Expecting the enemy in their rear and not in front, the French ran, straggling out, and getting separated as far as twenty-four hours’ march from one another. In front of all fled the Emperor, then the kings, then the dukes. The Russian army, supposing Napoleon would take the road to the right beyond the Dnieper—the only sensible course—turned also to the right, and came out on the high road at Krasnoe. And here, just as in the game of blindman, the French came bearing straight down on our vanguard. Seeing the enemy unexpectedly, the French were thrown into confusion, stopped short from the suddenness of the fright, but then ran- on again, abandoning their own comrades in their rear. Then for three days, the separate parts of the French army passed, as it were, through the lines of the Russian army: first the viceroy’s troops, then Davoust’s, and then Ney’s. They all abandoned one another, abandoned their heavy baggage, their artillery, and half their men, and fled, making semicircles! to the right to get round the Russians by night.
Ney was the last, because in spite, or perhaps in consequence, of their miserable position, with a child’s impulse to beat the floor that has bruised it, he lingered to demolish the walls of Smolensk, which had done nobody any harm. Ney, who was the last to pass with his corps of ten thousand, reached Napoleon at Orsha with only a thousand men, having abandoned all the rest, and all his cannons, and made his way by stealth at night, under cover of the woods, across the Dnieper.
From Orsha they fled on along the road to Vilna, still playing the same game of blindman with the pursuing army. At Berezina again, they were thrown into confusion, many were drowned, many surrendered, but those that got across the river, fled on.
Their chief commander wrapped himself in a fur cloak, and getting into a sledge, galloped off alone, deserting his companions. Whoever could, ran away too, and those who could not—surrendered or died.
XVIII
One might have supposed that the historians, who ascribe the actions of the masses to the will of one man, would have found it impossible to explain the retreat of the French on their theory, considering that they did everything possible during this period of the campaign to bring about their
WAR AND PEACE 1007
A'n ruin, and that not a single movement of that rabble of men, from leir turning into the Kaluga road up to the flight of the commander from s army, showed the slightest trace of design.
But no! Mountains of volumes have been written by historians upon lis campaign, and in all of them we find accounts of Napoleon’s masterly -rangements and deeply considered plans; of the strategy with which the ildiers were led, and the military genius showed by the marshals.
The retreat from Maley Yaroslavets, when nothing hindered Napoleon oni passing through a country abundantly furnished with supplies, and le parallel road was open to him, along which Kutuzov afterwards pur- jed him—this wholly unnecessary return by a road through devastated buntry is explained to us as due to various sagacious considerations, imilar reasons are given us for Napoleon’s retreat from Smolensk to 'rsha. Then we have a description of his heroism at Krasnoe, when he reported to have prepared to give battle, and to take the command, and oming forward with a birch stick in his hand, to have said;
‘Long enough I have been an emperor, it is time now to be a general! ’ Yet in spite of this, he runs away immediately afterwards, abandoning le divided army in the. rear to the hazards of destiny.
Then we have descriptions of the greatness of some of the marshals, specially of Ney—a greatness of soul that culminated in his taking a ircuitous route by the forests across the Dnieper, and fleeing without is flags, his artillery, and nine-tenths of his men into Orsha.
And lastly, the final departure of the great Emperor from his heroic rmy is represented by the historians as something great—a stroke of -emus.
Even that final act of running away—which in homely language would e described as the lowest depth of baseness, such as every child is taught 0 feel ashamed of—even that act finds justification in the language of re historians.
When it is impossible to stretch the elastic thread of historical argu- lent further, when an action is plainly opposed to what all humanity is greed in calling right and justice, the historians take refuge in the con- eption of greatness. Greatness would appear to exclude all possibility of pplying standards of right and wrong. For the great man—nothing is •rong. There is no atrocity which could be made a ground for blaming great man.
