War and Peace
One desperate, frightened yell from the first French soldier who saw the
Cossacks, and all who were in the camp, undressed and only just waking
up, ran off in all directions, abandoning cannons, muskets, and horses.
Had the Cossacks pursued the French, without heeding what was behind and
around them, they would have captured Murat and everything there.
That was what the officers desired. But it was impossible to make the
Cossacks budge when once they had got booty and prisoners. None of them
listened to orders. Fifteen hundred prisoners and thirty-eight guns were
taken on the spot, besides standards and (what seemed most important to
the Cossacks) horses, saddles, horsecloths, and the like. All this had
to be dealt with, the prisoners and guns secured, the booty divided—not
without some shouting and even a little fighting among themselves—and it
was on this that the Cossacks all busied themselves.
The French, not being farther pursued, began to recover themselves: they
formed into detachments and began firing. Orlóv-Denísov, still waiting
for the other columns to arrive, advanced no further.
Meantime, according to the dispositions which said that “the First
Column will march” and so on, the infantry of the belated columns,
commanded by Bennigsen and directed by Toll, had started in due order
and, as always happens, had got somewhere, but not to their appointed
places. As always happens the men, starting cheerfully, began to halt;
murmurs were heard, there was a sense of confusion, and finally a
backward movement. Adjutants and generals galloped about, shouted, grew
angry, quarreled, said they had come quite wrong and were late, gave
vent to a little abuse, and at last gave it all up and went forward,
simply to get somewhere. “We shall get somewhere or other!” And they did
indeed get somewhere, though not to their right places; a few eventually
even got to their right place, but too late to be of any use and only
in time to be fired at. Toll, who in this battle played the part of
Weyrother at Austerlitz, galloped assiduously from place to place,
finding everything upside down everywhere. Thus he stumbled on Bagovút’s
corps in a wood when it was already broad daylight, though the corps
should long before have joined Orlóv-Denísov. Excited and vexed by the
failure and supposing that someone must be responsible for it, Toll
galloped up to the commander of the corps and began upbraiding him
severely, saying that he ought to be shot. General Bagovút, a fighting
old soldier of placid temperament, being also upset by all the delay,
confusion, and cross-purposes, fell into a rage to everybody’s surprise
and quite contrary to his usual character and said disagreeable things
to Toll.
“I prefer not to take lessons from anyone, but I can die with my men as
well as anybody,” he said, and advanced with a single division.
Coming out onto a field under the enemy’s fire, this brave general went
straight ahead, leading his men under fire, without considering in his
agitation whether going into action now, with a single division, would
be of any use or no. Danger, cannon balls, and bullets were just what he
needed in his angry mood. One of the first bullets killed him, and other
bullets killed many of his men. And his division remained under fire for
some time quite uselessly.
CHAPTER VII
Meanwhile another column was to have attacked the French from the front,
but Kutúzov accompanied that column. He well knew that nothing but
confusion would come of this battle undertaken against his will, and as
far as was in his power held the troops back. He did not advance.
He rode silently on his small gray horse, indolently answering
suggestions that they should attack.
“The word attack is always on your tongue, but you don’t see that we are
unable to execute complicated maneuvers,” said he to Milorádovich who
asked permission to advance.
“We couldn’t take Murat prisoner this morning or get to the place in
time, and nothing can be done now!” he replied to someone else.
When Kutúzov was informed that at the French rear—where according to the
reports of the Cossacks there had previously been nobody—there were now
two battalions of Poles, he gave a sidelong glance at Ermólov who was
behind him and to whom he had not spoken since the previous day.
“You see! They are asking to attack and making plans of all kinds,
but as soon as one gets to business nothing is ready, and the enemy,
forewarned, takes measures accordingly.”
Ermólov screwed up his eyes and smiled faintly on hearing these words.
He understood that for him the storm had blown over, and that Kutúzov
would content himself with that hint.
“He’s having a little fun at my expense,” said Ermólov softly, nudging
with his knee Raévski who was at his side.
Soon after this, Ermólov moved up to Kutúzov and respectfully remarked:
“It is not too late yet, your Highness—the enemy has not gone away—if
you were to order an attack! If not, the Guards will not so much as see
a little smoke.”
Kutúzov did not reply, but when they reported to him that Murat’s troops
were in retreat he ordered an advance, though at every hundred paces he
halted for three quarters of an hour.
The whole battle consisted in what Orlóv-Denísov’s Cossacks had done:
the rest of the army merely lost some hundreds of men uselessly.
In consequence of this battle Kutúzov received a diamond decoration,
and Bennigsen some diamonds and a hundred thousand rubles, others also
received pleasant recognitions corresponding to their various grades,
and following the battle fresh changes were made in the staff.
