Book Ten: 1812 - Chapter XXXIII

by Leo Tolstoy

　　The chief action of the battle of Borodino was fought within theseven thousand feet between Borodino and Bagration's fleches. Beyondthat space there was, on the one side, a demonstration made by theRussians with Uvarov's cavalry at midday, and on the other side,beyond Utitsa, Poniatowski's collision with Tuchkov; but these twowere detached and feeble actions in comparison with what took place inthe center of the battlefield. On the field between Borodino and thefleches, beside the wood, the chief action of the day took place on anopen space visible from both sides and was fought in the simplestand most artless way.

　　The battle began on both sides with a cannonade from several hundredguns.

　　Then when the whole field was covered with smoke, two divisions,Campan's and Dessaix's, advanced from the French right, whileMurat's troops advanced on Borodino from their left.

　　From the Shevardino Redoubt where Napoleon was standing thefleches were two thirds of a mile away, and it was more than a mile asthe crow flies to Borodino, so that Napoleon could not see what washappening there, especially as the smoke mingling with the mist hidthe whole locality. The soldiers of Dessaix's division advancingagainst the fleches could only be seen till they had entered thehollow that lay between them and the fleches. As soon as they haddescended into that hollow, the smoke of the guns and musketry onthe fleches grew so dense that it covered the whole approach on thatside of it. Through the smoke glimpses could be caught of somethingblack- probably men- and at times the glint of bayonets. But whetherthey were moving or stationary, whether they were French or Russian,could not be discovered from the Shevardino Redoubt.

　　The sun had risen brightly and its slanting rays struck straightinto Napoleon's face as, shading his eyes with his hand, he lookedat the fleches. The smoke spread out before them, and at times itlooked as if the smoke were moving, at times as if the troops moved.Sometimes shouts were heard through the firing, but it wasimpossible to tell what was being done there.

　　Napoleon, standing on the knoll, looked through a field glass, andin its small circlet saw smoke and men, sometimes his own andsometimes Russians, but when he looked again with the naked eye, hecould not tell where what he had seen was.

　　He descended the knoll and began walking up and down before it.

　　Occasionally he stopped, listened to the firing, and gazedintently at the battlefield.

　　But not only was it impossible to make out what was happening fromwhere he was standing down below, or from the knoll above on whichsome of his generals had taken their stand, but even from thefleches themselves- in which by this time there were now Russian andnow French soldiers, alternately or together, dead, wounded, alive,frightened, or maddened- even at those fleches themselves it wasimpossible to make out what was taking place. There for severalhours amid incessant cannon and musketry fire, now Russians wereseen alone, now Frenchmen alone, now infantry, and now cavalry: theyappeared, fired, fell, collided, not knowing what to do with oneanother, screamed, and ran back again.

　　From the battlefield adjutants he had sent out, and orderlies fromhis marshals, kept galloping up to Napoleon with reports of theprogress of the action, but all these reports were false, both becauseit was impossible in the heat of battle to say what was happening atany given moment and because many of the adjutants did not go to theactual place of conflict but reported what they had heard from others;and also because while an adjutant was riding more than a mile toNapoleon circumstances changed and the news he brought was alreadybecoming false. Thus an adjutant galloped up from Murat with tidingsthat Borodino had been occupied and the bridge over the Kolocha was inthe hands of the French. The adjutant asked whether Napoleon wishedthe troops to cross it? Napoleon gave orders that the troops shouldform up on the farther side and wait. But before that order was given-almost as soon in fact as the adjutant had left Borodino- the bridgehad been retaken by the Russians and burned, in the very skirmish atwhich Pierre had been present at the beginning of the battle.

　　An adjutant galloped up from the fleches with a pale andfrightened face and reported to Napoleon that their attack had beenrepulsed, Campan wounded, and Davout killed; yet at the very timethe adjutant had been told that the French had been repulsed, thefleches had in fact been recaptured by other French troops, and Davoutwas alive and only slightly bruised. On the basis of these necessarilyuntrustworthy reports Napoleon gave his orders, which had eitherbeen executed before he gave them or could not be and were notexecuted.

　　The marshals and generals, who were nearer to the field of battlebut, like Napoleon, did not take part in the actual fighting andonly occasionally went within musket range, made their ownarrangements without asking Napoleon and issued orders where and inwhat direction to fire and where cavalry should gallop and infantryshould run. But even their orders, like Napoleon's, were seldomcarried out, and then but partially. For the most part things happenedcontrary to their orders. Soldiers ordered to advance ran back onmeeting grapeshot; soldiers ordered to remain where they were,suddenly, seeing Russians unexpectedly before them, sometimes rushedback and sometimes forward, and the cavalry dashed without orders inpursuit of the flying Russians. In this way two cavalry regimentsgalloped through the Semenovsk hollow and as soon as they reachedthe top of the incline turned round and galloped full speed backagain. The infantry moved in the same way, sometimes running toquite other places than those they were ordered to go to. All ordersas to where and when to move the guns, when to send infantry toshoot or horsemen to ride down the Russian infantry- all such orderswere given by the officers on the spot nearest to the units concerned,without asking either Ney, Davout, or Murat, much less Napoleon.They did not fear getting into trouble for not fulfilling orders orfor acting on their own initiative, for in battle what is at stakeis what is dearest to man- his own life- and it sometimes seems thatsafety lies in running back, sometimes in running forward; and thesemen who were right in the heat of the battle acted according to themood of the moment. In reality, however, all these movements forwardand backward did not improve or alter the position of the troops.All their rushing and galloping at one another did little harm, theharm of disablement and death was caused by the balls and bullets thatflew over the fields on which these men were floundering about. Assoon as they left the place where the balls and bullets were flyingabout, their superiors, located in the background, re-formed themand brought them under discipline and under the influence of thatdiscipline led them back to the zone of fire, where under theinfluence of fear of death they lost their discipline and rushed aboutaccording to the chance promptings of the throng.