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The Battle of Borodino, with the occupation of Moscow that
followed it and the flight of the French without further conflicts,
is one of the most instructive phenomena in history.
All historians agree that the external activity of states
and nations in their conflicts with one another is expressed in
wars, and that as a direct result of greater or less success in
war the political strength of states and nations increases or
decreases.
Strange as may be the historical account of how some king
or emperor, having quarreled with another, collects an army, fights
his enemy's army, gains a victory by killing three, five, or ten
thousand men, and subjugates a kingdom and an entire nation of
several millions, all the facts of history (as far as we know
it) confirm the truth of the statement that the greater or lesser
success of one army against another is the cause, or at least
an essential indication, of an increase or decrease in the strength
of the nation- even though it is unintelligible why the defeat
of an army- a hundredth part of a nation- should oblige that whole
nation to submit. An army gains a victory, and at once the rights
of the conquering nation have increased to the detriment of the
defeated. An army has suffered defeat, and at once a people loses
its rights in proportion to the severity of the reverse, and if
its army suffers a complete defeat the nation is quite subjugated.
So according to history it has been found from the most ancient
times, and so it is to our own day. All Napoleon's wars serve
to confirm this rule. In proportion to the defeat of the Austrian
army Austria loses its rights, and the rights and the strength
of France increase. The victories of the French at Jena and Auerstadt
destroy the independent existence of Prussia.
But then, in 1812, the French gain a victory near Moscow.
Moscow is taken and after that, with no further battles, it is
not Russia that ceases to exist, but the French army of six hundred
thousand, and then Napoleonic France itself. To strain the facts
to fit the rules of history: to say that the field of battle at
Borodino remained in the hands of the Russians, or that after
Moscow there were other battles that destroyed Napoleon's army,
is impossible.
After the French victory at Borodino there was no general
engagement nor 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 of China, we might say that it was not an historic
phenomenon (which is the historians' usual expedient when anything
does not fit their standards); if the matter concerned some brief
conflict in which only a small number of troops took part, we
might treat it as an exception; but this event occurred before
our fathers' eyes, and for them it was a question of the life
or death of their fatherland, and it happened in the greatest
of all known wars.
The period of the campaign of 1812 from the battle of Borodino
to the expulsion of the French proved that the winning of a battle
does not produce a conquest and is not even an invariable indication
of conquest; it proved that the force which decides the fate of
peoples lies not in the conquerors, nor even in armies and battles,
but in something else.
The French historians, describing the condition of the French
army before it left Moscow, affirm that all was in order in the
Grand Army, except the cavalry, the artillery, and the transport-
there was no forage for the horses or the cattle. That was a misfortune
no one could remedy, for the peasants of the district burned their
hay rather than let the French have it.
The victory gained did not bring the usual results because
the peasants Karp and Vlas (who after the French had evacuated
Moscow drove in their carts to pillage the town, and in general
personally failed to manifest any heroic feelings), and the whole
innumerable multitude of such peasants, did not bring their hay
to Moscow for the high price offered them, but burned it instead.
Let us imagine two men who have come out to fight a duel with
rapiers according to all the rules of the art of fencing. The
fencing has gone on for some time; suddenly one of the combatants,
feeling himself wounded and understanding that the matter is no
joke but concerns his life, throws down his rapier, and seizing
the first cudgel that comes to hand begins to brandish it. Then
let us imagine that the combatant who so sensibly employed the
best and simplest means to attain his end was at the same time
influenced by traditions of chivalry and, desiring to conceal
the facts of the case, insisted that he had gained his victory
with the rapier according to all the rules of art. One can imagine
what confusion and obscurity would result from such an account
of the duel.
The fencer who demanded a contest according to the rules of
fencing was the French army; his opponent who threw away the rapier
and snatched up the cudgel was the Russian people; those who try
to explain the matter according to the rules of fencing are the
historians who have described the event.
After the burning of Smolensk a war began which did not follow
any previous traditions of war. The burning of towns and villages,
the retreats after battles, the blow dealt at Borodino and the
renewed retreat, the burning of Moscow, the capture of marauders,
the seizure of transports, and the guerrilla war were all departures
from the rules.
Napoleon felt this, and from the time he took up the correct
fencing attitude in Moscow and instead of his opponent's rapier
saw a cudgel raised above his head, he did not cease to complain
to Kutuzov and to the Emperor Alexander that the war was being
carried on contrary to all the rules- as if there were any rules
for killing people. In spite of the complaints of the French as
to the nonobservance of the rules, in spite of the fact that to
some highly placed Russians it seemed rather disgraceful to fight
with a cudgel and they wanted to assume a pose en quarte or en
tierce according to all the rules, and to make an adroit thrust
en prime, and so on- the cudgel of the people's war was lifted
with all its menacing and majestic strength, and without consulting
anyone's tastes or rules and regardless of anything else, it rose
and fell with stupid simplicity, but consistently, and belabored
the French till the whole invasion had perished.
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 hilt of their rapier gracefully and politely, hand it to their
magnanimous conqueror, but at the moment of trial, without asking
what rules others have adopted in similar cases, simply and easily
pick up the first cudgel that comes to hand and strike with it
till the feeling of resentment and revenge in their soul yields
to a feeling of contempt and compassion.
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