Book Fifteen: 1812-13 - Chapter V

by Leo Tolstoy

　　In 1812 and 1813 Kutuzov was openly accused of blundering. TheEmperor was dissatisfied with him. And in a history recently writtenby order of the Highest Authorities it is said that Kutuzov was acunning court liar, frightened of the name of Napoleon, and that byhis blunders at Krasnoe and the Berezina he deprived the Russianarmy of the glory of complete victory over the French.*

　　*History of the year 1812. The character of Kutuzov andreflections on the unsatisfactory results of the battles at Krasnoe,by Bogdanovich.

　　Such is the fate not of great men (grands hommes) whom the Russianmind does not acknowledge, but of those rare and always solitaryindividuals who, discerning the will of Providence, submit theirpersonal will to it. The hatred and contempt of the crowd punishsuch men for discerning the higher laws.

　　For Russian historians, strange and terrible to say, Napoleon-that most insignificant tool of history who never anywhere, even inexile, showed human dignity- Napoleon is the object of adulation andenthusiasm; he is grand. But Kutuzov- the man who from the beginningto the end of his activity in 1812, never once swerving by word ordeed from Borodino to Vilna, presented an example exceptional inhistory of self-sacrifice and a present conciousness of the futureimportance of what was happening- Kutuzov seems to them somethingindefinite and pitiful, and when speaking of him and of the year1812 they always seem a little ashamed.

　　And yet it is difficult to imagine an historical character whoseactivity was so unswervingly directed to a single aim; and it would bedifficult to imagine any aim more worthy or more consonant with thewill of the whole people. Still more difficult would it be to findan instance in history of the aim of an historical personage beingso completely accomplished as that to which all Kutuzov's efforts weredirected in 1812.

　　Kutuzov never talked of "forty centuries looking down from thePyramids," of the sacrifices he offered for the fatherland, or of whathe intended to accomplish or had accomplished; in general he saidnothing about himself, adopted no prose, always appeared to be thesimplest and most ordinary of men, and said the simplest and mostordinary things. He wrote letters to his daughters and to Madame deStael, read novels, liked the society of pretty women, jested withgenerals, officers, and soldiers, and never contradicted those whotried to prove anything to him. When Count Rostopchin at the Yauzabridge galloped up to Kutuzov with personal reproaches for havingcaused the destruction of Moscow, and said: "How was it you promisednot to abandon Moscow without a battle?" Kutuzov replied: "And I shallnot abandon Moscow without a battle," though Moscow was then alreadyabandoned. When Arakcheev, coming to him from the Emperor, said thatErmolov ought to be appointed chief of the artillery, Kutuzov replied:"Yes, I was just saying so myself," though a moment before he had saidquite the contrary. What did it matter to him- who then alone amid asenseless crowd understood the whole tremendous significance of whatwas happening- what did it matter to him whether Rostopchin attributedthe calamities of Moscow to him or to himself? Still less could itmatter to him who was appointed chief of the artillery.

　　Not merely in these cases but continually did that old man- who byexperience of life had reached the conviction that thoughts and thewords serving as their expression are not what move people- usequite meaningless words that happened to enter his head.

　　But that man, so heedless of his words, did not once during thewhole time of his activity utter one word inconsistent with the singleaim toward which he moved throughout the whole war. Obviously in spiteof himself, in very diverse circumstances, he repeatedly expressed hisreal thoughts with the bitter conviction that he would not beunderstood. Beginning with the battle of Borodino, from which time hisdisagreement with those about him began, he alone said that the battleof Borodino was a victory, and repeated this both verbally and inhis dispatches and reports up to the time of his death. He alonesaid that the loss of Moscow is not the loss of Russia. In reply toLauriston's proposal of peace, he said: There can be no peace, forsuch is the people's will. He alone during the retreat of the Frenchsaid that all our maneuvers are useless, everything is beingaccomplished of itself better than we could desire; that the enemymust be offered "a golden bridge"; that neither the Tarutino, theVyazma, nor the Krasnoe battles were necessary; that we must keep someforce to reach the frontier with, and that he would not sacrifice asingle Russian for ten Frenchmen.

　　And this courtier, as he is described to us, who lies to Arakcheevto please the Emperor, he alone- incurring thereby the Emperor'sdispleasure- said in Vilna that to carry the war beyond the frontieris useless and harmful.

　　Nor do words alone prove that only he understood the meaning ofthe events. His actions- without the smallest deviation- were alldirected to one and the same threefold end: (1) to brace all hisstrength for conflict with the French, (2) to defeat them, and (3)to drive them out of Russia, minimizing as far as possible thesufferings of our people and of our army.

　　This procrastinator Kutuzov, whose motto was "Patience and Time,"this enemy of decisive action, gave battle at Borodino, investingthe preparations for it with unparalleled solemnity. This Kutuzovwho before the battle of Austerlitz began said that it would belost, he alone, in contradiction to everyone else, declared till hisdeath that Borodino was a victory, despite the assurance of generalsthat the battle was lost and despite the fact that for an army to haveto retire after winning a battle was unprecedented. He alone duringthe whole retreat insisted that battles, which were useless then,should not be fought, and that a new war should not be begun nor thefrontiers of Russia crossed.

　　It is easy now to understand the significance of these events- ifonly we abstain from attributing to the activity of the mass aims thatexisted only in the heads of a dozen individuals- for the events andresults now lie before us.

　　But how did that old man, alone, in opposition to the generalopinion, so truly discern the importance of the people's view of theevents that in all his activity he was never once untrue to it?

　　The source of that extraordinary power of penetrating the meaning ofthe events then occuring lay in the national feeling which hepossessed in full purity and strength.

　　Only the recognition of the fact that he possessed this feelingcaused the people in so strange a manner, contrary to the Tsar's wish,to select him- an old man in disfavor- to be their representative inthe national war. And only that feeling placed him on that highesthuman pedestal from which he, the commander in chief, devoted allhis powers not to slaying and destroying men but to saving and showingpity on them.

　　That simple, modest, and therefore truly great, figure could notbe cast in the false mold of a European hero- the supposed ruler ofmen- that history has invented.

　　To a lackey no man can be great, for a lackey has his own conceptionof greatness.