roken-down bridge of Berezina the woes, which had till then come upon lem in a sort of regular succession, were suddenly concentrated there 1 a single moment—in one tragic catastrophe, which remained printed n the memory of all. On the Russian side, the reason that so much has een made of Berezina was simply that at Petersburg, far away from the leatre of war, a plan had been devised (again by Pfuhl of all people) )r catching Napoleon in a strategic snare on the banks of the Berezina, very one was convinced that the plan would come off exactly as ar- inged, and so they insisted that Berezina had in any case been the ;ene of the final ruin of the French. In reality the results of Berezina were :ss ruinous to the French in loss of cannons and prisoners than was the ghting at Krasnoe, as statistics prove.
The sole significance of the disaster of Berezina lies in the fact that proved obviously and unmistakably how misleading were all plans for utting off the enemy’s retreat; and the one possible course of action was hat which was supported by Kutuzov and the mass of the Russian army -simply to follow on the enemy’s track. The crowd of French soldiers ed with continually accelerating velocity, with all their energies directed b the attainment of their goal. It was fleeing like a wounded beast and ould not be stopped on the way. This was proved, not so much by the (instruction of the crossing, as by what happened at the bridges. When he bridges were broken down, unarmed soldiers, camp-followers from doscow, women with children, who were with the French transport, all inder the influence of vis inertke, dashed forward for the boats, or rushed nto the frozen water, instead of surrendering.
Their impulse was a reasonable one. The position of fugitives and of >ursuers was equally wretched. By remaining with his own men, each loped for the help of comrades in misfortune, for a definite place of his >wn among them. By surrendering to the Russians, he found himself in he same wretched circumstances, but placed on a lower level than others is regards the satisfaction of his vital needs. The French had no need if authentic evidence that half of the prisoners—whom the Russians were inable to look after, however much they desired to save them—were lying of cold and hunger. They felt that it could not but be so. The most lumane Russian officers, even those naturally warmly disposed to the mench, Frenchmen in the Russian service, could do nothing for the msoners. They perished from the wretched plight in which the Russians vere themselves placed. Bread and clothing could not be taken from he starving, necessary soldiers to give it to Frenchmen—not hated, not ibnoxious, nor in any way to blame—but simply superfluous. Some did :ven do this; but it was only an exception.
Behind them lay certain destruction; before them lay hope. Their ships vere burnt; there was no hope of safety but in keeping together and in light, and all the forces of the French were bent on this united flight.
The more precipitate the flight of the French, and the more wretched he plight of those left behind (especially after Berezina, on which great lopes had been set, owing to the Petersburg plan), the more violent were
the attacks made by the Russian generals on one another, and still mor on Kutuzov. Assuming that the failure of the Petersburg plan would b ascribed to him, the dissatisfaction with him, contempt of him, and jeer ing at him became more and more pronounced. This contempt and jeerin was of course expressed in respectful form—in such a form that Kutuzo i could not even ask what he was accused of. They did not talk to hir seriously; they submitted their reports and asked for his decisions wit an air of performing a melancholy ceremony, while they winked behini his back, and at every step tried to deceive him. It was accepted as recognised thing by all those men that it was useless talking to the oh man, simply because they could not understand him. They took it fo granted that he could never comprehend the deep significance of thei plans, that he would answer them with his phrases (they fancied the] were only meaningless phrases) about a golden bridge, and about thi impossibility of going beyond the frontier with a crowd of barefoo beggars. And everything he said—for instance, that they must wait fo> provisions, or that the men had no boots—all was so simple; while every thing they proposed was so complicated and so clever, that it was obviou: to them that he was stupid and in his dotage, while they were military officers of genius, without authority to take the lead. The dissatisfactioi and malicious gossip of the staff reached its utmost limits after the bril diant admiral, the favourite hero of Petersburg, Wittgenstein, had joinec the army. Kutuzov saw it, and simply sighed and shrugged his shoulders Only once, after Berezina, he lost his temper and wrote to Bennigsen who was in private correspondence with the Tsar, the following note:
