To the third party, which the Tsar trusted most of all, belonged the courtiers, who kept trying to reconcile the first two tendencies. Men of this party – mainly civilians, including Arakcheyev – spoke and reasoned like men pretending to have convictions they did not possess. They admitted that war, especially with a genius like Bonaparte (by now they had stopped calling him Buonaparte), did undoubtedly call for profound theoretical consideration and profound scientific knowledge, at which Pfuel was a genius. But at the same time you had to admit that theorists could often be a bit narrow-minded, so you couldn’t trust them completely; you had to lend an ear to what Pfuel’s opponents were saying, and also to what was being said by practical men who had experience of war, and then go for a happy medium. Men of this party insisted on sticking to Pfuel’s plan for holding the camp at Drissa, but changing his disposition of the other two armies. This meant that neither one thing nor the other could be achieved, but the men of this party still thought this was the best plan.
The fourth tendency was the one that had as its leading representative the grand duke and heir-apparent, who had been brought down to earth unforgettably at Austerlitz, having ridden out at the head of his guards in helmet and white jacket as if he was reviewing the troops, fully expecting to slay the French with great panache, only to find himself unexpectedly caught up in the front line, from the turmoil of which he had no little difficulty in extricating himself. The men of this party displayed sincerity with all its merit and deficiencies. They were scared of Napoleon, they were aware of his strength and their own weakness, and they readily admitted it. What they said was, ‘Nothing but sorrow, disgrace and ruin can come of this war! We’ve lost Vilna, we’ve lost Vitebsk, and we’re about to lose Drissa. The only sensible thing left for us to do is sue for peace, and as soon as possible, before we get driven out of Petersburg!’
This view was widespread throughout the higher echelons of the military, and it had its supporters in Petersburg too – one of them being the chancellor, Rumyantsev, who had his own reasons of state for supporting the peace movement.
The fifth group were those who supported Barclay de Tolly, not so much as a man, but as war minister and commander-in-chief. ‘Whatever he may be,’ they would say, always beginning with this proviso, ‘he’s an honest, practical man, and there’s no one better. Give him the real power, because you can’t win a war without unity in the high command, and he’ll show what he’s made of, as he did in Finland. If our army is still strong and well organized, and has pulled back to the Drissa without being defeated, we owe it all to Barclay. If Barclay is replaced by Bennigsen now, all will be lost. Bennigsen showed how useless he is as early as 1807.’ This was the line taken by the fifth party.
The sixth party, the Bennigsenites, said the exact opposite: in the last analysis there was no one more capable and experienced than Bennigsen, and wherever you turned you always came back to him. The men of this party claimed that the Russian retirement to Drissa had been nothing less than a humiliating defeat, one mistake after another. ‘The more mistakes they make,’ these men said, ‘the better things will be. It’ll take them less time to realize we can’t go on like this. We want none of your Barclays, we want someone like Bennigsen, who showed his mettle in 1807, and even Napoleon gave him his due. He’s a man people would be glad to see in power. There’s only one Bennigsen.’
The seventh class were the sort of people who always circulate around monarchs, especially young ones, and there were plenty of them around Alexander – generals and adjutants, not only passionately devoted to the Tsar as Emperor, but sincerely and disinterestedly worshipping him as a man, just as Nikolay Rostov had worshipped him in 1805, and seeing him as the embodiment of every virtue and human quality. These persons admired the Tsar’s modesty in declining command of the army, but thought he was taking modesty too far. They shared a single purpose and demand: their adored Tsar should set aside his needless diffidence, and publicly proclaim that he was placing himself at the head of the army and taking over the staff of the commander-in-chief, and from now on he would listen as necessary to advisers steeped in theory and practice but he personally would lead the troops, and they would be roused by him to new heights of enthusiasm.
