‘Yes, I did see him, and I came away convinced there’s nothing in the world he dreads more than a combined attack,’ repeated Dolgorukov, who evidently set great store by this general conclusion that he had come to during his meeting with Napoleon. ‘If he hadn’t been too scared to fight why on earth would he have asked for that meeting, and for talks – most of all, why would he retreat when retreat goes against his whole method of fighting a war? Believe me, he’s scared, scared of a mass attack. His hour has come. You mark my words.’ ‘But you haven’t said what he’s like or what he said,’ Prince Andrey insisted.
‘He’s a man in a grey overcoat who wants to be called “Your Majesty”, but I disappointed him. He didn’t get any titles out of me. That’s the sort of man he is, and that’s all there is to him,’ answered Dolgorukov, glancing round with a smile at Bilibin.
‘I yield to no one in my respect for old Kutuzov,’ he continued, ‘but we’d look pretty stupid if we dithered long enough to let him get away or do something clever, when here he is virtually in our hands. No, we should never forget Suvorov and his golden rule – attack, don’t be attacked. Believe me, when it comes to fighting, young men’s energy is often a better guide than all your dilatory old veterans.’
‘But where are you going to attack? I’ve been at the outposts today, and you can’t tell where his main forces are concentrated,’ said Prince Andrey. He was longing to tell Dolgorukov about his own approach, the plan of attack he had worked out.
‘It doesn’t make any difference,’ was the curt response from Dolgorukov as he got up and spread a map on the table. ‘We’ve thought of everything. Say he concentrates on Brno . . .’ And Prince Dolgorukov gave a quick, rather vague account of Weierother’s plan of a flanking manoeuvre.
Prince Andrey demurred and began to explain his own plan, which might have been just as good as Weierother’s, though it did have one drawback – Weierother’s had already been approved. The moment Prince Andrey began to outline that plan’s weaknesses and the advantages of his own idea, Prince Dolgorukov stopped listening and stared vacantly not at the map but at Prince Andrey’s face.
‘Anyway, there’s a council of war at Kutuzov’s tonight. You can have your say then,’ said Dolgorukov.
‘I certainly shall,’ said Prince Andrey, walking away from the map.
‘What
‘That’s enough slander,’ said Dolgorukov. ‘You’re wrong anyway, there are two Russians: Miloradovich and Dokhturov, and there would have been another, Count Arakcheyev, but for his bad nerves.’
‘Anyway, I think General Kutuzov has just come out,’ said Prince Andrey. ‘Good luck to you, gentlemen, and every success,’ he added, shaking hands with both men before he left.
Driving back with Kutuzov Prince Andrey couldn’t help asking the general, who was sitting beside him in complete silence, what he thought about tomorrow’s battle. Kutuzov looked sternly at his adjutant, paused for a moment and said, ‘I think we shall lose. That’s what I said to Count Tolstoy and I asked him to tell the Tsar. And do you know what he said? “My dear General, I like dabbling in cutlets and rice – warfare I leave to you.” Yes . . . That was all he said!’
CHAPTER 12
It was after nine o’clock in the evening when Weierother took his plans over to Kutuzov’s quarters, where the council of war was to take place. The column commanders had been told to attend, and all except Prince Bagration, who refused to come, arrived at the appointed hour.
Weierother had full responsibility for planning the proposed battle, and he was excited and impatient, in sharp contrast to the grumpy and sleepy Kutuzov, who had reluctantly assumed the role of president and chairman of the council. Weierother clearly saw himself as the head of a movement that had now become unstoppable. He was like a horse in harness hauling a load downhill. He wasn’t sure whether he was pulling or it was pushing, but he was hurtling along at top speed with no time to consider where this headlong rush might take him. Weierother had been out twice that evening to make a personal inspection of the enemy’s line, and he had reported in detail to two Emperors, one Russian, one Austrian, and then called in at his office to dictate the disposition of the German troops. And now here he was at Kutuzov’s, quite exhausted.
