For the most part what happened was the opposite of what they commanded to be done. The soldiers ordered to advance found themselves under grapeshot fire, and ran back. The soldiers commanded to stand still in one place seeing the Russians appear suddenly before them, either ran away or rushed upon them; and the cavalry unbidden galloped in after the flying Russians. In this way two cavalry regiments galloped across the Semyonovskoye hollow, and as soon as they reached the top of the hill, turned and galloped headlong back again. The infantry, in the same way, moved sometimes in the direction opposite to that in which they were commanded to move.
All decisions as to when and where to move the cannons, when to send infantry to fire, when to send cavalry to trample down the Russian infantry—all such decisions were made by the nearest officers in the ranks, without any reference to Ney, Davoust, and Murat, far less to Napoleon himself. They did not dread getting into trouble for nonfulfilment of orders, nor for assuming responsibility, because in battle what is at stake is what is most precious to every man—his own life; and at one time it seems as though safety is to be found in flying back, sometimes in flying forward; and these men placed in the very thick of the fray acted in accordance with the temper of the moment.
In reality all these movements forward and back again hardly improved or affected the position of the troops. All their onslaughts on one another did little harm; the harm, the death and disablement was the work of the cannon balls and bullets, that were flying all about the open space, where those men ran to and fro. As soon as they got out of that exposed space, over which the balls and bullets were flying, their superior officer promptly formed them in good order, and restored discipline, and under the influence of that discipline led them back under fire again; and there again, under the influence of the terror of death, they lost all discipline, and dashed to and fro at the chance promptings of the crowd.
Chapter 34
NAPOLEON’S GENERALS, Davoust, Ney, and Murat, who were close to that region of fire, and sometimes even rode into it, several times led immense masses of orderly troops into that region. But instead of what had invariably happened in all their previous battles, instead of hearing that the enemy were in flight, the disciplined masses of troops came back in undisciplined, panic-stricken crowds. They formed them in good order again, but their number was steadily dwindling. In the middle of the day Murat sent his adjutant to Napoleon with a request for reinforcements.
Napoleon was sitting under the redoubt, drinking punch, when Murat’s adjutant galloped to him with the message that the Russians would be routed if his majesty would let them have another division.
“Reinforcements?” said Napoleon, with stern astonishment, staring, as though failing to comprehend his words, at the handsome, boyish adjutant, who wore his black hair in floating curls, like Murat’s own. “Reinforcements!” thought Napoleon. “How can they want reinforcements when they have half the army already, concentrated against one weak, unsupported flank of the Russians?”
“Tell the King of Naples,” said Napoleon sternly, “that it is not midday, and I don’t yet see clearly over my chess-board. You can go.”
The handsome, boyish adjutant with the long curls heaved a deep sigh, and still holding his hand to his hat, galloped back to the slaughter.
Napoleon got up, and summoning Caulaincourt and Berthier, began conversing with them of matters not connected with the battle.
In the middle of the conversation, which began to interest Napoleon, Berthier’s eye was caught by a general, who was galloping on a steaming horse to the redoubt, followed by his suite. It was Beliard. Dismounting from his horse, he walked rapidly up to the Emperor, and, in a loud voice, began boldly explaining the absolute necessity of reinforcements. He swore on his honour that the Russians would be annihilated if the Emperor would let them have another division.
Napoleon shrugged his shoulders, and continued walking up and down, without answering. Beliard began loudly and eagerly talking with the generals of the suite standing round him.
“You are very hasty, Beliard,” said Napoleon, going back again to him. “It is easy to make a mistake in the heat of the fray. Go and look again and then come to me.” Before Beliard was out of sight another messenger came galloping up from another part of the battlefield.
“Well, what is it now?” said Napoleon, in the tone of a man irritated by repeated interruptions.
“Sire, the prince …” began the adjutant.
“Asks for reinforcements?” said Napoleon, with a wrathful gesture. The adjutant bent his head affirmatively and was proceeding to give his message, but the Emperor turned and walked a couple of steps away, stopped, turned back, and beckoned to Berthier. “We must send the reserves,” he said with a slight gesticulation. “Whom shall we send there? what do you think?” he asked Berthier, that “gosling I have made an eagle,” as he afterwards called him.
