led. The places of Bagration, who had been killed, and Barclay, who had stalked off in high dudgeon, had to be filled. Much serious thought went into consideration of the best thing to do: whether A should take over from B, and B from D, or whether it ought to be the other way round, with D taking over from A, and so on, as if this had an impact on anything at all beyond the self-esteem of A and B.
Given Kutuzov's hostility towards his chief of staff, Bennigsen, the presence of the Tsar's confidential advisers and all these various new appointments, party in-fighting at headquarters was even more complicated than usual. A was trying to undermine B's position, D was getting at C, and so on, in all conceivable combinations and permutations. And everybody was undermining everybody else mainly over the course of the war, which all these men thought they were in control of, though in practice the war ignored them and went its own inevitable way. In other words, it never corresponded with what they were thinking; it was the essential outcome of interacting forces among the masses. And all these machinations, with everybody at daggers drawn and cross-purposes, were accepted at high command as a true reflection of developments that were inevitable.
Prince Kutuzov! [wrote the Tsar on the 2nd of October in a letter received by Kutuzov after the battle of Tarutino]
Ever since the 2nd of September Moscow has been in enemy hands. Your last reports were dated the 20th, and in all this time not only has no attempt been made to act against the enemy and liberate our ancient capital, according to your last reports you have actually retreated even further. Serpukhov has now fallen to an enemy detachment, and Tula, with its famous ordnance factory that means so much to the army, is in danger. From reports received from General Wintzengerode I note that an enemy force of ten thousand men is marching up the Petersburg road. Another one, thousands strong, is closing in on Dmitrov. A third has advanced along the Vladimir road. A fourth force of some considerable strength is stationed between Ruza and Mozhaysk. Napoleon himself was in Moscow on the 25th. In view of this intelligence, with the enemy's forces split up into sections, and Napoleon himself with his guard in Moscow, is it possible that the enemy forces confronting you are too strong for you to go on the offensive? The opposite assumption seems far more probable: you are being harassed by detachments (a corps at the most) greatly inferior to the army entrusted to your command. It would seem possible for you to have profited from these circumstances and attacked a weaker enemy and destroyed him, or at least forced him into retreat and kept in our hands decent parts of the provinces now under enemy occupation, thus diverting danger away from Tula and the other towns of the interior. You will be responsible if the enemy manages to send a considerable force up to Petersburg and threaten this capital, where it has not been possible to maintain troops in any great numbers, since the army entrusted to your command, acting with energy and determination, provides you with ample means to avert this new calamity. Remember you have still to answer to your humiliated country for the loss of Moscow. You have had experience of my readiness to reward you. That readiness will remain undiminished within me, but Russia and I have the right to expect from you all the energy, determination and success betokened by your intellect, your talent as a military man, and the bravery of the troops operating under your leadership.
This letter demonstrates that a sense of the changing relative strength of the armies was now making itself felt as far away as Petersburg, but while it was in transit Kutuzov had been unable to hold his army back, and a battle had already been fought.
On the 2nd of October, a Cossack by the name of Shapovalov out on a scouting mission shot one hare and wounded another. Shapovalov pursued the wounded animal deep into the forest, and there he stumbled across the left flank of Murat's army, encamped and unprotected. He laughingly told his mates how he had nearly walked straight into the hands of the French. An ensign overheard the story and told his commanding officer.
The Cossack was sent for and interrogated. His officers wanted to seize the opportunity and get some horses from the French, but one of them had contacts with the army high command, and he mentioned the incident to a staff general. In recent days relations on the staff had been strained almost to breaking point. Only a few days before this Yermolov had gone to Bennigsen and implored him to use all his influence with the commander-in-chief to go on the offensive.
'If I didn't know you I would imagine you didn't want what you are asking for,' replied Bennigsen. 'I have only to recommend one line of approach for his Serene Highness to be sure to do the opposite.'
