‘That’s how things are always done among us, everything topsyturvy!’ the Russian officers and generals said after the battle of Tarutino; just as they say it nowadays, with an assumption that some stupid person had muddled everything, while we would have managed quite differently. But the men who speak like this either do not understand what they are talking of, or intentionally deceive themselves. Every battle—Tarutino, Borodino, Austerlitz—fails to come off as those who planned it expected it to do. That is inevitable.
An innumerable collection of freely acting forces (and nowhere is a man freer than on the field of battle, where it is a question of life and death) influence the direction taken by a battle, and that can never be
mown beforehand and never corresponds with the direction of any me force.
If many forces are acting simultaneously in different directions on ny body, the direction of its motion will not correspond with any one of he forces, but will always follow a middle course, the summary of them, diat is expressed in mechanics by the diagonal of the parallelogram if forces.
If in the accounts given us by historians, especially by French ones, ve find that wars and battles appear to follow a definite plan laid down leforehand, the only deduction we can make from that is that these ccounts are not true.
The battle of Tarutino obviously failed to attain the aim which Toll lad in view: to lead the army into action in accordance with his disposi- ion of the troops, or the aim which Count Orlov-Denisov may have had: 0 take Murat prisoner; or the aim of destroying at one blow the whole orps, which Bennigsen and others may have entertained; or the aim of he officer who desired to distinguish himself under fire; or the Cossack, dio wanted to obtain more booty than he did attain, and so on. But if /e regard the object of the battle as what was actually accomplished by L and what was the universal desire of all Russians (the expulsion of the Tench from Russia and the destruction of their army), it will be per- ectly evident that the battle of Tarutino, precisely in consequence of its lcongruities, was exactly what was wanted at that period of the cam- aign. It is difficult or impossible to imagine any issue of that battle more 1 accordance with that object than its actual result. With the very mallest effort, in spite of the greatest muddle, and with the most trilling )ss, the most important results in the whole campaign were obtained — he transition was made from retreat to attack, the weakness of the 'rench was revealed, and the shock was given which was all that was eeded to put Napoleon’s army to flight.
VIII
Iapoleon enters Moscow after the brilliant victory de la Moskowa: lere can be no doubt of the victory, since the French are left in pos- :ssion of the field of battle. The Russians retreat and leave Moscow— ell stocked with provisions, arms, implements, and countless riches—
I the hands of Napoleon. The Russian army, of one-half the strength : the French, during the course of a whole month makes no effort to tack. Napoleon’s position is most brilliant. One would have supposed lat no great genius was needed with an army of double the strength to
II upon the Russian forces and destroy them, to negotiate an advan- geous peace; or, in case of negotiations being refused, to make a enacing march upon Petersburg, or even, in case of failure in this, to turn to Smolensk or to Vilna, or to remain in Moscow, to retain, in lort, the brilliant position in which the French army now found them-
042 WAR AND PEACE
selves. To do all this it was only necessary to take the simplest am easiest measures: to keep the soldiers from pillage, to prepare winte clothes (of which there was a supply in Moscow amply sufficient for th whole army), and regularly to collect the provisions, of which the suppl in Moscow was, on the showing of the French historians, sufficient to feei the whole army for six months. Napoleon, the greatest of all militar geniuses, with absolute power, as historians assert, over the army, dii nothing of all this.
