One hears of classics at a young age, and has courage enough to go through them, with patience and fortitude - and little to none as far as comprehension goes, especially for a work like this. For it takes far more than the beautiful Audrey Hepburn one fell in love with as a toddler whose parents suddenly realised that their child was watching the film, to begin to catch an edge of this tale. Anna Karenina, of course, was easier.
The recent BBC series in six parts or so was another push, apart from the sense of having not quite understood it, that makes one pick up thus beautiful edition waiting for one since one bought it. And the BBC series with its beautiful portrayal has certainly made it easier, as have watching a few other films and series in the decades since teenage - Dr Zhivago and Reilly being two of them, and Quiet Flows The Don, and the Brothers Karamazov, apart from reading a couple of other things.
So one finally gets past the first beautifully illustrated page and proceeds to find that it really wasn't difficult to read, but still, one is quite aware that one wouldn't quite grasp it but for the BBC series.
And then as one is somewhere over a third, it occurs to one that the reason this work was considered not only great, but perhaps was revolutionary, for its time, is something that isn't apparent since, unless one us well versed with history and writings thereof.
This work weaves tales of people of Russia during the Napoleonic wars, people who were then considered normal people in that time and place - that is, those not quite royal but on fringes of court, with means and houses and lands, neither poor generally unless reduced by circumstances, nor quite so carefree they could afford never to worry. Their concerns with family and love, with society and home, wars and more are the concern of this work.
And this was revolutionary, for until then stories, and especially historic accounts of wars and so forth were written as chronicles of victories of conquistadores by any name, and not about concerns of ordinary soldiers or even officers. Here, however, the two or more emperors et al, even generaks, are fringe figures - the loftier the more remote, at that - and if at all they figure in, it's about how they affect the normal, average guys!
And one proceeds to plow through further ....
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To those of us that were encouraged to read this finally, despite earlier efforts when we ploughed through and comprehended little, by the beauty of the six part BBC series that made it more accessible - ploughing through again is tedious while the war mess goes on, but arrival of the lovely Natasha on the home front scenes is sheer beauty, even in imagination as one reads through. Her engagement to the Prince charming, her resolve and efforts awesome, but all too soon it's the horror of the villain who destroyed her future for no other reason than that he wanted her and couldn't care less about the life or future of the young girl affected by his actions1 and his deception.
One does wish the author weren't always attempting a moral cautionary tale, but perhaps he was the least of those that did in and until that era, soften as he does it by having various staunch protectors and defenders of the girl stand by her, even love her, although it doesn't include the Prince and his family after she has refused him - which she did only for reasons of her highest morals as the young and innocent, unlike the brother and sister who were instrumental in destroying her.
The splendid description of the comet, very poetic.
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After the comet the author goes into a discussion that perhaps is the chief reason of his stature as a thinker, but startlingly, there is this paragraph:-
"To us it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and tortured each other either because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander was firm, or because England's policy was astute or the Duke of Oldenburg wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances have with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the Duke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by them."
So Tolstoy didn't quite escape the prejudices of his time and place as held not only normal but a must, and the deaths of millions was a tragedy because they were of the right club by any name! Wonder if he was ok with pogroms of his time, explicitly, and with what Europe was doing to indigenous people of other continents? Then again, he speaks of people of East having come West in an earlier era killing those in West, so perhaps those not from Europe amount only as a reminder, to him as to many of others in Europe, of the Mongol onslaught, and they are unable to distinguish the civilisations elsewhere from the invading Mongols.
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Another gem from author:-
"From this short interview with Pfuel, Prince Andrew, thanks to his Austerlitz experiences, was able to form a clear conception of the man. Pfuel was one of those hopelessly and immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident on the basis of an abstract notion—science, that is, the supposed knowledge of absolute truth.
"A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth—science—which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth."
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Wonder how much the following was responsible for sowing seeds of the revolution the following century and having it culminate in as grisly a finale for the Romanovs, particularly the royal family, as the French revolution before the events in this story was for the French royals, although much more credit is given to, say, Gorky, as an author for the left, and Tolstoy is only counted a thinker:-
"While the Emperor was dining, Valuev, looking out of the window, said:
"The people are still hoping to see Your Majesty again."
The dinner was nearly over, and the Emperor, munching a biscuit, rose and went out onto the balcony.
The people, with Petya among them, rushed toward the balcony.
"Angel! Dear one! Hurrah! Father!..." cried the crowd, and Petya with it, and again the women and men of weaker mold, Petya among them, wept with joy.
