War and Peace

he next day the Emperor stopped at Wischau, and Villier, his physician,
was repeatedly summoned to see him. At headquarters and among the troops
near by the news spread that the Emperor was unwell. He ate nothing and
had slept badly that night, those around him reported. The cause of this
indisposition was the strong impression made on his sensitive mind by
the sight of the killed and wounded.

At daybreak on the seventeenth, a French officer who had come with
a flag of truce, demanding an audience with the Russian Emperor, was
brought into Wischau from our outposts. This officer was Savary. The
Emperor had only just fallen asleep and so Savary had to wait. At midday
he was admitted to the Emperor, and an hour later he rode off with
Prince Dolgorúkov to the advanced post of the French army.

It was rumored that Savary had been sent to propose to Alexander
a meeting with Napoleon. To the joy and pride of the whole army, a
personal interview was refused, and instead of the Sovereign, Prince
Dolgorúkov, the victor at Wischau, was sent with Savary to negotiate
with Napoleon if, contrary to expectations, these negotiations were
actuated by a real desire for peace.

Toward evening Dolgorúkov came back, went straight to the Tsar, and
remained alone with him for a long time.

On the eighteenth and nineteenth of November, the army advanced two
days’ march and the enemy’s outposts after a brief interchange
of shots retreated. In the highest army circles from midday on the
nineteenth, a great, excitedly bustling activity began which lasted till
the morning of the twentieth, when the memorable battle of Austerlitz
was fought.

Till midday on the nineteenth, the activity—the eager talk, running to
and fro, and dispatching of adjutants—was confined to the Emperor’s
headquarters. But on the afternoon of that day, this activity reached
Kutúzov’s headquarters and the staffs of the commanders of columns.
By evening, the adjutants had spread it to all ends and parts of the
army, and in the night from the nineteenth to the twentieth, the whole
eighty thousand allied troops rose from their bivouacs to the hum of
voices, and the army swayed and started in one enormous mass six miles
long.

The concentrated activity which had begun at the Emperor’s
headquarters in the morning and had started the whole movement that
followed was like the first movement of the main wheel of a large tower
clock. One wheel slowly moved, another was set in motion, and a third,
and wheels began to revolve faster and faster, levers and cogwheels to
work, chimes to play, figures to pop out, and the hands to advance with
regular motion as a result of all that activity.

Just as in the mechanism of a clock, so in the mechanism of the military
machine, an impulse once given leads to the final result; and just as
indifferently quiescent till the moment when motion is transmitted
to them are the parts of the mechanism which the impulse has not yet
reached. Wheels creak on their axles as the cogs engage one another and
the revolving pulleys whirr with the rapidity of their movement, but a
neighboring wheel is as quiet and motionless as though it were prepared
to remain so for a hundred years; but the moment comes when the lever
catches it and obeying the impulse that wheel begins to creak and joins
in the common motion the result and aim of which are beyond its ken.

Just as in a clock, the result of the complicated motion of innumerable
wheels and pulleys is merely a slow and regular movement of the
hands which show the time, so the result of all the complicated human
activities of 160,000 Russians and French—all their passions, desires,
remorse, humiliations, sufferings, outbursts of pride, fear, and
enthusiasm—was only the loss of the battle of Austerlitz, the
so-called battle of the three Emperors—that is to say, a slow movement
of the hand on the dial of human history.

Prince Andrew was on duty that day and in constant attendance on the
commander in chief.

At six in the evening, Kutúzov went to the Emperor’s headquarters
and after staying but a short time with the Tsar went to see the grand
marshal of the court, Count Tolstóy.

Bolkónski took the opportunity to go in to get some details of the
coming action from Dolgorúkov. He felt that Kutúzov was upset
and dissatisfied about something and that at headquarters they were
dissatisfied with him, and also that at the Emperor’s headquarters
everyone adopted toward him the tone of men who know something others do
not know: he therefore wished to speak to Dolgorúkov.

