War And Peace: Book 15 - CHAPTER V

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IN 1812 AND 1813 Kutuzov was openly accused of blunders. The Tsar was

dissatisfied with him. And in a recent history inspired by promptings from the

highest quarters, Kutuzov is spoken of as a designing, intriguing schemer, who

was panic-stricken at the name of Napoleon, and guilty through his blunders at

Krasnoe and Berezina of robbing the Russian army of the glory of complete

victory over the French. Such is the lot of men not recognised by Russian

intelligence as “great men,” grands hommes; such is the destiny of those

rare and always solitary men 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 their comprehension of higher laws.

Strange and terrible to say, Napoleon, the most insignificant tool of

history, who never even in exile displayed one trait of human dignity, is 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 command in 1812,

from Borodino to Vilna, was never in one word or deed false to himself, presents

an example exceptional in history of self-sacrifice and 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 of creature, and whenever they

speak of him in the year 1812, they seem 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 is difficult to

imagine an aim more noble and more in harmony with the will of a whole people.

Still more difficult would it be to find an example in history where the aim of

any historical personage has been so completely attained as the aim towards

which all Kutuzov's efforts were devoted in 1812.

Kutuzov never talked of “forty centuries looking down from the Pyramids,” of

the sacrifices he was making for the fatherland, of what he meant to do or had

done. He did not as a rule talk about himself, played no sort of part, always

seemed the plainest and most ordinary man, and said the plainest and most

ordinary things. He wrote letters to his daughters and to Madame de Sta

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1. Ebooks list page : 85
2. War And Peace: Book 4 - CHAPTER V
3. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER III
4. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER II
5. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER I
6. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER IV
7. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XIX
8. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XVI
9. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XV
10. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XIV
11. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER V
12. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER VI
13. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XIX
14. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XVI
15. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XIV
16. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XV