War And Peace

The guerrillas destroyed the Great Army bit by bit. They swept up the fallen leaves that were dropping off the withered tree, and sometimes they shook the tree itself. By October, when the French were on the run, heading back to Smolensk, there were hundreds of these detachments, varying in size and each with its own character. Some retained army methods, and still had their own infantry, artillery, staff-officers and all amenities. Some consisted solely of Cossack cavalry. There were also little bands of footsoldiers and horsemen working together, peasant groups and obscure detachments got up by landowners. One band was commanded by a deacon, and they took hundreds of prisoners in a single month. There was a village elder’s wife called Vasilisa who killed Frenchmen in hundreds.

Guerrilla warfare was at its height towards the end of October. The first stage of this war was long gone, the time when the guerrillas had been amazed at their own audacity, in constant fear of being surrounded and captured by the French, never unsaddling, hardly ever dismounting as they hid away in the woods, fully expecting imminent pursuit. Guerrilla activity had now assumed a definite shape; they all knew what they could, and could not do, to the French. By now only staff-officers and commanders of units operating by the rule-book some way away from the French considered anything to be impossible. The long-established smaller bands who had been keeping a close eye on the French found it possible to do things the leaders of larger companies wouldn’t have dared to undertake. For the Cossacks and peasants, who stole in and out among the French, anything was possible now.

On the 22nd of October Denisov, one of these irregulars, was out with his party at a time when guerrilla blood was up. From early morning he and his men had been on the move, working their way through the woods that skirted the high road and stalking a big French convoy of cavalry baggage and Russian prisoners that had become detached from the other French troops and was heading for Smolensk – under a strong escort, if the reports from scouts and prisoners were anything to go by. Denisov and Dolokhov (who was also a leader of a small band operating in the same area) were not the only ones who knew about this convoy. Some of the generals in charge of larger units, working with staff-officers, also knew of its existence, and Denisov claimed they were all salivating at the prospect of attacking it. Two of these generals – one a Pole, the other a German – had sent word at virtually the same time, each inviting Denisov to join his detachment and mount an attack.

‘Oh no, bwother, you don’t catch me like that!’ said Denisov as he read these missives. He wrote back to the German that in spite of a burning desire to serve under such a brilliant and famous general he had to forgo the pleasure because he was already committed to serving under the Polish general. He wrote the same thing to the Pole, informing him that he was already serving under the German.

With this settled, Denisov now intended to bypass the higher authorities and join forces with Dolokhov to attack this transport convoy and capture it with his own small band of men. On the 22nd of October the convoy was making its way from the village of Mikulino to another one called Shamshevo. There were thick woods all down the left-hand side of the road, in some places skirting the road itself and in others receding half a mile or more away. Denisov had taken a small party and spent the whole day riding up and down through these woods, plunging deep into their centre, then emerging again near the edge, and never losing sight of the moving Frenchmen. That morning, just outside Mikulino, at a place where the wood ran close to the road, the Cossacks of Denisov’s party had pounced on two French baggage-wagons loaded with cavalry saddles that had got stuck in the mud, and taken the saddles off into the wood. From that time until late afternoon they had been watching the movements of the French without attacking. The plan was to avoid alerting them and let them go quietly on to Shamshevo, where Denisov could join up with Dolokhov (who was due to meet them that evening for a conference in a watchman’s hut in the wood, less than a mile from Shamshevo), and wait till dawn before coming down on them like an avalanche from two sides at once, killing and capturing the lot of them in one fell swoop.

Six Cossacks had been posted in the rear just over a mile outside Mikulino, where the wood skirted the road, and they were to bring word at once if any fresh French columns turned up.