The Battle
of Borodino 1812
Victory and Failure
Бородинское поле сражения (Фабер дю-Фор)
The
bi-centenial of the Battle of Borodino, which along with the great Patriotic
War of 1941 to 1945, is one of the two great features of modern Russia’s
historical identity, has prompted an understandable frisson of patriotic pride
in the Russian nation.
It is
well deserved.
The
scholarly research of Dominic Lieven has shown us that Russia’s over- arching
aim in chasing Napoleon all the way back to Paris was to establish peace in
Europe. Alexander knew that as long as Napoleon was free, Europe
was under permanent threat. In this, Castlereagh, the British Foreign
Secretary, normally takes all the credit. But then, western scholars have a
long tradition of ignoring the facts of Russia’s
role in obtaining and maintaining the peace of Europe.
Witness
the extraordinary ignorance among westerners of the unimaginable numbers of
Russian losses in the Second World War, or the contribution of Zhukov to the
defeat of the Nazi scourge.
Yes,
most certainly, as Russia
was the overwhelming force behind the defeat of the Nazi tyranny, so she was in
the defeat of the Napoleonic one.
Be
proud, Russia,
of your past, of the people who lived where you live today, and who spoke your
language. (And some French and German, but nations then were new and uncertain
forms.)
When
the Russian army marched across Europe to Paris
in 1813 and 1814, it was hailed in many places as an army of liberation,
releasing people from the exactions of Napoleon, an end to constant war and the
restoration of trade and prosperity.
Be
proud of this and be happy that Dominic Lieven, himself an American, also
destroys the somewhat patronising argument of many western scholars that it was
Bonaparte’s miscalculations and the unusual weather that were decisive.
Neither
was it, he shows, as earlier scholars such as the British military historian
JFC Fuller have maintained, and even Tolstoy, only a matter of the raw spirit
and courage of Russian troops inspiring the nations under the French heel to rise
up against their oppressors.
Nor
was it mostly that the flames of Moscow’s
fires spat the sparks that set the flames of nationalism under Napoleon’s
combustible empire and burnt it to the ground.
No,
these may have played a part in the drama, but they were not the leading
player.
Centre
stage was the Tsarist state itself, with Alexander and his aristocratic circle
in full support.
The
Tsar possessed strategic understanding, and the resources of the nation were
husbanded and marshalled according to this understanding : military flair: flexible
and fast moving cavalry; logistics; intelligence and diplomatic competence, all
combined to produce the unconditional surrender of the egotistical maniac that
had stolen his country from the revolution of 1789 – Bonaparte, the arch
opportunist, the archetype of a tyrant intoxicated by power, a man who bragged
that he cared not a jot for the lives of a million men.
This
analysis did not find favour with the Bolshevik regime, of course. The special
spirit and courage of the proletariat and peasantry do not figure in it
sufficiently as the crucial elements.
But
as Lieven points out, there are only two memoirs from the ordinary soldiers of
the Campaign of 1812 – 1814. We really have no idea of the spirit or suffering
of the masses of Russian or other troops. This was largely, for most of the
Russian peasantry that made up the cannon fodder at the Tsar’s disposal, a
silent sacrifice as far as posterity was concerned.
This
reminder of the unknown soldiers of world history prompts me though, to ask
you, proud Russians, to moderate the celebrations a little, and leave a little
room for humble reflection.
Wilfred
Owen, the great English poet of The First World War, reminds the world that
cares to read him that the dead of the battlefield are never asked for their
opinion on whether the victory was worthwhile.
…..I
am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I
knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday
through me as you jabbed and killed.
I
parried;but my hands were loath and cold.
Let
us sleep now……
These
are the final four lines from ‘Strange Meeting’ found in Owen’s papers after
his death on the Western Front.
The
poem contains the lines which have come to encapsulate another view of war :
…..For
of my glee might many men have laughed,
And
of my weeping something had been left,
Which
must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The
pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Surely,
as we celebrate a victory in a battle that had to be fought, a battle of
national survival, we must remember and reflect on this : that the whole truth
is rarely told of war.
Nations
co – opt victory for them selves and ignore defeat. We British have Waterloo Station not
Dunkirk Station. Blucher, the Prussian, saved the day for Wellington,
but he rarely gets a thank you in England. The French have Austerlitz but not Leipzig.
The
amnesia extends from the bottom – the lost lives that never speak, to the top –
the sublime truth that in strategy, every battle is at least a partial defeat.
The
aim of grand strategy is not to destroy men but to destroy or eliminate the
will to fight.
If
your enemy attacks, you have failed before you begin.
The
cost of war is always immense, and the price paid is always incalculable.
Not,
perhaps, entirely incalculable – buildings and factories can be replaced,
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
are resplendent again, and we can use the art of accountancy to calculate the
cost.
But
how do we put a price on the truth untold?
When
the dogs of war are let slip, as they always are, over and over again, we are every
time failing to solve the greatest problem faced by the human species, the one
problem that science, otherwise our one great hope, can never solve, and
religion, the hope of billions, has only ever avoided – the problem of human
violence.
Every
single battle ever fought, and every single battle that will be fought, will in
this way be a failure.
For
every battle won hides and buries some of the truth.
And
every battle won lodges the seeds of the next in the hearts of men and women.
And
somewhere, quietly working in a laboratory, men and women are working on the
next generation of deadly weaponry.
Let
us remember this alongside our pride in battles won.
Enjoy
the day, dear Russian friends, but please do remember that while Borodino was a victory, like all battles, it was also a
failure.
The
Statesmen of history have fought, won and lost a lot of wars. Few of them have
fought war itself.
