ges, advancing to the same heights as
Morand's and Gdrard's divisions (for whose movements no directions are
given), which under his leadership will be directed against the redoubt
and come into line with the rest of the forces.

As far as one can make out, not so much from this unintelligible
sentence as from the attempts the vice-King made to execute the orders
given him, he was to advance from the left through Borodino to the
redoubt while the divisions of Morand and Gerard were to advance
simultaneously from the front.

All this, like the other parts of the disposition, was not and could
not be executed. After passing through Borodino the vice-King was driven
back to the Kolocha and could get no farther; while the divisions of
Morand and Gerard did not take the redoubt but were driven back, and the
redoubt was only taken at the end of the battle by the cavalry (a thing
probably unforeseen and not heard of by Napoleon). So not one of
the orders in the disposition was, or could be, executed. But in the
disposition it is said that, after the fight has commenced in this
manner, orders will be given in accordance with the enemy's movements,
and so it might be supposed that all necessary arrangements would be
made by Napoleon during the battle. But this was not and could not be
done, for during the whole battle Napoleon was so far away that, as
appeared later, he could not know the course of the battle and not one
of his orders during the fight could be executed.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Many historians say that the French did not win the battle of Borodino
because Napoleon had a cold, and that if he had not had a cold the
orders he gave before and during the battle would have been still more
full of genius and Russia would have been lost and the face of the world
have been changed. To historians who believe that Russia was shaped by
the will of one man--Peter the Great--and that France from a republic
became an empire and French armies went to Russia at the will of one
man--Napoleon--to say that Russia remained a power because Napoleon
had a bad cold on the twenty-fourth of August may seem logical and
convincing.

If it had depended on Napoleon's will to fight or not to fight the
battle of Borodino, and if this or that other arrangement depended on
his will, then evidently a cold affecting the manifestation of his will
might have saved Russia, and consequently the valet who omitted to bring
Napoleon his waterproo