The news brought in by the Cossacks, soon confirmed by mounted scouts, was proof enough: the time was ripe. The cord slipped, the wheels whirred and the chiming started. For all his supposed authority, intellect, experience and knowledge of people Kutuzov looked at all the indicators - the note from Bennigsen, who was reporting personally to the Tsar, the unanimity of opinion among the generals, his own assessment of what the Tsar wanted to happen and the intelligence brought in by the Cossacks - and he could no longer hold back the inexorable momentum. By issuing orders for something he considered both useless and pernicious he was giving his blessing to what had now become a fait accompli.
CHAPTER 4
Bennigsen's note stating the need to go on the offensive, and the report from the Cossacks that the enemy's left flank was unprotected, were merely the latest indicators that the signal to attack could be delayed no longer, and the attack was scheduled for the 5th of October.
On the morning of the 4th Kutuzov signed the documents of disposition. Toll read them to Yermolov, and invited him to see to the detailed arrangements.
'Very good, very good, but not just now. I haven't time,' said Yermolov, and walked out of the hut. The overall disposition of the troops as drawn up by Toll was a splendid one. Everything was neatly written out, as it had been at Austerlitz, but this time not in German. 'Column Number One marches here, then there. Column Number Two marches there, then here . . .' And so on.
On paper every one of these columns arrived in position dead on time, and they destroyed the enemy. As always on these occasions everything had been meticulously thought through, but as always on these occasions not a single column arrived anywhere on time. When enough copies of the disposition were ready, an officer was summoned and sent to Yermolov to hand them over for implementation. A young officer of the horse guards, one of Kutuzov's personal staff, set off for Yermolov's quarters, thrilled to be carrying out such a vital commission.
'He's not in,' Yermolov's servant told him. The horse guards officer set off for a general's quarters where Yermolov was often to be found.
'No, he's not here. Neither is the general,' he was told.
The officer remounted and rode off to another general's.
'No, he's gone out.'
'I hope they don't blame me for slowing things up! It's infuriating!' thought the officer.
He rode all over the camp. For every man who claimed to have just seen Yermolov riding off with some other generals there was another who said he must be back home by now. The officer stayed out searching until six o'clock in the evening, and never stopped to eat. Yermolov was nowhere to be found, and nobody knew where he was. The officer had a quick meal with a comrade before setting off back to the vanguard to report to Miloradovich. Miloradovich was out too, but here at least they did tell him the general had gone to a ball at General Kikin's and Yermolov was probably there too.
'Well, where is it?'
'At Yechkino, over yonder,' said an officer of the Cossacks, pointing towards a country house in the far distance.
'What, right over there! Outside our lines?'
'Two regiments of our boys have been sent over to the outposts. There's a right party going on out there now, I'll tell you! Two bands, three lots of singers.'
The officer rode out through our lines and on to Yechkino. Some way off he could hear the happy sounds of soldiers dancing and singing merrily together.
'In the country . . . in the countree . . .' went the song, to a lot of whistling and the sound of a balalaika, swamped now and again by a great roar of voices. The officer's own spirits rose when he heard these sounds, but he was still worried about being blamed for taking so long to hand over the vital message that had been entrusted to him. It was getting on for nine o'clock. He dismounted and walked up to the entrance of a big, completely undamaged manor house situated half-way between the French and the Russian lines. Footmen were trotting in and out of the vestibule and buffet bearing wine and food. The singers stood by the windows. The officer was taken across to a door, and there before him all of a sudden were all the top generals in the army, including the big, imposing figure of Yermolov. All the generals were standing round in a half-circle with their coats unbuttoned, pictures of merriment, red in the face and laughing their heads off. There in the middle of the room a handsome general, red-faced and not very tall, was dancing a trepak with much energy and not a little style.
'Ha, ha, ha! Good for you, Nikolay Ivanovich! Ah, ha, ha!'
