War and Peace
and immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of
martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident
on the basis of an abstract notion—science, that is, the supposed
knowledge of absolute truth. A Frenchman is self-assured because he
regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly
attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a
citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an
Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as
an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because
he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian
is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know
anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The
German’s self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more
repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the
truth—science—which he himself has invented but which is for him the
absolute truth.
Pfuel was evidently of that sort. He had a science—the theory of oblique
movements deduced by him from the history of Frederick the Great’s wars,
and all he came across in the history of more recent warfare seemed to
him absurd and barbarous—monstrous collisions in which so many blunders
were committed by both sides that these wars could not be called wars,
they did not accord with the theory, and therefore could not serve as
material for science.
In 1806 Pfuel had been one of those responsible, for the plan of
campaign that ended in Jena and Auerstädt, but he did not see the least
proof of the fallibility of his theory in the disasters of that war. On
the contrary, the deviations made from his theory were, in his opinion,
the sole cause of the whole disaster, and with characteristically
gleeful sarcasm he would remark, “There, I said the whole affair would
go to the devil!” Pfuel was one of those theoreticians who so love
their theory that they lose sight of the theory’s object—its practical
application. His love of theory made him hate everything practical, and
he would not listen to it. He was even pleased by failures, for failures
resulting from deviations in practice from the theory only proved to him
the accuracy of his theory.
He said a few words to Prince Andrew and Chernýshev about the present
war, with the air of a man who knows beforehand that all will go wrong,
and who is not displeased that it should be so. The unbrushed tufts
of hair sticking up behind and the hastily brushed hair on his temples
expressed this most eloquently.
He passed into the next room, and the deep, querulous sounds of his
voice were at once heard from there.
CHAPTER XI
Prince Andrew’s eyes were still following Pfuel out of the room when
Count Bennigsen entered hurriedly, and nodding to Bolkónski, but not
pausing, went into the study, giving instructions to his adjutant as he
went. The Emperor was following him, and Bennigsen had hastened on
to make some preparations and to be ready to receive the sovereign.
Chernýshev and Prince Andrew went out into the porch, where the Emperor,
who looked fatigued, was dismounting. Marquis Paulucci was talking to
him with particular warmth and the Emperor, with his head bent to the
left, was listening with a dissatisfied air. The Emperor moved forward
evidently wishing to end the conversation, but the flushed and excited
Italian, oblivious of decorum, followed him and continued to speak.
“And as for the man who advised forming this camp—the Drissa camp,” said
Paulucci, as the Emperor mounted the steps and noticing Prince Andrew
scanned his unfamiliar face, “as to that person, sire...” continued
Paulucci, desperately, apparently unable to restrain himself, “the man
who advised the Drissa camp—I see no alternative but the lunatic asylum
or the gallows!”
Without heeding the end of the Italian’s remarks, and as though
not hearing them, the Emperor, recognizing Bolkónski, addressed him
graciously.
“I am very glad to see you! Go in there where they are meeting, and wait
for me.”
The Emperor went into the study. He was followed by Prince Peter
Mikháylovich Volkónski and Baron Stein, and the door closed behind them.
Prince Andrew, taking advantage of the Emperor’s permission, accompanied
Paulucci, whom he had known in Turkey, into the drawing room where the
council was assembled.
Prince Peter Mikháylovich Volkónski occupied the position, as it were,
of chief of the Emperor’s staff. He came out of the study into the
drawing room with some maps which he spread on a table, and put
questions on which he wished to hear the opinion of the gentlemen
present. What had happened was that news (which afterwards proved to be
false) had been received during the night of a movement by the French to
outflank the Drissa camp.
The first to speak was General Armfeldt who, to meet the difficulty that
presented itself, unexpectedly proposed a perfectly new position
away from the Petersburg and Moscow roads. The reason for this was
inexplicable (unless he wished to show that he, too, could have an
opinion), but he urged that at this point the army should unite and
there await the enemy. It was plain that Armfeldt had thought out that
plan long ago and now expounded it not so much to answer the questions
put—which, in fact, his plan did not answer—as to avail himself of the
opportunity to air it. It was one of the millions of proposals, one as
good as another, that could be made as long as it was quite unknown
what character the war would take. Some disputed his arguments, others
defended them. Young Count Toll objected to the Swedish general’s views
more warmly than anyone else, and in the course of the dispute drew from
his side pocket a well-filled notebook, which he asked permission to
read to them. In these voluminous notes Toll suggested another scheme,
totally different from Armfeldt’s or Pfuel’s plan of campaign. In answer
to Toll, Paulucci suggested an advance and an attack, which, he urged,
could alone extricate us from the present uncertainty and from the trap
(as he called the Drissa camp) in which we were situated.
