Leo Tolstoy: War and Peace

BOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13 4. CHAPTER IV (continued)

Toll wrote a disposition: "The first column will march to so and so," etc. And as usual nothing happened in accord with the disposition. Prince Eugene of Wurttemberg fired from a hill over the French crowds that were running past, and demanded reinforcements which did not arrive. The French, avoiding the Russians, dispersed and hid themselves in the forest by night, making their way round as best they could, and continued their flight.

Miloradovich, who said he did not want to know anything about the commissariat affairs of his detachment, and could never be found when he was wanted- that chevalier sans peur et sans reproche* as he styled himself- who was fond of parleys with the French, sent envoys demanding their surrender, wasted time, and did not do what he was ordered to do.

*Knight without fear and without reproach.

"I give you that column, lads," he said, riding up to the troops and pointing out the French to the cavalry.

And the cavalry, with spurs and sabers urging on horses that could scarcely move, trotted with much effort to the column presented to them- that is to say, to a crowd of Frenchmen stark with cold, frost-bitten, and starving- and the column that had been presented to them threw down its arms and surrendered as it had long been anxious to do.

At Krasnoe they took twenty-six thousand prisoners, several hundred cannon, and a stick called a "marshal's staff," and disputed as to who had distinguished himself and were pleased with their achievement- though they much regretted not having taken Napoleon, or at least a marshal or a hero of some sort, and reproached one another and especially Kutuzov for having failed to do so.

These men, carried away by their passions, were but blind tools of the most melancholy law of necessity, but considered themselves heroes and imagined that they were accomplishing a most noble and honorable deed. They blamed Kutuzov and said that from the very beginning of the campaign he had prevented their vanquishing Napoleon, that he thought nothing but satisfying his passions and would not advance from the Linen Factories because he was comfortable there, that at Krasnoe he checked the advance because on learning that Napoleon was there he had quite lost his head, and that it was probable that he had an understanding with Napoleon and had been bribed by him, and so on, and so on.