forest, on the path leading from the village of Stromilova to
Dmitrovsk.
Toward dawn, Count Orlov-Denisov, who had dozed off,
was awakened by a deserter from the French army being
brought to him. This was a Polish sergeant of Poniatowski’s corps, who explained in Polish that he had come over
because he had been slighted in the service: that he ought
long ago to have been made an officer, that he was braver
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War and Peace
than any of them, and so he had left them and wished to pay
them out. He said that Murat was spending the night less
than a mile from where they were, and that if they would let
him have a convoy of a hundred men he would capture him
alive. Count Orlov-Denisov consulted his fellow officers.
The offer was too tempting to be refused. Everyone volunteered to go and everybody advised making the attempt.
After much disputing and arguing, Major-General Grekov
with two Cossack regiments decided to go with the Polish
sergeant.
‘Now, remember,’ said Count Orlov-Denisov to the sergeant at parting, ‘if you have been lying I’ll have you hanged
like a dog; but if it’s true you shall have a hundred gold pieces!’
Without replying, the sergeant, with a resolute air,
mounted and rode away with Grekov whose men had quickly assembled. They disappeared into the forest, and Count
Orlov-Denisov, having seen Grekov off, returned, shivering
from the freshness of the early dawn and excited by what
he had undertaken on his own responsibility, and began
looking at the enemy camp, now just visible in the deceptive light of dawn and the dying campfires. Our columns
ought to have begun to appear on an open declivity to his
right. He looked in that direction, but though the columns
would have been visible quite far off, they were not to be
seen. It seemed to the count that things were beginning to
stir in the French camp, and his keen-sighted adjutant confirmed this.
‘Oh, it is really too late,’ said Count Orlov, looking at the
1871
camp.
As often happens when someone we have trusted is no
longer before our eyes, it suddenly seemed quite clear and
obvious to him that the sergeant was an impostor, that he
had lied, and that the whole Russian attack would be ruined
by the absence of those two regiments, which he would lead
away heaven only knew where. How could one capture a
commander in chief from among such a mass of troops!
‘I am sure that rascal was lying,’ said the count.
‘They can still be called back,’ said one of his suite, who
like Count Orlov felt distrustful of the adventure when he
looked at the enemy’s camp.
‘Eh? Really… what do you think? Should we let them go
on or not?’
‘Will you have them fetched back?’
‘Fetch them back, fetch them back!’ said Count Orlov
with sudden determination, looking at his watch. ‘It will be
too late. It is quite light.’
And the adjutant galloped through the forest after Grekov. When Grekov returned, Count Orlov-Denisov, excited
both by the abandoned attempt and by vainly awaiting the
infantry columns that still did not appear, as well as by the
proximity of the enemy, resolved to advance. All his men
felt the same excitement.
‘Mount!’ he commanded in a whisper. The men took
their places and crossed themselves…. ‘Forward, with God’s
aid!’
‘Hurrah-ah-ah!’ reverberated in the forest, and the Cossack companies, trailing their lances and advancing one
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War and Peace
after another as if poured out of a sack, dashed gaily across
the brook toward the camp.
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 dividednot
without some shouting and even a little themselvesand 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.
Orlov-Denisov, 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
1873
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 Bagovut’s corps in a
wood when it was already broad daylight, though the corps
should long before have joined Orlov-Denisov. 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 Bagovut, 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
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War and Peace
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.
1875
Chapter VII
Meanwhile another column was to have attacked the
French from the front, but Kutuzov 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 Miloradovich 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 Kutuzov was informed that at the French rearwhere according to the reports of the Cossacks there had
previously been nobodythere were now two battalions of
Poles, he gave a sidelong glance at Ermolov 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.’
Ermolov screwed up his eyes and smiled faintly on hear1876
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ing these words. He understood that for him the storm had
blown over, and that Kutuzov would content himself with
that hint.
‘He’s having a little fun at my expense,’ said Ermolov
softly, nudging with his knee Raevski who was at his side.
Soon after this, Ermolov moved up to Kutuzov and respectfully remarked:
‘It is not too late yet, your Highnessthe enemy has not
gone awayif you were to order an attack! If not, the Guards
will not so much as see a little smoke.’
Kutuzov 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 Orlov-Denisov’s
Cossacks had done: the rest of the army merely lost some
hundreds of men uselessly.
In consequence of this battle Kutuzov 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 Tarutino
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 battleTarutino, Borodino, or
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Austerlitztakes 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 meanwhat
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