A largish piece of the biscuit the Emperor was holding in his hand broke off, fell on the balcony parapet, and then to the ground. A coachman in a jerkin, who stood nearest, sprang forward and snatched it up. Several people in the crowd rushed at the coachman. Seeing this the Emperor had a plateful of biscuits brought him and began throwing them down from the balcony. Petya's eyes grew bloodshot, and still more excited by the danger of being crushed, he rushed at the biscuits. He did not know why, but he had to have a biscuit from the Tsar's hand and he felt that he must not give way. He sprang forward and upset an old woman who was catching at a biscuit; the old woman did not consider herself defeated though she was lying on the ground—she grabbed at some biscuits but her hand did not reach them. Petya pushed her hand away with his knee, seized a biscuit, and as if fearing to be too late, again shouted "Hurrah!" with a voice already hoarse.
The Emperor went in, and after that the greater part of the crowd began to disperse.
"There! I said if only we waited—and so it was!" was being joyfully said by various people.
Happy as Petya was, he felt sad at having to go home knowing that all the enjoyment of that day was over."
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Reading the descriptions of war arriving in Smolensk as the emissary of Prince Nicholas Bolkonski arrives, and his going about business disbelieving any possibility of war actually affecting normal life till it explodes around him, one is of necessity reminded of the similar extensive descriptions of Civil War by Margaret Mitchell in GWTW, and wonder if she was well read and hence subconsciously influenced, or it's just that civil societies affected by war anywhere are similar.
Her descriptions of the Civil War of course came from her roots, she was born not too long after her grandparents generation had gone through it as young people themselves, and must have heard from them and others of the generation, what with the endless talks, descriptions, and seen enactments that carry on in the South.
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The descriptions of two opposing camps, salons as they were in the context of the book - and probably in most, today, too - is very interesting, in just how generally applicable and true it remains around the globe across centuries:
"Among the innumerable categories applicable to the phenomena of human life one may discriminate between those in which substance prevails and those in which form prevails. To the latter—as distinguished from village, country, provincial, or even Moscow life—we may allot Petersburg life, and especially the life of its salons. That life of the salons is unchanging. Since the year 1805 we had made peace and had again quarreled with Bonaparte and had made constitutions and unmade them again, but the salons of Anna Pavlovna and Helene remained just as they had been—the one seven and the other five years before. At Anna Pavlovna's they talked with perplexity of Bonaparte's successes just as before and saw in them and in the subservience shown to him by the European sovereigns a malicious conspiracy, the sole object of which was to cause unpleasantness and anxiety to the court circle of which Anna Pavlovna was the representative. And in Helene's salon, which Rumyantsev himself honored with his visits, regarding Helene as a remarkably intelligent woman, they talked with the same ecstasy in 1812 as in 1808 of the "great nation" and the "great man," and regretted our rupture with France, a rupture which, according to them, ought to be promptly terminated by peace.
"Of late, since the Emperor's return from the army, there had been some excitement in these conflicting salon circles and some demonstrations of hostility to one another, but each camp retained its own tendency. In Anna Pavlovna's circle only those Frenchmen were admitted who were deep-rooted legitimists, and patriotic views were expressed to the effect that one ought not to go to the French theater and that to maintain the French troupe was costing the government as much as a whole army corps. The progress of the war was eagerly followed, and only the reports most flattering to our army were circulated. In the French circle of Helene and Rumyantsev the reports of the cruelty of the enemy and of the war were contradicted and all Napoleon's attempts at conciliation were discussed. In that circle they discountenanced those who advised hurried preparations for a removal to Kazan of the court and the girls' educational establishments under the patronage of the Dowager Empress. In Helene's circle the war in general was regarded as a series of formal demonstrations which would very soon end in peace, and the view prevailed expressed by Bilibin—who now in Petersburg was quite at home in Helene's house, which every clever man was obliged to visit—that not by gunpowder but by those who invented it would matters be settled. In that circle the Moscow enthusiasm—news of which had reached Petersburg simultaneously with the Emperor's return—was ridiculed sarcastically and very cleverly, though with much caution.
"Anna Pavlovna's circle on the contrary was enraptured by this enthusiasm and spoke of it as Plutarch speaks of the deeds of the ancients. Prince Vasili, who still occupied his former important posts, formed a connecting link between these two circles. He visited his "good friend Anna Pavlovna" as well as his daughter's "diplomatic salon," and often in his constant comings and goings between the two camps became confused and said at Helene's what he should have said at Anna Pavlovna's and vice versa."
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Another timeless bit that one can easily recognise across centuries and around globe is when a rustic underling of Rostov is captured by the French:-
""The Cossack, not knowing in what company he was, for Napoleon's plain appearance had nothing about it that would reveal to an Oriental mind the presence of a monarch, talked with extreme familiarity of the incidents of the war," says Thiers, narrating this episode. In reality Lavrushka, having got drunk the day before and left his master dinnerless, had been whipped and sent to the village in quest of chickens, where he engaged in looting till the French took him prisoner. Lavrushka was one of those coarse, bare-faced lackeys who have seen all sorts of things, consider it necessary to do everything in a mean and cunning way, are ready to render any sort of service to their master, and are keen at guessing their master's baser impulses, especially those prompted by vanity and pettiness.
