War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [651]
If in the descriptions of historians, French historians in particular, we find that their wars and battles were carried out according to a predetermined plan, the only conclusion we can draw from that is that these descriptions are not correct.
The battle of Tarutino obviously did not achieve the purpose Toll had in mind, of sending troops into action in good order according to the disposition; nor the one Orlov might have had, of capturing Murat; nor the goal of the instantaneous extermination of an entire corps, which Bennigsen and other persons may have had; nor the goal of the officer who wanted to go into action and distinguish himself; nor of the Cossack who would have liked to get more booty than he did; and so on. But if the goal was that which actually took place, and that which was then the general wish of all Russian people (to drive the French out of Russia and exterminate their army), then it will be perfectly clear that the battle of Tarutino, precisely owing to its incoherencies, was the very thing that was needed at that period of the campaign. It would be difficult and even impossible to think up any outcome of the battle more expedient than the one it had. With the least strain, with the greatest confusion, and with the most insignificant losses, the greatest results of the whole campaign were achieved, the transition was made from retreat to offense, the weakness of the French was exposed, and the push was given which Napoleon’s army was only waiting for to begin its flight.
VIII
Napoleon enters Moscow after the brilliant victory de la Moskowa; there can be no doubt of the victory, since the battlefield remains with the French. The Russians retreat and surrender the capital. Moscow, filled with provisions, arms, ammunition, and incalculable riches, is in the hands of Napoleon. The Russian army, twice weaker than the French, does not make a single attempt to attack in the course of a month. Napoleon’s position is most brilliant. To fall upon the remainder of the Russian army with double its forces and exterminate it, to negotiate an advantageous peace or, in case of refusal, to make a threatening move on Petersburg, even to return to Smolensk or Vilno in case of failure, or to remain in Moscow—in other words, to hold on to the brilliant position the French army was in at the time, would seem to require no special genius. For that one needed to do the simplest and easiest thing: to keep the army from looting, to provide a supply of winter clothing, of which there would be enough in Moscow for the whole army, and to organize the collection of provisions for the whole army, of which (on the evidence of French historians) there were enough in Moscow for more than six months. Napoleon, that genius of geniuses and having the power of control over the army, as the historians affirm, did none of that.
He not only did none of it, but, on the contrary, he used his power in order to choose, out of all the paths of action presented to him, the one which was the most stupid and destructive. Of all that Napoleon might have done: to winter in Moscow, to go against Petersburg, to go against Nizhni Novgorod, to go back more to the north, or to the south the way Kutuzov went later—whatever one thinks up, nothing stupider or more destructive than what Napoleon did, that is, to stay in Moscow until October, to allow his troops to loot the city, then, hesitating whether or not to leave a garrison, to quit Moscow, to approach Kutuzov without starting a battle, to turn to the right, reach Maly Yaroslavets, again without trying his chances of breaking through, to go, not by the road Kutuzov had taken, but back to Mozhaisk down the devastated Smolensk road—nothing stupider than that, or more destructive for his troops, could possibly have been thought up, as the consequences showed. Let the most skillful of strategists, imagining that Napoleon’s goal was to destroy his army, think up another series of actions which would, as unquestionably and as independently of anything the Russian troops might