem intentionally to refuse to see that this march cannot be ascribed to any one man, that no one foresaw it at any time, that, like the
retreat to Fili, the manœuvre was, in reality, never conceived of by any one in its entirety, but arose step by step, incident by incident, moment by moment from a countless multitude of the most diverse circumstances, and is only conceived of in its entirety, when it is an accomplished fact, and has become the past.

At the council at Fili the accepted idea among the Russians—the course taken for granted in fact—was retreat in a direct line back, that is, along the Nizhni road. Evidence of this is that the majority of votes at the council were for adopting this course, and the commander-in-chief’s famous conversation after the council with Lansky, the head of the commissariat department, is an even more striking proof of it. Lansky submitted to the commander-in-chief that the chief supplies for the army were stored along the Oka, in the Tula and Kazan provinces, and that if they retreated along the Nizhni road, the army would be cut off from its supplies by the broad river Oka, across which transport in the early winter was impossible. This was the first proof of the necessity of departing from the course that had at first seemed the most natural one, the retreat along the Nizhni road. The army kept more to the south along the Ryazan road, closer to its supplies. Later on the inactivity of the French, who positively lost sight of the Russian army, anxiety for the defence of the Tula arsenal, and above all, the advantage of being near their supplies led the army to turn even more to the south, to the Tula road. After crossing by a forced march behind Pahra to the Tula road, the generals of the Russian army intended to remain at Podolsk, and had no idea of the Tarutino position. But an infinite number of circumstances, among them the reappearance of French troops on the scene, and plans for giving battle, and most of all, the abundance of supplies in Kaluga, led our army to turn even more to the south, and to pass from the Tula to the Kaluga road to Tarutino, a central position between their lines of communication with their supplies. Just as it is impossible to answer the question what date Moscow was abandoned, it is impossible too to say precisely when and by whom it was decided to move the army to Tarutino. It was only after the army, through the action of innumerable infinitesimally small forces, had been brought to Tarutino, that people began to protest to themselves that that was the course they had desired, and had long foreseen as the right one.

The famous oblique movement consisted simply in this. The Russian troops, which had been retreating directly back from the French, as soon as the French attack ceased, turned off from that direction, and seeing they were not pursued, moved naturally in the direction where they were drawn by the abundance of supplies.

If we imagine, instead of generals of genius at the head of the Russian army, an army acting alone, without leadership of any kind, such an army could have done nothing else but move back again towards Moscow, describing a semicircle through the country that was best provided with necessaries, and where supplies were most plentiful.

So natural was this oblique movement from the Nizhni to the Ryazan, Tula, and Kaluga road, that that direction was the one taken by the flying bands of marauders from the Russian army, and the one which the authorities in Petersburg insisted upon Kutuzov’s taking. At Tarutino Kutuzov received what was almost a reprimand from the Tsar for moving the army to the Ryazan road, and he was directed to take up the very position facing Kaluga, in which he was encamped at the time when the Tsar’s letter reached him.

After recoiling in the direction of the shock received during the whole campaign, and at the battle of Borodino, the ball of the Russian army, as the force of that blow spent itself, and no new blow came, took the direction that was natural for it.

Kutuzov’s merit lay in no sort of military genius, as it is called, in no strategic manœuvre, but in the fact that he alone grasped the significance of what had taken place. He alone grasped even then the significance of the inactivity of the French army; he alone persisted in maintaining that the battle of Borodino was a victory; he alone—the man who from his position as commander-in-chief might have been expected to be the first to be eager for battle—he alone did everything in his power to hold the Russian army back from useless fighting.

The wild beast wounded at Borodino lay where the fleeing hunter had left him; but whether alive and strong, or only feigning, the hunter knew not. All at once a moan was heard from the creature. The moan of that wounded creature, the French army, that betrayed its hopeless plight, was the despatch of Lauriston to the camp of Kutuzov with overtures for peace.

Napoleon, with his conviction that not what was right was right, but
whatever came into his head was right, wrote to Kutuzov the first words that occurred to his mind, words that had no meaning at all.

“I should be cursed by posterity if I were regarded as the first instigator of any sort of settlement.
Tel est l’esprit actuel de ma nation
,” answered Kutuzov, and went on doing everything in his power to hold the army back from advance.

