War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER III

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THE UNDERLYING ESSENTIALLY SIGNIFICANT FEATURE of the European events at the

beginning of the present century is the military movement of masses of European

peoples from west to east, and again from east to west. The original movement

was that from west to east. That the peoples of the west might be able to

accomplish the military march upon Moscow, which they did accomplish, it was

essential (1) that they should be combined in a military group of such a

magnitude as to be able to withstand the resistance of the military group of the

east; (2) that they should have renounced all their established traditions and

habits; and (3) that they should have at their head a man able to justify in his

own name and theirs the perpetration of all the deception, robbery, and murder

that accompany that movement.

And to start from the French Revolution, that old group of insufficient

magnitude is broken up; the old habits and traditions are destroyed; step by

step a group is elaborated of new dimensions, new habits, and new traditions;

and the man is prepared, who is to stand at the head of the coming movement, and

to take upon himself the whole responsibility of what has to be done.

A man of no convictions, no habits, no traditions, no name, not even a

Frenchman, by the strangest freaks of chance, as it seems, rises above the

seething parties of France, and without attaching himself to any one of them,

advances to a prominent position.

The incompetence of his colleagues, the weakness and insignificance of his

opponents, the frankness of the deception, and the dazzling and self-confident

limitation of the man raise him to the head of the army. The brilliant personal

qualities of the soldiers of the Italian army, the disinclination to fight of

his opponents, and his childish insolence and conceit gain him military glory.

Innumerable so-called chance circumstances attend him everywhere. The

disfavour into which he falls with the French Directorate turns to his

advantage. His efforts to avoid the path ordained for him are unsuccessful; he

is not received into the Russia army, and his projects in Turkey come to

nothing.

During the wars in Italy he was several times on the verge of destruction,

and was every time saved in an unexpected fashion. The Russian troops—the very

troops which were able to demolish his glory—owing to various diplomatic

considerations, do not enter Europe until he is there.

On his return from Italy, he finds the government in Paris in that process of

dissolution in which all men who are in the government are inevitably effaced

and nullified. And an escape for him from that perilous position offers itself

in the shape of an aimless, groundless expedition to Africa. Again the same

so-called chance circumstances accompany him. Malta, the impregnable,

surrenders without a shot being fired; the most ill-considered measures are

crowned with success. The enemy's fleet, which later on does not let one boat

escape it, now lets a whole army elude it. In Africa a whole series of outrages

is perpetrated on the almost unarmed inhabitants. And the men perpetrating these

atrocities, and their leader most of all, persuade themselves that it is noble,

it is glory, that it is like C

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1. Ebooks list page : 85
2. War And Peace: Epilogue 2 - CHAPTER I
3. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER IV
4. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER V
5. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER VI
6. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER VII
7. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER XIV
8. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER IX
9. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER X
10. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER XI
11. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER XII
12. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER XVI
13. War And Peace: Epilogue 2 - CHAPTER IV
14. War And Peace: Epilogue 1 - CHAPTER I
15. War And Peace: Epilogue 2 - CHAPTER II
16. War And Peace: Epilogue 2 - CHAPTER III