"Finding himself in the company of Napoleon, whose identity he had easily and surely recognized, Lavrushka was not in the least abashed but merely did his utmost to gain his new master's favor.
"He knew very well that this was Napoleon, but Napoleon's presence could no more intimidate him than Rostov's, or a sergeant major's with the rods, would have done, for he had nothing that either the sergeant major or Napoleon could deprive him of.
"So he rattled on, telling all the gossip he had heard among the orderlies. Much of it true. But when Napoleon asked him whether the Russians thought they would beat Bonaparte or not, Lavrushka screwed up his eyes and considered."
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Tolstoy views on wars, soldiers, commanders and heroes were perhaps quite unlike authors and philosophers before, who, when they did not write glorifying wars, battles and heroes, were silent on the issues; and perhaps, if this is so, novelty of his views was shocking enough to the general readership to explode previous established views as a structure, if not demolish them completely (as must be obvious to anyone thinking about why U.S. still goes with right to bear arms, no matter how many children are murdered in how many schools by how many temporarily insane young men with just such a piece of equipment), and have thoughts blow in and through minds and civilisations as freely as winds around the globe when unfettered by walls. Each person or civilisation, of course, thereafter took and stuck to what was suitable, amongst such things as brought in by the same winds, as it generally happens.
Prince Andrew Bolkonski for example, in Borodino, was perturbed enough as portrayed by the author, expressing what are really views of the author.
""And yet they say that war is like a game of chess?" he remarked.
""Yes," replied Prince Andrew, "but with this little difference, that in chess you may think over each move as long as you please and are not limited for time, and with this difference too, that a knight is always stronger than a pawn, and two pawns are always stronger than one, while in war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division and sometimes weaker than a company. The relative strength of bodies of troops can never be known to anyone. Believe me," he went on, "if things depended on arrangements made by the staff, I should be there making arrangements, but instead of that I have the honor to serve here in the regiment with these gentlemen, and I consider that on us tomorrow's battle will depend and not on those others.... Success never depends, and never will depend, on position, or equipment, or even on numbers, and least of all on position."
""But on what then?"
""On the feeling that is in me and in him," he pointed to Timokhin, "and in each soldier.""
This last bit is taken very seriously as gospel truth by most jihadists, who are not merely going to their deaths via suicide missions due to faith in promised paradise benefits, but also have huge following bragging on internet about how they are the righteous ones who are willing to kill and hence shall take away everything achieved by those that merely built civilisations, which incidentally includes taking wealth earned by those they kill (and all other properties, which in their code includes females related to the killed) - and destroying everything that cannot be ascribed to the killers as their achievement, however falsely.
Hence the destruction of temples and wrath at destruction of one mosque that was among the hundreds built on sites of the said temples using the temples' materials, and hence too the insistence on building a mosque close to the destroyed WTC in N.Y., calling it "community centre open to all with charity and spreading information as goals", but really a mosque by any name.
On the other hand, Gandhi was obviously influenced by one part of the Tolstoy diatribe while nazis and those on the side of nazis including jihadists were influenced by the other half, where Tolstoy has Prince Andrew Bolkonski speak against a civilised war code of conduct and is vehement about every war being brutal, and it being necessary for this to be exposed before wars are stopped.
""Yes, yes," answered Prince Andrew absently. "One thing I would do if I had the power," he began again, "I would not take prisoners. Why take prisoners? It's chivalry! The French have destroyed my home and are on their way to destroy Moscow, they have outraged and are outraging me every moment. They are my enemies. In my opinion they are all criminals. And so thinks Timokhin and the whole army. They should be executed! Since they are my foes they cannot be my friends, whatever may have been said at Tilsit."
""Yes, yes," muttered Pierre, looking with shining eyes at Prince Andrew. "I quite agree with you!"
"The question that had perturbed Pierre on the Mozhaysk hill and all that day now seemed to him quite clear and completely solved. He now understood the whole meaning and importance of this war and of the impending battle. All he had seen that day, all the significant and stern expressions on the faces he had seen in passing, were lit up for him by a new light. He understood that latent heat (as they say in physics) of patriotism which was present in all these men he had seen, and this explained to him why they all prepared for death calmly, and as it were lightheartedly.
