War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [513]
In the battle of Borodino, Napoleon did not shoot at anyone and did not kill anyone. That was all done by the soldiers. Which means it was not he who killed people.
The soldiers of the French army went to kill Russian soldiers in the battle of Borodino not as the result of Napoleon’s orders but by their own will. The whole army—the French, the Italians, the Germans, the Poles, hungry, ragged, and exhausted by the campaign—on seeing the army that blocked their way to Moscow, felt that “le vin est tiré et qu’il faut le boire.”*481 If Napoleon had now forbidden them to fight the Russians, they would have killed him and gone to fight the Russians, because it was necessary for them.
When they heard the order of Napoleon, who, in return for their mutilation and death, presented them in consolation with the words of posterity about their having been at the battle of Moscow, they cried “Vive l’Empereur!” just as they cried “Vive l’Empereur!” on seeing the depiction of the boy skewering the terrestrial globe with a bilboquet stick; just as they would cry “Vive l’Empereur!” to any nonsense that was told them. They had nothing left to do but cry “Vive l’Empereur!” and go to fight, in order to find food and rest as victors in Moscow. Which meant it was not as the result of Napoleon’s order that they killed their own kind.
And it was not Napoleon who ordained the course of the battle, because nothing of his disposition was carried out and during the battle he did not know what was happening in front of him. Which meant also that the way these people were killing each other occurred not by the will of Napoleon, but went on independently of him, by the will of the hundreds of thousands of people who took part in the common action. To Napoleon it only seemed that the whole thing happened by his will. And therefore the question whether Napoleon had or did not have a cold is of no greater interest to history than the question of the last convoy soldier having a cold.
Napoleon’s cold on the twenty-sixth of August has still less significance, since the evidence of writers that, owing to Napoleon’s cold, his disposition and his instructions during the battle were not as good as previously, is totally incorrect.
The disposition quoted above was not at all worse, but even better than all the previous dispositions by which his battles had been won. His imaginary instructions during the battle were also no worse than previous ones, but exactly the same as ever. But the disposition and the instructions seem worse than previous ones because the battle of Borodino was the first that Napoleon did not win. All the most excellent and profoundly conceived dispositions and instructions seem very bad, and every military expert criticizes them with a significant air, when the battle is not won through them, and the worst dispositions and instructions seem very good, and serious men write whole volumes proving the merits of bad instructions, when the battle is won through them.
The disposition drawn up by Weyrother for the battle of Austerlitz was the picture of perfection in works of that sort, but all the same it was condemned, condemned for its perfection, for being excessively detailed.
In the battle of Borodino, Napoleon fulfilled his function as the representative of power just as well and even better than in other battles. He did nothing to harm the course of the battle; he bowed to the more well-reasoned opinions; he caused no confusion, did not contradict himself, did not get frightened, and did not run away from the battlefield, but with his great tact and experience of war calmly and worthily fulfilled his role of seeming to command.
XXIX
Having returned from a second preoccupied ride along the line, Napoleon said:
“The chessmen are set up, the game starts tomorrow.”
Calling for punch to be served and sending for Beausset, he started a conversation with him about Paris, about some changes