Great Russia/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII
THE RUSSIAN WAR OF LIBERATION A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, AND TOLSTOY'S "WAR AND PEACE"
I
IT is now exactly a hundred years since Napoleon crossed the Niemen and declared war to his former friend and ally, Alexander I. Like the passing of the Rubicon by Cæsar, the crossing of the Niemen marks a turning-point in human history. Everything in the Russian campaign is stupendous, and staggers our imagination. The numbers engaged are on a scale hitherto unexampled in military annals. The most moderate computation exceeds half a million. Nor is the composition of the "Grand Army" less extraordinary than its numbers. It is too often forgotten that in the Russian campaign the French were in a minority. Half the nations of the Continent had sent their contingents to the Lord of the World. Danes, Spaniards, Austrians, Poles, had all been coaxed or driven into the service of the Corsican, and were to adorn the supreme triumph of Napoleon's career.
And from beginning to end the Russian Campaign is a succession of dramatic contrasts and of tragic incidents. The conflict between the civilized Frenchman and the semi-barbarous Muscovite, the novel theatre of the war, the vast Russian plain alluring and devouring the invader, the guerilla tactics of the Cossacks, the ghastly shambles of Borodino, followed by the victorious entry into Moscow, the burning of the capital in the very hour of victory, the gradual approach of the Arctic winter, the hurried retreat, the infinite expanse covered with snow as with a winding sheet, the heroism of Murat and Ney, recalling the Homeric age, the disaster of the Berezina, the secret flight of Napoleon in the dead of night, and, as the last phase, a few straggling and famished hordes returning to the Polish frontier, a remnant of what had been, six months before, a formidable host—all those scenes and incidents are written in indelible characters in the annals of human folly and human suffering, and make the campaign of Russia one of the most impressive catastrophes of all times.
II
It is this catastrophe which is the subject of Tolstoy's novel. Only a literary giant like Tolstoy could have done justice to so gigantic a theme, and it is through this unique combination of a wonderful subject with a wonderful genius that "War and Peace" takes rank as one of the supreme masterpieces of world literature.
"War and Peace" is one of the miracles of literary art, and, like every miracle, it necessarily evades us. We cannot explain how the miracle came into being. We can only contemplate the achievement. We can only admire and inadequately analyse the magic powers displayed: the creative imagination which breathes life into every scene and every character, and which, indeed, makes the fictitious characters stand out more vividly than the historical, the infallible observation and sense of reality which seizes on the most minute details, and which selects with infallible tact the most characteristic touches; the universal outlook which embraces every aspect and every class of society, which introduces us to the drawing-room of the society woman, to the closet of the statesman, and to the hut of the peasant; and, above all, the divine gift of sympathy, which can feel with every suffering, which can read into every heart, into the soul of sinner and saint, of young and old, of the worldling and of the common people.
And as we can only inadequately analyse the powers displayed, so we can only dimly guess the methods employed. One of Tolstoy's favourite methods is the method of contrast, and that method is illustrated in the very title of the book. For we may observe that the title is not "The Great War." The title is "War and Peace." The author gives us the action and reaction of the one on the other. He does not give the military events separately. He gives us the battle scenes on the background of the domestic drama. He makes the pomp and circumstance of war alternate with the peaceful pursuits of everyday life. He shows us events, not merely from the vantage-ground of the battlefield, but from the more important point of view of those who are left at home. He tells us of the war as it affects the old prince on his remote estate, or as it impresses the wives and mothers whose dear ones are taken away from them. Whilst in one scene the hero is dying in the stillness of the starry night, in the next scene the heroine is making love, and the little ironies and comedies of ordinary life only heighten the effect of the tragedy.
III
But "War and Peace" is not only an inspiring epic, the Iliad of the Russian people. It also contains an ethical message of weighty import. From his protracted absorption in his great theme, Tolstoy has emerged with a new conception of war and a new conception of life. Describing the military incidents of the campaign, he has come to close quarters with the horrors of modern warfare, with the wholesale and treacherous butchery of gun and grapeshot, which makes no difference between coward and hero. The once dashing young officer of the Crimea is transformed into an ardent anti-militarist. And thus the record of a great patriotic war indirectly becomes a plea in the favour of peace. Or, again, studying the high life of Petersburg and Moscow, Tolstoy cannot help contrasting the selfishness and frivolity of the upper classes with the quiet heroism and the resignation of the illiterate peasant. And thus, what appears at first sight as a description of Russian society life, becomes indirectly the glorification of democracy. Or again, tracing the action between cause and effect, Tolstoi has observed how at every stage the individual will is overruled by a Higher Will; how in the battlefield the leader does not lead, but follows; how victory and defeat are equally at the mercy of forces beyond human control. And thus we see the gambler and Bohemian of earlier years transformed into a Russian Puritan and a Christian Nihilist.
But although the burning problems of modern life are presented to us in all their aspects, Tolstoy is too much of an artist to obtrude his own theories upon his audience. He lets life teach its own lessons, and he lets the reader draw his own moral. From the first page to the last he remains the objective creator; standing, as it were, outside and above his own creation, he retains his impartiality and his serenity. No doubt he writes with a purpose, but the purpose is hidden from us. The time will soon come in the life of Tolstoy when the story will be overweighted with the message, and when the story-teller will recede in the background and surrender to the leader and preacher. But until the "final conversion" he maintains that perfect equilibrium which is so rarely met with in literature, that harmony between the creative artist and the thinker where neither encroaches on the province of the other, and where each remain supreme in his own sphere.