《War And Peace》Book13 CHAPTER II

《War And Peace》　Book13 　CHAPTER II
　　　　by Leo Tolstoy

THE FAMOUS OBLIQUE MOVEMENT consisted simply in this. The Russian troops,
which had been retreating directly back from the French, as soon as the French
attack ceased, turned off from that direction, and seeing they were not pursued,
moved naturally in the direction where they were drawn by the abundance of
supplies.

If we imagine, instead of generals of genius at the head of the Russian army,
an army acting alone, without leadership of any kind, such an army could have
done nothing else but move back again towards Moscow, describing a semicircle
through the country that was best provided with necessaries, and where supplies
were most plentiful.

So natural was this oblique movement from the Nizhni to the Ryazan, Tula, and
Kaluga road, that that direction was the one taken by the flying bands of
marauders from the Russian army, and the one which the authorities in Petersburg
insisted upon Kutuzov's taking. At Tarutino Kutuzov received what was almost a
reprimand from the Tsar for moving the army to the Ryazan road, and he was
directed to take up the very position facing Kaluga, in which he was encamped at
the time when the Tsar's letter reached him.

After recoiling in the direction of the shock received during the whole
campaign, and at the battle of Borodino, the ball of the Russian army, as the
force of that blow spent itself, and no new blow came, took the direction that
was natural for it.

Kutuzov's merit lay in no sort of military genius, as it is called, in no
strategic manœuvre, but in the fact that he alone grasped the significance of
what had taken place. He alone grasped even then the significance of the
inactivity of the French army; he alone persisted in maintaining that the battle
of Borodino was a victory; he alone—the man who from his position as
commander-in-chief might have been expected to be the first to be eager for
battle—he alone did everything in his power to hold the Russian army back from
useless fighting.

The wild beast wounded at Borodino lay where the fleeing hunter had left him;
but whether alive and strong, or only feigning, the hunter knew not. All at once
a moan was heard from the creature. The moan of that wounded creature, the
French army, that betrayed its hopeless plight, was the despatch of Lauriston to
the camp of Kutuzov with overtures for peace.

Napoleon, with his conviction that not what was right was right, but whatever
came into his head was right, wrote to Kutuzov the first words that occurred to
his mind, words that had no meaning at all.

“I should be cursed by posterity if I were regarded as the first instigator
of any sort of settlement. Tel est l'esprit actuel de ma nation,”
answered Kutuzov, and went on doing everything in his power to hold the army
back from advance.

A month spent by the French army in pillaging Moscow, and by the Russian army
quietly encamped at Tarutino, brought about a change in the relative strength of
the two armies, a change both in spirit and in numbers, which was all to the
advantage of the Russians. Although the position of the French army and its
numbers were unknown to the Russians, as soon as their relative strength had
changed, a GREat number of signs began to show that an attack would be
inevitable. Among the causes that contributed to bring about this result were
Lauriston's mission, and the abundance of provisions at Tarutino, and the
reports that were continually coming in from all sides of the inactivity and
lack of discipline in the French army, and the filling up of our regiments by
recruits, and the fine weather, and the long rest enjoyed by the Russian
soldiers, and the impatience to do the work for which they have been brought
together, that always arises in troops after repose, and curiosity to know what
was going on in the French army, of which they had so long seen nothing, and the
daring with which the Russian outposts dashed in among the French encamped at
Tarutino, and the news of the easy victories gained by bands of peasants and
free-lances over the French, and the envy aroused by them, and the desire of
revenge, that every man cherished at heart so long as the French were in Moscow;
and—stronger than all—the vague sense growing up in every soldier's heart that
the relative strength of the armies had changed, and the preponderance was now
on our side. The relative strength of the armies had really changed, and advance
had become inevitable. And at once, as surely as the chimes in a clock begin to
beat and play when the hand has made the full round of the dial, was this change
reflected in the increased activity, and bustle and stir of wheels within wheels
in the higher spheres.