《War And Peace》　Book10 　CHAPTER XXXIII
　　　　by Leo Tolstoy

THE CHIEF ACTION of the battle of Borodino was fought on the space seven
thousand feet in width between Borodino and Bagration's flèches. Outside that
region, on one side there was the action on the part of Uvarov's cavalry in the
middle of the day; on the other side, behind Utitsa, there was the skirmish
between Poniatovsky and Tutchkov; but those two actions were detached and of
little importance in comparison with what took place in the centre of the
battlefield. The chief action of the day was fought in the simplest and the most
artless fashion on the open space, visible from both sides, between Borodino and
the flèches by the copse.

The battle began with a cannonade from several hundreds of guns on both
sides. Then, when the whole plain was covered with smoke, on the French side the
two divisions of Desaix and Compans advanced on the right upon the flèches, and
on the left the viceroy's regiments advanced upon Borodino. The flèches were a
verst from the Shevardino redoubt, where Napoleon was standing; but Borodino was
more than two versts further, in a straight line, and therefore Napoleon could
not see what was passing there, especially as the smoke, mingling with the fog,
completely hid the whole of that part of the plain. The soldiers of Desaix's
division, advancing upon the flèches, were in sight till they disappeared from
view in the hollow that lay between them and the flèches. As soon as they
dropped down into the hollow, the smoke of the cannon and muskets on the flèches
became so thick that it concealed the whole slope of that side of the hollow.
Through the smoke could be caught glimpses of something black, probably men, and
sometimes the gleam of bayonets. But whether they were stationary or moving,
whether they were French or Russian, could not be seen from Shevardino.

The sun had risen brightly, and its slanting rays shone straight in
Napoleon's face as he looked from under his hand towards the flèches. The smoke
hung over the flèches, and at one moment it seemed as though it were the smoke
that was moving, at the next, the troops moving in the smoke. Sometimes cries
could be heard through the firing; but it was impossible to tell what was being
done there.

Napoleon, standing on the redoubt, was looking through a field-glass, and in
the tiny circle of the glass saw smoke and men, sometimes his own, sometimes
Russians. But where what he had seen was, he could not tell when he looked again
with the naked eye.

He came down from the redoubt, and began walking up and down before it.

At intervals he stood still, listening to the firing and looking intently at
the battlefield.

It was not simply impossible from below, where he was standing, and from the
redoubt above, where several of his generals were standing, to make out what was
passing at the flèches; but on the flèches themselves, occupied now together,
now alternately by French and Russians, living, dead, and wounded, the
frightened and frantic soldiers had no idea what they were doing. For several
hours together, in the midst of incessant cannon and musket fire, Russians and
French, infantry and cavalry, had captured the place in turn; they rushed upon
it, fell, fired, came into collision, did not know what to do with each other,
screamed, and ran back again.

From the battlefield adjutants were continually galloping up to Napoleon with
reports from his marshals of the progress of the action. But all those reports
were deceptive; both because in the heat of battle it is impossible to say what
is happening at any given moment, and because many of the adjutants never
reached the actual battlefield, but simply repeated what they heard from others,
and also because, while the adjutant was galloping the two or three versts to
Napoleon, circumstances had changed, and the news he brought had already become
untrue. Thus an adjutant came galloping from the viceroy with the news that
Borodino had been taken and the bridge on the Kolotcha was in the hands of the
French. The adjutant asked Napoleon should the troops cross the bridge.
Napoleon's command was to form on the further side and wait; but long before he
gave that command, when the adjutant indeed had only just started from Borodino,
the bridge had been broken down and burnt by the Russians in the very skirmish
Pierre had taken part in at the beginning of the day.

An adjutant, galloping up from the flèches with a pale and frightened face,
brought Napoleon word that the attack had been repulsed, and Compans wounded and
Davoust killed; while meantime the flèches had been captured by another division
of the troops, and Davoust was alive and well, except for a slight bruise. Upon
such inevitably misleading reports Napoleon based his instructions, which had
mostly been carried out before he made them, or else were never, and could
never, be carried out at all.

The marshals and generals who were closer to the scene of action, but, like
Napoleon, not actually taking part in it, and only at intervals riding within
bullet range, made their plans without asking Napoleon, and gave their orders
from where and in what direction to fire, and where the cavalry were to gallop
and the infantry to run. But even their orders, like Napoleon's, were but
rarely, and to a slight extent, carried out.

For the most part what happened was the opposite of what they commanded to be
done. The soldiers ordered to advance found themselves under grapeshot fire, and
ran back. The soldiers commanded to stand still in one place seeing the Russians
appear suddenly before them, either ran away or rushed upon them; and the
cavalry unbidden galloped in after the flying Russians. In this way two cavalry
regiments galloped across the Semyonovskoye hollow, and as soon as they reached
the top of the hill, turned and galloped headlong back again. The infantry, in
the same way, moved sometimes in the direction opposite to that in which they
were commanded to move.

All decisions as to when and where to move the cannons, when to send infantry
to fire, when to send cavalry to trample down the Russian infantry-all such
decisions were made by the nearest officers in the ranks, without any reference
to Ney, Davoust, and Murat, far less to Napoleon himself. They did not dread
getting into trouble for nonfulfilment of orders, nor for assuming
responsibility, because in battle what is at stake is what is most precious to
every man-his own life; and at one time it seems as though safety is to be found
in flying back, sometimes in flying forward; and these men placed in the very
thick of the fray acted in accordance with the temper of the moment.

In reality all these movements forward and back again hardly improved or
affected the position of the troops. All their onslaughts on one another did
little harm; the harm, the death and disablement was the work of the cannon
balls and bullets, that were flying all about the open space, where those men
ran to and fro. As soon as they got out of that exposed space, over which the
balls and bullets were flying, their superior officer promptly formed them in
good order, and restored discipline, and under the influence of that discipline
led them back under fire again; and there again, under the influence of the
terror of death, they lost all discipline, and dashed to and fro at the chance
promptings of the crowd.