War And Peace

Such is the lot, not of ‘great men’, since that term remains unacknowledged by the Russian mind, but of those rare and always solitary men who can divine the will of Providence and submit their personal will to it. Such men are castigated by the mob with hatred and contempt for their intuition of the higher laws.

For Russian historians (strange and terrible to relate) Napoleon, the least significant instrument of history, who never once in any place, not even in exile, displayed a trace of human virtue, is an object of admiration and enthusiasm; he is one of their ‘great men’.

By contrast, Kutuzov, the man who from start to finish during his period of command in 1812, from Borodino to Vilna, never once let himself down by word or deed, an unparalleled example of self-sacrifice and the ability to see today’s events with tomorrow’s significance, this Kutuzov is conceived of by the same historians as a rather pathetic, nondescript character, and any mention of him in relation to the year 1812 always causes a stir of embarrassment.

And yet it is difficult to think of any historical figure whose activity shows a greater determination to focus continuously on a single aim. It is difficult to imagine a more noble aim, or one more closely attuned to the will of an entire nation. And it would be even more difficult to find an example anywhere in history of a historical personage accomplishing his declared aim more completely than Kutuzov did after total commitment to it in 1812.

Kutuzov never talked about forty centuries looking down from the Pyramids, or the sacrifices he was making for his country, or what he intended to achieve or had already achieved. In fact he never talked about himself at all, he never indulged in histrionics, and he always seemed like the simplest and most ordinary man around, saying the simplest and most ordinary things. He wrote to his daughters and Madame de Staël, read novels, enjoyed the company of pretty women, liked a little banter with the generals, officers and men, and he never raised any objections when people were trying to make a point with him. When Count Rostopchin galloped up to him at the Yauza bridge to accuse him of being personally responsible for the loss of Moscow, and said, ‘I thought you promised not to abandon Moscow without a battle,’ Kutuzov answered, ‘I’m not going to abandon Moscow without a battle,’ even though Moscow had already been abandoned. When Arakcheyev came to him from the Tsar with the news that Yermolov was to be given command of the artillery, Kutuzov said, ‘Yes, just what I was saying myself,’ even though he had just said the exact opposite. What difference did it make to him, a man in a crowd of simpletons, the only one who understood the enormous significance of what was happening? What difference did it make to him whether Count Rostopchin attributed the disastrous fate of the capital to Kutuzov or himself? It made even less difference whether one particular man was to be given command of the artillery. And it wasn’t only under circumstances like these that this old man, who had convinced himself from a lifetime of experience that thoughts and the words used to express them are never prime movers, trotted out utterly meaningless words, blurting out the first thing that came into his head – it happened all the time.