Nine Parties at War Headquarters — War and Peace

Prince Andrew reaches army headquarters at the end of June. The first army, with the Emperor, occupies the fortified camp at Drissa; the second is retreating, trying to join it, said to be cut off by large French forces. Everyone is dissatisfied, yet no one anticipates invasion of the Russian provinces or a war beyond the Polish ones. Barclay de Tolly, three miles from the Emperor, receives Bolkónski stiffly in a foreign accent, will mention him for employment, and asks him meanwhile to remain on his staff. Anatole has gone to Petersburg. Andrew is glad: his mind is on the gigantic war, and he is free for a while from that distraction.

For four days, unoccupied, he rides the camp and talks with experts, yet cannot decide whether it is advantageous. Experience in Austria has taught him that deeply considered plans have no significance; all depends on how unforeseen movements are met, and by whom. He uses his position to fathom the control of the army. While the Emperor was at Vílna the forces were divided among Barclay, Bagratión, and Tormásov. The Emperor is with the first army, but not as commander in chief; orders say only that he will be with the army. Around him are not the army staff but an imperial headquarters: Volkónski, diplomatic officials, foreigners, and men without definite appointments, Arakchéev, Bennigsen, the Grand Duke, Rumyántsev, Stein, Armfeldt, Pfuel, Paulucci, Wolzogen. A corps commander often cannot tell whether advice comes from the man who gives it or from the Emperor, or whether it must be executed.

Andrew maps nine parties. Pfuel's theorists, mostly Germans, demand retirement by immutable laws of oblique movement. Opposite them, Russian nationalists like Bagratión and Ermólov want to fight, not stick pins into maps; Ermólov jokes that he has petitioned to be made a German. Courtiers, including Arakchéev, preach a middle course that attains neither aim. The Tsarévich's party, remembering Austerlitz, wants peace before they are turned out of Petersburg, a view the chancellor Rumyántsev shares. Barclay's adherents want unity of command for the man who organized the withdrawal to Drissa; Bennigsenites call that withdrawal a shameful reverse and say they will have to come to Bennigsen eventually. A seventh party adores Alexander and wants him to take command openly. The eighth, as ninety-nine to one, wants only advantage: ruble, decoration, promotion, watching the weathercock of imperial favour, drowning honest voices. A ninth party of elders is forming: the Emperor's presence paralyzes fifty thousand men required for his safety; the worst independent commander would be better than the best trammeled by a monarch. Shishkóv writes a letter, which Arakchéev and Balashëv agree to sign, suggesting on the plea of arousing the capital that the Emperor leave the army. That pretext, later a real cause of triumph, is accepted as a face-saving exit from headquarters chaos while Napoleon advances.