War And Peace полностью

I begin ab ovo. ‘The enemy of the human race’, as you know, is attacking the Prussians. The Prussians are our faithful allies, who have let us down no more than three times in three years. We take up the cause on their behalf. But as it turns out, the ‘enemy of the human race’ ignores our fine speeches, and with his usual rudeness and savagery he hurls himself at the Prussians without giving them time to finish the parade that they have just started, and hey presto! he gives them a good thrashing and moves into the palace at Potsdam.

‘It is my most earnest wish,’ writes the King of Prussia to Bonaparte, ‘that your Majesty be received and treated in my palace in a manner congenial to you, and I have lost no time in taking every measure to that end which circumstances have permitted. If only I may be said to have succeeded!’ The Prussian generals pride themselves on being polite to the French, and surrender at the first call.

The garrison commander at Glogau, in charge of ten thousand men, asks the King of Prussia what to do if he is called on to surrender . . . This we know for a fact.

In short, hoping to impress by nothing more than a little military posturing, we find ourselves at war in all seriousness, on our own frontiers to boot, with and for the King of Prussia. We have everything in abundance except for one little thing – a commander-in-chief. Since it turns out that the successes at Austerlitz might have been more decisive if the commander-in-chief had not been so young, the octogenarians have been put on parade and the choice between Prozorovsky and Kamensky goes in favour of the latter. This general turns up in a covered wagon à la Suvorov and is greeted with acclamations of joy and triumph.

4th inst. First post from Petersburg. The mails are taken to the field-marshal’s room – he likes to do everything himself. I am summoned to help sort the letters and take any intended for us. The marshal watches us at work and waits for any packets addressed to him. We search – there aren’t any. The marshal loses patience, gets down to business himself and discovers some letters from the Emperor to Count So-and-so, Prince What’s-his-name, and others. Then he flies into one of his rages. Thunder-bolts in every direction. He grabs hold of the letters, opens them and reads those from the Emperor to other people.

‘So that’s how they treat me! No confidence in me! Oh yes, ordered to keep an eye on me! All right then – get out, the lot of you!’

That’s when he writes his famous order of the day to General Bennigsen:

‘I am wounded, cannot ride, and cannot therefore command the army. You have brought your defeated corps d’armée to Pultusk. Here it stands exposed, no fuel, no provisions, in need of support, so, as reported by you to Count Buxhöwden⁹ yesterday, you must consider withdrawing to our frontier, and this must be done today.’

To the emperor he writes:

‘Too many journeys on horseback have made me saddle-sore, which now – on top of all my other dressings – quite prevents me from riding and commanding an army on such a wide front, and I have therefore transferred the said command to the general next in seniority to me, Count Buxhöwden, having despatched to him all my staff and appurtenances of the same, advising him, if bread runs out, to withdraw even further into Prussia, seeing that there is only one day’s bread left and some regiments have none at all, as reported by regimental commanders Ostermann and Sedmoretsky, and any taken from the peasantry has been consumed, whilst I shall myself remain in hospital at Ostrolenka until I recover. In respect of which I most humbly beg further to report that if the army remains another fifteen days encamped as at present, by springtime not a man will be left in good health.

‘I beg to be discharged from duty and allowed to retire to the country as an old man sufficiently shamed by his incapacity to fulfil the great and glorious destiny to which he was elected. I shall await here in the hospital your most gracious permission for the above, that I may not be reduced from the role of commander to that of army clerk. My retirement from the army will not involve the slightest danger to security – no more than a blind man leaving the army. In Russia there are thousands more like me.’

The marshal is angry with the Emperor and punishes all of us. Nice logic, isn’t it?