War and Peace

he so-called partisan war began with the entry of the French into
Smolénsk.

Before partisan warfare had been officially recognized by the
government, thousands of enemy stragglers, marauders, and foragers had
been destroyed by the Cossacks and the peasants, who killed them off
as instinctively as dogs worry a stray mad dog to death. Denís Davýdov,
with his Russian instinct, was the first to recognize the value of
this terrible cudgel which regardless of the rules of military science
destroyed the French, and to him belongs the credit for taking the first
step toward regularizing this method of warfare.

On August 24 Davýdov’s first partisan detachment was formed and then
others were recognized. The further the campaign progressed the more
numerous these detachments became.

The irregulars destroyed the great army piecemeal. They gathered the
fallen leaves that dropped of themselves from that withered tree—the
French army—and sometimes shook that tree itself. By October, when
the French were fleeing toward Smolénsk, there were hundreds of such
companies, of various sizes and characters. There were some that adopted
all the army methods and had infantry, artillery, staffs, and the
comforts of life. Others consisted solely of Cossack cavalry. There were
also small scratch groups of foot and horse, and groups of peasants and
landowners that remained unknown. A sacristan commanded one party which
captured several hundred prisoners in the course of a month; and there
was Vasílisa, the wife of a village elder, who slew hundreds of the
French.

The partisan warfare flamed up most fiercely in the latter days of
October. Its first period had passed: when the partisans themselves,
amazed at their own boldness, feared every minute to be surrounded
and captured by the French, and hid in the forests without unsaddling,
hardly daring to dismount and always expecting to be pursued. By the end
of October this kind of warfare had taken definite shape: it had become
clear to all what could be ventured against the French and what could
not. Now only the commanders of detachments with staffs, and moving
according to rules at a distance from the French, still regarded many
things as impossible. The small bands that had started their activities
long before and had already observed the French closely considered
things possible which the commanders of the big detachments did not dare
to contemplate. The Cossacks and peasants who crept in among the French
now considered everything possible.

On October 22, Denísov (who was one of the irregulars) was with his
group at the height of the guerrilla enthusiasm. Since early morning he
and his party had been on the move. All day long he had been watching
from the forest that skirted the highroad a large French convoy of
cavalry baggage and Russian prisoners separated from the rest of the
army, which—as was learned from spies and prisoners—was moving under a
strong escort to Smolénsk. Besides Denísov and Dólokhov (who also led
a small party and moved in Denísov’s vicinity), the commanders of some
large divisions with staffs also knew of this convoy and, as Denísov
expressed it, were sharpening their teeth for it. Two of the commanders
of large parties—one a Pole and the other a German—sent invitations
to Denísov almost simultaneously, requesting him to join up with their
divisions to attack the convoy.

“No, bwother, I have gwown mustaches myself,” said Denísov on reading
these documents, and he wrote to the German that, despite his heartfelt
desire to serve under so valiant and renowned a general, he had to forgo
that pleasure because he was already under the command of the Polish
general. To the Polish general he replied to the same effect, informing
him that he was already under the command of the German.

Having arranged matters thus, Denísov and Dólokhov intended, without
reporting matters to the higher command, to attack and seize that
convoy with their own small forces. On October 22 it was moving from
the village of Mikúlino to that of Shámshevo. To the left of the road
between Mikúlino and Shámshevo there were large forests, extending in
some places up to the road itself though in others a mile or more back
from it. Through these forests Denísov and his party rode all day,
sometimes keeping well back in them and sometimes coming to the very
edge, but never losing sight of the moving French. That morning,
Cossacks of Denísov’s party had seized and carried off into the forest
two wagons loaded with cavalry saddles, which had stuck in the mud not
far from Mikúlino where the forest ran close to the road. Since then,
and until evening, the party had watched the movements of the French
without attacking. It was necessary to let the French reach Shámshevo
quietly without alarming them and then, after joining Dólokhov who was
to come that evening to a consultation at a watchman’s hut in the forest
less than a mile from Shámshevo, to surprise the French at dawn, falling
like an avalanche on their heads from two sides, and rout and capture
them all at one blow.

In their rear, more than a mile from Mikúlino where the forest came
right up to the road, six Cossacks were posted to report if any fresh
columns of French should show themselves.

Beyond Shámshevo, Dólokhov was to observe the road in the same way, to
find out at what distance there were other French troops. They reckoned
that the convoy had fifteen hundred men. Denísov had two hundred, and
Dólokhov might have as many more, but the disparity of numbers did not
deter Denísov. All that he now wanted to know was what troops these were
and to learn that he had to capture a “tongue”—that is, a man from
the enemy column. That morning’s attack on the wagons had been made so
hastily that the Frenchmen with the wagons had all been killed; only a
little drummer boy had been taken alive, and as he was a straggler he
could tell them nothing definite about the troops in that column.

Denísov considered it dangerous to make a second attack for fear of
putting the whole column on the alert, so he sent Tíkhon Shcherbáty, a
peasant of his party, to Shámshevo to try and seize at least one of the
French quartermasters who had been sent on in advance.