At Krasnoe there were taken twenty-six thousand prisoners, a hundred innons, a stick of some sort, which was promptly dubbed a ‘marshal’s aton.’ And the generals disputed among themselves who had gained most istinction in the action, and were delighted at it, though they were full of ?gret at not having captured Napoleon or some marshal and hero, and lamed one another, and above all Kutuzov, for failing to do so.
These men, drawn on by their own passions, were but the blind instru- lents of the most melancholy law of necessity; but they believed them- fives heroes, and imagined that what they were doing was the noblest nd most honourable achievement. They blamed Kutuzov, and declared ■om the very beginning of the campaign he had prevented them from onquering Napoleon; that he thought of nothing but his own sensual ratifications, and would not advance out of Polotnyany Zavody because e was comfortable there; that he had checked the advance at Krasnoe; hat he had completely lost his head when he heard Napoleon was near; bat one might really suppose he had a secret understanding with Napo- jon, that he had been bought over by him. and so on and so on.
And not only contemporaries, misled by their own passions, have spoken hus. Posterity and history have accepted Napoleon as grand, while breign writers have called Kutuzov a crafty, dissolute, weak, intriguing Id man; and Russians have seen in him a nondescript being, a sort of ■uppet, only of use owing to his Russian name . . .
n 1812 and in 1813 Kutuzov was openly accused of blunders. The Tsar ras dissatisfied with him. And in a recent history 2 inspired by prompt- rigs from the highest quarters, Kutuzov is spoken -of as a designing, in- riguing schemer, who was panic-stricken at the name of Napoleon, and ;uilty through his blunders at Krasnoe and Berezina of robbing the Russian army of the glory of complete victory over the French. Such is he lot of men not recognized by Russian intelligence as ‘great men,’ rands hommes ; such is the destiny of those rare and always solitary nen who divining the will of Providence submit their personal will to it. The hatred and contempt of the crowd is the punishment of such men for heir comprehension of higher laws.
Strange and terrible to say, Napoleon, the most insignificant tool of fistory, who never even in exile displayed one trait of human dignity, is
1 Wilson’s Letters.
2 Bogdanovitch’s History of the Year 1812 : The character of Kutuzov, and riticism of the unsatisfactory results of Kutuzov’s battles.
the subject of the admiration and enthusiasm of the Russian historians in their eyes he is a grand homme.
Kutuzov, the man who from the beginning to the end of his commam in 1812, from Borodino to Vilna, was never in one word or deed false t( himself, presents an example exceptional in history of self-sacrifice an< recognition in the present of the relative value of events in the future Kutuzov is conceived of by the historians as a nondescript, pitiful sort 0 creature, and whenever they speak of him in the year 1812, they seen a little ashamed of him.
And yet it is difficult to conceive of an historical character whose energy could be more invariably directed to the same unchanging aim. It i: difficult to imagine an aim more noble and more in harmony v/ith thi will of a whole people. Still more difficult would it be to find an exampli in history where the aim of any historical personage has been so com pletely attained as the aim towards which all Kutuzov’s efforts were de voted in 1812.
Kutuzov never talked of ‘forty centuries looking down from the Pyra mids,’ of the sacrifices he was making for the fatherland, of what he mean to do or had done. He did not as a rule talk about himself, played no sor of part, always seemed the plainest and most ordinary man, and said tht plainest and most ordinary things. He wrote letters to his daughters anc to Madame de Stael, read novels, liked the company of pretty women made jokes with the generals, the officers, and the soldiers, and never contradicted the people, who tried to prove anything to him. When Coun Rastoptchin galloped up to him at Yautsky bridge, and reproached hin personally with being responsible for the loss of Moscow, and said ‘Didn’t you promise not to abandon Moscow without a battle?’ Kutuzo\ answered: ‘And I am not abandoning Moscow without a battle,’ althougl Moscow was in fact already abandoned. When Araktcheev came to hin from the Tsar to say that Yermolov was to be appointed to the commam of the artillery, Kutuzov said: ‘Yes, I was just saying so myself,’ thougl he had said just the opposite a moment before. What had he, the om man who grasped at . the time all the vast issues of events, to do in th< midst of that dull-witted crowd? What did he care whether Count Ras toptchin put down the disasters of the capital to him or to himself? Stil less could he be concerned by the question which man was appointed tc! the command of the artillery.
