War and Peace
at the place where a familiar portrait hangs. “Sorrow is sent by Him,
not by men. Men are His instruments, they are not to blame. If you think
someone has wronged you, forget it and forgive! We have no right to
punish. And then you will know the happiness of forgiving.”
“If I were a woman I would do so, Mary. That is a woman’s virtue. But
a man should not and cannot forgive and forget,” he replied, and though
till that moment he had not been thinking of Kurágin, all his unexpended
anger suddenly swelled up in his heart.
“If Mary is already persuading me to forgive, it means that I ought long
ago to have punished him,” he thought. And giving her no further reply,
he began thinking of the glad vindictive moment when he would meet
Kurágin who he knew was now in the army.
Princess Mary begged him to stay one day more, saying that she knew how
unhappy her father would be if Andrew left without being reconciled to
him, but Prince Andrew replied that he would probably soon be back again
from the army and would certainly write to his father, but that the
longer he stayed now the more embittered their differences would become.
“Good-by, Andrew! Remember that misfortunes come from God, and men are
never to blame,” were the last words he heard from his sister when he
took leave of her.
“Then it must be so!” thought Prince Andrew as he drove out of the
avenue from the house at Bald Hills. “She, poor innocent creature, is
left to be victimized by an old man who has outlived his wits. The old
man feels he is guilty, but cannot change himself. My boy is growing up
and rejoices in life, in which like everybody else he will deceive or be
deceived. And I am off to the army. Why? I myself don’t know. I want
to meet that man whom I despise, so as to give him a chance to kill and
laugh at me!”
These conditions of life had been the same before, but then they were
all connected, while now they had all tumbled to pieces. Only senseless
things, lacking coherence, presented themselves one after another to
Prince Andrew’s mind.
CHAPTER IX
Prince Andrew reached the general headquarters of the army at the end of
June. The first army, with which was the Emperor, occupied the fortified
camp at Drissa; the second army was retreating, trying to effect a
junction with the first one from which it was said to be cut off by
large French forces. Everyone was dissatisfied with the general course
of affairs in the Russian army, but no one anticipated any danger of
invasion of the Russian provinces, and no one thought the war would
extend farther than the western, the Polish, provinces.
Prince Andrew found Barclay de Tolly, to whom he had been assigned, on
the bank of the Drissa. As there was not a single town or large
village in the vicinity of the camp, the immense number of generals and
courtiers accompanying the army were living in the best houses of the
villages on both sides of the river, over a radius of six miles. Barclay
de Tolly was quartered nearly three miles from the Emperor. He received
Bolkónski stiffly and coldly and told him in his foreign accent that he
would mention him to the Emperor for a decision as to his employment,
but asked him meanwhile to remain on his staff. Anatole Kurágin, whom
Prince Andrew had hoped to find with the army, was not there. He had
gone to Petersburg, but Prince Andrew was glad to hear this. His mind
was occupied by the interests of the center that was conducting
a gigantic war, and he was glad to be free for a while from the
distraction caused by the thought of Kurágin. During the first four
days, while no duties were required of him, Prince Andrew rode round the
whole fortified camp and, by the aid of his own knowledge and by
talks with experts, tried to form a definite opinion about it. But the
question whether the camp was advantageous or disadvantageous remained
for him undecided. Already from his military experience and what he had
seen in the Austrian campaign, he had come to the conclusion that in
war the most deeply considered plans have no significance and that all
depends on the way unexpected movements of the enemy—that cannot be
foreseen—are met, and on how and by whom the whole matter is handled.
To clear up this last point for himself, Prince Andrew, utilizing his
position and acquaintances, tried to fathom the character of the control
of the army and of the men and parties engaged in it, and he deduced for
himself the following of the state of affairs.
While the Emperor had still been at Vílna, the forces had been divided
into three armies. First, the army under Barclay de Tolly, secondly, the
army under Bagratión, and thirdly, the one commanded by Tormásov. The
Emperor was with the first army, but not as commander in chief. In the
orders issued it was stated, not that the Emperor would take command,
but only that he would be with the army. The Emperor, moreover, had
with him not a commander in chief’s staff but the imperial headquarters
staff. In attendance on him was the head of the imperial staff,
Quartermaster General Prince Volkónski, as well as generals, imperial
aides-de-camp, diplomatic officials, and a large number of foreigners,
but not the army staff. Besides these, there were in attendance on the
Emperor without any definite appointments: Arakchéev, the ex-Minister
of War; Count Bennigsen, the senior general in rank; the Grand Duke
Tsarévich Constantine Pávlovich; Count Rumyántsev, the Chancellor;
Stein, a former Prussian minister; Armfeldt, a Swedish general; Pfuel,
the chief author of the plan of campaign; Paulucci, an adjutant general
and Sardinian émigré; Wolzogen—and many others. Though these men had no
military appointment in the army, their position gave them influence,
and often a corps commander, or even the commander in chief, did not
know in what capacity he was questioned by Bennigsen, the Grand Duke,
Arakchéev, or Prince Volkónski, or was given this or that advice and did
not know whether a certain order received in the form of advice emanated
from the man who gave it or from the Emperor and whether it had to be
executed or not. But this was only the external condition; the essential
significance of the presence of the Emperor and of all these people,
from a courtier’s point of view (and in an Emperor’s vicinity all became
courtiers), was clear to everyone. It was this: the Emperor did not
assume the title of commander in chief, but disposed of all the armies;
the men around him were his assistants. Arakchéev was a faithful
custodian to enforce order and acted as the sovereign’s bodyguard.
