CHAPTER IV

THE CRIMEAN WAR

Joins army of the Danube. Siege of Silistria. Sevastopol. Projected

Newspaper. _Sevastopol in December._ Battle of the Tchérnaya. Capture

of the Maláhof. Courier to Petersburg. Song. Relations with superiors

and fellow-officers. Self-depreciation. _The Wood-Felling._ _Sevastopol

in May._ The Censor. On War.

AT twenty-five years of age it fell to Tolstoy's lot to take part in a

great European war and thereby to extend the range of his experience in

a way that considerably affected his subsequent life and writings.

Tolstoy tells us that he got his first understanding of war from

Stendhal, the author of _Le Rouge et le Noir_ and _La Chartreuse de

Parme_. In conversation with Paul Boyer, Tolstoy once spoke of those

novels as inimitable works of art, adding, 'I am greatly indebted to

Stendhal. He taught me to understand war. Re-read the description of

the battle of Waterloo in _La Chartreuse de Parme_. Who ever before

so described war? Described it, that is, as it is in reality? Do you

remember Fabrice riding over the field of battle and understanding

"nothing"?'

Tolstoy's brother Nicholas, though fond of war, also disbelieved in

the popular romantic view of it, and used to say: 'All _that_ is

embellishment, and in real war there is no embellishment.'--'A little

later, in the Crimea,' added Tolstoy in his talk with Boyer, 'I had a

grand chance to see with my own eyes that this is so.'

Of the causes that led to the war it need only be said that the rule

of the Turks over Christian populations had long kept a dangerous

sore open in Europe, and the consequent diplomatic difficulties were

complicated by the indefiniteness of two lines in the Treaty of

Kainardji, which Catherine the Great had imposed upon Turkey in 1774.

There was also friction between the Eastern and Western Churches, with

reference to the custody of the Places in Palestine rendered holy by

their traditional connection with the Prince of Peace. Nicholas I, who

had wellnigh drilled all intelligence out of those near him in his

Government and in his army, was not accustomed to be thwarted. Dimly

conscious of the first faint symptoms of that growth of Liberalism

which a few years later, in the early 'sixties, led to sweeping reforms

in Russia, he felt inclined to demonstrate the beneficence of his

rule not by allowing changes to be made at home, but by arbitrarily

inflicting reforms on Turkey. Failing to get his way by diplomatic

pressure, he rashly proceeded to occupy the Danubian Principalities as

a 'material guarantee' of Turkey's compliance with his demands.

He was opposed by Austria and Prussia as strongly as by England and

France, and the pressure exerted by the four powers sufficed to compel

him to withdraw his army from Turkish soil. Thereupon the war, which

had as yet been waged only between Russia and Turkey, might well have

ended, had not England and France undertaken a quite needless invasion

of the Crimea: an enterprise in which Austria and Prussia refused to

join. The end did not justify the proceedings, for in spite of success

in this war, Napoleon the Third's dynasty crumbled to dust within

twenty years, while within a like period after Palmerston's death

Lord Salisbury frankly admitted that we had 'put our money on the

wrong horse.' As to Nicholas I, his pride was destined to be bitterly

mortified by the results of an enterprise which not only failed of its

immediate object, but by its failure actually hastened the coming of

those reforms in Russia against which he had set his face. Even Turkey

did not really benefit by being allowed to oppress her subject races

for a couple of generations longer.

It was the influence of Napoleon III, as Kinglake has pointed out,

that led England to take part in the war. Having by treachery and

murder made himself Emperor of the French, that monarch found himself

for a time dangerously isolated from the support of people of good

repute. In consultation with Palmerston, he decided to subordinate the

traditional Eastern policy of his country to that of England if thereby

he could succeed in being publicly paraded as the friend and ally of

Queen Victoria. As soon as he had secured an alliance with England,

with Palmerston's aid, and helped by the extraordinary war fever which

seized the English nation, he quickly forced the peacefully disposed

Lord Aberdeen along an inclined plane which ultimately plunged both

nations into a war for which no sufficient motive justification or

excuse existed.

1854

Hostilities between Russia and Turkey had begun in October 1853, but

France and England did not break off negotiations with the former power

till the end of March 1854, the very month in which Tolstoy reached

Bucharest on his way through Wallachia to join the army.

From there he wrote to his aunt, telling of his journey. The roads

after he had passed Khersón, and especially after he had crossed

the frontier, were abominable; his journey lasted nine days; and he

'arrived almost ill with fatigue.'