The officer felt doubly guilty for bursting in on them at a moment like that with an important message, and he would have waited, but one of the generals spotted him, heard why he had come and told Yermolov. The latter came across to the officer with a scowl on his face, listened to his story, and took the documents from him without a word.
'Do you reckon he just happened to be out?' said a comrade of the horse guards officer, a staff man himself, later that evening, referring to Yermolov. 'Not on your life! That was deliberate. He was getting at Konovnitsyn. You watch the fur fly tomorrow!'
CHAPTER 5
The next morning Kutuzov, decrepit old man that he was, rose early, said his prayers, got dressed and, with a sinking feeling that he had to go out and take command of a battle he didn't approve of, he got into his carriage and drove out from Letashovko, a village two or three miles from Tarutino, to the place where the attacking columns were supposed to have been drawn up. Kutuzov trundled along, nodding off, waking up again, and cocking an ear. Wasn't that the sound of shots over on the right? Could this be the start of the action? But no, everything was still quiet. A damp and overcast autumn day was just dawning. As he got near to Tarutino Kutuzov spotted some cavalrymen leading their horses to water down the road he was driving along. Kutuzov had a good look at them, then he stopped his carriage and asked what regiment they came from. They came from a column which ought to have been a long way ahead, setting up an ambush.
'Must be a mistake,' thought the old commander-in-chief. But as he drove on, Kutuzov saw infantry regiments with their arms stacked, and the soldiers standing around in their underclothes, busy cooking porridge and fetching wood. He sent for their commanding officer. The officer contended that no order to advance had been received.
'I don't see . . .' Kutuzov began, but he checked himself at once, and sent for the senior officer. He got out of his carriage, hung his head and paced up and down in silence, breathing heavily. He had sent for Eykhen, an officer on the General Staff, and when he arrived Kutuzov turned purple with rage, not because this officer was to blame for the mistake, but because he was an object worthy of his fury. The old man staggered and spluttered as he fell into the kind of rage that would sometimes have him rolling about on the ground in a frenzy, and he fell upon Eykhen, shaking his fists at him, yelling and shouting abuse in the language of the gutter. Another officer, Captain Brozin, also quite blameless, happened to turn up, and he suffered the same fate.
'Here's another filthy swine! I'll shoot the lot of you! Vermin!' he shouted hoarsely, waving his arms and reeling about. His pain was actually physical. There he was, his Serene Highness, the commander-in-chief, constantly assured that no one in Russia had ever had his kind of power, put in a position like this - reduced to a laughing-stock throughout the whole army! 'All that worry, all my prayers for today, a night without sleep, thinking things over. Why do I bother?' he thought to himself. 'When I was a young officer wet behind the ears nobody would have dared make a fool of me like this . . . And now look!' He was actually suffering physical pain, as if he had been subjected to corporal punishment, and the only way for him to express it was in fulminating cries of agonized rage. But soon his strength ebbed away. He took a look round, conscious that he had rather overdone the bad language, got into his carriage and drove back in silence.
His fury was spent, and it did not return. Kutuzov blinked feebly as he listened to the excuses and explanations (Yermolov kept out of sight till next day), and the assurances from Bennigsen, Konovnitsyn and Toll that the movement that had miscarried would take place the following day. Once again all Kutuzov could do was give his consent.
CHAPTER 6
Next day the massed troops were in position by evening, and they marched off during the night. It was an autumn night with a purple tinge to the black clouds, but there was no rain. The ground was damp without being muddy, and the troops made no noise as they advanced, apart from the odd clank of artillery. No talking above a whisper was allowed, no smoking of pipes or striking of lights; they had to keep the horses from neighing. Secrecy added to the fun of it all. The men marched on in high spirits. Several columns halted, stacked their guns and lay down on the chilly ground, assuming they had got to where they should be. Other columns (most of them) marched all night and got to places where they clearly shouldn't have been.
Count Orlov-Denisov with his Cossacks (the least important detachment of them all) was the only one that fetched up in the right place at the right time. They halted at the edge of a forest, on a path that led from the village of Stromilova to Dmitrovsk.
