The Fog of War — War and Peace

From Gorki, Bennigsen descends the highroad to the bridge which, from the hill, the officer had pointed out as the centre of our position, where rows of fragrant new-mown hay lie by the riverside. They ride across into the village of Borodino, turn left, pass an enormous number of troops and guns, and come to a high knoll where militiamen are digging. This is the redoubt, as yet unnamed, which afterwards becomes known as the Raevski Redoubt, or the Knoll Battery, but Pierre pays no special attention to it. He does not know that it will become more memorable to him than any other spot on the plain of Borodino.

They cross the hollow to Semenovsk, where soldiers are dragging away the last logs from huts and barns. Then downhill and uphill across a ryefield trodden as if by hail, following a track freshly made by artillery over plowed furrows, they reach some fleches still being dug. At the fleches Bennigsen stops and looks at the Shevardino Redoubt opposite, which was ours the day before, where several horsemen can be descried. Officers say that either Napoleon or Murat is there. All gaze eagerly. Pierre tries to guess which scarcely discernible figure is Napoleon. At last the mounted men ride away and disappear. Bennigsen speaks to a general and explains the whole position of our troops. Pierre listens, straining each faculty to understand the essential points of the impending battle, and is mortified to feel his mental capacity inadequate. He can make nothing of it. Bennigsen, noticing that Pierre is listening, suddenly says: I don't think this interests you? On the contrary it's very interesting, Pierre replies, not quite truthfully.

From the fleches they ride still farther to the left, along a road winding through a thick, low-growing birch wood. In the middle a brown hare with white feet springs out and, scared by the tramp of many horses, grows so confused that it leaps along the road in front of them for some time, arousing general attention and laughter, and only when several voices shout does it dart into the thicket. After about a mile and a half they come out on a glade where troops of Tuchkov's corps are stationed to defend the left flank. Here, at the extreme left, Bennigsen talks a great deal and with much heat, and, as it seems to Pierre, gives orders of great military importance. In front of Tuchkov's troops is some high ground not occupied. Bennigsen loudly criticizes this mistake: it is madness to leave a height which commands the country around unoccupied and to place troops below it. Some generals agree. One declares with martial heat that they were put there to be slaughtered. Bennigsen on his own authority orders the troops to occupy the high ground. This disposition increases Pierre's doubt of his own capacity to understand military matters. Listening to the criticism he quite understands and shares it, and for that very reason cannot understand how the man who put them behind the hill could have made so gross a blunder. Pierre does not know that these troops were not, as Bennigsen supposed, put there to defend the position, but were in a concealed position as an ambush, that they should not be seen and might strike an approaching enemy unexpectedly. Bennigsen does not know this and moves the troops forward according to his own ideas without mentioning the matter to the commander in chief.