《War And Peace》 Book13 CHAPTER XVIII
by Leo Tolstoy
FROM THAT TIME up to the end of the campaign, all Kutuzov's activity was
limited to trying by the exercise of authority, by guile and by entreaties, to
hold his army back from useless attacks, manœuvres, and skirmishes with the
perishing enemy. Dohturov marched to Maley Yaroslavets, but Kutuzov lingered
with the main army, and gave orders for the clearing of the Kaluga, retreat
beyond which seemed to Kutuzov quite possible.
Everywhere Kutuzov retreated, but the enemy, without waiting for him to
retire, fled back in the opposite direction.
Napoleon's historians describe to us his skilful manœuvres at Tarutino, and
at Maley Yaroslavets, and discuss what would have happened if Napoleon had
succeeded in making his way to the wealthy provinces of the south.
But to say nothing of the fact that nothing hindered Napoleon from marching
into these southern provinces (since the Russian army left the road open), the
historians forget that nothing could have saved Napoleon's army, because it
carried within itself at that time the inevitable germs of ruin. Why should that
army, which found abundant provisions in Moscow and could not keep them, but
trampled them underfoot, that army which could not store supplies on entering
Smolensk, but plundered at random, why should that army have mended its ways in
the Kaluga province, where the inhabitants were of the same Russian race as in
Moscow, and where fire had the same aptitude for destroying whatever they set
fire to.
The army could not have recovered itself any way. From the battle of Borodino
and the sacking of Moscow it bore within itself, as it were, the chemical
elements of dissolution.
The men of what had been an army fled with their leaders, not knowing whither
they went, Napoleon and every soldier with him filled with one desire: to make
his own escape as quickly as might be from the hopeless position of which all
were dimly aware.
At the council in Maley Yaroslavets, when the French generals, affecting to
be deliberating, gave various opinions as to what was to be done, the opinion of
the blunt soldier, Mouton, who said what all were thinking, that the only thing
to do was to get away as quickly as possible, closed every one's mouth; and no
one, not even Napoleon, could say anything in opposition to this truth that all
recognised.
But though everybody knew that they must go, there was still a feeling of
shame left at acknowledging they must fly. And some external shock was necessary
to overcome that shame. And that shock came when it was needed. It was le
Hourra de l'Empereur, as the French called it.
On the day after the council, Napoleon, on the pretext of inspecting the
troops and the field of a past and of a future battle, rode out early in the
morning in the midst of the lines of his army with a suite of marshals and an
escort. The Cossacks, who were in search of booty, swept down on the Emperor,
and all but took him prisoner. What saved Napoleon from the Cossacks that day
was just what was the ruin of the French army, the booty, which here as well as
at Tarutino tempted the Cossacks to let their prey slip. Without taking any
notice of Napoleon, they dashed at the booty, and Napoleon succeeded in getting
away.
When les enfants du Don might positively capture the Emperor himself
in the middle of his army, it was evident that there was nothing else to do but
to fly with all possible haste by the nearest and the familiar road. Napoleon,
with his forty years and his corpulence, had not all his old resourcefulness and
courage, and he quite took the hint; and under the influence of the fright the
Cossacks had given him, he aGREed at once with Mouton, and gave, as the
historians tell us, the order to retreat along the Smolensk road.
The fact that Napoleon aGREed with Mouton, and that the army did not retreat
in that direction, does not prove that his command decided that retreat, but
that the forces acting on the whole army and driving it along the Mozhaisk road
were simultaneously acting upon Napoleon too.