""Not take prisoners," Prince Andrew continued: "That by itself would quite change the whole war and make it less cruel. As it is we have played at war—that's what's vile! We play at magnanimity and all that stuff. Such magnanimity and sensibility are like the magnanimity and sensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed: she is so kindhearted that she can't look at blood, but enjoys eating the calf served up with sauce. They talk to us of the rules of war, of chivalry, of flags of truce, of mercy to the unfortunate and so on. It's all rubbish! I saw chivalry and flags of truce in 1805; they humbugged us and we humbugged them. They plunder other people's houses, issue false paper money, and worst of all they kill my children and my father, and then talk of rules of war and magnanimity to foes! Take no prisoners, but kill and be killed! He who has come to this as I have through the same sufferings..."
"Prince Andrew, who had thought it was all the same to him whether or not Moscow was taken as Smolensk had been, was suddenly checked in his speech by an unexpected cramp in his throat. He paced up and down a few times in silence, but his eyes glittered feverishly and his lips quivered as he began speaking.
""If there was none of this magnanimity in war, we should go to war only when it was worth while going to certain death, as now. Then there would not be war because Paul Ivanovich had offended Michael Ivanovich. And when there was a war, like this one, it would be war! And then the determination of the troops would be quite different. Then all these Westphalians and Hessians whom Napoleon is leading would not follow him into Russia, and we should not go to fight in Austria and Prussia without knowing why. War is not courtesy but the most horrible thing in life; and we ought to understand that and not play at war. We ought to accept this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. It all lies in that: get rid of falsehood and let war be war and not a game. As it is now, war is the favorite pastime of the idle and frivolous. The military calling is the most highly honored.
""But what is war? What is needed for success in warfare? What are the habits of the military? The aim of war is murder; the methods of war are spying, treachery, and their encouragement, the ruin of a country's inhabitants, robbing them or stealing to provision the army, and fraud and falsehood termed military craft. The habits of the military class are the absence of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness. And in spite of all this it is the highest class, respected by everyone. All the kings, except the Chinese, wear military uniforms, and he who kills most people receives the highest rewards."
Gandhi taking one part as worthy of preaching was taken so seriously by Nehru that Indian military wasn't allowed to take back Kashmir occupied by paki invaders in 1948, while jihadists are doing the opposite which suits their agenda of wiping out all those not of their faith from every spot on the globe.
And yet it must be obvious that precisely the code of conduct maintained in a war is what separates a civilised culture from a barbaric, beastly one, allies in WWII from their opponents, India from the invaders.
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At a more individual level, Tolstoy denies heroism or greatness or responsibility of events to particular individuals, which might seem wonderful when one is young and informed enough to be influenced, and very convenient when someone is unable to appreciate anyone being greater than oneself, as happens with many who were born jealous of any possibility that someone else might be better in any way and hence more deserving.
"Strange as at first glance it may seem to suppose that the Massacre of St. Bartholomew was not due to Charles IX's will, though he gave the order for it and thought it was done as a result of that order; and strange as it may seem to suppose that the slaughter of eighty thousand men at Borodino was not due to Napoleon's will, though he ordered the commencement and conduct of the battle and thought it was done because he ordered it; strange as these suppositions appear, yet human dignity—which tells me that each of us is, if not more at least not less a man than the great Napoleon—demands the acceptance of that solution of the question, and historic investigation abundantly confirms it."
But the folly of this becomes apparent when one sees that it not only can but usually is routinely applied in absorbing, say, rapists and murderers, as long as victims are - convenient to blame and forget - female.
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Tolstoy seems to divide his identity in three in this work, with his name appearing as a character for a very small acknowledgement sort of, but really he seems to divide himself between Prince Andrew Bolkonski for his serious thought about the war while about love, social relations et al, one could safely wager he's identifying with Count Pierre Bezhukov. At the war though, this identification is slightly off, in that Pierre is the spectator with an almost comic role, described for example in his going about to view the battle of Borodino -
"Having reached the knoll, Pierre sat down at one end of a trench surrounding the battery and gazed at what was going on around him with an unconsciously happy smile."
yet reminding the reader subliminally that most people are such spectators of any war, whether via newspapers or more modern media.
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Here is another twist in logic by Tolstoy, probably much appreciated by those that cover up a profound and fundamental misogyny in their foundations with twisted falsehood dressed up as high philosophy of sacrifice, but then most often such sacrifices involve a convenient victim promptly forgotten. Prince Andrew Bolkonski is severely wounded, and finally recognises another wounded man in the tent.
"He remembered Natasha as he had seen her for the first time at the ball in 1810, with her slender neck and arms and with a frightened happy face ready for rapture, and love and tenderness for her, stronger and more vivid than ever, awoke in his soul. He now remembered the connection that existed between himself and this man who was dimly gazing at him through tears that filled his swollen eyes. He remembered everything, and ecstatic pity and love for that man overflowed his happy heart."
