to surrender or die.

CHAPTER XVIII

This campaign consisted in a flight of the French during which they did
all they could to destroy themselves. From the time they turned onto
the Kaluga road to the day their leader fled from the army, none of the
movements of the crowd had any sense. So one might have thought that
regarding this period of the campaign the historians, who attributed
the actions of the mass to the will of one man, would have found it
impossible to make the story of the retreat fit their theory. But
no! Mountains of books have been written by the historians about this
campaign, and everywhere are described Napoleon's arrangements, the
maneuvers, and his profound plans which guided the army, as well as the
military genius shown by his marshals.

The retreat from Malo-Yaroslavets when he had a free road into a
well-supplied district and the parallel road was open to him along
which Kutuzov afterwards pursued him--this unnecessary retreat along
a devastated road--is explained to us as being due to profound
considerations. Similarly profound considerations are given for
his retreat from Smolensk to Orsha. Then his heroism at Krasnoe is
described, where he is reported to have been prepared to accept battle
and take personal command, and to have walked about with a birch stick
and said:

"J'ai assez fait l'empereur; il est temps de faire le general," * but
nevertheless immediately ran away again, abandoning to its fate the
scattered fragments of the army he left behind.

* "I have acted the Emperor long enough; it is time to act
the general."

Then we are told of the greatness of soul of the marshals, especially
of Ney--a greatness of soul consisting in this: that he made his way by
night around through the forest and across the Dnieper and escaped to
Orsha, abandoning standards, artillery, and nine tenths of his men.

And lastly, the final departure of the great Emperor from his heroic
army is presented to us by the historians as something great and
characteristic of genius. Even that final running away, described in
ordinary language as the lowest depth of baseness which every child
is taught to be ashamed of--even that act finds justification in the
historians' language.

When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical
ratiocination any farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all
that humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a