A month spent by the French army in pillaging Moscow, and by the Russian army quietly encamped at Tarutino, brought about a change in the relative strength of the two armies, a change both in spirit and in numbers, which was all to the advantage of the Russians. Although the position of the French army and its numbers were unknown to the Russians, as soon as their relative strength had changed, a great number of signs began to show that an attack would be inevitable. Among the causes that contributed to bring about this result were Lauriston’s mission, and the abundance of provisions at Tarutino, and the reports that were continually coming in from all sides of the inactivity and lack of discipline in the French army, and the filling up of our regiments by recruits, and the fine weather, and the long rest enjoyed by the Russian soldiers, and the impatience to do the work for which they have been brought together, that always arises in troops after repose, and curiosity to know what was going on in the French army, of which they had so long seen nothing, and the daring with which the Russian outposts dashed in among the French encamped at Tarutino, and the news of the easy victories gained by bands of peasants and free-lances over the French, and the envy aroused by them, and the desire of revenge, that every man cherished at heart so long as the French were in Moscow; and—stronger than all—the vague sense growing up in every soldier’s heart that the relative strength of the armies had changed, and the preponderance was
now on our side. The relative strength of the armies had really changed, and advance had become inevitable. And at once, as surely as the chimes in a clock begin to beat and play when the hand has made the full round of the dial, was this change reflected in the increased activity, and bustle and stir of wheels within wheels in the higher spheres.

The Russian army was commanded by Kutuzov and his staff and by the Tsar from Petersburg. Before the news of the abandonment of Moscow had reached Petersburg a detailed plan of the whole campaign had been drawn up and sent to Kutuzov for his guidance. In spite of the fact that this plan had been made on the supposition that Moscow was still in our hands, it was approved by the staff, and accepted as the plan to be carried out. Kutuzov simply wrote that directions from a distance were always difficult to carry out. And to solve any difficulties that might arise, fresh instructions were sent, together with newer persons, whose duty it was to be to keep a watch on his movements, and to report upon them.

Apart from these new authorities, the whole staff of generals in the Russian army was now transferred. The places of Bagration, who had been killed, and Barclay, who had taken offence and retired, had to be filled. The question was deliberated with the greatest seriousness: whether A should be put in B’s place, and B in the place of D, or whether, on the other hand, D in A’s place, and so on, as though the matter affected anything whatever except the satisfaction of A and B and D.

In consequence of Kutuzov’s hostility to the head officer of his staff, Bennigsen, and the presence of confidential advisers of the Tsar, and these various new appointments, the struggle of parties at headquarters was even more complicated than usual. A was trying to undermine B’s position, D to undermine C’s position, and so on, in all the possible combinations and permutations. In all these conflicting currents the object of intrigue was for the most part the management of the war, which all these men supposed they were controlling, though it did, in fact, follow its inevitable course quite apart from their action, a course that never corresponded with their schemes, but was the outcome of the forces interacting in the masses. All these schemes, thwarting and stultifying one another, were simply accepted in the higher spheres as the correct reflection of what was bound to come to pass.

“Prince Mihail Ilarionovitch!” the Tsar wrote on the 2nd of October, a letter received by Kutuzov after the battle of Tarutino. “From the 2nd of September Moscow has been in the hands of the enemy. Your last reports were dated the 20th; and in the course of all this time since, no attempt has been made to act against the enemy, and to relieve the ancient capital, and you have even, from your last reports, retreated further. Serpuhov is by now occupied by a detachment of the enemy, and Tula, with its famous arsenal, of such importance to the army, is in danger. From the reports received from General Wintzengerode, I see that a corps of the enemy, ten thousand strong, is marching along the Petersburg road. Another, numbering some thousands, is already close upon Dmitrov. A third is advancing along the Vladimir road. A fourth force of considerable strength is stationed between Ruza and Mozhaisk. Napoleon himself was in Moscow on the 25th. In face of these facts, with the enemy’s forces split up into these detached bodies, and Napoleon himself with his guards in Moscow, is it possible that the enemy’s forces confronting you are too strong to permit of your acting on the offensive? One may, with far more probability, assume that you are being pursued by detachments, or at most a corps by far inferior to the army under your command. It would seem that taking advantage of these circumstances, you might with advantage have attacked forces inferior in strength to your army, and have destroyed them, or at least have forced them to retreat, and have kept in our hands a considerable part of the province now occupied by the enemy, and thereby have averted all danger from Tula and the other towns of the interior. You will be responsible, if the enemy is able to send a considerable body of men to Petersburg, to menace that capital, in which it has been impossible to keep any great number of troops; for with the army under your command, acting with energy and decision, you have ample means at your disposal for averting such a calamity. Recollect that you have still to answer to your humiliated country for the loss of Moscow. You have had experience of my readiness to reward you. That readiness is no less now, but Russia and I have the right to expect from you all the energy, decision, and success, which your intellect, your military talents, and the valour of the troops under your command should guarantee us.”