The forces of a dozen European nations burst into Russia. The Russian army and people avoid a collision till Smolensk is reached, and again from Smolensk to Borodino. The French army pushes on to Moscow, its goal, its impetus ever increasing as it nears its aim, just as the velocity of a falling body increases as it approaches the earth. Behind it lie seven hundred miles of hunger-stricken, hostile country; ahead, a few dozen miles. Every soldier in Napoleon's army feels this, and the invasion moves on by its own momentum. The more the Russian army retreats, the more fiercely a spirit of hatred of the enemy flares up, and while it retreats the army increases and consolidates. At Borodino a collision takes place. Neither army is broken up, but the Russian army retreats immediately after as inevitably as a ball recoils after colliding with another having greater momentum, and with equal inevitability the ball of invasion rolls on for some distance, though the collision has deprived it of all its force.
The Russians retreat eighty miles, to beyond Moscow, and the French reach Moscow and there come to a standstill. For five weeks after that there is not a single battle. The French do not move. As a bleeding, mortally wounded animal licks its wounds, they remain inert in Moscow for five weeks, and then suddenly, with no fresh reason, flee back: they dash for the Kaluga road and, after a victory at Malo-Yaroslavets where the field of conflict again remains theirs, they flee still more rapidly back to Smolensk, beyond Smolensk, beyond the Berezina, beyond Vilna, and farther still. On the evening of the twenty-sixth of August, Kutuzov and the whole Russian army are convinced that Borodino was a victory. Kutuzov reports so to the Emperor and orders preparations for a fresh conflict to finish the enemy, not to deceive anyone, but because he knows the enemy is beaten, as everyone who took part knows it. But all that evening and next day reports come in of unheard-of losses, of the loss of half the army, and a fresh battle proves physically impossible. The wounded must be gathered, ammunition replenished, new officers appointed, the men fed and allowed to sleep. Meanwhile, the very next morning, the French army advances of itself upon the Russians, carried forward by momentum now seemingly increased in inverse proportion to the square of the distance from its aim. Kutuzov's wish is to attack next day, and the whole army desires it. Wish is not enough. There must also be a possibility, and that possibility does not exist. It is impossible not to retreat a day's march, then another and a third, and at last, on the first of September, when the army draws near Moscow, the force of circumstances compels it to retire beyond the city and abandon it to the enemy.
People accustomed to think that plans of campaign are made by generals, as anyone sitting over a map in a study may imagine arranging a battle, ask why Kutuzov did not take up a position before reaching Fili, why he did not retire at once by the Kaluga road, and so on. They forget the inevitable conditions that always limit a commander in chief. He is never dealing with the beginning of an event, the position from which we always contemplate it. He is always in the midst of shifting events and so can never at any moment consider the whole import of what is occurring. Moment by moment the event shapes itself, and he is in a most complex play of intrigues, worries, contingencies, authorities, projects, counsels, threats, and deceptions, obliged to reply to innumerable conflicting questions. On the twenty-eighth someone suggests crossing to the Kaluga road, but an adjutant gallops up from Miloradovich asking whether he is to engage or retire. An order must be given at once, and the order to retreat carries them past the turn. Then the commissary asks where stores are to go, the chief of hospitals where the wounded are to go, a courier brings a letter from the sovereign that does not admit of abandoning Moscow, a rival presents an opposed project, the commander needs sleep, a neglected general comes to complain, inhabitants pray to be defended, inspecting officers contradict one another, and spy, prisoner, and reconnaissance describe the enemy differently. With the Russian army less than four miles from Moscow on the first of September, no free question of defending or abandoning the city exists. That question was settled at Drissa and Smolensk, and most palpably at Shevardino and Borodino, and each day and hour of the retreat from Borodino to Fili.
