Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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at all resemble the activity we imagine to ourselves
when we sit at ease in our studies examining some campaign on the map,
with a certain number of troops on this and that side in a certain
known locality, and begin our plans from some given moment. A
commander in chief is never dealing with the beginning of any
event--the position from which we always contemplate it. The commander
in chief is always in the midst of a series of shifting events and so
he never can at any moment consider the whole import of an event that
is occurring. Moment by moment the event is imperceptibly shaping
itself, and at every moment of this continuous, uninterrupted shaping
of events the commander in chief is in the midst of a most complex
play of intrigues, worries, contingencies, authorities, projects,
counsels, threats, and deceptions and is continually obliged to reply
to innumerable questions addressed to him, which constantly conflict
with one another.
Learned military authorities quite seriously tell us that Kutuzov
should have moved his army to the Kaluga road long before reaching
Fili, and that somebody actually submitted such a proposal to him. But
a commander in chief, especially at a difficult moment, has always
before him not one proposal but dozens simultaneously. And all these
proposals, based on strategics and tactics, contradict each other.
A commander in chiefs business, it would seem, is simply to
choose one of these projects. But even that he cannot do. Events and
time do not wait. For instance, on the twenty-eighth it is suggested
to him to cross to the Kaluga road, but just then an adjutant
gallops up from Miloradovich asking whether he is to engage the French
or retire. An order must be given him at once, that instant. And the
order to retreat carries us past the turn to the Kaluga road. And
after the adjutant comes the commissary general asking where the
stores are to be taken, and the chief of the hospitals asks where
the wounded are to go, and a courier from Petersburg brings a letter
from the sovereign which does not admit of the possibility of
abandoning Moscow, and the commander in chiefs rival, the man who
is undermining him (and there are always not merely one but several
such), presents a new project diametrically opposed to that of turning
to the Kaluga road, and the commander in chief himself needs sleep and
refreshment to maintain his energy and a respectable general who has
been overlooked in the distribution of rewards comes to complain,
and the inhabitants of the district pray to be defended, and an
officer sent to inspect the locality comes in and gives a report quite
contrary to what was said by the officer previously sent; and a spy, a
prisoner, and a general who has been on reconnaissance, all describe
the position of the enemys army differently. People accustomed to
misunderstand or to forget these inevitable conditions of a
commander in chiefs actions describe to us, for instance, the
position of the army at Fili and assume that the commander in chief
could, on the first of September, quite freely decide whether to
abandon Moscow or defend it; whereas, with the Russian army less
than four miles from Moscow, no such question existed. When had that
question been settled? At Drissa and at Smolensk and most palpably
of all on the twenty-fourth of August at Shevardino and on the
twenty-sixth at Borodino, and each day and hour and minute of the
retreat from Borodino to Fili.
CHAPTER III
When Ermolov, having been sent by Kutuzov to inspect the position,
told the field marshal that it was impossible to fight there before
Moscow and that they must retreat, Kutuzov looked at him in silence.
"Give me your hand," said he and, turning it over so as to feel
the pulse, added: "You are not well, my dear fellow. Think what you
are saying!"
Kutuzov could not yet admit the possibility of retreating beyond
Moscow without a battle.
On the Poklonny Hill, four miles from the Dorogomilov gate of
Moscow, Kutuzov got out of his carriage and sat down on a bench by the
roadside. A great crowd of generals gathered round him, and Count
Rostopchin, who had come out from Moscow, joined them. This
brilliant company separated into several groups who all discussed
the advantages and disadvantages of the position, the state of the
army, the plans suggested, the situation of Moscow, and military
questions generally. Though they had not been summoned for the
purpose, and though it was not so called, they
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