The man who he now is filled with love for, is Anatole Kuragin, responsible, not only for Natasha breaking her engagement with Prince Andrew Bolkonski, but for having planned to kidnap her without knowledge of her family and go through a fraudulent wedding that couldn't be ever legal because he was secretly married, and thus for ruining her life, completely intentionally albeit without a thought about it either way.
Why is this love for Anatole Kuragin false? Because Andrew and his whole family found it out of question to forgive Natasha, although she was spurned by the said family, humiliated, and Andrew was made to leave her alone without meeting her for a year by his father - and they had no compassion much less understanding or even forgiveness for the young girl so strained, so deprived of love and life the very moment she was engaged, thus leaving her vulnerable. They merely despised her for breaking off her engagement because Andrew is Prince while she is merely countless.
And yet, they all knew Andrew was bound to go after Anatole, so Mary wrote to him to be true to his faith and forgive him. Why couldn't she even think of compassion for the young girl wronged, but merely insisted her brother forgive the criminal who ruined her life for no reason except his desire to indulge?
Is it about fear for life of her brother, or the obvious misogyny inherent as taught it is in her faith? Or is it the class difference that adds to it conveniently, thus allowing the teaching of faith to be covered suitably, since Anatole too is of a higher class?
Either way, despicable and disgusting sanctimony.
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Tolstoy denies greatness to Napoleon, but holds him responsible for the massacre of thousands without credit for victory or even plans for any battle. This paragraph is characteristic of general tenor of Tolstoy on Napoleon and pretty much sums up his views:-
"Never to the end of his life could he understand goodness, beauty, or truth, or the significance of his actions which were too contrary to goodness and truth, too remote from everything human, for him ever to be able to grasp their meaning. He could not disavow his actions, belauded as they were by half the world, and so he had to repudiate truth, goodness, and all humanity."
Wonder if Tolstoy would say exactly the same about those that rose ago leadership via revolution in his own country, and were either practically canonised (albeit not by church but no less by those decreasing thus in name of will of people), or ruled the country more single handedly and despotically than Napoleon or for that matter an average Czar?
Wonder one does, if his despising Napoleon was due to the antipathy of the man from Russia in general, or was it particularly due to the title of emperor that was not bestowed at birth, however well earned? Or was this book simply written at behest of the class superiors of Tolstoy such as Czar, asking him to write a clever book denouncing him that wouldn't seem like a propaganda pamphlet?
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Interesting to note how closely Tolstoy and his works followed those of Jane Austen whose short life with the astoundingly brilliant career was over before him, and similarly that of Margaret Mitchell even though few give her due credit for her stupendous work.
But reading War And Peace, one cannot but keep being reminded of various characters in works of Austen and Mitchell that are similar here, but not quite the same, like looking in a kaleidoscope with slight turns.
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Here is Tolstoy summing up, not only on Napoleon, but really on his book, on at least the war bit:-
"Not on that day alone did he write in a letter to Paris that "the battle field was superb," because fifty thousand corpses lay there, but even on the island of St. Helena in the peaceful solitude where he said he intended to devote his leisure to an account of the great deeds he had done, he wrote:
"""The Russian war should have been the most popular war of modern times: it was a war of good sense, for real interests, for the tranquillity and security of all; it was purely pacific and conservative.
""It was a war for a great cause, the end of uncertainties and the beginning of security. A new horizon and new labors were opening out, full of well-being and prosperity for all. The European system was already founded; all that remained was to organize it.
""Satisfied on these great points and with tranquility everywhere, I too should have had my Congress and my Holy Alliance. Those ideas were stolen from me. In that reunion of great sovereigns we should have discussed our interests like one family, and have rendered account to the peoples as clerk to master.
""Europe would in this way soon have been, in fact, but one people, and anyone who traveled anywhere would have found himself always in the common fatherland. I should have demanded the freedom of all navigable rivers for everybody, that the seas should be common to all, and that the great standing armies should be reduced henceforth to mere guards for the sovereigns.
""On returning to France, to the bosom of the great, strong, magnificent, peaceful, and glorious fatherland, I should have proclaimed her frontiers immutable; all future wars purely defensive, all aggrandizement antinational. I should have associated my son in the Empire; my dictatorship would have been finished, and his constitutional reign would have begun.
""Paris would have been the capital of the world, and the French the envy of the nations!
""My leisure then, and my old age, would have been devoted, in company with the Empress and during the royal apprenticeship of my son, to leisurely visiting, with our own horses and like a true country couple, every corner of the Empire, receiving complaints, redressing wrongs, and scattering public buildings and benefactions on all sides and everywhere.