A few days later, on 17th March, he wrote of his first interview with

Gortchakóf:

[14]Le prince Gortchakóf n'était pas ici. Hier il vient d'arriver

et je viens de chez lui. Il m'a reçu mieux que je ne croyais--en

vrai parent. Il m'a embrassé, il m'a engagé de venir dîner tous les

jours chez lui et il veut me garder auprès de lui, mais ce n'est

pas encore décidé.

Pardon, chère tante, que je vous écris peu--je n'ai pas encore la

tête à moi,--cette grande et belle ville, toutes ces présentations,

l'opéra italien, le théâtre français, les deux jeunes Gortchakóf

qui sont de très braves garçons ... de sorte que je ne suis pas

resté deux heures chez moi, et je n'ai pas pensé à mes occupations.

[14] Prince Gortchakóf was not here. He arrived yesterday, and

I have just come from his lodgings. He received me better than

I expected--quite as a relation. He embraced me, and made me

promise to dine at his house every day. He wants to keep me

near him, but this is not yet decided.

Forgive me, dear Aunt, for writing but little to you--I have

not yet collected my wits; this large and fine town, all these

presentations, the Italian opera, the French theatre, the two

young Gortchakófs, who are very fine lads ... so that I have

not remained two hours at home, and have not thought of my

duties.

On 22nd March he adds: 'I learnt yesterday that I am not to remain with

the Prince, but am to go to Oltenitza to join my battery.'

In May he wrote:

[15]Tandis que vous me croyez exposé à tous les dangers de la

guerre je n'ai pas encore senti la poudre turque, et je suis très

tranquillement à Boukarest à me promener, à faire de la musique et

à manger des glaces. En effet tout ce temps, excepté deux semaines

que j'ai passées à Oltenitza où j'ai été attaché à une batterie, et

une semaine que j'ai passée en courses par la Moldavie, Valachie et

Bessarabie par ordre du gén. Serjpoutóvsky auprès duquel je suis à

présent _by special appointment_, je suis resté à Boukarest et à

vous avouer franchement, ce genre de vie un peu dissipé, tout à

fait oisif et très coûteux que je mène ici me déplaît infiniment.

Auparavant c'était le service qui m'y retenait, mais à présent j'y

suis resté pendant près de trois semaines à cause d'une fièvre que

j'ai attrapée pendant mon voyage, mais dont, Dieu merci, je suis

pour le moment assez rétabli pour rejoindre dans deux ou trois

jours mon général qui est au camp près de Silistrie. A propos de

mon général, il a l'air d'être un très brave homme et paraît,

quoique nous nous connaissons fort peu, être bien disposé à mon

égard. Ce qui est encore fort agréable est que son état-major est

composé pour la plupart de gens comme il faut.

[15] While you are fancying me exposed to all the dangers

of war, I have not yet smelt Turkish powder, but am very

quietly at Bucharest, strolling about, making music, and

eating ices. In fact, all this time, except for two weeks I

spent at Oltenitza, where I was attached to a battery, and

one week I passed making excursions in Moldavia Wallachia and

Bessarabia by order of General Serzhpoutóvsky, on whose staff

I now am by special appointment, I have been at Bucharest; and

to speak frankly, the rather dissipated, quite idle and very

expensive kind of life that I lead here, displeases me very

much. Formerly it was the service that kept me here; but now

for three weeks I have been kept here by a fever caught during

my journey, but from which, thank God, I have for the present

recovered sufficiently to be able in two or three days' time

to rejoin my General, who is in camp near Silistria. Apropos

of my General, he appears to be a very fine fellow, and though

we know each other very slightly, seems well disposed toward

me. What is also agreeable is that his staff consists for the

most part of gentlemen.

We shall find Tolstoy modifying this opinion, a little later on; but it

is worth noting that at this time he was fully alive to the superiority

of '_gens comme il faut_,' and that his depreciation of them in later

years may have been partly a reaction from a previous over-valuation.

By June 1854 the military and political situation was as follows. The

Russians had advanced through Moldavia and Wallachia to the Danube, had

crossed that river, and were besieging Silistria. Austria, supporting

the other great powers, had massed a powerful army on the Turkish

frontier, and a glance at the map of Europe will show that the Russian

army, far removed from its base, was in imminent danger of being cut

off by the Austrians, who peremptorily summoned Russia to evacuate

the Principalities, and on 14th June concluded a formal alliance with

the Porte. These circumstances explain the sudden abandonment of the

siege of Silistria mentioned in the following letter, addressed by Leo

Tolstoy to his Aunt Tatiána and to his brother Nicholas conjointly;

though when he wrote it, the causes which produced the result he

described were a mystery to him.

