War and Peace (152 page)

Friant’s division vanished like the rest into the smoke of the battlefield. Adjutants still kept galloping up from every side, and all, as though in collusion, said the same thing. All asked for reinforcements; all told of the Russians standing firm and keeping up a hellish fire, under which the French troops were melting away.

Napoleon sat on a camp-stool, plunged in thought. M. de Beausset, the reputed lover of travel, had been fasting since early morning, and approaching the Emperor, he ventured respectfully to suggest breakfast to his majesty.

“I hope that I can already congratulate your majesty on a victory,” he said.

Napoleon shook his head. Supposing the negative to refer to the victory only and not to the breakfast, M. de Beausset permitted himself with respectful playfulness to observe that there was no reason in the
world that could be allowed to interfere with breakfast when breakfast was possible.

“Go to the …” Napoleon jerked out gloomily, and he turned his back on him. A saintly smile of sympathy, regret, and ecstasy beamed on M. de Beausset’s face as he moved with his swinging step back to the other generals.

Napoleon was experiencing the bitter feeling of a lucky gambler, who, after recklessly staking his money and always winning, suddenly finds, precisely when he has carefully reckoned up all contingencies, that the more he considers his course, the more certain he is of losing.

The soldiers were the same, the generals the same, there had been the same preparations, the same disposition, the same proclamation,
“court et énergique.”
He was himself the same,—he knew that; he knew that he was more experienced and skilful indeed now than he had been of old. The enemy even was the same as at Austerlitz and Friedland. But the irresistible wave of his hand seemed robbed of its might by magic.

All the old manœuvres that had invariably been crowned with success: the concentration of the battery on one point, and the advance of the reserves to break the line, and the cavalry attack of “men of iron,” all these resources had been employed; and far from victory being secure, from all sides the same tidings kept pouring in of killed or wounded generals, of reinforcements needed, of the troops being in disorder, and the Russians impossible to move.

Hitherto, after two or three orders being given, two or three phrases delivered, marshals and adjutants had galloped up with radiant faces and congratulations, announcing the capture as trophies of whole corps of prisoners, of bundles of flags and eagles, of cannons and stores, and Murat had asked leave to let the cavalry go to capture the baggage. So it had been at Lodi, Marengo, Arcole, Jena, Austerlitz, Wagram, and so on, and so on. But now something strange was coming over his men.

In spite of the news of the capture of the flèches, Napoleon saw that things were not the same, not at all the same as at previous battles. He saw that what he was feeling, all the men round him, experienced in military matters, were feeling too. All their faces were gloomy; all avoided each others’ eyes. It was only a Beausset who could fail to grasp the import of what was happening. Napoleon after his long experience of war knew very well all that was meant by an unsuccessful attack after eight hours’ straining every possible effort. He knew that this was
almost equivalent to a defeat, and that the merest chance might now, in the critical point the battle was in, be the overthrow of himself and his troops.

When he went over in his own mind all this strange Russian campaign, in which not a single victory had been gained, in which not a flag, nor a cannon, nor a corps had been taken in two months, when he looked at the concealed gloom in the faces round him, and heard reports that the Russians still held their ground—a terrible feeling, such as is experienced in a nightmare, came over him, and all the unlucky contingencies occurred to him that might be his ruin. The Russians might fall upon his left wing, might break through his centre; a stray ball might even kill himself. All that was possible. In his former battles he had only considered the possibilities of success, now an immense number of unlucky chances presented themselves, and he expected them all. Yes, it was like a nightmare, when a man dreams that an assailant is attacking him, and in his dream he lifts up his arm and deals a blow with a force at his assailant that he knows must crush him, and feels that his arm falls limp and powerless as a rag, and the horror of inevitable death comes upon him in his helplessness.

The news that the Russians were attacking the left flank of the French army aroused that horror in Napoleon. He sat in silence on a camp-stool under the redoubt, his elbows on his knees, and his head sunk in his hands. Berthier came up to him and suggested that they should inspect the lines to ascertain the position of affairs.

“What? What do you say?” said Napoleon. “Yes, tell them to bring my horse.” He mounted a horse and rode to Semyonovskoye.

