War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [671]
So it has been (according to history) from the most ancient times to the present. All the wars of Napoleon serve as a confirmation of this rule. To the degree that the Austrian army is defeated, Austria is deprived of her rights, and the rights and strength of France increase. The victories of the French at Jena and Auerstädt destroy the independent existence of Prussia.
But suddenly, in the year 1812, the French win a victory at Moscow, Moscow is taken, and following that, with no new battles, it is not Russia that ceases to exist, but the six-hundred-thousand-man French army ceases to exist, and after that Napoleonic France. To stretch the facts to fit the rules of history by saying that the battlefield of Borodino remained Russian, that there were battles after Moscow which destroyed Napoleon’s army—is impossible.
After the victory of the French at Borodino, not only was there no general battle, but there was even none in any way significant, yet the French army ceased to exist. What does it mean? If it was an example from the history of China, we might say that it was not a historical event (the historians’ loophole when something does not fit their yardstick); if it was a matter of a brief clash involving a small number of troops, we could take it for an exceptional phenomenon; but this event took place before the eyes of our fathers, for whom the question of the life or death of the fatherland was decided, and this war was the greatest of all known wars…
The period in the campaign of 1812 from the battle of Borodino to the expulsion of the French proved that a battle won is not only not the cause of a conquest, but is not even an invariable sign of conquest; it proved that the force that decides the destiny of nations lies not in conquerors, not even in armies and battles, but in something else.
French historians, describing the situation of the French army before leaving Moscow, affirm that everything in the Grand Army was in order, except the cavalry, the artillery, and the transport, and there was also no forage to feed the horses and cattle. There was no help for this calamity, because the muzhiks of the region burned their hay rather than give it to the French.
The battle won did not bring the usual results, because the muzhiks Karp and Vlas, who, after the French moved on, came to Moscow with their carts to loot the city and in general did not manifest any personal heroic sentiments, and all the countless number of muzhiks like them, did not bring hay to Moscow for the good money they were offered, but burned it.
Let us imagine two men who came with swords to fight a duel by all the rules of the art of fencing: the fighting went on for quite a long time; suddenly one of the adversaries, feeling himself wounded, realizing that it was not a joking matter, but something that concerned his life, threw down his sword and, picking up the first club he found, started brandishing it. But let us imagine that the man who so sensibly employed the best and simplest means to attain his goal, inspired at the same time by the traditions of chivalry, wished to conceal the essence of the matter, and insisted that he won the sword fight by all the rules of the art. One can imagine what confusion and obscurity would come from such a description of the duel that took place.
The French were the fencer who demanded a fight by the rules of the art; the Russians were the adversary