“That’s how everything is done with us, all topsy-turvy!” said the
Russian officers and generals after the Tarútino battle, letting it be
understood that some fool there is doing things all wrong but that
we ourselves should not have done so, just as people speak today. But
people who talk like that either do not know what they are talking about
or deliberately deceive themselves. No battle—Tarútino, Borodinó, or
Austerlitz—takes place as those who planned it anticipated. That is an
essential condition.
A countless number of free forces (for nowhere is man freer than during
a battle, where it is a question of life and death) influence the course
taken by the fight, and that course never can be known in advance and
never coincides with the direction of any one force.
If many simultaneously and variously directed forces act on a given
body, the direction of its motion cannot coincide with any one of those
forces, but will always be a mean—what in mechanics is represented by
the diagonal of a parallelogram of forces.
If in the descriptions given by historians, especially French ones, we
find their wars and battles carried out in accordance with previously
formed plans, the only conclusion to be drawn is that those descriptions
are false.
The battle of Tarútino obviously did not attain the aim Toll had in
view—to lead the troops into action in the order prescribed by the
dispositions; nor that which Count Orlóv-Denísov may have had in view—to
take Murat prisoner; nor the result of immediately destroying the whole
corps, which Bennigsen and others may have had in view; nor the aim of
the officer who wished to go into action to distinguish himself; nor
that of the Cossack who wanted more booty than he got, and so on. But
if the aim of the battle was what actually resulted and what all the
Russians of that day desired—to drive the French out of Russia and
destroy their army—it is quite clear that the battle of Tarútino, just
because of its incongruities, was exactly what was wanted at that stage
of the campaign. It would be difficult and even impossible to imagine
any result more opportune than the actual outcome of this battle. With
a minimum of effort and insignificant losses, despite the greatest
confusion, the most important results of the whole campaign were
attained: the transition from retreat to advance, an exposure of the
weakness of the French, and the administration of that shock which
Napoleon’s army had only awaited to begin its flight.
CHAPTER VIII
Napoleon enters Moscow after the brilliant victory de la Moskowa; there
can be no doubt about the victory for the battlefield remains in the
hands of the French. The Russians retreat and abandon their ancient
capital. Moscow, abounding in provisions, arms, munitions, and
incalculable wealth, is in Napoleon’s hands. The Russian army, only half
the strength of the French, does not make a single attempt to attack for
a whole month. Napoleon’s position is most brilliant. He can either fall
on the Russian army with double its strength and destroy it; negotiate
an advantageous peace, or in case of a refusal make a menacing move on
Petersburg, or even, in the case of a reverse, return to Smolénsk or
Vílna; or remain in Moscow; in short, no special genius would seem to be
required to retain the brilliant position the French held at that time.
For that, only very simple and easy steps were necessary: not to allow
the troops to loot, to prepare winter clothing—of which there was
sufficient in Moscow for the whole army—and methodically to collect the
provisions, of which (according to the French historians) there were
enough in Moscow to supply the whole army for six months. Yet Napoleon,
that greatest of all geniuses, who the historians declare had control of
the army, took none of these steps.
He not merely did nothing of the kind, but on the contrary he used his
power to select the most foolish and ruinous of all the courses open
to him. Of all that Napoleon might have done: wintering in Moscow,
advancing on Petersburg or on Nízhni-Nóvgorod, or retiring by a more
northerly or more southerly route (say by the road Kutúzov afterwards
took), nothing more stupid or disastrous can be imagined than what he
actually did. He remained in Moscow till October, letting the troops
plunder the city; then, hesitating whether to leave a garrison behind
him, he quitted Moscow, approached Kutúzov without joining battle,
turned to the right and reached Málo-Yaroslávets, again without
attempting to break through and take the road Kutúzov took, but retiring
instead to Mozháysk along the devastated Smolénsk road. Nothing more
stupid than that could have been devised, or more disastrous for the
army, as the sequel showed. Had Napoleon’s aim been to destroy his army,
the most skillful strategist could hardly have devised any series
of actions that would so completely have accomplished that purpose,
independently of anything the Russian army might do.
Napoleon, the man of genius, did this! But to say that he destroyed his
army because he wished to, or because he was very stupid, would be as
unjust as to say that he had brought his troops to Moscow because he
wished to and because he was very clever and a genius.
In both cases his personal activity, having no more force than the
personal activity of any soldier, merely coincided with the laws that
guided the event.
The historians quite falsely represent Napoleon’s faculties as having
weakened in Moscow, and do so only because the results did not justify
his actions. He employed all his ability and strength to do the best he
could for himself and his army, as he had done previously and as he did
subsequently in 1813. His activity at that time was no less astounding
than it was in Egypt, in Italy, in Austria, and in Prussia. We do not
know for certain in how far his genius was genuine in Egypt—where forty
centuries looked down upon his grandeur—for his great exploits there are
all told us by Frenchmen. We cannot accurately estimate his genius in
Austria or Prussia, for we have to draw our information from French