Bab Bab 301 · 第301章

The so-called partisan war began with the entry of the French into

Smolénsk.

Before partisan warfare had been officially recognized by the

government, thousands of enemy stragglers, marauders, and foragers had

been destroyed by the Cossacks and the peasants, who killed them off

as instinctively as dogs worry a stray mad dog to death. Denís Davýdov,

with his Russian instinct, was the first to recognize the value of

this terrible cudgel which regardless of the rules of military science

destroyed the French, and to him belongs the credit for taking the first

step toward regularizing this method of warfare.

On August 24 Davýdov’s first partisan detachment was formed and then

others were recognized. The further the campaign progressed the more

numerous these detachments became.

The irregulars destroyed the great army piecemeal. They gathered the

fallen leaves that dropped of themselves from that withered tree—the

French army—and sometimes shook that tree itself. By October, when

the French were fleeing toward Smolénsk, there were hundreds of such

companies, of various sizes and characters. There were some that adopted

all the army methods and had infantry, artillery, staffs, and the

comforts of life. Others consisted solely of Cossack cavalry. There were

also small scratch groups of foot and horse, and groups of peasants and

landowners that remained unknown. A sacristan commanded one party which

captured several hundred prisoners in the course of a month; and there

was Vasílisa, the wife of a village elder, who slew hundreds of the

French.

The partisan warfare flamed up most fiercely in the latter days of

October. Its first period had passed: when the partisans themselves,

amazed at their own boldness, feared every minute to be surrounded

and captured by the French, and hid in the forests without unsaddling,

hardly daring to dismount and always expecting to be pursued. By the end

of October this kind of warfare had taken definite shape: it had become

clear to all what could be ventured against the French and what could

not. Now only the commanders of detachments with staffs, and moving

according to rules at a distance from the French, still regarded many

things as impossible. The small bands that had started their activities

long before and had already observed the French closely considered

things possible which the commanders of the big detachments did not dare

to contemplate. The Cossacks and peasants who crept in among the French

now considered everything possible.

On October 22, Denísov (who was one of the irregulars) was with his

group at the height of the guerrilla enthusiasm. Since early morning he

and his party had been on the move. All day long he had been watching

from the forest that skirted the highroad a large French convoy of

cavalry baggage and Russian prisoners separated from the rest of the

army, which—as was learned from spies and prisoners—was moving under a

strong escort to Smolénsk. Besides Denísov and Dólokhov (who also led

a small party and moved in Denísov’s vicinity), the commanders of some

large divisions with staffs also knew of this convoy and, as Denísov

expressed it, were sharpening their teeth for it. Two of the commanders

of large parties—one a Pole and the other a German—sent invitations

to Denísov almost simultaneously, requesting him to join up with their

divisions to attack the convoy.

“No, bwother, I have gwown mustaches myself,” said Denísov on reading

these documents, and he wrote to the German that, despite his heartfelt

desire to serve under so valiant and renowned a general, he had to forgo

that pleasure because he was already under the command of the Polish

general. To the Polish general he replied to the same effect, informing

him that he was already under the command of the German.

Having arranged matters thus, Denísov and Dólokhov intended, without

reporting matters to the higher command, to attack and seize that

convoy with their own small forces. On October 22 it was moving from

the village of Mikúlino to that of Shámshevo. To the left of the road

between Mikúlino and Shámshevo there were large forests, extending in

some places up to the road itself though in others a mile or more back

from it. Through these forests Denísov and his party rode all day,

sometimes keeping well back in them and sometimes coming to the very

edge, but never losing sight of the moving French. That morning,

Cossacks of Denísov’s party had seized and carried off into the forest

two wagons loaded with cavalry saddles, which had stuck in the mud not

far from Mikúlino where the forest ran close to the road. Since then,

and until evening, the party had watched the movements of the French

without attacking. It was necessary to let the French reach Shámshevo

quietly without alarming them and then, after joining Dólokhov who was

to come that evening to a consultation at a watchman’s hut in the forest

less than a mile from Shámshevo, to surprise the French at dawn, falling

like an avalanche on their heads from two sides, and rout and capture

them all at one blow.

In their rear, more than a mile from Mikúlino where the forest came

right up to the road, six Cossacks were posted to report if any fresh

columns of French should show themselves.

Beyond Shámshevo, Dólokhov was to observe the road in the same way, to

find out at what distance there were other French troops. They reckoned

that the convoy had fifteen hundred men. Denísov had two hundred, and

Dólokhov might have as many more, but the disparity of numbers did not

deter Denísov. All that he now wanted to know was what troops these were

and to learn that he had to capture a “tongue”—that is, a man from

the enemy column. That morning’s attack on the wagons had been made so

hastily that the Frenchmen with the wagons had all been killed; only a

little drummer boy had been taken alive, and as he was a straggler he

could tell them nothing definite about the troops in that column.

Denísov considered it dangerous to make a second attack for fear of

putting the whole column on the alert, so he sent Tíkhon Shcherbáty, a

peasant of his party, to Shámshevo to try and seize at least one of the

French quartermasters who had been sent on in advance.