War And Peace

It was generally accepted by all those men – because they had no understanding of him – that there was no point in talking to the old man. The profound significance of their plans was beyond him; he would simply come out with all his old phrases (which they took to be meaningless) about crossing a golden bridge, and the inadvisability of going abroad with a bunch of tramps, and so on and so forth. They had heard it all before. Meanwhile everything he said – they must wait for supplies, for instance, or the men had no boots – was simplicity itself, whereas everything they proposed was so complicated and so clever that the whole thing was obvious: he was a stupid old dodderer, while they were military officers of genius, lacking only in authority.

This moody vilification by men on the staff came to a climax once the brilliant admiral, the hero of Petersburg, Wittgenstein, had joined the army. Kutuzov took note of this development with nothing more than a sigh and a shrug. Just once in the aftermath of the Berezina affair he lost his temper and wrote the following note to Bennigsen, who was still reporting back to the Tsar:

On account of your bouts of ill-health your Excellency will be so good as to retire to Kaluga on receipt of this letter, there to await further instructions from His Majesty the Emperor.

But Bennigsen’s dismissal was followed by the arrival on the scene of the Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, who had been a participant in the early stages of the campaign, only to be removed from the army by Kutuzov. Now the grand duke on rejoining the army informed Kutuzov of the Tsar’s displeasure at the poor achievements of our troops, and the slow progress that was being made. The Tsar himself intended to be with the army in a few days’ time.

The old man, as well versed in court procedure as in warfare – the same Kutuzov who in the August of that year had been chosen commander-in-chief against the Tsar’s will, who had removed the grand duke and heir-apparent from the army, and had acted on his own initiative in defiance of the Tsar’s will by ordering the abandonment of Moscow – saw at once that his day was done, his part was played, and his purported authority was no more. And he could see this not only from the attitude shown to him by the court. On the one hand he could appreciate that the war itself – the theatre he had been acting in – was over, and he sensed quite naturally that his work was completed. On the other hand, he was becoming conscious at this very time of a physical weariness besetting his old man’s body, and the need for physical rest.

On the 29th of November Kutuzov reached Vilna – his dear Vilna, as he used to call it. Twice during his military career he had been governor of Vilna.

In the wealthy town of Vilna, which had emerged unscathed, in addition to the comforts he had gone without for so long Kutuzov rediscovered old friends and old associations. At a stroke he turned his back on all military and political matters, and immersed himself in the quiet routine of everyday life, so far as the passions raging all round him would permit, as if to say that everything that was now happening, or about to happen, in the world of history was no longer any concern of his.

It was Chichagov, a ‘cutter-off’ and ‘overthrower’ if ever there was one; Chichagov, the man who at an early stage had favoured making a diversion in Greece and then in Warsaw but was never willing to go where he was ordered; Chichagov, notorious for speaking out in the presence of the Tsar; who considered Kutuzov to be under an obligation to him, because in 1811, when he had been sent to conclude peace with Turkey over Kutuzov’s head, and found when he got there that peace had already been concluded, he had admitted to the Tsar that the credit for concluding that peace belonged to Kutuzov – Chichagov it was who came out first to meet Kutuzov at the castle in Vilna where the latter was to stay. In undress naval uniform with a dirk, and his cap under his arm, he handed the commander-in-chief a garrison report and the keys to the city. The peculiar mixture of respect and derision shown by youth to old age in its dotage was quite unmistakable in Chichagov’s whole bearing, he being well aware of the accusations now levelled at Kutuzov.

In conversation with Chichagov Kutuzov happened to mention that his carts packed with china that had been seized by the enemy at Borisovo had been recovered intact and would soon be restored to him.

‘Are you implying I have nothing to eat from? On the contrary, I can provide you with anything, even if you want to give dinner parties,’ Chichagov protested, hot under the collar, intending with every word he uttered (in French) to put himself in the right, and assuming that Kutuzov was thinking along exactly the same lines. Kutuzov gave a slight shrug, smiled his usual shrewd and subtle smile, and answered, also in French, ‘I mean no more than what I say.’