""Napoleon, predestined by Providence for the gloomy role of executioner of the peoples, assured himself that the aim of his actions had been the peoples' welfare and that he could control the fate of millions and by the employment of power confer benefactions.
"""Of four hundred thousand who crossed the Vistula," he wrote further of the Russian war, "half were Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Poles, Bavarians, Wurttembergers, Mecklenburgers, Spaniards, Italians, and Neapolitans. The Imperial army, strictly speaking, was one third composed of Dutch, Belgians, men from the borders of the Rhine, Piedmontese, Swiss, Genevese, Tuscans, Romans, inhabitants of the Thirty-second Military Division, of Bremen, of Hamburg, and so on: it included scarcely a hundred and forty thousand who spoke French. The Russian expedition actually cost France less than fifty thousand men; the Russian army in its retreat from Vilna to Moscow lost in the various battles four times more men than the French army; the burning of Moscow cost the lives of a hundred thousand Russians who died of cold and want in the woods; finally, in its march from Moscow to the Oder the Russian army also suffered from the severity of the season; so that by the time it reached Vilna it numbered only fifty thousand, and at Kalisch less than eighteen thousand.""
"He imagined that the war with Russia came about by his will, and the horrors that occurred did not stagger his soul. He boldly took the whole responsibility for what happened, and his darkened mind found justification in the belief that among the hundreds of thousands who perished there were fewer Frenchmen than Hessians and Bavarians."
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And summing up, the battle at Borodino and the Russian campaign by Napoleon, as well as the beginning of end of career for Napoleon, further, he writes:-
"The moral force of the attacking French army was exhausted. Not that sort of victory which is defined by the capture of pieces of material fastened to sticks, called standards, and of the ground on which the troops had stood and were standing, but a moral victory that convinces the enemy of the moral superiority of his opponent and of his own impotence was gained by the Russians at Borodino. The French invaders, like an infuriated animal that has in its onslaught received a mortal wound, felt that they were perishing, but could not stop, any more than the Russian army, weaker by one half, could help swerving. By impetus gained, the French army was still able to roll forward to Moscow, but there, without further effort on the part of the Russians, it had to perish, bleeding from the mortal wound it had received at Borodino. The direct consequence of the battle of Borodino was Napoleon's senseless flight from Moscow, his retreat along the old Smolensk road, the destruction of the invading army of five hundred thousand men, and the downfall of Napoleonic France, on which at Borodino for the first time the hand of an opponent of stronger spirit had been laid."
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Here's something perhaps new for West, or perhaps only for males, or those of a certain class, most likely for those of all three, that's always been known to most others :-
"For people accustomed to think that plans of campaign and battles are made by generals—as any one of us sitting over a map in his study may imagine how he would have arranged things in this or that battle—the questions present themselves: Why did Kutuzov during the retreat not do this or that? Why did he not take up a position before reaching Fili? Why did he not retire at once by the Kaluga road, abandoning Moscow? and so on. People accustomed to think in that way forget, or do not know, the inevitable conditions which always limit the activities of any commander in chief. The activity of a commander in chief does not at all resemble the activity we imagine to ourselves when we sit at ease in our studies examining some campaign on the map, with a certain number of troops on this and that side in a certain known locality, and begin our plans from some given moment. A commander in chief is never dealing with the beginning of any event—the position from which we always contemplate it. The commander in chief is always in the midst of a series of shifting events and so he never can at any moment consider the whole import of an event that is occurring. Moment by moment the event is imperceptibly shaping itself, and at every moment of this continuous, uninterrupted shaping of events the commander in chief is in the midst of a most complex play of intrigues, worries, contingencies, authorities, projects, counsels, threats, and deceptions and is continually obliged to reply to innumerable questions addressed to him, which constantly conflict with one another."
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Strange how Tolstoy gained a reputation as a humanist philosopher and a saint for the mildly leftist intellectuals, considering the highly casteism bent that shows none too subtly in the very work that got him the reputation and the following - One has only to notice his reverence for the Czar, not just in the parts where Nicholas Rostov is almost in tears to see him, but much more subtly yet decidedly in the references to the Czar regarding Napoleon invading Russia.
This might be allowed as a personal devotion to a person, except he repeatedly shows the attitude patterns in other contexts. There is the almost caricature descriptions and references to the French - presumably paid (and hence one either not the same class or at the very least one in impoverished circumstances) companion, of princess Mary, and her treatment by everyone as well as her conduct. This again would be an individual portrait, but for the sudden revelation of Sonya the poor dependent cousin of Natasha, as a none too good a person, although until then she is affianced to Nicholas and a poor dependent but loved member of Rostov household whose match with Nicholas is inadvisable only due to the precarious circumstances of the Rostov family.