“Claparède’s division, sire,” said Berthier, who knew all the divisions, regiments, and battalions by heart.
Napoleon nodded his head in assent.
The adjutant galloped off to Claparède’s division. And a few moments later the Young Guards, stationed behind the redoubt, were moving out. Napoleon gazed in that direction in silence.
“No,” he said suddenly to Berthier, “I can’t send Claparède. Send Friant’s division.”
Though there was no advantage of any kind in sending Friant’s division rather than Claparède’s, and there was obvious inconvenience and delay now in turning back Claparède and despatching Friant, the order was carried out. Napoleon did not see that in relation to his troops he played the part of the doctor, whose action in hindering the course of nature with his nostrums he so truly gauged and condemned.
Friant’s division vanished like the rest into the smoke of the battlefield. Adjutants still kept galloping up from every side, and all, as though in collusion, said the same thing. All asked for reinforcements; all told of the Russians standing firm and keeping up a hellish fire, under which the French troops were melting away.
Napoleon sat on a camp-stool, plunged in thought. M. de Beausset, the reputed lover of travel, had been fasting since early morning, and approaching the Emperor, he ventured respectfully to suggest breakfast to his majesty.
“I hope that I can already congratulate your majesty on a victory,” he said.
Napoleon shook his head. Supposing the negative to refer to the victory only and not to the breakfast, M. de Beausset permitted himself with respectful playfulness to observe that there was no reason in the world that could be allowed to interfere with breakfast when breakfast was possible.
“Go to the…” Napoleon jerked out gloomily, and he turned his back on him. A saintly smile of sympathy, regret, and ecstasy beamed on M. de Beausset’s face as he moved with his swinging step back to the other generals.
Napoleon was experiencing the bitter feeling of a lucky gambler, who, after recklessly staking his money and always winning, suddenly finds, precisely when he has carefully reckoned up all contingencies, that the more he considers his course, the more certain he is of losing.
The soldiers were the same, the generals the same, there had been the same preparations, the same disposition, the same proclamation, “court et énergique.” He was himself the same,—he knew that; he knew that he was more experienced and skilful indeed now than he had been of old. The enemy even was the same as at Austerlitz and Friedland. But the irresistible wave of his hand seemed robbed of its might by magic.
All the old man?uvres that had invariably been crowned with success: the concentration of the battery on one point, and the advance of the reserves to break the line, and the cavalry attack of “men of iron,” all these resources had been employed; and far from victory being secure, from all sides the same tidings kept pouring in of killed or wounded generals, of reinforcements needed, of the troops being in disorder, and the Russians impossible to move.
Hitherto, after two or three orders being given, two or three phrases delivered, marshals and adjutants had galloped up with radiant faces and congratulations, announcing the capture as trophies of whole corps of prisoners, of bundles of flags and eagles, of cannons and stores, and Murat had asked leave to let the cavalry go to capture the baggage. So it had been at Lodi, Marengo, Arcole, Jena, Austerlitz, Wagram, and so on, and so on. But now something strange was coming over his men.
In spite of the news of the capture of the flèches, Napoleon saw that things were not the same, not at all the same as at previous battles. He saw that what he was feeling, all the men round him, experienced in military matters, were feeling too. All their faces were gloomy; all avoided each others’ eyes. It was only a Beausset who could fail to grasp the import of what was happening. Napoleon after his long experience of war knew very well all that was meant by an unsuccessful attack after eight hours’ straining every possible effort. He knew that this was almost equivalent to a defeat, and that the merest chance might now, in the critical point the battle was in, be the overthrow of himself and his troops.
When he went over in his own mind all this strange Russian campaign, in which not a single victory had been gained, in which not a flag, nor a cannon, nor a corps had been taken in two months, when he looked at the concealed gloom in the faces round him, and heard reports that the Russians still held their ground—a terrible feeling, such as is experienced in a nightmare, came over him, and all the unlucky contingencies occurred to him that might be his ruin. The Russians might fall upon his left wing, might break through his centre; a stray ball might even kill himself. All that was possible. In his former battles he had only considered the possibilities of success, now an immense number of unlucky chances presented themselves, and he expected them all. Yes, it was like a nightmare, when a man dreams that an assailant is attacking him, and in his dream he lifts up his arm and deals a blow with a force at his assailant that he knows must crush him, and feels that his arm falls limp and powerless as a rag, and the horror of inevitable death comes upon him in his helplessness.
