Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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the right flank
near the village of Novoe, and the center at Borodino at the
confluence of the rivers Kolocha and Voyna.
To anyone who looks at the field of Borodino without thinking of how
the battle was actually fought, this position, protected by the
river Kolocha, presents itself as obvious for an army whose object was
to prevent an enemy from advancing along the Smolensk road to Moscow.
Napoleon, riding to Valuevo on the twenty-fourth, did not see (as
the history books say he did) the position of the Russians from Utitsa
to Borodino (he could not have seen that position because it did not
exist), nor did he see an advanced post of the Russian army, but while
pursuing the Russian rearguard he came upon the left flank of the
Russian position--at the Shevardino Redoubt--and unexpectedly for
the Russians moved his army across the Kolocha. And the Russians,
not having time to begin a general engagement, withdrew their left
wing from the position they had intended to occupy and took up a new
position which had not been foreseen and was not fortified. By
crossing to the other side of the Kolocha to the left of the highroad,
Napoleon shifted the whole forthcoming battle from right to left
(looking from the Russian side) and transferred it to the plain
between Utitsa, Semenovsk, and Borodino--a plain no more
advantageous as a position than any other plain in Russia--and there
the whole battle of the twenty-sixth of August took place.
Had Napoleon not ridden out on the evening of the twenty-fourth to the
Kolocha, and had he not then ordered an immediate attack on the
redoubt but had begun the attack next morning, no one would have
doubted that the Shevardino Redoubt was the left flank of our
position, and the battle would have taken place where we expected it.
In that case we should probably have defended the Shevardino
Redoubt--our left flank--still more obstinately. We should have
attacked Napoleon in the center or on the right, and the engagement
would have taken place on the twenty-fifth, in the position we
intended and had fortified. But as the attack on our left flank took
place in the evening after the retreat of our rear guard (that is,
immediately after the fight at Gridneva), and as the Russian
commanders did not wish, or were not in time, to begin a general
engagement then on the evening of the twenty-fourth, the first and
chief action of the battle of Borodino was already lost on the
twenty-fourth, and obviously led to the loss of the one fought on the
twenty-sixth.
After the loss of the Shevardino Redoubt, we found ourselves on
the morning of the twenty-fifth without a position for our left flank,
and were forced to bend it back and hastily entrench it where it
chanced to be.
Not only was the Russian army on the twenty-sixth defended by
weak, unfinished entrenchments, but the disadvantage of that
position was increased by the fact that the Russian commanders--not
having fully realized what had happened, namely the loss of our
position on the left flank and the shifting of the whole field of
the forthcoming battle from right to left--maintained their extended
position from the village of Novoe to Utitsa, and consequently had
to move their forces from right to left during the battle. So it
happened that throughout the whole battle the Russians opposed the
entire French army launched against our left flank with but half as
many men. (Poniatowskis action against Utitsa, and Uvarovs on the
right flank against the French, were actions distinct from the main
course of the battle.) So the battle of Borodino did not take place at
all as (in an effort to conceal our commanders mistakes even at the
cost of diminishing the glory due to the Russian army and people) it
has been described. The battle of Borodino was not fought on a
chosen and entrenched position with forces only slightly weaker than
those of the enemy, but, as a result of the loss of the Shevardino
Redoubt, the Russians fought the battle of Borodino on an open and
almost unentrenched position, with forces only half as numerous as the
French; that is to say, under conditions in which it was not merely
unthinkable to fight for ten hours and secure an indecisive result,
but unthinkable to keep an army even from complete disintegration
and flight.
CHAPTER XX
On the morning of the twenty-fifth Pierre was leaving Mozhaysk. At
the descent of the high steep hill, down which a winding road led
out of the town past
War And Peace page 453 War And Peace page 455
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