“Well, how d’you do, my dear fellow?” said Dolgorúkov, who was
sitting at tea with Bilíbin. “The fete is for tomorrow. How is your
old fellow? Out of sorts?”

“I won’t say he is out of sorts, but I fancy he would like to be
heard.”

“But they heard him at the council of war and will hear him when he
talks sense, but to temporize and wait for something now when Bonaparte
fears nothing so much as a general battle is impossible.”

“Yes, you have seen him?” said Prince Andrew. “Well, what is
Bonaparte like? How did he impress you?”

“Yes, I saw him, and am convinced that he fears nothing so much as
a general engagement,” repeated Dolgorúkov, evidently prizing this
general conclusion which he had arrived at from his interview with
Napoleon. “If he weren’t afraid of a battle why did he ask for that
interview? Why negotiate, and above all why retreat, when to retreat is
so contrary to his method of conducting war? Believe me, he is afraid,
afraid of a general battle. His hour has come! Mark my words!”

“But tell me, what is he like, eh?” said Prince Andrew again.

“He is a man in a gray overcoat, very anxious that I should call
him ‘Your Majesty,’ but who, to his chagrin, got no title from
me! That’s the sort of man he is, and nothing more,” replied
Dolgorúkov, looking round at Bilíbin with a smile.

“Despite my great respect for old Kutúzov,” he continued, “we
should be a nice set of fellows if we were to wait about and so give him
a chance to escape, or to trick us, now that we certainly have him in
our hands! No, we mustn’t forget Suvórov and his rule—not to put
yourself in a position to be attacked, but yourself to attack. Believe
me in war the energy of young men often shows the way better than all
the experience of old Cunctators.”

“But in what position are we going to attack him? I have been at the
outposts today and it is impossible to say where his chief forces are
situated,” said Prince Andrew.

He wished to explain to Dolgorúkov a plan of attack he had himself
formed.

“Oh, that is all the same,” Dolgorúkov said quickly, and getting up
he spread a map on the table. “All eventualities have been foreseen.
If he is standing before Brünn...”

And Prince Dolgorúkov rapidly but indistinctly explained Weyrother’s
plan of a flanking movement.

Prince Andrew began to reply and to state his own plan, which might
have been as good as Weyrother’s, but for the disadvantage that
Weyrother’s had already been approved. As soon as Prince Andrew began
to demonstrate the defects of the latter and the merits of his own plan,
Prince Dolgorúkov ceased to listen to him and gazed absent-mindedly not
at the map, but at Prince Andrew’s face.

“There will be a council of war at Kutúzov’s tonight, though; you
can say all this there,” remarked Dolgorúkov.

“I will do so,” said Prince Andrew, moving away from the map.

“Whatever are you bothering about, gentlemen?” said Bilíbin, who,
till then, had listened with an amused smile to their conversation and
now was evidently ready with a joke. “Whether tomorrow brings
victory or defeat, the glory of our Russian arms is secure. Except your
Kutúzov, there is not a single Russian in command of a column! The
commanders are: Herr General Wimpfen, le Comte de Langeron, le Prince de
Lichtenstein, le Prince de Hohenlohe, and finally Prishprish, and so on
like all those Polish names.”

“Be quiet, backbiter!” said Dolgorúkov. “It is not true; there
are now two Russians, Milorádovich, and Dokhtúrov, and there would be
a third, Count Arakchéev, if his nerves were not too weak.”

“However, I think General Kutúzov has come out,” said Prince
Andrew. “I wish you good luck and success, gentlemen!” he added and
went out after shaking hands with Dolgorúkov and Bilíbin.

On the way home, Prince Andrew could not refrain from asking Kutúzov,
who was sitting silently beside him, what he thought of tomorrow’s
battle.

Kutúzov looked sternly at his adjutant and, after a pause, replied:
“I think the battle will be lost, and so I told Count Tolstóy and
asked him to tell the Emperor. What do you think he replied? ‘But, my
dear general, I am engaged with rice and cutlets, look after military
matters yourself!’ Yes... That was the answer I got!”