War And Peace полностью

After the battle of Borodino, the enemy occupation of Moscow and the burning of the city, the most important episode of the war of 1812, according to the historians, was the movement of the Russian army across from the Ryazan to the Kaluga road and on to the camp at Tarutino, the so-called flanking manœuvre beyond the river Krasnaya Pakhra. Historians credit a number of different people with this stroke of genius, and argument continues about its rightful attribution. Foreign historians, even the French, acknowledge the genius of the Russian military command when they discuss this flanking manœuvre. But why military commentators, and all subsequent writers, should see this flanking manœuvre as the profoundly significant brain-child of some individual, something that saved Russia and destroyed Napoleon, is very difficult to understand. For one thing, it is difficult to see any profound wisdom or genius in this manœuvre: it requires little mental effort to work out that the best position for an army not under attack is where its supplies are most readily available. And anybody, down to the stupidest thirteen-year-old boy, could have easily guessed that the most advantageous position for the army in 1812, after the retreat from Moscow, would be down the Kaluga road. So, in the first place, it is impossible to understand the thought processes that have led historians to descry deep wisdom in this ploy. Secondly, it is even more difficult to understand why historians treat this development as the saving of Russia and the destruction of the French; if the circumstances before, during and after this flanking manœuvre had been slightly different it could well have led to the destruction of the Russian army and salvation for the French. Even if the position of the Russian army did begin to improve from the time of that manœuvre, it doesn’t follow that the improvement was necessarily caused by it.

The flanking manœuvre might well have brought no advantage; worse than that, it could easily have led to the destruction of the Russian army if other circumstances had prevailed. What would have happened if Moscow had not burnt down? If Murat had not lost sight of the Russians? If Napoleon had decided to do something? If the Russians had followed the advice of Bennigsen and Barclay and gone into battle at the Krasnaya Pakhra? What would have happened if the French had attacked the Russians when they were marching on the other side of the Pakhra river? What would have happened later on if Napoleon had got to Tarutino and attacked the Russians with even a tenth of the energy he had put into the attack at Smolensk? What would have happened if the French had marched on Petersburg? . . . If any of these developments had occurred, the flanking manœuvre could have led to disaster rather than salvation.

The third point is the most difficult to understand: students of history seem determined to ignore the possibility that this march cannot be attributed to any one individual; no one ever predicted it, and, like the retreat to Fili, this ploy was, in fact, never fully worked out in advance by anybody. It came about step by step, incident by incident, moment by moment, emerging from an infinitely varied set of unimaginably different circumstances, and was perceived in its entirety only when it had become a reality, a past event.