Perhaps the worst is when Pierre Bezhukov, having been befriended by the fellow prisoner Karataev, and having spent months hearing him and marvelling at the natural philosophy of the simple peasant, ignores him at the moment when he sees the frail fellow prisoner on the march from Moscow sitting by roadside, despite the tears and silent pleading he sees in his eyes, and having understood that he wanted to say something to him, pretends not having understood and walks on. Worse, when he hears a shot, he doesn't allow himself to know his companion was shot dead, although it wasn't difficult to guess, since prisoners unable to walk were being shot dead by the French. And yet, later, Tolstoy has this to say:-
"Formerly he had sought Him in aims he set himself. That search for an aim had been simply a search for God, and suddenly in his captivity he had learned not by words or reasoning but by direct feeling what his nurse had told him long ago: that God is here and everywhere. In his captivity he had learned that in Karataev God was greater, more infinite and unfathomable than in the Architect of the Universe recognized by the Freemasons. He felt like a man who after straining his eyes to see into the far distance finds what he sought at his very feet. All his life he had looked over the heads of the men around him, when he should have merely looked in front of him without straining his eyes."
Nevertheless, Pierre Bezhukov avoids the knowledge of his own guilt, of failing him, of neglecting Karataev at the moment when the latter needed him and was pleading silently with tears in his eyes, and avoids it completely.
Austen and Mitchell on the other hand, while having lived in a caste system that was as deeply entrenched in their societies as that of Europe in Tolstoy's own, nevertheless don't divide virtues and relationships along the caste lines, far from it.
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This amazing description by Tolstoy is about an officer looking to hand over orders for the generals of the Russian army, after they have retreated from Moscow which fell into French control, to ambush a part of the French near where the Russian army has returned:-
""Miloradovich too was away, but here he was told that he had gone to a ball at General Kikin's and that Ermolov was probably there too.
""But where is it?"
""Why, there, over at Echkino," said a Cossack officer, pointing to a country house in the far distance.
""What, outside our line?"
"They've put two regiments as outposts, and they're having such a spree there, it's awful! Two bands and three sets of singers!"
"The officer rode out beyond our lines to Echkino. While still at a distance he heard as he rode the merry sounds of a soldier's dance song proceeding from the house.
""In the meadows... in the meadows!" he heard, accompanied by whistling and the sound of a torban, drowned every now and then by shouts. These sounds made his spirits rise, but at the same time he was afraid that he would be blamed for not having executed sooner the important order entrusted to him. It was already past eight o'clock. He dismounted and went up into the porch of a large country house which had remained intact between the Russian and French forces. In the refreshment room and the hall, footmen were bustling about with wine and viands. Groups of singers stood outside the windows. The officer was admitted and immediately saw all the chief generals of the army together, and among them Ermolov's big imposing figure. They all had their coats unbuttoned and were standing in a semicircle with flushed and animated faces, laughing loudly. In the middle of the room a short handsome general with a red face was dancing the trepak with much spirit and agility.
""Ha, ha, ha! Bravo, Nicholas Ivanych! Ha, ha, ha!"
"The officer felt that by arriving with important orders at such a moment he was doubly to blame, and he would have preferred to wait; but one of the generals espied him and, hearing what he had come about, informed Ermolov.
"Ermolov came forward with a frown on his face and, hearing what the officer had to say, took the papers from him without a word.
"You think he went off just by chance?" said a comrade, who was on the staff that evening, to the officer of the Horse Guards, referring to Ermolov. "It was a trick. It was done on purpose to get Konovnitsyn into trouble. You'll see what a mess there'll be tomorrow.""
None of this goes much to give an impression to the reader that the said Russian generals leading the army were anything remotely resembling what could be called professionals, in their attitude or behaviour.
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Perhaps the general impression regarding Tolstoy as a humanist philosopher and thinker must be considered in hindsight in context of his time and breeding, background and caste and more. Nevertheless, for a darling of moderate leftists to say
"For us with the standard of good and evil given us by Christ, no human actions are incommensurable. And there is no greatness where simplicity, goodness, and truth are absent."
as he does at the end of Chapter XVIII, Book Fourteen, describing the French retreat, is a jolt at best, a shock when unexpected.
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A very curious summing up of perhaps this book and perhaps the author, is given by him at the end of chapter I of the Epilogue:-
"If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of life is destroyed."
And another, at the end of chapter IV thereafter:-
"The higher the human intellect rises in the discovery of these purposes, the more obvious it becomes, that the ultimate purpose is beyond our comprehension.
"All that is accessible to man is the relation of the life of the bee to other manifestations of life. And so it is with the purpose of historic characters and nations."
And another towards the end of chapter VII that contradicts any thought about him being of leftist inclination, and almost clearly shows seeds of Ayn Rand:-
"And all Nicholas did was fruitful—probably just because he refused to allow himself to think that he was doing good to others for virtue's sake."
