《War And Peace》 Book15 CHAPTER IV
by Leo Tolstoy
AFTER THE ENGAGEMENT at Vyazma, where Kutuzov could not restrain his troops
in their desire to break through, to cut off and all the rest of it, the further
march of the flying French, and of the Russians flying after them, continued as
far as Krasnoe without a battle. The flight was so rapid that the Russian army
racing after the French could not catch them up; the horses of the cavalry and
artillery broke down, and information as to the movements of the French was
always very uncertain.
The Russian soldiers were so exhausted by this unbroken march at the rate of
forty versts a day that they were unable to quicken their pace.
To form an idea of the deGREe of exhaustion of the Russian army, one need
only grasp clearly what is meant by the fact that while losing no more than five
thousand killed and wounded, and not a hundred prisoners, the Russian army,
which had left Tarutino a hundred thousand strong, numbered only fifty thousand
on reaching Krasnoe.
The rapidity of the Russian pursuit had as disintegrating an effect on the
Russian army as the flight of the French had on their army. The only difference
was that the Russian army moved at its own will, free from the menace of
annihilation that hung over the French, and that the sick and stragglers of the
French were left in the hands of their enemy, while Russian stragglers were at
home among their own people. The chief cause of the wasting of Napoleon's army
was the rapidity of its movements, and an indubitable proof of that is to be
seen in the corresponding dwindling of the Russian army.
Just as at Tarutino and at Vyazma, all Kutuzov's energies were directed to
preventing—so far as it lay in his power—any arrest of the fatal flight of the
French from being checked (as the Russian generals in Petersburg, and also in
the army, wished it to be). He did all he could to urge on the flight of the
French, and to slacken the speed of his own army.
In addition to the exhaustion of the men, and the immense losses due to the
rapidity of their movements, Kutuzov saw another reason for slackening the pace,
and not being in a hurry. The object of the Russian army was the pursuit of the
French. The route of the French was uncertain, and therefore the more closely
our soldiers followed the heels of the French, the GREater the distances they
had to traverse. It was only by following at a considerable distance that they
could take advantage of short cuts across the zig-zags made by the French in
their course. All the skilful manœuvres suggested by the generals were based on
forced marches at accelerated speed, while the only rational object to be aimed
at was the diminution of the strain put on the men. And this was the object to
which all Kutuzov's efforts were directed during the whole campaign from Moscow
to Vilna,—not casually, not fitfully, but so consistently that he never once
lost sight of it.
Not through reason, not by science, but with all his Russian heart and soul,
Kutuzov felt and knew, as every Russian soldier felt it, that the French were
vanquished, that their foes were in flight, and that they must see them off. But
at the same time he felt with his soldiers, as one man, all the sufferings of
that march, unheard of at such speed and in such weather.
But the generals, especially those not Russian, burning to distinguish
themselves, to dazzle people, to take some duke or king prisoner for some
incomprehensible reason—those generals thought that then, when any battle was
sickening and meaningless, was the very time for fighting battles and conquering
somebody. Kutuzov simply shrugged his shoulders when they came to him one after
another with projects of manœuvres with the ill-shod, half-clothed, and
half-starved soldiers, whose numbers had in one month dwindled to one-half
without a battle, and who would even, under the most favourable circumstances,
have a longer distance to traverse before they reached the frontier than they
had come already.
This desire on the part of the generals to distinguish themselves, to execute
manœuvres, to attack, and to cut off the enemy, was particularly conspicuous
whenever the Russian army did come into contact with the French.
So it was at Krasnoe, where they had expected to find one of the three
columns of the French, and stumbled upon Napoleon himself with sixteen thousand
troops. In spite of all Kutuzov's efforts to avoid this disastrous engagement,
and to keep his men safe for three days at Krasnoe, there was a slaughter of the
disordered bands of the French by the exhausted soldiers of the Russian
army.
Toll wrote out a disposition: first column to advance to this spot, and so
on. And as always, what was done was not at all in accordance with that
disposition. Prince Eugene of Würtemberg kept up a fire from the hills on the
mob of French as they raced by, and asked for reinforcements, which did not
come. In the nights the French dispersed to get round the Russians, hid
themselves in the woods, and all that could struggled on again.
Miloradovitch, who declared that he had no wish to know anything about the
commissariat arrangements of his detachment, who could never be found when he
was wanted, that chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, as he called
himself, always eager for parleys with the French, sent messengers to demand
their surrender, wasted time, and did not carry out the orders given him.
“I make you a present of that column, lads,” he said to his men, pointing out
the French to his cavalry. And the cavalry, with spur and sabre, urged their
broken-down horses into a trot, and with immense effort reached the column he
had bestowed on them, that is to say, a mob of frozen, numb, and starving
Frenchmen. And the column laid down their weapons and surrendered, which was
what they had been longing to do for weeks past.
At Krasnoe there were taken twenty-six thousand prisoners, a hundred cannons,
a stick of some sort, which was promptly dubbed a “marshal's baton.” And the
generals disputed among themselves who had gained most distinction in the
action, and were delighted at it, though they were full of reGREt at not having
captured Napoleon or some marshal and hero, and blamed one another, and above
all Kutuzov, for failing to do so.
These men, drawn on by their own passions, were but the blind instruments of
the most melancholy law of necessity; but they believed themselves heroes, and
imagined that what they were doing was the noblest and most honourable
achievement. They blamed Kutuzov, and declared from the very beginning of the
campaign he had prevented them from conquering Napoleon; that he thought of
nothing but his own sensual gratifications, and would not advance out of
Polotnyany Zavody because he was comfortable there; that he had checked the
advance at Krasnoe; that he had completely lost his head when he heard Napoleon
was near; that one might really suppose he had a secret understanding with
Napoleon, that he had been bought over by him, and so on and so on.
And not only contemporaries, misled by their own passions, have spoken thus.
Posterity and history have accepted Napoleon as grand, while foreign
writers have called Kutuzov a crafty, dissolute, weak, intriguing old man; and
Russians have seen in him a nondescript being, a sort of puppet, only of use
owing to his Russian name …