[16]Je vais vous parler donc de mes souvenirs de Silistrie. J'y ai

vu tant de choses intéressantes, poétiques et touchantes que le

temps que j'y ai passé ne s'effacera jamais de ma mémoire. Notre

camp était disposé de l'autre côté du Danube c.à d. sur la rive

droite sur un terrain très élevé au milieu de superbes jardins,

appartenant à Mustafa Pasha--le gouverneur de Silistrie. La vue

de cet endroit est non seulement magnifique, mais pour nous tous

du plus grand intérêt. Sans parler du Danube, de ces îles et de

ces rivages, les uns occupés par nous, les autres par les Turcs,

on voyait la ville, la forteresse, les petits forts de Silistrie

comme sur la main. On entendait les coups de canons, de fusils

qui ne cessaient ni jour ni nuit, et avec une lunette d'approche

on pouvait distinguer les soldats turcs. Il est vrai que c'est

un drôle de plaisir que de voir de gens s'entretuer et cependant

tous les soirs et matins je me mettais sur ma cart et je restais

des heures entières à regarder et ce n'était pas moi le seul qui

le faisait. Le spectacle était vraiment beau, surtout la nuit.

Les nuits ordinairement mes soldats se mettent aux travaux des

tranchées, et les Turcs se jettent sur eux pour les en empêcher,

alors il fallait voir et entendre cette fusillade. La première nuit

que j'ai passée au camp ce bruit terrible m'a reveillé et effrayé,

je croyais qu'on est allé a l'assaut et j'ai bien vite fait seller

mon cheval, mais ceux qui avait déjà passé quelque temps au camp

me dirent que je n'avais qu'à me tenir tranquille, que cette

canonnade et fusillade était une chose ordinaire et qu'on appela en

plaisantant, 'Allah'; alors je me suis recouché, mais ne pouvant

m'endormir je me suis amusé, une montre à la main, à compter les

coups de canon que j'entendais et j'ai compté 110 explosions dans

l'espace d'une minute. Et cependant tout ceci n'a eu de près

l'air aussi effrayant que cela le paraît. La nuit, quand on n'y

voyait rien, c'était à qui brûlerait le plus de poudre et avec ces

milliers de coups de canons on tuait tout au plus une trentaine

d'hommes de part et d'autre.

Ceci donc est un spectacle ordinaire que nous avions tous les

jours et dans lequel, quand on m'envoyait avec des ordres dans les

tranchées, je prenais aussi ma part; mais nous avions aussi des

spectacles extraordinaires, comme celui de la veille de l'assaut

quand on a fait sauter une mine de 240 pouds de poudre sous un des

bastions de l'ennemi. Le matin de cette journée le prince avait

été aux tranchées avec tout son état-major (comme le général auprès

duquel j'étais en fait partie, j'y ai aussi été) pour faire les

dispositions définies--vu pour l'assaut du lendemain. Le plan,

trop long pour que je puisse l'expliquer ici, était si bien fait,

tout était si bien prévu que personne ne doutait de la réussite. A

propos de cela il faut que je vous dise encore que je commence à

avoir de l'admiration pour le prince (au reste il faut en entendre

parler parmi les officiers et les soldats, non seulement je n'ai

jamais entendu dire du mal de lui, mais il est généralement adoré).

Je l'ai vu au feu pour la première fois pendant cette matinée.

Il faut voir cette figure un peu ridicule avec sa grande taille,

ses mains derrière le dos, sa casquette en arrière, ses lunettes

et sa manière de parler comme un dindon. On voit qu'il était

tellement occupé de la marche générale des affaires que les balles

et les boulets n'existaient pas pour lui; il s'expose au danger

avec tant de simplicité, qu'on dirait qu'il n'en a pas l'idée et

qu'involontairement qu'on n'a plus peur de lui que pour soi-même;

et puis donnant ses ordres avec tant de clarté et de précision

et avec cela toujours affable avec chacun. C'est un grand, c.à

d. un homme qui s'est voué toute sa vie au service de sa patrie

et pas par l'ambition, mais par le devoir. Je vais vous raconter

un trait de lui qui se lie à l'histoire de cet assaut que j'ai

commencé à raconter. L'après-dîner du même jour on a fait sauter

la mine, et près de 600 pièces d'artillerie ont fait feu sur le

fort qu'on voulait prendre, et on continuait ce feu pendant toute

la nuit, c'était un de ces coups d'oeil et une de ces émotions

qu'on n'oublie jamais. Le soir de nouveau le prince, avec tout le

tremblement, est allé coucher aux tranchées pour diriger lui-même

l'assaut qui devait commencer à 3 heures de la nuit même.

