War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [695]
One army ran, the other pursued. From Smolensk the French had many different roads before them; and it would seem that, staying for four days, the French could have found out where the enemy was, worked out something advantageous, and undertaken something new. But after the four-day halt, their crowds again ran, not to the right, not to the left, but, without any maneuvers or considerations, down the old, worst road to Krasnoe and Orsha—by the beaten track.
Expecting the enemy from behind, and not from in front, the French ran, stringing out and separating from each other, over a twenty-four-hour stretch. Ahead of them all ran the emperor, then the kings, then the dukes. The Russian army, thinking that Napoleon would bear to the right, beyond the Dnieper, which was the only reasonable thing, also bore to the right and came out on the main road to Krasnoe. And here, as in the game of blindman’s buff, the French ran into our vanguard. Unexpectedly sighting the foe, the French became confused, stopped from the unexpectedness of the fright, but then ran on again, abandoning their comrades who followed behind. Here, for three days, separate units of the French, first the viceroy’s, then Davout’s, then Ney’s, ran the gauntlet of the Russian troops. They all abandoned each other, abandoned their loads, artillery, half their men, and ran, getting around the Russians only by night, making semicircles to the right.
Ney, coming last, because he had busied himself with blowing up the walls of Smolensk, which were not hindering anyone (in spite of their unfortunate position, or precisely because of it, they wanted to give a beating to the floor on which they had hurt themselves)—coming last, Ney, who had a corps of ten thousand, came running to Napoleon in Orsha with only a thousand men, having abandoned all the other men and all his cannon and stolen away in the night, making his way through a forest and across the Dnieper.
From Orsha they ran further along the road to Vilno, playing blindman’s buff with the enemy in the same way. At the Berezina they again fell into confusion, many were drowned, many surrendered, but those who got across the river ran further. Their supreme leader put on his fur coat and, getting into a sledge, galloped off alone, abandoning his comrades. Whoever could, also rode off, whoever could not surrendered or died.
XVIII
It would seem, in this campaign of the flight of the French, when they did everything they could to destroy themselves, when not a single movement of this crowd, from the turn onto the Kaluga road to the flight of the leader from his army, made the least sense—it would seem finally impossible, in this period of the campaign, for historians who ascribe the actions of the masses to the will of one man to describe this retreat in their sense. But no. Mountains of books have been written by historians about this campaign, and they all describe Napoleon’s orders and his profound plans—the maneuvers that guided the troops, and the brilliant orders of his marshals.
The retreat from Maloyaroslavets, when the road to abundant lands was given to him, and when the parallel road on which Kutuzov later pursued him was also open, the unnecessary retreat along a devastated road is explained to us by various profound considerations. His retreat from Smolensk to Orsha is described by means of the same profound considerations. Then his heroism at Krasnoe is described, where he is supposed to have been preparing to accept battle and command it himself, and walked about with a birch stick, saying:
“J’ai assez fait l’Empereur, il est temps de faire le général,”*736 and, despite that, immediately afterwards ran further, abandoning to their fate the scattered units of the army he left behind.
Then the greatness of soul of the marshals is described for us, especially of Ney,