Count Orlov nodded off, but they woke him before dawn. A deserter from the French camp was brought to see him. It was a Polish NCO from Poniatowski's corps. He explained in Polish that he had deserted because he had felt humiliated in their service; he should have been commissioned long ago, he was braver than anybody else, so he had come over to them and he wanted to get his own back. He said Murat was camping for the night less than a mile away, and if they would give him a hundred men he would go and take him alive. Count Orlov-Denisov consulted his fellow officers. The offer was too tempting to refuse. They were all eager to go; they all said yes, we must have a shot at it. After much argument and further consultation it was decided that Major-General Grekov would take two regiments of Cossacks and go with the Polish deserter.
'Don't you forget,' said Count Orlov-Denisov to the Polish deserter, as he sent him on his way. 'If you've been lying, I'll have you hanged like a dog, but if it's true there's a hundred gold pieces in it for you.'
The deserter said nothing as he got on his horse with grim determination and rode off with a hurriedly mustered group of Grekov's men. They disappeared into the forest. Count Orlov watched them go, shivering from the chill of the early dawn and greatly excited by the scheme he had launched on his own initiative. He came back out of the wood and peered across at the enemy camp, which was just visible in the tricky first light of dawn amid the dying camp-fires. There was a stretch of open rising ground to Count Orlov-Denisov's right, and that's where our columns ought to have been. He looked in that direction, but even though you could have seen them miles away, there was no sign of these columns. Meanwhile Count Orlov-Denisov thought he could see things beginning to stir over in the French camp, and this was confirmed by his sharp-eyed adjutant.
'It's too late, isn't it?' said Count Orlov, staring across at the camp. And suddenly - as so often happens when a man we trust is gone from our sight - the picture became perfectly clear: that deserter had been stringing them along, lying through his teeth, he would ruin the whole attack by taking out two regiments, and God alone knew where he was leading them! How could you hope to capture the commander-in-chief in amongst masses of his own troops?
'Swine. He was lying,' said the count.
'We could call them back,' said one member of his suite, full of the same misgivings as he stared across at the camp.
'What? . . . Well, what do you think? Let them go on? Or bring them back?'
'Is that your order - bring them back?'
'Yes, yes, bring them back!' Count Orlov said, suddenly decisive, glancing at his watch. 'We'll be too late. It's light now.'
An aide galloped off into the wood after Grekov. When Grekov came back, Count Orlov-Denisov, roused to a state of high excitement by his decision to abandon the initiative, and from waiting and waiting for infantry columns that never turned up, and also by the enemy's close proximity (which was affecting every man in his detachment), decided to attack.
The command came out in a whisper.
'To horse!'
The men fell in, crossing themselves . . .
'Go! And God go with you!'
A great 'Hurrah!' rang through the woods, and platoon after platoon of Cossacks, trailing their lances, soared merrily across the stream as if they were being poured out of a sack, and set off for the enemy camp.
One desperate, terrified yell from the first French soldier to spot the coming Cossacks, and every man jack of them, half-dressed and half-asleep, took to his heels, abandoning cannons, muskets and horses.
If only the Cossacks had ignored the things behind them and around them, and gone after the French, they would have captured Murat and everything that went with him. That's what their commanding officers wanted them to do. But there was no shifting the Cossacks once they had got their hands on some loot and some prisoners. The word of command went unheard. There on the spot they had taken fifteen hundred prisoners, thirty-eight cannons, some regimental colours and, what mattered most to the Cossacks, horses, saddles, blankets and all kinds of things like that. All of this needed sorting out. They had to secure the prisoners and the cannons, share out the loot, yell at each other and even fight over the spoils, and the Cossacks got down to it.
When the French realized they were not being pursued they rallied, fell back in and opened fire. Orlov-Denisov was still waiting for the other columns to turn up, and he made