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The next day the Emperor stopped at Wischau, and Villier,
his physician, was repeatedly summoned to see him. At headquarters
and among the troops near by the news spread that the Emperor
was unwell. He ate nothing and had slept badly that night, those
around him reported. The cause of this indisposition was the strong
impression made on his sensitive mind by the sight of the killed
and wounded.
At daybreak on the seventeenth, a French officer who had come
with a flag of truce, demanding an audience with the Russian Emperor,
was brought into Wischau from our outposts. This officer was Savary.
The Emperor had only just fallen asleep and so Savary had to wait.
At midday he was admitted to the Emperor, and an hour later he
rode off with Prince Dolgorukov to the advanced post of the French
army.
It was rumored that Savary had been sent to propose to Alexander
a meeting with Napoleon. To the joy and pride of the whole army,
a personal interview was refused, and instead of the Sovereign,
Prince Dolgorukov, the victor at Wischau, was sent with Savary
to negotiate with Napoleon if, contrary to expectations, these
negotiations were actuated by a real desire for peace.
Toward evening Dolgorukov came back, went straight to the
Tsar, and remained alone with him for a long time.
On the eighteenth and nineteenth of November, the army advanced
two days' march and the enemy's outposts after a brief interchange
of shots retreated. In the highest army circles from midday on
the nineteenth, a great, excitedly bustling activity began which
lasted till the morning of the twentieth, when the memorable battle
of Austerlitz was fought.
Till midday on the nineteenth, the activity- the eager talk,
running to and fro, and dispatching of adjutants- was confined
to the Emperor's headquarters. But on the afternoon of that day,
this activity reached Kutiizov's headquarters and the staffs of
the commanders of columns. By evening, the adjutants had spread
it to all ends and parts of the army, and in the night from the
nineteenth to the twentieth, the whole eighty thousand allied
troops rose from their bivouacs to the hum of voices, and the
army swayed and started in one enormous mass six miles long.
The concentrated activity which had begun at the Emperor's
headquarters in the morning and had started the whole movement
that followed was like the first movement of the main wheel of
a large tower clock. One wheel slowly moved, another was set in
motion, and a third, and wheels began to revolve faster and faster,
levers and cogwheels to work, chimes to play, figures to pop out,
and the hands to advance with regular motion as a result of all
that activity.
Just as in the mechanism of a clock, so in the mechanism of
the military machine, an impulse once given leads to the final
result; and just as indifferently quiescent till the moment when
motion is transmitted to them are the parts of the mechanism which
the impulse has not yet reached. Wheels creak on their axles as
the cogs engage one another and the revolving pulleys whirr with
the rapidity of their movement, but a neighboring wheel is as
quiet and motionless as though it were prepared to remain so for
a hundred years; but the moment comes when the lever catches it
and obeying the impulse that wheel begins to creak and joins in
the common motion the result and aim of which are beyond its ken.
Just as in a clock, the result of the complicated motion of
innumerable wheels and pulleys is merely a slow and regular movement
of the hands which show the time, so the result of all the complicated
human activities of 160,000 Russians and French- all their passions,
desires, remorse, humiliations, sufferings, outbursts of pride,
fear, and enthusiasm- was only the loss of the battle of Austerlitz,
the so-called battle of the three Emperors- that is to say, a
slow movement of the hand on the dial of human history.
Prince Andrew was on duty that day and in constant attendance
on the commander in chief.
At six in the evening, Kutuzov went to the Emperor's headquarters
and after staying but a short time with the Tsar went to see the
grand marshal of the court, Count Tolstoy.
Bolkonski took the opportunity to go in to get some details
of the coming action from Dolgorukov. He felt that Kutuzov was
upset and dissatisfied about something and that at headquarters
they were dissatisfied with him, and also that at the Emperor's
headquarters everyone adopted toward him the tone of men who know
something others do not know: he therefore wished to speak to
Dolgorukov.
