War And Peace: Book 10 - CHAPTER XXXIII

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THE CHIEF ACTION of the battle of Borodino was fought on the space seven

thousand feet in width between Borodino and Bagration's flèches. Outside that

region, on one side there was the action on the part of Uvarov's cavalry in the

middle of the day; on the other side, behind Utitsa, there was the skirmish

between Poniatovsky and Tutchkov; but those two actions were detached and of

little importance in comparison with what took place in the centre of the

battlefield. The chief action of the day was fought in the simplest and the most

artless fashion on the open space, visible from both sides, between Borodino and

the flèches by the copse.

The battle began with a cannonade from several hundreds of guns on both

sides. Then, when the whole plain was covered with smoke, on the French side the

two divisions of Desaix and Compans advanced on the right upon the flèches, and

on the left the viceroy's regiments advanced upon Borodino. The flèches were a

verst from the Shevardino redoubt, where Napoleon was standing; but Borodino was

more than two versts further, in a straight line, and therefore Napoleon could

not see what was passing there, especially as the smoke, mingling with the fog,

completely hid the whole of that part of the plain. The soldiers of Desaix's

division, advancing upon the flèches, were in sight till they disappeared from

view in the hollow that lay between them and the flèches. As soon as they

dropped down into the hollow, the smoke of the cannon and muskets on the flèches

became so thick that it concealed the whole slope of that side of the hollow.

Through the smoke could be caught glimpses of something black, probably men, and

sometimes the gleam of bayonets. But whether they were stationary or moving,

whether they were French or Russian, could not be seen from Shevardino.

The sun had risen brightly, and its slanting rays shone straight in

Napoleon's face as he looked from under his hand towards the flèches. The smoke

hung over the flèches, and at one moment it seemed as though it were the smoke

that was moving, at the next, the troops moving in the smoke. Sometimes cries

could be heard through the firing; but it was impossible to tell what was being

done there.

Napoleon, standing on the redoubt, was looking through a field-glass, and in

the tiny circle of the glass saw smoke and men, sometimes his own, sometimes

Russians. But where what he had seen was, he could not tell when he looked again

with the naked eye.

He came down from the redoubt, and began walking up and down before it.

At intervals he stood still, listening to the firing and looking intently at

the battlefield.

It was not simply impossible from below, where he was standing, and from the

redoubt above, where several of his generals were standing, to make out what was

passing at the flèches; but on the flèches themselves, occupied now together,

now alternately by French and Russians, living, dead, and wounded, the

frightened and frantic soldiers had no idea what they were doing. For several

hours together, in the midst of incessant cannon and musket fire, Russians and

French, infantry and cavalry, had captured the place in turn; they rushed upon

it, fell, fired, came into collision, did not know what to do with each other,

screamed, and ran back again.

From the battlefield adjutants were continually galloping up to Napoleon with

reports from his marshals of the progress of the action. But all those reports

were deceptive; both because in the heat of battle it is impossible to say what

is happening at any given moment, and because many of the adjutants never

reached the actual battlefield, but simply repeated what they heard from others,

and also because, while the adjutant was galloping the two or three versts to

Napoleon, circumstances had changed, and the news he brought had already become

untrue. Thus an adjutant came galloping from the viceroy with the news that

Borodino had been taken and the bridge on the Kolotcha was in the hands of the

French. The adjutant asked Napoleon should the troops cross the bridge.

Napoleon's command was to form on the further side and wait; but long before he

gave that command, when the adjutant indeed had only just started from Borodino,

the bridge had been broken down and burnt by the Russians in the very skirmish

Pierre had taken part in at the beginning of the day.

An adjutant, galloping up from the flèches with a pale and frightened face,

brought Napoleon word that the attack had been repulsed, and Compans wounded and

Davoust killed; while meantime the flèches had been captured by another division

of the troops, and Davoust was alive and well, except for a slight bruise. Upon

such inevitably misleading reports Napoleon based his instructions, which had

mostly been carried out before he made them, or else were never, and could

never, be carried out at all.

The marshals and generals who were closer to the scene of action, but, like

Napoleon, not actually taking part in it, and only at intervals riding within

bullet range, made their plans without asking Napoleon, and gave their orders

from where and in what direction to fire, and where the cavalry were to gallop

and the infantry to run. But even their orders, like Napoleon's, were but

rarely, and to a slight extent, carried out.

For the most part what happened was the opposite of what they commanded to be

done. The soldiers ordered to advance found themselves under grapeshot fire, and

ran back. The soldiers commanded to stand still in one place seeing the Russians

appear suddenly before them, either ran away or rushed upon them; and the

cavalry unbidden galloped in after the flying Russians. In this way two cavalry

regiments galloped across the Semyonovskoye hollow, and as soon as they reached

the top of the hill, turned and galloped headlong back again. The infantry, in

the same way, moved sometimes in the direction opposite to that in which they

were commanded to move.

All decisions as to when and where to move the cannons, when to send infantry

to fire, when to send cavalry to trample down the Russian infantry—all such

decisions were made by the nearest officers in the ranks, without any reference

to Ney, Davoust, and Murat, far less to Napoleon himself. They did not dread

getting into trouble for nonfulfilment of orders, nor for assuming

responsibility, because in battle what is at stake is what is most precious to

every man—his own life; and at one time it seems as though safety is to be found

in flying back, sometimes in flying forward; and these men placed in the very

thick of the fray acted in accordance with the temper of the moment.

In reality all these movements forward and back again hardly improved or

affected the position of the troops. All their onslaughts on one another did

little harm; the harm, the death and disablement was the work of the cannon

balls and bullets, that were flying all about the open space, where those men

ran to and fro. As soon as they got out of that exposed space, over which the

balls and bullets were flying, their superior officer promptly formed them in

good order, and restored discipline, and under the influence of that discipline

led them back under fire again; and there again, under the influence of the

terror of death, they lost all discipline, and dashed to and fro at the chance

promptings of the crowd.

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