some strong rise or fall in the spirit of the troops occurs, as
in all national wars.
The French, retreating in 1812though according to tactics they should have separated into detachments to defend
themselvescongregated into a mass because the spirit of the
army had so fallen that only the mass held the army together. The Russians, on the contrary, ought according to tactics
to have attacked in mass, but in fact they split up into small
units, because their spirit had so risen that separate individuals, without orders, dealt blows at the French without
needing any compulsion to induce them to expose themselves to hardships and dangers.
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Chapter III
The so-called partisan war began with the entry of the
French into Smolensk.
Before partisan warfare had been officially recognized by
the government, thousands of enemy stragglers, marauders,
and foragers had been destroyed by the Cossacks and the
peasants, who killed them off as instinctively as dogs worry
a stray mad dog to death. Denis Davydov, with his Russian
instinct, was the first to recognize the value of this terrible
cudgel which regardless of the rules of military science destroyed the French, and to him belongs the credit for taking
the first step toward regularizing this method of warfare.
On August 24 Davydov’s first partisan detachment was
formed and then others were recognized. The further the
campaign progressed the more numerous these detachments became.
The irregulars destroyed the great army piecemeal. They
gathered the fallen leaves that dropped of themselves from
that withered treethe French armyand sometimes shook
that tree itself. By October, when the French were fleeing toward Smolensk, there were hundreds of such companies, of
various sizes and characters. There were some that adopted
all the army methods and had infantry, artillery, staffs, and
the comforts of life. Others consisted solely of Cossack cavalry. There were also small scratch groups of foot and horse,
1947
and groups of peasants and landowners that remained unknown. A sacristan commanded one party which captured
several hundred prisoners in the course of a month; and
there was Vasilisa, the wife of a village elder, who slew hundreds of the French.
The partisan warfare flamed up most fiercely in the latter days of October. Its first period had passed: when the
partisans themselves, amazed at their own boldness, feared
every minute to be surrounded and captured by the French,
and hid in the forests without unsaddling, hardly daring to
dismount and always expecting to be pursued. By the end
of October this kind of warfare had taken definite shape: it
had become clear to all what could be ventured against the
French and what could not. Now only the commanders of
detachments with staffs, and moving according to rules at
a distance from the French, still regarded many things as
impossible. The small bands that had started their activities long before and had already observed the French closely
considered things possible which the commanders of the
big detachments did not dare to contemplate. The Cossacks
and peasants who crept in among the French now considered everything possible.
On October 22, Denisov (who was one of the irregulars)
was with his group at the height of the guerrilla enthusiasm. Since early morning he and his party had been on the
move. All day long he had been watching from the forest
that skirted the highroad a large French convoy of cavalry
baggage and Russian prisoners separated from the rest of
the army, whichas was learned from spies and prisonerswas
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moving under a strong escort to Smolensk. Besides Denisov and Dolokhov (who also led a small party and moved
in Denisov’s vicinity), the commanders of some large divisions with staffs also knew of this convoy and, as Denisov
expressed it, were sharpening their teeth for it. Two of the
commanders of large partiesone a Pole and the other a Germansent invitations to Denisov almost simultaneously,
requesting him to join up with their divisions to attack the
convoy.
‘No, bwother, I have gwown mustaches myself,’ said
Denisov on reading these documents, and he wrote to the
German that, despite his heartfelt desire to serve under so
valiant and renowned a general, he had to forgo that pleasure because he was already under the command of the
Polish general. To the Polish general he replied to the same
effect, informing him that he was already under the command of the German.
Having arranged matters thus, Denisov and Dolokhov
intended, without reporting matters to the higher command, to attack and seize that convoy with their own small
forces. On October 22 it was moving from the village of Mikulino to that of Shamshevo. To the left of the road between
Mikulino and Shamshevo there were large forests, extending in some places up to the road itself though in others a
mile or more back from it. Through these forests Denisov
and his party rode all day, sometimes keeping well back in
them and sometimes coming to the very edge, but never losing sight of the moving French. That morning, Cossacks of
Denisov’s party had seized and carried off into the forest
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two wagons loaded with cavalry saddles, which had stuck
in the mud not far from Mikulino where the forest ran close
to the road. Since then, and until evening, the party had
the movements of the French without attacking. It was necessary to let the French reach Shamshevo quietly without
alarming them and then, after joining Dolokhov who was
to come that evening to a consultation at a watchman’s hut
in the forest less than a mile from Shamshevo, to surprise
the French at dawn, falling like an avalanche on their heads
from two sides, and rout and capture them all at one blow.
In their rear, more than a mile from Mikulino where the
forest came right up to the road, six Cossacks were posted
to report if any fresh columns of French should show themselves.
Beyond Shamshevo, Dolokhov was to observe the road
in the same way, to find out at what distance there were other French troops. They reckoned that the convoy had fifteen
hundred men. Denisov had two hundred, and Dolokhov
might have as many more, but the disparity of numbers
did not deter Denisov. All that he now wanted to know was
what troops these were and to learn that he had to capture a
‘tongue’that is, a man from the enemy column. That morning’s attack on the wagons had been made so hastily that the
Frenchmen with the wagons had all been killed; only a little
drummer boy had been taken alive, and as he was a straggler he could tell them nothing definite about the troops in
that column.
Denisov considered it dangerous to make a second attack for fear of putting the whole column on the alert, so he
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sent Tikhon Shcherbaty, a peasant of his party, to Shamshevo to try and seize at least one of the French quartermasters
who had been sent on in advance.
1951
Chapter IV
It was a warm rainy autumn day. The sky and the horizon were both the color of muddy water. At times a sort
of mist descended, and then suddenly heavy slanting rain
came down.
Denisov in a felt cloak and a sheepskin cap from which
the rain ran down was riding a thin thoroughbred horse
with sunken sides. Like his horse, which turned its head and
laid its ears back, he shrank from the driving rain and gazed
anxiously before him. His thin face with its short, thick
black beard looked angry.
Beside Denisov rode an esaul,* Denisov’s fellow worker,
also in felt cloak and sheepskin cap, and riding a large sleek
Don horse.
*A captain of Cossacks.
Esaul Lovayski the Third was a tall man as straight as an
arrow, pale-faced, fair-haired, with narrow light eyes and
with calm self-satisfaction in his face and bearing. Though
it was impossible to say in what the peculiarity of the horse
and rider lay, yet at first glance at the esaul and Denisov one
saw that the latter was wet and uncomfortable and was a
man mounted on a horse, while looking at the esaul one saw
that he was as comfortable and as much at ease as always
and that he was not a man who had mounted a horse, but a
man who was one with his horse, a being consequently pos1952
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sessed of twofold strength.
A little ahead of them walked a peasant guide, wet to the
skin and wearing a gray peasant coat and a white knitted
cap.
A little behind, on a poor, small, lean Kirghiz mount
with an enormous tail and mane and a bleeding mouth,
rode a young officer in a blue French overcoat.
Beside him rode an hussar, with a boy in a tattered
French uniform and blue cap behind him on the crupper of his horse. The boy held on to the hussar with cold,
red hands, and raising his eyebrows gazed about him with
surprise. This was the French drummer boy captured that
morning.
Behind them along the narrow, sodden, cutup forest road
came hussars in threes and fours, and then Cossacks: some
in felt cloaks, some in French greatcoats, and some with
horsecloths over their heads. The horses, being drenched
by the rain, all looked black whether chestnut or bay. Their
necks, with their wet, close-clinging manes, looked strangely thin. Steam rose from them. Clothes, saddles, reins, were
all wet, slippery, and sodden, like the ground and the fallen
leaves that strewed the road. The men sat huddled up trying
not to stir, so as to warm the water that had trickled to their
bodies and not admit the fresh cold water that was leaking
in under their seats, their knees, and at the back of their
necks. In the midst of the outspread line of Cossacks two
wagons, drawn by French horses and by saddled Cossack
horses that had been hitched on in front, rumbled over the
tree stumps and branches and splashed through the water
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that lay in the ruts.
Denisov’s horse swerved aside to avoid a pool in the track
and bumped his rider’s knee against a tree.
‘Oh, the devil!’ exclaimed Denisov angrily, and showing his teeth he struck his horse three times with his whip,
splashing himself and his comrades with mud.
Denisov was out of
