War and Peace

But strange to say, all these measures, efforts, and plans—which were not at all worse than others issued in similar circumstances—did not affect the essence of the matter but, like the hands of a clock detached from the mechanism, swung about in an arbitrary and aimless way without engaging the cogwheels. With reference to the military side—the plan of campaign—that work of genius of which Thiers remarks that, “His genius never devised anything more profound, more skillful, or more admirable,” and enters into a polemic with M. Fain to prove that this work of genius must be referred not to the fourth but to the fifteenth of October—that plan never was or could be executed, for it was quite out of touch with the facts of the case. The fortifying of the Krémlin, for which la Mosquée (as Napoleon termed the church of Basil the Beatified) was to have been razed to the ground, proved quite useless. The mining of the Krémlin only helped toward fulfilling Napoleon’s wish that it should be blown up when he left Moscow—as a child wants the floor on which he has hurt himself to be beaten. The pursuit of the Russian army, about which Napoleon was so concerned, produced an unheard-of result. The French generals lost touch with the Russian army of sixty thousand men, and according to Thiers it was only eventually found, like a lost pin, by the skill—and apparently the genius—of Murat. With reference to diplomacy, all Napoleon’s arguments as to his magnanimity and justice, both to Tutólmin and to Yákovlev (whose chief concern was to obtain a greatcoat and a conveyance), proved useless; Alexander did not receive these envoys and did not reply to their embassage. With regard to legal matters, after the execution of the supposed incendiaries the rest of Moscow burned down. With regard to administrative matters, the establishment of a municipality did not stop the robberies and was only of use to certain people who formed part of that municipality and under pretext of preserving order looted Moscow or saved their own property from being looted. With regard to religion, as to which in Egypt matters had so easily been settled by Napoleon’s visit to a mosque, no results were achieved. Two or three priests who were found in Moscow did try to carry out Napoleon’s wish, but one of them was slapped in the face by a French soldier while conducting service, and a French official reported of another that: “The priest whom I found and invited to say Mass cleaned and locked up the church. That night the doors were again broken open, the padlocks smashed, the books mutilated, and other disorders perpetrated.” With reference to commerce, the proclamation to industrious workmen and to peasants evoked no response. There were no industrious workmen, and the peasants caught the commissaries who ventured too far out of town with the proclamation and killed them. As to the theaters for the entertainment of the people and the troops,...