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In 1812 and 1813 Kutuzov was openly accused of blundering.
The Emperor was dissatisfied with him. And in a history recently
written by order of the Highest Authorities it is said that Kutuzov
was a cunning court liar, frightened of the name of Napoleon,
and that by his blunders at Krasnoe and the Berezina he deprived
the Russian army of the glory of complete victory over the French.*
*History of the year 1812. The character of Kutuzov and reflections
on the unsatisfactory results of the battles at Krasnoe, by Bogdanovich.
Such is the fate not of great men (grands hommes) whom the
Russian mind does not acknowledge, but of those rare and always
solitary individuals who, discerning the will of Providence, submit
their personal will to it. The hatred and contempt of the crowd
punish such men for discerning the higher laws.
For Russian historians, strange and terrible to say, Napoleon-
that most insignificant tool of history who never anywhere, even
in exile, showed human dignity- Napoleon is the object of adulation
and enthusiasm; he is grand. But Kutuzov- the man who from the
beginning to the end of his activity in 1812, never once swerving
by word or deed from Borodino to Vilna, presented an example exceptional
in history of self-sacrifice and a present conciousness of the
future importance of what was happening- Kutuzov seems to them
something indefinite and pitiful, and when speaking of him and
of the year 1812 they always seem a little ashamed.
And yet it is difficult to imagine an historical character
whose activity was so unswervingly directed to a single aim; and
it would be difficult to imagine any aim more worthy or more consonant
with the will of the whole people. Still more difficult would
it be to find an instance in history of the aim of an historical
personage being so completely accomplished as that to which all
Kutuzov's efforts were directed in 1812.
Kutuzov never talked of "forty centuries looking down
from the Pyramids," of the sacrifices he offered for the
fatherland, or of what he intended to accomplish or had accomplished;
in general he said nothing about himself, adopted no prose, always
appeared to be the simplest and most ordinary of men, and said
the simplest and most ordinary things. He wrote letters to his
daughters and to Madame de Stael, read novels, liked the society
of pretty women, jested with generals, officers, and soldiers,
and never contradicted those who tried to prove anything to him.
When Count Rostopchin at the Yauza bridge galloped up to Kutuzov
with personal reproaches for having caused the destruction of
Moscow, and said: "How was it you promised not to abandon
Moscow without a battle?" Kutuzov replied: "And I shall
not abandon Moscow without a battle," though Moscow was then
already abandoned. When Arakcheev, coming to him from the Emperor,
said that Ermolov ought to be appointed chief of the artillery,
Kutuzov replied: "Yes, I was just saying so myself,"
though a moment before he had said quite the contrary. What did
it matter to him- who then alone amid a senseless crowd understood
the whole tremendous significance of what was happening- what
did it matter to him whether Rostopchin attributed the calamities
of Moscow to him or to himself? Still less could it matter to
him who was appointed chief of the artillery.
Not merely in these cases but continually did that old man-
who by experience of life had reached the conviction that thoughts
and the words serving as their expression are not what move people-
use quite meaningless words that happened to enter his head.
But that man, so heedless of his words, did not once during
the whole time of his activity utter one word inconsistent with
the single aim toward which he moved throughout the whole war.
Obviously in spite of himself, in very diverse circumstances,
he repeatedly expressed his real thoughts with the bitter conviction
that he would not be understood. Beginning with the battle of
Borodino, from which time his disagreement with those about him
began, he alone said that the battle of Borodino was a victory,
and repeated this both verbally and in his dispatches and reports
up to the time of his death. He alone said that the loss of Moscow
is not the loss of Russia. In reply to Lauriston's proposal of
peace, he said: There can be no peace, for such is the people's
will. He alone during the retreat of the French said that all
our maneuvers are useless, everything is being accomplished of
itself better than we could desire; that the enemy must be offered
"a golden bridge"; that neither the Tarutino, the Vyazma,
nor the Krasnoe battles were necessary; that we must keep some
force to reach the frontier with, and that he would not sacrifice
a single Russian for ten Frenchmen.
And this courtier, as he is described to us, who lies to Arakcheev
to please the Emperor, he alone- incurring thereby the Emperor's
displeasure- said in Vilna that to carry the war beyond the frontier
is useless and harmful.
Nor do words alone prove that only he understood the meaning
of the events. His actions- without the smallest deviation- were
all directed to one and the same threefold end: (1) to brace all
his strength for conflict with the French, (2) to defeat them,
and (3) to drive them out of Russia, minimizing as far as possible
the sufferings of our people and of our army.
This procrastinator Kutuzov, whose motto was "Patience
and Time," this enemy of decisive action, gave battle at
Borodino, investing the preparations for it with unparalleled
solemnity. This Kutuzov who before the battle of Austerlitz began
said that it would be lost, he alone, in contradiction to everyone
else, declared till his death that Borodino was a victory, despite
the assurance of generals that the battle was lost and despite
the fact that for an army to have to retire after winning a battle
was unprecedented. He alone during the whole retreat insisted
that battles, which were useless then, should not be fought, and
that a new war should not be begun nor the frontiers of Russia
crossed.
It is easy now to understand the significance of these events-
if only we abstain from attributing to the activity of the mass
aims that existed only in the heads of a dozen individuals- for
the events and results now lie before us.
But how did that old man, alone, in opposition to the general
opinion, so truly discern the importance of the people's view
of the events that in all his activity he was never once untrue
to it?
The source of that extraordinary power of penetrating the
meaning of the events then occuring lay in the national feeling
which he possessed in full purity and strength.
Only the recognition of the fact that he possessed this feeling
caused the people in so strange a manner, contrary to the Tsar's
wish, to select him- an old man in disfavor- to be their representative
in the national war. And only that feeling placed him on that
highest human pedestal from which he, the commander in chief,
devoted all his powers not to slaying and destroying men but to
saving and showing pity on them.
That simple, modest, and therefore truly great, figure could
not be cast in the false mold of a European hero- the supposed
ruler of men- that history has invented.
To a lackey no man can be great, for a lackey has his own
conception of greatness.
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