"Well, how d'you do, my dear fellow?" said Dolgorukov,
who was sitting at tea with Bilibin. "The fete is for tomorrow.
How is your old fellow? Out of sorts?"
"I won't say he is out of sorts, but I fancy he would
like to be heard."
"But they heard him at the council of war and will hear
him when he talks sense, but to temporize and wait for something
now when Bonaparte fears nothing so much as a general battle is
impossible."
"Yes, you have seen him?" said Prince Andrew. "Well,
what is Bonaparte like? How did he impress you?"
"Yes, I saw him, and am convinced that he fears nothing
so much as a general engagement," repeated Dolgorukov, evidently
prizing this general conclusion which he had arrived at from his
interview with Napoleon. "If he weren't afraid of a battle
why did he ask for that interview? Why negotiate, and above all
why retreat, when to retreat is so contrary to his method of conducting
war? Believe me, he is afraid, afraid of a general battle. His
hour has come! Mark my words!"
"But tell me, what is he like, eh?" said Prince
Andrew again.
"He is a man in a gray overcoat, very anxious that I
should call him 'Your Majesty,' but who, to his chagrin, got no
title from me! That's the sort of man he is, and nothing more,"
replied Dolgorukov, looking round at Bilibin with a smile.
"Despite my great respect for old Kutuzov," he continued,
"we should be a nice set of fellows if we were to wait about
and so give him a chance to escape, or to trick us, now that we
certainly have him in our hands! No, we mustn't forget Suvorov
and his rule- not to put yourself in a position to be attacked,
but yourself to attack. Believe me in war the energy of young
men often shows the way better than all the experience of old
Cunctators."
"But in what position are we going to attack him? I have
been at the outposts today and it is impossible to say where his
chief forces are situated," said Prince Andrew.
He wished to explain to Dolgorukov a plan of attack he had
himself formed.
"Oh, that is all the same," Dolgorukov said quickly,
and getting up he spread a map on the table. "All eventualities
have been foreseen. If he is standing before Brunn..."
And Prince Dolgorukov rapidly but indistinctly explained Weyrother's
plan of a flanking movement.
Prince Andrew began to reply and to state his own plan, which
might have been as good as Weyrother's, but for the disadvantage
that Weyrother's had already been approved. As soon as Prince
Andrew began to demonstrate the defects of the latter and the
merits of his own plan, Prince Dolgorukov ceased to listen to
him and gazed absent-mindedly not at the map, but at Prince Andrew's
face.
"There will be a council of war at Kutuzov's tonight,
though; you can say all this there," remarked Dolgorukov.
"I will do so," said Prince Andrew, moving away
from the map.
"Whatever are you bothering about, gentlemen?" said
Bilibin, who, till then, had listened with an amused smile to
their conversation and now was evidently ready with a joke. "Whether
tomorrow brings victory or defeat, the glory of our Russian arms
is secure. Except your Kutuzov, there is not a single Russian
in command of a column! The commanders are: Herr General Wimpfen,
le Comte de Langeron, le Prince de Lichtenstein, le Prince, de
Hohenlohe, and finally Prishprish, and so on like all those Polish
names."
"Be quiet, backbiter!" said Dolgorukov. "It
is not true; there are now two Russians, Miloradovich, and Dokhturov,
and there would be a third, Count Arakcheev, if his nerves were
not too weak."
"However, I think General Kutuzov has come out,"
said Prince Andrew. "I wish you good luck and success, gentlemen!"
he added and went out after shaking hands with Dolgorukov and
Bilibin.
On the way home, Prince Andrew could not refrain from asking
Kutuzov, who was sitting silently beside him, what he thought
of tomorrow's battle.
Kutuzov looked sternly at his adjutant and, after a pause,
replied: "I think the battle will be lost, and so I told
Count Tolstoy and asked him to tell the Emperor. What do you think
he replied? 'But, my dear general, I am engaged with rice and
cutlets, look after military matters yourself!' Yes... That was
the answer I got!"
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