War and Peace

he chief action of the battle of Borodinó was fought within the seven
thousand feet between Borodinó and Bagratión’s flèches. Beyond that
space there was, on the one side, a demonstration made by the Russians
with Uvárov’s cavalry at midday, and on the other side, beyond Utítsa,
Poniatowski’s collision with Túchkov; but these two were detached and
feeble actions in comparison with what took place in the center of the
battlefield. On the field between Borodinó and the flèches, beside the
wood, the chief action of the day took place on an open space visible
from both sides and was fought in the simplest and most artless way.

The battle began on both sides with a cannonade from several hundred
guns.

Then when the whole field was covered with smoke, two divisions,
Campan’s and Dessaix’s, advanced from the French right, while Murat’s
troops advanced on Borodinó from their left.

From the Shevárdino Redoubt where Napoleon was standing the flèches were
two thirds of a mile away, and it was more than a mile as the crow flies
to Borodinó, so that Napoleon could not see what was happening there,
especially as the smoke mingling with the mist hid the whole locality.
The soldiers of Dessaix’s division advancing against the flèches could
only be seen till they had entered the hollow that lay between them and
the flèches. As soon as they had descended into that hollow, the smoke
of the guns and musketry on the flèches grew so dense that it covered
the whole approach on that side of it. Through the smoke glimpses could
be caught of something black—probably men—and at times the glint of
bayonets. But whether they were moving or stationary, whether they were
French or Russian, could not be discovered from the Shevárdino Redoubt.

The sun had risen brightly and its slanting rays struck straight into
Napoleon’s face as, shading his eyes with his hand, he looked at the
flèches. The smoke spread out before them, and at times it looked as if
the smoke were moving, at times as if the troops moved. Sometimes shouts
were heard through the firing, but it was impossible to tell what was
being done there.

Napoleon, standing on the knoll, looked through a field glass, and in
its small circlet saw smoke and men, sometimes his own and sometimes
Russians, but when he looked again with the naked eye, he could not tell
where what he had seen was.

He descended the knoll and began walking up and down before it.

Occasionally he stopped, listened to the firing, and gazed intently at
the battlefield.

But not only was it impossible to make out what was happening from where
he was standing down below, or from the knoll above on which some of his
generals had taken their stand, but even from the flèches themselves—in
which by this time there were now Russian and now French soldiers,
alternately or together, dead, wounded, alive, frightened, or
maddened—even at those flèches themselves it was impossible to make out
what was taking place. There for several hours amid incessant cannon and
musketry fire, now Russians were seen alone, now Frenchmen alone, now
infantry, and now cavalry: they appeared, fired, fell, collided, not
knowing what to do with one another, screamed, and ran back again.

From the battlefield adjutants he had sent out, and orderlies from his
marshals, kept galloping up to Napoleon with reports of the progress
of the action, but all these reports were false, both because it was
impossible in the heat of battle to say what was happening at any given
moment and because many of the adjutants did not go to the actual place
of conflict but reported what they had heard from others; and also
because while an adjutant was riding more than a mile to Napoleon
circumstances changed and the news he brought was already becoming
false. Thus an adjutant galloped up from Murat with tidings that
Borodinó had been occupied and the bridge over the Kolochá was in the
hands of the French. The adjutant asked whether Napoleon wished the
troops to cross it? Napoleon gave orders that the troops should form up
on the farther side and wait. But before that order was given—almost
as soon in fact as the adjutant had left Borodinó—the bridge had been
retaken by the Russians and burned, in the very skirmish at which Pierre
had been present at the beginning of the battle.

An adjutant galloped up from the flèches with a pale and frightened face
and reported to Napoleon that their attack had been repulsed, Campan
wounded, and Davout killed; yet at the very time the adjutant had been
told that the French had been repulsed, the flèches had in fact been
recaptured by other French troops, and Davout was alive and only
slightly bruised. On the basis of these necessarily untrustworthy
reports Napoleon gave his orders, which had either been executed before
he gave them or could not be and were not executed.

The marshals and generals, who were nearer to the field of battle
but, like Napoleon, did not take part in the actual fighting and only
occasionally went within musket range, made their own arrangements
without asking Napoleon and issued orders where and in what direction to
fire and where cavalry should gallop and infantry should run. But even
their orders, like Napoleon’s, were seldom carried out, and then but
partially. For the most part things happened contrary to their orders.
Soldiers ordered to advance ran back on meeting grapeshot; soldiers
ordered to remain where they were, suddenly, seeing Russians
unexpectedly before them, sometimes rushed back and sometimes forward,
and the cavalry dashed without orders in pursuit of the flying Russians.
In this way two cavalry regiments galloped through the Semënovsk hollow
and as soon as they reached the top of the incline turned round and
galloped full speed back again. The infantry moved in the same way,
sometimes running to quite other places than those they were ordered to
go to. All orders as to where and when to move the guns, when to send
infantry to shoot or horsemen to ride down the Russian infantry—all
such orders were given by the officers on the spot nearest to the
units concerned, without asking either Ney, Davout, or Murat, much less
Napoleon. They did not fear getting into trouble for not fulfilling
orders or for acting on their own initiative, for in battle what is at
stake is what is dearest to man—his own life—and it sometimes seems that
safety lies in running back, sometimes in running forward; and these men
who were right in the heat of the battle acted according to the mood
of the moment. In reality, however, all these movements forward and
backward did not improve or alter the position of the troops. All
their rushing and galloping at one another did little harm, the harm of
disablement and death was caused by the balls and bullets that flew over
the fields on which these men were floundering about. As soon as they
left the place where the balls and bullets were flying about, their
superiors, located in the background, re-formed them and brought them
under discipline and under the influence of that discipline led them
back to the zone of fire, where under the influence of fear of death
they lost their discipline and rushed about according to the chance
promptings of the throng.