Bennigsen was a landlord in the Vílna province who appeared to be doing
the honors of the district, but was in reality a good general, useful
as an adviser and ready at hand to replace Barclay. The Grand Duke
was there because it suited him to be. The ex-Minister Stein was there
because his advice was useful and the Emperor Alexander held him in high
esteem personally. Armfeldt virulently hated Napoleon and was a general
full of self-confidence, a quality that always influenced Alexander.
Paulucci was there because he was bold and decided in speech. The
adjutants general were there because they always accompanied the
Emperor, and lastly and chiefly Pfuel was there because he had drawn up
the plan of campaign against Napoleon and, having induced Alexander to
believe in the efficacy of that plan, was directing the whole business
of the war. With Pfuel was Wolzogen, who expressed Pfuel’s thoughts in
a more comprehensible way than Pfuel himself (who was a harsh, bookish
theorist, self-confident to the point of despising everyone else) was
able to do.
Besides these Russians and foreigners who propounded new and unexpected
ideas every day—especially the foreigners, who did so with a boldness
characteristic of people employed in a country not their own—there were
many secondary personages accompanying the army because their principals
were there.
Among the opinions and voices in this immense, restless, brilliant,
and proud sphere, Prince Andrew noticed the following sharply defined
subdivisions of tendencies and parties:
The first party consisted of Pfuel and his adherents—military theorists
who believed in a science of war with immutable laws—laws of oblique
movements, outflankings, and so forth. Pfuel and his adherents demanded
a retirement into the depths of the country in accordance with precise
laws defined by a pseudo-theory of war, and they saw only barbarism,
ignorance, or evil intention in every deviation from that theory. To
this party belonged the foreign nobles, Wolzogen, Wintzingerode, and
others, chiefly Germans.
The second party was directly opposed to the first; one extreme, as
always happens, was met by representatives of the other. The members of
this party were those who had demanded an advance from Vílna into Poland
and freedom from all prearranged plans. Besides being advocates of bold
action, this section also represented nationalism, which made them still
more one-sided in the dispute. They were Russians: Bagratión, Ermólov
(who was beginning to come to the front), and others. At that time a
famous joke of Ermólov’s was being circulated, that as a great favor he
had petitioned the Emperor to make him a German. The men of that party,
remembering Suvórov, said that what one had to do was not to reason,
or stick pins into maps, but to fight, beat the enemy, keep him out of
Russia, and not let the army get discouraged.
To the third party—in which the Emperor had most confidence—belonged the
courtiers who tried to arrange compromises between the other two. The
members of this party, chiefly civilians and to whom Arakchéev belonged,
thought and said what men who have no convictions but wish to seem to
have some generally say. They said that undoubtedly war, particularly
against such a genius as Bonaparte (they called him Bonaparte now),
needs most deeply devised plans and profound scientific knowledge and
in that respect Pfuel was a genius, but at the same time it had to be
acknowledged that the theorists are often one-sided, and therefore one
should not trust them absolutely, but should also listen to what Pfuel’s
opponents and practical men of experience in warfare had to say, and
then choose a middle course. They insisted on the retention of the camp
at Drissa, according to Pfuel’s plan, but on changing the movements of
the other armies. Though, by this course, neither one aim nor the other
could be attained, yet it seemed best to the adherents of this third
party.
Of a fourth opinion the most conspicuous representative was the
Tsarévich, who could not forget his disillusionment at Austerlitz, where
he had ridden out at the head of the Guards, in his casque and cavalry
uniform as to a review, expecting to crush the French gallantly; but
unexpectedly finding himself in the front line had narrowly escaped amid
the general confusion. The men of this party had both the quality
and the defect of frankness in their opinions. They feared Napoleon,
recognized his strength and their own weakness, and frankly said so.
They said: “Nothing but sorrow, shame, and ruin will come of all this!
We have abandoned Vílna and Vítebsk and shall abandon Drissa. The only
reasonable thing left to do is to conclude peace as soon as possible,
before we are turned out of Petersburg.”
This view was very general in the upper army circles and found support
also in Petersburg and from the chancellor, Rumyántsev, who, for other
reasons of state, was in favor of peace.
The fifth party consisted of those who were adherents of Barclay de
Tolly, not so much as a man but as minister of war and commander in
chief. “Be he what he may” (they always began like that), “he is an
honest, practical man and we have nobody better. Give him real power,