In the slowly parting smoke, over the whole plain through which Napoleon rode, men and horses, singly and in heaps, were lying in pools of blood. Such a fearful spectacle, so great a mass of killed in so small a space, had never been seen by Napoleon nor any of his generals. The roar of the cannon that had not ceased for ten hours, exhausted the ear and gave a peculiar character to the spectacle (like music accompanying living pictures). Napoleon rode up to the height of Semyonovskoye, and through the smoke he saw ranks of soldiers in uniforms of unfamiliar hues. They were the Russians.

The Russians stood in serried ranks behind Semyonovskoye and the redoubt, and their guns kept up an incessant roar and smoke all along their lines. It was not a battle. It was a prolonged massacre, which could be of no avail either to French or Russians. Napoleon pulled up his horse,
and sank again into the brooding reverie from which Berthier had roused him. He could not stay that thing that was being done before him and about him, and that was regarded as being led by him and as depending on him, that thing for the first time, after ill success, struck him as superfluous and horrible. One of the generals, riding up to Napoleon, ventured to suggest to him that the Old Guards should advance into action. Ney and Berthier, standing close by, exchanged glances and smiled contemptuously at the wild suggestion of this general.

Napoleon sat mute with downcast head.

“Eight hundred leagues from France, I am not going to let my Guard be destroyed,” he said, and turning his horse, he rode back to Shevardino.

Kutuzov, with his grey head hanging, and his heavy, corpulent frame sunk into a heap, was sitting on a bench covered with a rug, in the same place in which Pierre had seen him in the morning. He issued no orders, and simply gave or withheld his assent to what was proposed to him.

“Yes, yes, do so,” he would say in reply to various suggestions. “Yes, yes, go across, my dear boy, and see,” he would cry first to one and the to another of the adjutants near him; or, “No, better not; we’d better wait a bit,” he would say. He listened to the reports brought him, and gave orders, when they were asked for. But as he heard the reports, he seemed to take little interest in the import of the words spoken; something else in the expression of his face, in the tone of the voice of the speaker, seemed to interest him more. From long years of military experience he had learned, and with the wisdom of old age he had recognised, that one man cannot guide hundreds of thousands of men struggling with death; that the fate of battles is not decided by the orders given by the commander-in-chief, nor the place in which the troops are stationed, nor the number of cannons, nor of killed, but by that intangible force called the spirit of the army, and he followed that force and led it as far as it lay in his power.

The general expression of Kutuzov’s face was concentrated, quiet attention and intensity, with difficulty overcoming his weak and aged body.

At eleven o’clock they brought him the news that the French had
been driven back again from the flèches they had captured, but that Bagration was wounded. Kutuzov groaned, and shook his head.

“Ride over to Prince Pyotr Ivanovitch and find out exactly about it,” he said to one of the adjutants, and then he turned to the Prince of Würtemberg, who was standing behind him:

“Will your highness be pleased to take the command of the first army?”

Soon after the prince’s departure—so soon that he could not yet have reached Semyonovskoye—his adjutant came back with a message from him asking Kutuzov for more troops.

Kutuzov frowned, and sent Dohturov orders to take the command of the first army, and begged the prince to come back, saying that he found he could not get on without him at such an important moment. When news was brought that Murat had been taken prisoner, and the members of the staff congratulated Kutuzov, he smiled.

“Wait a little, gentlemen,” he said. “The battle is won, and Murat’s being taken prisoner is nothing very extraordinary. But we had better defer our rejoicings.” Still he sent an adjutant to take the news to the troops.

When Shtcherbinin galloped up from the left flank with the report of the capture of the flèche, and Semyonovskoye by the French, Kutuzov, guessing from the sounds of the battlefield and Shtcherbinin’s face, that the news was bad, got up as though to stretch his legs, and taking Shtcherbinin by the arm drew him aside.

“You go, my dear boy,” he said to Yermolov, “and see whether something can’t be done.”

Kutuzov was in Gorky, the centre of the Russian position. The attack on our left flank had been several times repulsed. In the centre the French did not advance beyond Borodino. Uvarov’s cavalry had sent the French flying from the left flank.

