Chapter Chapter 280 · 第280章

Man’s mind cannot grasp the causes of events in their completeness, but

the desire to find those causes is implanted in man’s soul. And without

considering the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions any one

of which taken separately may seem to be the cause, he snatches at the

first approximation to a cause that seems to him intelligible and says:

“This is the cause!” In historical events (where the actions of men are

the subject of observation) the first and most primitive approximation

to present itself was the will of the gods and, after that, the will of

those who stood in the most prominent position—the heroes of history.

But we need only penetrate to the essence of any historic event—which

lies in the activity of the general mass of men who take part in it—to

be convinced that the will of the historic hero does not control the

actions of the mass but is itself continually controlled. It may seem

to be a matter of indifference whether we understand the meaning of

historical events this way or that; yet there is the same difference

between a man who says that the people of the West moved on the East

because Napoleon wished it and a man who says that this happened because

it had to happen, as there is between those who declared that the

earth was stationary and that the planets moved round it and those who

admitted that they did not know what upheld the earth, but knew there

were laws directing its movement and that of the other planets. There

is, and can be, no cause of an historical event except the one cause of

all causes. But there are laws directing events, and some of these laws

are known to us while we are conscious of others we cannot comprehend.

The discovery of these laws is only possible when we have quite

abandoned the attempt to find the cause in the will of some one man,

just as the discovery of the laws of the motion of the planets was

possible only when men abandoned the conception of the fixity of the

earth.

The historians consider that, next to the battle of Borodinó and the

occupation of Moscow by the enemy and its destruction by fire, the most

important episode of the war of 1812 was the movement of the Russian

army from the Ryazána to the Kalúga road and to the Tarútino camp—the

so-called flank march across the Krásnaya Pakhrá River. They ascribe the

glory of that achievement of genius to different men and dispute as to

whom the honor is due. Even foreign historians, including the French,

acknowledge the genius of the Russian commanders when they speak of

that flank march. But it is hard to understand why military writers,

and following them others, consider this flank march to be the profound

conception of some one man who saved Russia and destroyed Napoleon. In

the first place it is hard to understand where the profundity and genius

of this movement lay, for not much mental effort was needed to see that

the best position for an army when it is not being attacked is where

there are most provisions; and even a dull boy of thirteen could have

guessed that the best position for an army after its retreat from Moscow

in 1812 was on the Kalúga road. So it is impossible to understand by

what reasoning the historians reach the conclusion that this maneuver

was a profound one. And it is even more difficult to understand just why

they think that this maneuver was calculated to save Russia and destroy

the French; for this flank march, had it been preceded, accompanied,

or followed by other circumstances, might have proved ruinous to the

Russians and salutary for the French. If the position of the Russian

army really began to improve from the time of that march, it does not at

all follow that the march was the cause of it.

That flank march might not only have failed to give any advantage to

the Russian army, but might in other circumstances have led to its

destruction. What would have happened had Moscow not burned down? If

Murat had not lost sight of the Russians? If Napoleon had not remained

inactive? If the Russian army at Krásnaya Pakhrá had given battle as

Bennigsen and Barclay advised? What would have happened had the French

attacked the Russians while they were marching beyond the Pakhrá? What

would have happened if on approaching Tarútino, Napoleon had attacked

the Russians with but a tenth of the energy he had shown when he

attacked them at Smolénsk? What would have happened had the French moved

on Petersburg?... In any of these eventualities the flank march that

brought salvation might have proved disastrous.

The third and most incomprehensible thing is that people studying

history deliberately avoid seeing that this flank march cannot be

attributed to any one man, that no one ever foresaw it, and that in

reality, like the retreat from Filí, it did not suggest itself to anyone

in its entirety, but resulted—moment by moment, step by step, event by

event—from an endless number of most diverse circumstances and was only

seen in its entirety when it had been accomplished and belonged to the

past.

At the council at Filí the prevailing thought in the minds of the

Russian commanders was the one naturally suggesting itself, namely, a

direct retreat by the Nízhni road. In proof of this there is the fact

that the majority of the council voted for such a retreat, and above

all there is the well-known conversation after the council, between the

commander in chief and Lanskóy, who was in charge of the commissariat

department. Lanskóy informed the commander in chief that the army

supplies were for the most part stored along the Oká in the Túla and

Ryazán provinces, and that if they retreated on Nízhni the army would

be separated from its supplies by the broad river Oká, which cannot be

crossed early in winter. This was the first indication of the necessity

of deviating from what had previously seemed the most natural course—a

direct retreat on Nízhni-Nóvgorod. The army turned more to the south,

along the Ryazán road and nearer to its supplies. Subsequently the

inactivity of the French (who even lost sight of the Russian army),

concern for the safety of the arsenal at Túla, and especially the

advantages of drawing nearer to its supplies caused the army to turn

still further south to the Túla road. Having crossed over, by a forced

march, to the Túla road beyond the Pakhrá, the Russian commanders

intended to remain at Podólsk and had no thought of the Tarútino

position; but innumerable circumstances and the reappearance of French

troops who had for a time lost touch with the Russians, and projects

of giving battle, and above all the abundance of provisions in Kalúga

province, obliged our army to turn still more to the south and to cross

from the Túla to the Kalúga road and go to Tarútino, which was between

the roads along which those supplies lay. Just as it is impossible to

say when it was decided to abandon Moscow, so it is impossible to say

precisely when, or by whom, it was decided to move to Tarútino. Only

when the army had got there, as the result of innumerable and varying

forces, did people begin to assure themselves that they had desired this

movement and long ago foreseen its result.