Chương Chương 223 · 第223章

The chief action of the battle of Borodinó was fought within the seven

thousand feet between Borodinó and Bagratión’s flèches. Beyond that

space there was, on the one side, a demonstration made by the Russians

with Uvárov’s cavalry at midday, and on the other side, beyond Utítsa,

Poniatowski’s collision with Túchkov; but these two were detached and

feeble actions in comparison with what took place in the center of the

battlefield. On the field between Borodinó and the flèches, beside the

wood, the chief action of the day took place on an open space visible

from both sides and was fought in the simplest and most artless way.

The battle began on both sides with a cannonade from several hundred

guns.

Then when the whole field was covered with smoke, two divisions,

Campan’s and Dessaix’s, advanced from the French right, while Murat’s

troops advanced on Borodinó from their left.

From the Shevárdino Redoubt where Napoleon was standing the flèches were

two thirds of a mile away, and it was more than a mile as the crow flies

to Borodinó, so that Napoleon could not see what was happening there,

especially as the smoke mingling with the mist hid the whole locality.

The soldiers of Dessaix’s division advancing against the flèches could

only be seen till they had entered the hollow that lay between them and

the flèches. As soon as they had descended into that hollow, the smoke

of the guns and musketry on the flèches grew so dense that it covered

the whole approach on that side of it. Through the smoke glimpses could

be caught of something black—probably men—and at times the glint of

bayonets. But whether they were moving or stationary, whether they were

French or Russian, could not be discovered from the Shevárdino Redoubt.

The sun had risen brightly and its slanting rays struck straight into

Napoleon’s face as, shading his eyes with his hand, he looked at the

flèches. The smoke spread out before them, and at times it looked as if

the smoke were moving, at times as if the troops moved. Sometimes shouts

were heard through the firing, but it was impossible to tell what was

being done there.

Napoleon, standing on the knoll, looked through a field glass, and in

its small circlet saw smoke and men, sometimes his own and sometimes

Russians, but when he looked again with the naked eye, he could not tell

where what he had seen was.

He descended the knoll and began walking up and down before it.

Occasionally he stopped, listened to the firing, and gazed intently at

the battlefield.

But not only was it impossible to make out what was happening from where

he was standing down below, or from the knoll above on which some of his

generals had taken their stand, but even from the flèches themselves—in

which by this time there were now Russian and now French soldiers,

alternately or together, dead, wounded, alive, frightened, or

maddened—even at those flèches themselves it was impossible to make out

what was taking place. There for several hours amid incessant cannon and

musketry fire, now Russians were seen alone, now Frenchmen alone, now

infantry, and now cavalry: they appeared, fired, fell, collided, not

knowing what to do with one another, screamed, and ran back again.

From the battlefield adjutants he had sent out, and orderlies from his

marshals, kept galloping up to Napoleon with reports of the progress

of the action, but all these reports were false, both because it was

impossible in the heat of battle to say what was happening at any given

moment and because many of the adjutants did not go to the actual place

of conflict but reported what they had heard from others; and also

because while an adjutant was riding more than a mile to Napoleon

circumstances changed and the news he brought was already becoming

false. Thus an adjutant galloped up from Murat with tidings that

Borodinó had been occupied and the bridge over the Kolochá was in the

hands of the French. The adjutant asked whether Napoleon wished the

troops to cross it? Napoleon gave orders that the troops should form up

on the farther side and wait. But before that order was given—almost

as soon in fact as the adjutant had left Borodinó—the bridge had been

retaken by the Russians and burned, in the very skirmish at which Pierre

had been present at the beginning of the battle.

An adjutant galloped up from the flèches with a pale and frightened face

and reported to Napoleon that their attack had been repulsed, Campan

wounded, and Davout killed; yet at the very time the adjutant had been

told that the French had been repulsed, the flèches had in fact been

recaptured by other French troops, and Davout was alive and only

slightly bruised. On the basis of these necessarily untrustworthy

reports Napoleon gave his orders, which had either been executed before

he gave them or could not be and were not executed.

The marshals and generals, who were nearer to the field of battle

but, like Napoleon, did not take part in the actual fighting and only

occasionally went within musket range, made their own arrangements

without asking Napoleon and issued orders where and in what direction to

fire and where cavalry should gallop and infantry should run. But even

their orders, like Napoleon’s, were seldom carried out, and then but

partially. For the most part things happened contrary to their orders.

Soldiers ordered to advance ran back on meeting grapeshot; soldiers

ordered to remain where they were, suddenly, seeing Russians

unexpectedly before them, sometimes rushed back and sometimes forward,

and the cavalry dashed without orders in pursuit of the flying Russians.

In this way two cavalry regiments galloped through the Semënovsk hollow

and as soon as they reached the top of the incline turned round and

galloped full speed back again. The infantry moved in the same way,

sometimes running to quite other places than those they were ordered to

go to. All orders as to where and when to move the guns, when to send

infantry to shoot or horsemen to ride down the Russian infantry—all

such orders were given by the officers on the spot nearest to the

units concerned, without asking either Ney, Davout, or Murat, much less

Napoleon. They did not fear getting into trouble for not fulfilling

orders or for acting on their own initiative, for in battle what is at

stake is what is dearest to man—his own life—and it sometimes seems that

safety lies in running back, sometimes in running forward; and these men

who were right in the heat of the battle acted according to the mood

of the moment. In reality, however, all these movements forward and

backward did not improve or alter the position of the troops. All

their rushing and galloping at one another did little harm, the harm of

disablement and death was caused by the balls and bullets that flew over

the fields on which these men were floundering about. As soon as they

left the place where the balls and bullets were flying about, their

superiors, located in the background, re-formed them and brought them

under discipline and under the influence of that discipline led them

back to the zone of fire, where under the influence of fear of death

they lost their discipline and rushed about according to the chance

promptings of the throng.