Book Fourteen: 1812 - Chapter I

by Leo Tolstoy

　　The Battle of Borodino, with the occupation of Moscow thatfollowed it and the flight of the French without further conflicts, isone of the most instructive phenomena in history.

　　All historians agree that the external activity of states andnations in their conflicts with one another is expressed in wars,and that as a direct result of greater or less success in war thepolitical strength of states and nations increases or decreases.

　　Strange as may be the historical account of how some king oremperor, having quarreled with another, collects an army, fights hisenemy's army, gains a victory by killing three, five, or tenthousand men, and subjugates a kingdom and an entire nation of severalmillions, all the facts of history (as far as we know it) confirmthe truth of the statement that the greater or lesser success of onearmy against another is the cause, or at least an essentialindication, of an increase or decrease in the strength of thenation- even though it is unintelligible why the defeat of an army-a hundredth part of a nation- should oblige that whole nation tosubmit. An army gains a victory, and at once the rights of theconquering nation have increased to the detriment of the defeated.An army has suffered defeat, and at once a people loses its rightsin proportion to the severity of the reverse, and if its armysuffers a complete defeat the nation is quite subjugated.

　　So according to history it has been found from the most ancienttimes, and so it is to our own day. All Napoleon's wars serve toconfirm this rule. In proportion to the defeat of the Austrian armyAustria loses its rights, and the rights and the strength of Franceincrease. The victories of the French at Jena and Auerstadt destroythe independent existence of Prussia.

　　But then, in 1812, the French gain a victory near Moscow. Moscowis taken and after that, with no further battles, it is not Russiathat ceases to exist, but the French army of six hundred thousand, andthen Napoleonic France itself. To strain the facts to fit the rules ofhistory: to say that the field of battle at Borodino remained in thehands of the Russians, or that after Moscow there were other battlesthat destroyed Napoleon's army, is impossible.

　　After the French victory at Borodino there was no general engagementnor any that were at all serious, yet the French army ceased to exist.What does this mean? If it were an example taken from the history ofChina, we might say that it was not an historic phenomenon (which isthe historians' usual expedient when anything does not fit theirstandards); if the matter concerned some brief conflict in whichonly a small number of troops took part, we might treat it as anexception; but this event occurred before our fathers' eyes, and forthem it was a question of the life or death of their fatherland, andit happened in the greatest of all known wars.

　　The period of the campaign of 1812 from the battle of Borodino tothe expulsion of the French proved that the winning of a battle doesnot produce a conquest and is not even an invariable indication ofconquest; it proved that the force which decides the fate of peopleslies not in the conquerors, nor even in armies and battles, but insomething else.

　　The French historians, describing the condition of the French armybefore it left Moscow, affirm that all was in order in the Grand Army,except the cavalry, the artillery, and the transport- there was noforage for the horses or the cattle. That was a misfortune no onecould remedy, for the peasants of the district burned their hay ratherthan let the French have it.

　　The victory gained did not bring the usual results because thepeasants Karp and Vlas (who after the French had evacuated Moscowdrove in their carts to pillage the town, and in general personallyfailed to manifest any heroic feelings), and the whole innumerablemultitude of such peasants, did not bring their hay to Moscow forthe high price offered them, but burned it instead.

　　Let us imagine two men who have come out to fight a duel withrapiers according to all the rules of the art of fencing. Thefencing has gone on for some time; suddenly one of the combatants,feeling himself wounded and understanding that the matter is no jokebut concerns his life, throws down his rapier, and seizing the firstcudgel that comes to hand begins to brandish it. Then let us imaginethat the combatant who so sensibly employed the best and simplestmeans to attain his end was at the same time influenced bytraditions of chivalry and, desiring to conceal the facts of the case,insisted that he had gained his victory with the rapier according toall the rules of art. One can imagine what confusion and obscuritywould result from such an account of the duel.

　　The fencer who demanded a contest according to the rules offencing was the French army; his opponent who threw away the rapierand snatched up the cudgel was the Russian people; those who try toexplain the matter according to the rules of fencing are thehistorians who have described the event.

　　After the burning of Smolensk a war began which did not follow anyprevious traditions of war. The burning of towns and villages, theretreats after battles, the blow dealt at Borodino and the renewedretreat, the burning of Moscow, the capture of marauders, theseizure of transports, and the guerrilla war were all departuresfrom the rules.

　　Napoleon felt this, and from the time he took up the correct fencingattitude in Moscow and instead of his opponent's rapier saw a cudgelraised above his head, he did not cease to complain to Kutuzov andto the Emperor Alexander that the war was being carried on contrary toall the rules- as if there were any rules for killing people. In spiteof the complaints of the French as to the nonobservance of therules, in spite of the fact that to some highly placed Russians itseemed rather disgraceful to fight with a cudgel and they wanted toassume a pose en quarte or en tierce according to all the rules, andto make an adroit thrust en prime, and so on- the cudgel of thepeople's war was lifted with all its menacing and majestic strength,and without consulting anyone's tastes or rules and regardless ofanything else, it rose and fell with stupid simplicity, butconsistently, and belabored the French till the whole invasion hadperished.

　　And it is well for a people who do not- as the French did in 1813-salute according to all the rules of art, and, presenting the hiltof their rapier gracefully and politely, hand it to theirmagnanimous conqueror, but at the moment of trial, without asking whatrules others have adopted in similar cases, simply and easily pickup the first cudgel that comes to hand and strike with it till thefeeling of resentment and revenge in their soul yields to a feeling ofcontempt and compassion.