Leo Tolstoy: War and Peace

BOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13 5. CHAPTER V (continued)

And this courtier, as he is described to us, who lies to Arakcheev to please the Emperor, he alone- incurring thereby the Emperor's displeasure- said in Vilna that to carry the war beyond the frontier is useless and harmful.

Nor do words alone prove that only he understood the meaning of the events. His actions- without the smallest deviation- were all directed to one and the same threefold end: (1) to brace all his strength for conflict with the French, (2) to defeat them, and (3) to drive them out of Russia, minimizing as far as possible the sufferings of our people and of our army.

This procrastinator Kutuzov, whose motto was "Patience and Time," this enemy of decisive action, gave battle at Borodino, investing the preparations for it with unparalleled solemnity. This Kutuzov who before the battle of Austerlitz began said that it would be lost, he alone, in contradiction to everyone else, declared till his death that Borodino was a victory, despite the assurance of generals that the battle was lost and despite the fact that for an army to have to retire after winning a battle was unprecedented. He alone during the whole retreat insisted that battles, which were useless then, should not be fought, and that a new war should not be begun nor the frontiers of Russia crossed.

It is easy now to understand the significance of these events- if only we abstain from attributing to the activity of the mass aims that existed only in the heads of a dozen individuals- for the events and results now lie before us.

But how did that old man, alone, in opposition to the general opinion, so truly discern the importance of the people's view of the events that in all his activity he was never once untrue to it?

The source of that extraordinary power of penetrating the meaning of the events then occuring lay in the national feeling which he possessed in full purity and strength.

Only the recognition of the fact that he possessed this feeling caused the people in so strange a manner, contrary to the Tsar's wish, to select him- an old man in disfavor- to be their representative in the national war. And only that feeling placed him on that highest human pedestal from which he, the commander in chief, devoted all his powers not to slaying and destroying men but to saving and showing pity on them.