At three o’clock the attacks of the French ceased. On the faces of all who came from the battlefield, as well as of those standing round him, Kutuzov read an expression of effort, strained to the utmost tension. He was himself satisfied with the success of the day beyond his expectations. But the old man’s physical force was failing him. Several times his head sank, as though he were falling, and he dropped asleep. Dinner was brought him.

The adjutant-general, Woltzogen, the man whom Prince Andrey had overheard saying that the war ought to be
“im Raum verlegen,”
and
whom Bagration so particularly detested, rode up to Kutuzov while he was at dinner. Woltzogen had come from Barclay to report on the progress of the fight on the left flank. The sagacious Barclay de Tolly, seeing crowds of wounded men running back, and the ranks in disorder, and weighing all the circumstances of the case, made up his mind that the battle was lost, and sent his favourite adjutant to the commander-in-chief to tell him so.

Kutuzov was with difficulty chewing roast chicken, and his eyes were screwed up with a more cheerful expression as he glanced at Woltzogen.

With a half-contemptuous smile Woltzogen walked carelessly up to Kutuzov, scarcely touching the peak of his cap.

He behaved to his highness with a certain affected negligence, which aimed at showing that he, as a highly trained military man, left it to the Russians to make a prodigy of this useless old person, and was himself well aware what kind of a man he had to deal with. “The ‘old gentleman’ ”—this was how Kutuzov was always spoken of in Woltzogen’s German circle—“is making himself quite comfortable,” he thought; and glancing severely at the dishes before Kutuzov, he began reporting to the old gentleman Barclay’s message and his own impressions and views. “Every point of our position is in the enemy’s hands, and they cannot be driven back, because there are not the troops to do it; the men run away and there’s no possibility of stopping them,” he submitted.

Kutuzov, stopping short in his munching, stared at Woltzogen in amazement, as though not understanding what was said to him. Woltzogen, noticing the old gentleman’s excitement, said with a smile:

“I did not consider I had a right to conceal from your highness what I saw.… The troops are completely routed.…”

“You saw? You saw?…” cried Kutuzov, getting up quickly, and stepping up to Woltzogen. “How … how dare you!…” making a menacing gesture with his trembling hands, he cried, with a catch in his breath: “How dare you, sir, tell
me
that? You know nothing about it. Tell General Barclay from me that his information is incorrect, and that I, the commander-in-chief, know more of the course of the battle than he does.”

Woltzogen would have made some protest, but Kutuzov interrupted him.

“The enemy has been repulsed on the left and defeated on the right flank. If you have seen amiss, sir, do not permit yourself to speak of what you do not understand. Kindly return to General Barclay and inform
him of my unhesitating intention to attack the French to-morrow,” said Kutuzov sternly.

All were silent, and nothing was to be heard but the heavy breathing of the gasping, old general. “Repulsed at all points, for which I thank God and our brave men. The enemy is defeated, and to-morrow we will drive him out of the holy land of Russia!” said Kutuzov, crossing himself; and all at once he gave a sob from the rising tears.

Woltzogen, shrugging his shoulders, and puckering his lips, walked away in silence, marvelling
“über diese Eingenommenheit des alten Herrn.”

“Ah, here he is, my hero!” said Kutuzov, as a stoutish, handsome, black-haired general came up the hillside. It was Raevsky, who had spent the whole day at the most important part of the battlefield.

Raevsky reported that the men were standing their ground firmly, and that the French were not venturing a further attack.

When he had heard him out, Kutuzov said in French: “You do not think, like some others, that we are obliged to retreat?”

“On the contrary, your highness, in indecisive actions it is always the most obstinate who remains victorious,” answered Raevsky; “and my opinion …”

“Kaisarov,” Kutuzov called to his adjutant, “sit down and write the order for to-morrow. And you,” he turned to another, “ride along the line and announce that to-morrow we attack.”

While he was talking to Raevsky and dictating the order, Woltzogen came back from Barclay and announced that General Barclay de Tolly would be glad to have a written confirmation of the order given by the field-marshal.