During all these discussions Pfuel and his interpreter, Wolzogen
(his “bridge” in court relations), were silent. Pfuel only snorted
contemptuously and turned away, to show that he would never demean
himself by replying to such nonsense as he was now hearing. So when
Prince Volkónski, who was in the chair, called on him to give his
opinion, he merely said:
“Why ask me? General Armfeldt has proposed a splendid position with an
exposed rear, or why not this Italian gentleman’s attack—very fine, or
a retreat, also good! Why ask me?” said he. “Why, you yourselves know
everything better than I do.”
But when Volkónski said, with a frown, that it was in the Emperor’s name
that he asked his opinion, Pfuel rose and, suddenly growing animated,
began to speak:
“Everything has been spoiled, everything muddled, everybody thought they
knew better than I did, and now you come to me! How mend matters? There
is nothing to mend! The principles laid down by me must be strictly
adhered to,” said he, drumming on the table with his bony fingers. “What
is the difficulty? Nonsense, childishness!”
He went up to the map and speaking rapidly began proving that no
eventuality could alter the efficiency of the Drissa camp, that
everything had been foreseen, and that if the enemy were really going to
outflank it, the enemy would inevitably be destroyed.
Paulucci, who did not know German, began questioning him in French.
Wolzogen came to the assistance of his chief, who spoke French badly,
and began translating for him, hardly able to keep pace with Pfuel, who
was rapidly demonstrating that not only all that had happened, but all
that could happen, had been foreseen in his scheme, and that if there
were now any difficulties the whole fault lay in the fact that his plan
had not been precisely executed. He kept laughing sarcastically, he
demonstrated, and at last contemptuously ceased to demonstrate, like
a mathematician who ceases to prove in various ways the accuracy of
a problem that has already been proved. Wolzogen took his place and
continued to explain his views in French, every now and then turning to
Pfuel and saying, “Is it not so, your excellency?” But Pfuel, like a man
heated in a fight who strikes those on his own side, shouted angrily at
his own supporter, Wolzogen:
“Well, of course, what more is there to explain?”
Paulucci and Michaud both attacked Wolzogen simultaneously in French.
Armfeldt addressed Pfuel in German. Toll explained to Volkónski in
Russian. Prince Andrew listened and observed in silence.
Of all these men Prince Andrew sympathized most with Pfuel, angry,
determined, and absurdly self-confident as he was. Of all those present,
evidently he alone was not seeking anything for himself, nursed no
hatred against anyone, and only desired that the plan, formed on a
theory arrived at by years of toil, should be carried out. He was
ridiculous, and unpleasantly sarcastic, but yet he inspired involuntary
respect by his boundless devotion to an idea. Besides this, the remarks
of all except Pfuel had one common trait that had not been noticeable
at the council of war in 1805: there was now a panic fear of Napoleon’s
genius, which, though concealed, was noticeable in every rejoinder.
Everything was assumed to be possible for Napoleon, they expected him
from every side, and invoked his terrible name to shatter each other’s
proposals. Pfuel alone seemed to consider Napoleon a barbarian like
everyone else who opposed his theory. But besides this feeling of
respect, Pfuel evoked pity in Prince Andrew. From the tone in which
the courtiers addressed him and the way Paulucci had allowed himself to
speak of him to the Emperor, but above all from a certain desperation
in Pfuel’s own expressions, it was clear that the others knew, and Pfuel
himself felt, that his fall was at hand. And despite his self-confidence
and grumpy German sarcasm he was pitiable, with his hair smoothly
brushed on the temples and sticking up in tufts behind. Though he
concealed the fact under a show of irritation and contempt, he was
evidently in despair that the sole remaining chance of verifying his
theory by a huge experiment and proving its soundness to the whole world
was slipping away from him.
The discussions continued a long time, and the longer they lasted
the more heated became the disputes, culminating in shouts and
personalities, and the less was it possible to arrive at any general
conclusion from all that had been said. Prince Andrew, listening to this
polyglot talk and to these surmises, plans, refutations, and shouts,
felt nothing but amazement at what they were saying. A thought that had
long since and often occurred to him during his military activities—the
idea that there is not and cannot be any science of war, and that
therefore there can be no such thing as a military genius—now appeared
to him an obvious truth. “What theory and science is possible about a
matter the conditions and circumstances of which are unknown and cannot
be defined, especially when the strength of the acting forces cannot be
ascertained? No one was or is able to foresee in what condition our or
the enemy’s armies will be in a day’s time, and no one can gauge the
force of this or that detachment. Sometimes—when there is not a coward
at the front to shout, ‘We are cut off!’ and start running, but a brave
and jolly lad who shouts, ‘Hurrah!’—a detachment of five thousand
is worth thirty thousand, as at Schön Grabern, while at times fifty
thousand run from eight thousand, as at Austerlitz. What science can