The chief action of the battle of Borodino was fought within the seven thousand feet between Borodino and Bagration's fleches. Beyond that space there was, on the one side, a demonstration by Uvarov's cavalry at midday, and on the other, beyond Utitsa, Poniatowski's collision with Tuchkov; but those two were detached and feeble beside what took place in the centre. On the field between Borodino and the fleches, beside the wood, the chief action of the day took place on an open space visible from both sides and was fought in the simplest and most artless way. The battle began on both sides with a cannonade from several hundred guns. Then when the whole field was covered with smoke, two divisions, Campan's and Dessaix's, advanced from the French right, while Murat's troops advanced on Borodino from their left.
From the Shevardino Redoubt where Napoleon was standing the fleches were two thirds of a mile away, and it was more than a mile as the crow flies to Borodino, so that Napoleon could not see what was happening there, especially as smoke mingling with mist hid the whole locality. The soldiers of Dessaix's division advancing against the fleches could only be seen till they entered the hollow. As soon as they descended, smoke of guns and musketry grew so dense that it covered the whole approach. Through the smoke glimpses of something black, probably men, and at times the glint of bayonets. Whether they were moving or stationary, French or Russian, could not be discovered from Shevardino. The sun had risen brightly and its slanting rays struck straight into Napoleon's face as, shading his eyes, he looked at the fleches. Sometimes it looked as if the smoke were moving, sometimes as if the troops moved. Sometimes shouts were heard through the firing, but it was impossible to tell what was being done. He looked through a field glass and in its small circlet saw smoke and men, sometimes his own and sometimes Russians, but when he looked again with the naked eye he could not tell where what he had seen was. He descended the knoll and walked up and down. Not only from where he stood, or from the knoll above, but even from the fleches themselves, in which by this time there were now Russian and now French soldiers, alternately or together, dead, wounded, alive, frightened, or maddened, it was impossible to make out what was taking place. For several hours amid incessant fire, now Russians were seen alone, now Frenchmen alone, now infantry, now cavalry: they appeared, fired, fell, collided, not knowing what to do with one another, screamed, and ran back again.
From the battlefield adjutants he had sent out, and orderlies from his marshals, kept galloping up with reports, but all these reports were false, because it was impossible in the heat of battle to say what was happening at any given moment, because many adjutants did not go to the actual place of conflict but reported what they had heard from others, and because while an adjutant was riding more than a mile circumstances changed and the news was already becoming false. An adjutant from Murat brought tidings that Borodino had been occupied and the bridge over the Kolocha was in French hands. Napoleon ordered troops to form up on the farther side and wait. But before that order was given, almost as soon as the adjutant had left Borodino, the bridge had been retaken by the Russians and burned, in the very skirmish at which Pierre had been present at the beginning of the battle. An adjutant from the fleches with a pale frightened face reported the attack repulsed, Campan wounded, and Davout killed; yet at the very time he had been told that, the fleches had in fact been recaptured by other French troops, and Davout was alive and only slightly bruised. On the basis of these untrustworthy reports Napoleon gave orders which had either been executed before he gave them or could not be and were not executed. Marshals and generals nearer the field made their own arrangements without asking him. Even their orders were seldom carried out. Soldiers ordered to advance ran back on meeting grapeshot; soldiers ordered to remain, seeing Russians unexpectedly, sometimes rushed back and sometimes forward. Two cavalry regiments galloped through the Semenovsk hollow and as soon as they reached the top turned and galloped full speed back. All orders as to guns, infantry, and horsemen were given by officers on the spot, without asking Ney, Davout, or Murat, much less Napoleon. They did not fear trouble for acting on their own initiative, for in battle what is at stake is what is dearest to man, his own life, and it sometimes seems that safety lies in running back, sometimes in running forward. In reality all these movements forward and backward did not improve or alter the position of the troops. The harm of disablement and death was caused by the balls and bullets that flew over the fields on which these men were floundering. As soon as they left the place where balls were flying, their superiors in the background re-formed them and under that discipline led them back to the zone of fire, where under the influence of fear of death they lost their discipline and rushed about according to the chance promptings of the throng.