Another interesting quote, in chapter I, Epilogue Two:-
"Instead of the former divinely appointed aims of the Jewish, Greek, or Roman nations, which ancient historians regarded as representing the progress of humanity, modern history has postulated its own aims—the welfare of the French, German, or English people, or, in its highest abstraction, the welfare and civilization of humanity in general, by which is usually meant that of the peoples occupying a small northwesterly portion of a large continent."
And a bit further, brilliance of the first paragraph summing up and further lines in the second, negated by the equating of all decency with a club:-
"In 1789 a ferment arises in Paris; it grows, spreads, and is expressed by a movement of peoples from west to east. Several times it moves eastward and collides with a countermovement from the east westward. In 1812 it reaches its extreme limit, Moscow, and then, with remarkable symmetry, a countermovement occurs from east to west, attracting to it, as the first movement had done, the nations of middle Europe. The counter movement reaches the starting point of the first movement in the west—Paris—and subsides.
"During that twenty-year period an immense number of fields were left untilled, houses were burned, trade changed its direction, millions of men migrated, were impoverished, or were enriched, and millions of Christian men professing the law of love of their fellows slew one another."
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Most of the rest of the first epilogue consists of informing the reader about the lives of the Rostov siblings Natasha and Nicholas after they are married to Pierre Bezhukov and Princess Mary respectively, and have provided over half a dozen grandchildren for their mother the old Countess Rostov.
Tolstoy waxes eloquent about virtues of simplicity in humans, seeing serfs, peasants and women as mainly those that embody the said virtues, and while he allows intellectual activities to men, and he admires spiritual ones in women, all the while deprecating their uselessness and yet admiring them, he is quite definite in denouncing intellectual or what passed for intelligent bent in women in his circles, and much more so the activities of women in society - parties, conversations, even dressing up even if it's only for one's own husband.
He sees woman exalted in the natural state of motherhood and activities related, and in the role of worshipping the husband while not just influencing but controlling his thinking and actions outside his business with other men, including the said intellectual activity.
What he forgets is not merely that intellect is far from bestowed merely along gender lines, or that DNA after all is inherited by children from both parents equally, but also that the industrial revolution and its usually not discussed financial side of salaries and banking changed this harmony he worships between womens' motherhood and Mother Earth, by changing wealth forms and excluding wives and mothers for the first time. And that women attempting to keep pace with their men was but natural, which in sphere of social and political and diplomatic spheres was the salons prized by French. All this, even without discussing rights and equality that was brought in of necessity due to the inequities brought about during his own time.
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The second epilogue, even more than the rest, brings home just how much Tolstoy's writing influenced various authors, especially those of another generation in Bengal- chiefly, Vimal Mitra and Tarashankar Bandopadhyay, but likely many others too, in their thinking and in this meandering, philosopher style of writing - this is where they imbibed it, although as a whole perhaps Russian literature msy have influenced Bengali literature, too, but still, this certainly is a large source of the influence.
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Chapter III of the second epilogue begins with tolstoy introducing for the first time what was a complete novelty of his era, albeit only in thinking out loud on paper and used as an example, the symbol of the industrial revolution for most of the world - the train locomotive:-
"A locomotive is moving. Someone asks: "What moves it?" A peasant says the devil moves it. Another man says the locomotive moves because its wheels go round. A third asserts that the cause of its movement lies in the smoke which the wind carries away.
"The peasant is irrefutable. He has devised a complete explanation. To refute him someone would have to prove to him that there is no devil, or another peasant would have to explain to him that it is not the devil but a German, who moves the locomotive. Only then, as a result of the contradiction, will they see that they are both wrong. But the man who says that the movement of the wheels is the cause refutes himself, for having once begun to analyze he ought to go on and explain further why the wheels go round; and till he has reached the ultimate cause of the movement of the locomotive in the pressure of steam in the boiler, he has no right to stop in his search for the cause. The man who explains the movement of the locomotive by the smoke that is carried back has noticed that the wheels do not supply an explanation and has taken the first sign that occurs to him and in his turn has offered that as an explanation.
"The only conception that can explain the movement of the locomotive is that of a force commensurate with the movement observed.
"The only conception that can explain the movement of the peoples is that of some force commensurate with the whole movement of the peoples."
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Last few chapters of epilogue two, some fourteen or more pages, are for diehard fans of Tolstoy and those that are for some reason in need of oblique exercises such as this diatribe. One may stop reading at the end of epilogue one if one is already tired of it through the rest of the book so far.
Mostly, one can sum it up as Tolstoy arriving at proof of a higher will, after debunking heroes and their will or greatness, as causes of historical events.
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