had desired this
movement and long ago foreseen its result.

CHAPTER II

The famous flank movement merely consisted in this: after the advance
of the French had ceased, the Russian army, which had been continually
retreating straight back from the invaders, deviated from that direct
course and, not finding itself pursued, was naturally drawn toward the
district where supplies were abundant.

If instead of imagining to ourselves commanders of genius leading the
Russian army, we picture that army without any leaders, it could not
have done anything but make a return movement toward Moscow, describing
an arc in the direction where most provisions were to be found and where
the country was richest.

That movement from the Nizhni to the Ryazan, Tula, and Kaluga roads was
so natural that even the Russian marauders moved in that direction, and
demands were sent from Petersburg for Kutuzov to take his army that
way. At Tarutino Kutuzov received what was almost a reprimand from
the Emperor for having moved his army along the Ryazan road, and the
Emperor's letter indicated to him the very position he had already
occupied near Kaluga.

Having rolled like a ball in the direction of the impetus given by the
whole campaign and by the battle of Borodino, the Russian army--when
the strength of that impetus was exhausted and no fresh push was
received--assumed the position natural to it.

Kutuzov's merit lay, not in any strategic maneuver of genius, as it is
called, but in the fact that he alone understood the significance of
what had happened. He alone then understood the meaning of the French
army's inactivity, he alone continued to assert that the battle of
Borodino had been a victory, he alone--who as commander in chief might
have been expected to be eager to attack--employed his whole strength to
restrain the Russian army from useless engagements.

The beast wounded at Borodino was lying where the fleeing hunter had
left him; but whether he was still alive, whether he was strong and
merely lying low, the hunter did not know. Suddenly the beast was heard
to moan.

The moan of that wounded beast (the French army) which betrayed its
calamitous condition was the sending of Lauriston to Kutuzov's camp with
overtures for peace.

Napoleon, with his usual assurance that whatever entered his head was
right, wrote to Kutuzov the first words that occurred to him, though
they were meaningless.

MONSIEUR LE PRINCE KOUT