War and Peace

eanwhile another column was to have attacked the French from the front,
but Kutúzov accompanied that column. He well knew that nothing but
confusion would come of this battle undertaken against his will, and as
far as was in his power held the troops back. He did not advance.

He rode silently on his small gray horse, indolently answering
suggestions that they should attack.

“The word attack is always on your tongue, but you don’t see that we are
unable to execute complicated maneuvers,” said he to Milorádovich who
asked permission to advance.

“We couldn’t take Murat prisoner this morning or get to the place in
time, and nothing can be done now!” he replied to someone else.

When Kutúzov was informed that at the French rear—where according to the
reports of the Cossacks there had previously been nobody—there were now
two battalions of Poles, he gave a sidelong glance at Ermólov who was
behind him and to whom he had not spoken since the previous day.

“You see! They are asking to attack and making plans of all kinds,
but as soon as one gets to business nothing is ready, and the enemy,
forewarned, takes measures accordingly.”

Ermólov screwed up his eyes and smiled faintly on hearing these words.
He understood that for him the storm had blown over, and that Kutúzov
would content himself with that hint.

“He’s having a little fun at my expense,” said Ermólov softly, nudging
with his knee Raévski who was at his side.

Soon after this, Ermólov moved up to Kutúzov and respectfully remarked:

“It is not too late yet, your Highness—the enemy has not gone away—if
you were to order an attack! If not, the Guards will not so much as see
a little smoke.”

Kutúzov did not reply, but when they reported to him that Murat’s troops
were in retreat he ordered an advance, though at every hundred paces he
halted for three quarters of an hour.

The whole battle consisted in what Orlóv-Denísov’s Cossacks had done:
the rest of the army merely lost some hundreds of men uselessly.

In consequence of this battle Kutúzov received a diamond decoration,
and Bennigsen some diamonds and a hundred thousand rubles, others also
received pleasant recognitions corresponding to their various grades,
and following the battle fresh changes were made in the staff.

“That’s how everything is done with us, all topsy-turvy!” said the
Russian officers and generals after the Tarútino battle, letting it be
understood that some fool there is doing things all wrong but that
we ourselves should not have done so, just as people speak today. But
people who talk like that either do not know what they are talking about
or deliberately deceive themselves. No battle—Tarútino, Borodinó, or
Austerlitz—takes place as those who planned it anticipated. That is an
essential condition.

A countless number of free forces (for nowhere is man freer than during
a battle, where it is a question of life and death) influence the course
taken by the fight, and that course never can be known in advance and
never coincides with the direction of any one force.

If many simultaneously and variously directed forces act on a given
body, the direction of its motion cannot coincide with any one of those
forces, but will always be a mean—what in mechanics is represented by
the diagonal of a parallelogram of forces.

If in the descriptions given by historians, especially French ones, we
find their wars and battles carried out in accordance with previously
formed plans, the only conclusion to be drawn is that those descriptions
are false.

The battle of Tarútino obviously did not attain the aim Toll had in
view—to lead the troops into action in the order prescribed by the
dispositions; nor that which Count Orlóv-Denísov may have had in view—to
take Murat prisoner; nor the result of immediately destroying the whole
corps, which Bennigsen and others may have had in view; nor the aim of
the officer who wished to go into action to distinguish himself; nor
that of the Cossack who wanted more booty than he got, and so on. But
if the aim of the battle was what actually resulted and what all the
Russians of that day desired—to drive the French out of Russia and
destroy their army—it is quite clear that the battle of Tarútino, just
because of its incongruities, was exactly what was wanted at that stage
of the campaign. It would be difficult and even impossible to imagine
any result more opportune than the actual outcome of this battle. With
a minimum of effort and insignificant losses, despite the greatest
confusion, the most important results of the whole campaign were
attained: the transition from retreat to advance, an exposure of the
weakness of the French, and the administration of that shock which
Napoleon’s army had only awaited to begin its flight.