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The chief action of the battle of Borodino was fought within
the seven thousand feet between Borodino and Bagration's fleches.
Beyond that space there was, on the one side, a demonstration
made by the Russians with Uvarov's cavalry at midday, and on the
other side, beyond Utitsa, Poniatowski's collision with Tuchkov;
but these two were detached and feeble actions in comparison with
what took place in the center of the battlefield. On the field
between Borodino and the fleches, beside the wood, the chief action
of the day took place on an open space visible from both sides
and was fought in the simplest and most artless way.
The battle began on both sides with a cannonade from several
hundred guns.
Then when the whole field was covered with smoke, two divisions,
Campan's and Dessaix's, advanced from the French right, while
Murat's troops advanced on Borodino from their left.
From the Shevardino Redoubt where Napoleon was standing the
fleches were two thirds of a mile away, and it was more than a
mile as the crow flies to Borodino, so that Napoleon could not
see what was happening there, especially as the smoke mingling
with the mist hid the whole locality. The soldiers of Dessaix's
division advancing against the fleches could only be seen till
they had entered the hollow that lay between them and the fleches.
As soon as they had descended into that hollow, the smoke of the
guns and musketry on the fleches grew so dense that it covered
the whole approach on that side of it. Through the smoke glimpses
could be caught of something black- probably men- and at times
the glint of bayonets. But whether they 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 straight
into Napoleon's face as, shading his eyes with his hand, he looked
at the fleches. The smoke spread out before them, and at times
it looked as if the smoke were moving, at times as if the troops
moved. Sometimes shouts were heard through the firing, but it
was impossible to tell what was being done there.
Napoleon, standing on the knoll, looked through a field glass,
and in its small circlet saw smoke and men, sometimes his own
and sometimes Russians, but when he looked again with the naked
eye, he could 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 gazed
intently at the battlefield.
But not only was it impossible to make out what was happening
from where he was standing down below, or from the knoll above
on which some of his generals had taken their stand, but even
from the fleches themselves- in which by this time there were
now Russian and now French soldiers, alternately or together,
dead, wounded, alive, frightened, or maddened- even at those fleches
themselves it was impossible to make out what was taking place.
There for several hours amid incessant cannon and musketry fire,
now Russians were seen alone, now Frenchmen alone, now infantry,
and now cavalry: they appeared, fired, fell, collided, not knowing
what to do with one another, screamed, and ran back again.
From the battlefield adjutants he had sent out, and orderlies
from his marshals, kept galloping up to Napoleon with reports
of the progress of the action, but all these reports were false,
both because it was impossible in the heat of battle to say what
was happening at any given moment and because many of the adjutants
did not go to the actual place of conflict but reported what they
had heard from others; and also because while an adjutant was
riding more than a mile to Napoleon circumstances changed and
the news he brought was already becoming false. Thus an adjutant
galloped up from Murat with tidings that Borodino had been occupied
and the bridge over the Kolocha was in the hands of the French.
The adjutant asked whether Napoleon wished the troops to cross
it? Napoleon gave orders that the troops should form 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 bridge
had been retaken by the Russians and burned, in the very skirmish
at which Pierre had been present at the beginning of the battle.
An adjutant galloped up from the fleches with a pale and frightened
face and reported to Napoleon that their attack had been repulsed,
Campan wounded, and Davout killed; yet at the very time the adjutant
had been told that the French had been repulsed, the fleches had
in fact been recaptured by other French troops, and Davout was
alive and only slightly bruised. On the basis of these necessarily
untrustworthy reports Napoleon gave his orders, which had either
been executed before he gave them or could not be and were not
executed.
The marshals and generals, who were nearer to the field of
battle but, like Napoleon, did not take part in the actual fighting
and only occasionally went within musket range, made their own
arrangements without asking Napoleon and issued orders where and
in what direction to fire and where cavalry should gallop and
infantry should run. But even their orders, like Napoleon's, were
seldom carried out, and then but partially. For the most part
things happened contrary to their orders. Soldiers ordered to
advance ran back on meeting grapeshot; soldiers ordered to remain
where they were, suddenly, seeing Russians unexpectedly before
them, sometimes rushed back and sometimes forward, and the cavalry
dashed without orders in pursuit of the flying Russians. In this
way two cavalry regiments galloped through the Semenovsk hollow
and as soon as they reached the top of the incline turned round
and galloped full speed back again. The infantry moved in the
same way, sometimes running to quite other places than those they
were ordered to go to. All orders as to where and when to move
the guns, when to send infantry to shoot or horsemen to ride down
the Russian infantry- all such orders were 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 or for acting on their
own initiative, for in battle what is at stake is what is dearest
to man- his own life- and it sometimes seems that safety lies
in running back, sometimes in running forward; and these men who
were right in the heat of the battle acted according to the mood
of the moment. In reality, however, all these movements forward
and backward did not improve or alter the position of the troops.
All their rushing and galloping at one another did little harm,
the harm of disablement and death was caused by the balls and
bullets that flew over the fields on which these men were floundering
about. As soon as they left the place where the balls and bullets
were flying about, their superiors, located in the background,
re-formed them and brought them under discipline and under the
influence of that discipline led them back to the zone of fire,
where under the influence of fear of death they lost their discipline
and rushed about according to the chance promptings of the throng.
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