Next day the Tsar stayed in Wischau. His physician, Villier, was summoned to see him several times. At headquarters and among the troops stationed near by the word went round that the Tsar was ill. Those close to him reported that he had had nothing to eat and had slept badly. The cause of this indisposition was said to be the terrible shock suffered by the Tsar, with his sensitive soul, at the sight of the dead and wounded.
At dawn on the 17th a French officer was escorted into Wischau from our forward positions under a flag of truce for a meeting with the Russian Emperor. This officer was Savary. The Tsar had only just fallen asleep, so Savary had to wait. At midday he was allowed in to see the Emperor, and an hour later he rode back to the French army outposts, taking Prince Dolgorukov with him. Rumour had it that Savary had been sent to propose peace and a meeting between Alexander and Napoleon. A private meeting was refused, much to the pride and delight of the entire army, and instead of the Tsar Prince Dolgorukov, the victorious general at Wischau, was dispatched with Savary for talks with Napoleon to discover whether such exchanges – contrary to all expectations – were genuinely founded on a desire for peace. In the evening Dolgorukov came back, went straight to the Tsar and spent a long time alone with him.
On the 18th and 19th the troops moved forward in two stages, and the enemy outposts, after a brief exchange of fire, fell back. The army’s higher echelons were all bustle and excitement from midday on the 19th till the morning of the 20th of November, the day when the famous battle of Austerlitz was fought.
Until midday on the 19th all the activity, urgent discussions, scurrying around and dispatching of adjutants was confined to the Emperors’ headquarters; after midday the activity was transferred to Kutuzov’s headquarters and the column command staff. Throughout the afternoon this activity was transmitted by adjutants to every last army outpost and unit, and in the early hours of 20th November the eighty-thousand-strong allied army rose from a few hours’ sleep and lumbered off, a six-mile heaving mass of men abuzz with chatter.
The intense activity that had begun that morning in the Emperors’ headquarters and then stimulated all the ensuing activity was like the first turn of the centre wheel in a great tower clock. One wheel began its slow rotation, another one turned, then another, and round they went faster and faster, wheels and cogs all revolving, chimes playing, figures popping in and out, and the hands measuring time, all because of that first movement.
Military movement is like the movement of a clock: an impetus, once given, leads inexorably to a particular result while the untouched working parts wait in silent stillness for the action to reach them. Wheels creak on their spindles as the cogs bite, the speeding sprockets hum and the next wheel stands and waits patiently, as if resigned to centuries of immobility. But the moment comes when the lever slips into place and the submissive wheel rotates with a creak, blending into the common movement without knowing where it goes or why.
In a clock the complex action of countless different wheels works its way out in the even, leisurely movement of hands measuring time; in a similar way the complex action of humanity in those 160,000 Russians and Frenchmen – all their passions, longings, regrets, humiliation and suffering, their rushes of pride, fear and enthusiasm – only worked its way out in defeat at the battle of Austerlitz, known as the battle of the three Emperors, the slow tick-tock of the age-old hands on the clock face of human history.
Prince Andrey was a duty officer that day, inseparable from the commander-in-chief. Shortly before six o’clock in the evening Kutuzov drove over to the Emperors’ headquarters, had a brief meeting with the Tsar and went in to see the grand marshal, Count Tolstoy.
Bolkonsky used this opportunity to call on Dolgorukov in an attempt to find out some details of the coming action. He had sensed that Kutuzov was worried and unhappy about something, and that they were unhappy with him at headquarters, and that all the staff at imperial headquarters were treating him as if only they were in the know – which was why he wanted to talk with Dolgorukov.
‘Ah, good evening, my dear fellow,’ said Dolgorukov, who was sitting with Bilibin, drinking tea. ‘The fun starts tomorrow. How’s old Kutuzov? Down in the mouth?’
‘I wouldn’t say that, but I think he would like to be listened to.’ ‘But he was listened to at the council of war, and he will be listened to when he starts talking sense. But to sit around waiting for something to happen when the one thing Bonaparte dreads is a combined attack – that’s just not possible.’
‘You’ve seen him, haven’t you?’ said Prince Andrey. ‘Well, what did you make of Napoleon? How did he strike you?’