The news that the Russians were attacking the left flank of the French army aroused that horror in Napoleon. He sat in silence on a camp-stool under the redoubt, his elbows on his knees, and his head sunk in his hands. Berthier came up to him and suggested that they should inspect the lines to ascertain the position of affairs.
“What? What do you say?” said Napoleon. “Yes, tell them to bring my horse.” He mounted a horse and rode to Semyonovskoye.
In the slowly parting smoke, over the whole plain through which Napoleon rode, men and horses, singly and in heaps, were lying in pools of blood. Such a fearful spectacle, so great a mass of killed in so small a space, had never been seen by Napoleon nor any of his generals. The roar of the cannon that had not ceased for ten hours, exhausted the ear and gave a peculiar character to the spectacle (like music accompanying living pictures). Napoleon rode up to the height of Semyonovskoye, and through the smoke he saw ranks of soldiers in uniforms of unfamiliar hues. They were the Russians.
The Russians stood in serried ranks behind Semyonovskoye and the redoubt, and their guns kept up an incessant roar and smoke all along their lines. It was not a battle. It was a prolonged massacre, which could be of no avail either to French or Russians. Napoleon pulled up his horse, and sank again into the brooding reverie from which Berthier had roused him. He could not stay that thing that was being done before him and about him, and that was regarded as being led by him and as depending on him, that thing for the first time, after ill success, struck him as superfluous and horrible. One of the generals, riding up to Napoleon, ventured to suggest to him that the Old Guards should advance into action. Ney and Berthier, standing close by, exchanged glances and smiled contemptuously at the wild suggestion of this general.
Napoleon sat mute with downcast head.
“Eight hundred leagues from France, I am not going to let my Guard be destroyed,” he said, and turning his horse, he rode back to Shevardino.
Chapter 35
KUTUZOV, with his grey head hanging, and his heavy, corpulent frame sunk into a heap, was sitting on a bench covered with a rug, in the same place in which Pierre had seen him in the morning. He issued no orders, and simply gave or withheld his assent to what was proposed to him.
“Yes, yes, do so,” he would say in reply to various suggestions. “Yes, yes, go across, my dear boy, and see,” he would cry first to one and the to another of the adjutants near him; or, “No, better not; we’d better wait a bit,” he would say. He listened to the reports brought him, and gave orders, when they were asked for. But as he heard the reports, he seemed to take little interest in the import of the words spoken; something else in the expression of his face, in the tone of the voice of the speaker, seemed to interest him more. From long years of military experience he had learned, and with the wisdom of old age he had recognised, that one man cannot guide hundreds of thousands of men struggling with death; that the fate of battles is not decided by the orders given by the commander-in-chief, nor the place in which the troops are stationed, nor the number of cannons, nor of killed, but by that intangible force called the spirit of the army, and he followed that force and led it as far as it lay in his power.
The general expression of Kutuzov’s face was concentrated, quiet attention and intensity, with difficulty overcoming his weak and aged body.
At eleven o’clock they brought him the news that the French had been driven back again from the flèches they had captured, but that Bagration was wounded. Kutuzov groaned, and shook his head.
“Ride over to Prince Pyotr Ivanovitch and find out exactly about it,” he said to one of the adjutants, and then he turned to the Prince of Würtemberg, who was standing behind him:
“Will your highness be pleased to take the command of the first army?”
Soon after the prince’s departure—so soon that he could not yet have reached Semyonovskoye—his adjutant came back with a message from him asking Kutuzov for more troops.
Kutuzov frowned, and sent Dohturov orders to take the command of the first army, and begged the prince to come back, saying that he found he could not get on without him at such an important moment. When news was brought that Murat had been taken prisoner, and the members of the staff congratulated Kutuzov, he smiled.
“Wait a little, gentlemen,” he said. “The battle is won, and Murat’s being taken prisoner is nothing very extraordinary. But we had better defer our rejoicings.” Still he sent an adjutant to take the news to the troops.