Nous étions tous là et comme toujours à la veille d'une bataille

nous faisions tous semblant de ne pas plus penser de la journée

de demain qu'à une journée ordinaire et tous, j'en suis sûr,

au fond du coeur ressentaient un petit serrement de coeur et

pas même un petit mais un grand, à l'idée de l'assaut. Comme tu

sais que le temps qui précède une affaire est le temps le plus

désagréable--c'est le seul où on a le temps d'avoir peur, et la

peur est un sentiment des plus désagréables. Vers le matin, plus

le moment approchait, plus le sentiment diminuait et vers 3 heures

quand nous attendions tous à voir partir le bouquet de fusées qui

était le signal de l'attaque--j'étais si bien disposé que si l'on

était venu me dire que l'assaut n'aurait pas lieu, cela m'aurait

fait beaucoup de peine. Et voilà que juste une heure avant le

moment de l'assaut arrive un aide de camp du maréchal avec l'ordre

d'ôter le siège de Silistrie. Je puis dire sans craindre de me

tromper que cette nouvelle a été reçue par tous--soldats, officiers

et généraux--comme un vrai malheur, d'autant plus qu'on savait par

les espions, qui nous venaient très souvent de Silistrie, et avec

lesquels j'avais très souvent l'occasion de causer moi-même, on

savait que ce fort pris,--chose dont personne ne doutait--Silistrie

ne pouvait tenir plus de 2 ou 3 jours. N'est-ce pas que si cette

nouvelle devait faire de la peine à quelqu'un ce devait être au

prince, qui pendant toute cette campagne ayant fait toute chose

pour le mieux, au beau milieu de l'action vit venir le maréchal

sur son dos pour gâter les affaires et puis ayant la seule chance

de réparer nos revers par cet assaut, il reçoit le contre ordre

du maréchal au moment de le commencer. Eh bien, le prince n'a pas

eu un moment de mauvaise humeur, lui, qui est si impressionable,

au contraire il a été content de pouvoir éviter cette boucherie,

dont il devait porter la responsabilité et tout le temps de la

retraite qu'il a dirigé lui-même, ne voulant passer qu'avec

le dernier des soldats, qui s'est faite avec un ordre et une

exactitude remarquables, il a été plus gai qu'il n'a jamais été. Ce

qui contribuait beaucoup à sa bonne humeur, c'était l'émigration

de près de 7000 familles bulgares, que nous prenons avec pour le

souvenir de la férocité des Turcs--férocité a laquelle malgré mon

incredulité j'ai été obligé de croire. Dès que nous avons quitté

des différents villages bulgares que nous occupions, les Turcs y

sont revenus et excepté les femmes assez jeunes pour un harem, ils

ont fait main basse sur tout ce qu'il y avait. Il y a un village

dans lequel je suis allé du camp pour y prendre du lait et des

fruits qui a été exterminé de la sorte. Alors dès que le prince

avait fait savoir aux Bulgares que ceux qui voulaient pouvaient

avec l'armée passer le Danube et devenir sujets russes, tout le

pays se soulève et tous avec leurs femmes, enfants, chevaux,

bétails arrivent au pont,--mais comme il était impossible de les

prendre tous, le prince a été obligé de refuser à ceux qui sont

venus les derniers et il fallait voir comme cela le chagrinait.

Il recevait toutes les députations qui venaient de ces pauvres

gens, il causait avec chacun d'eux, tâchait de leur expliquer

l'impossibilité de la chose, leur proposait de passer sans leurs

chariots et leur bétail et en se chargeant de leurs moyens de

subsistence jusqu'à ce qu'ils arrivassent en Russie, payant de sa

propre bourse des vaisseaux particuliers pour les transporter, en

un mot faisant tout son possible pour faire du bien à ces gens.

Oui, chère tante, je voudrais bien que votre prophétie se réalise.

La chose que j'ambitionne le plus, est d'être l'aide de camp d'un

homme comme lui que j'aime et que j'estime du plus profond de mon

coeur. Adieu, chère et bonne tante; je baise vos mains.

[16] I am going to tell you of my recollections of Silistria.

I there saw so much that was interesting, poetic and touching,

that the time I passed there will never be effaced from my

memory. Our camp was on the other side of the Danube, _i.e._

on the right bank, on very high ground amid splendid gardens

belonging to Mustafa Pasha, the Governor of Silistria. The

view from that place is not only magnificent, but of the

greatest interest to us all. Not to speak of the Danube, its

islets and its banks, some occupied by us, others by the

Turks, one could see the town, the fortress and the little

forts of Silistria as on the palm of one's hand. One heard

the booming of cannon and musket-shots unceasingly day and

night; and with a spy-glass one could distinguish the Turkish

soldiers. It is true it is a queer sort of pleasure to see

people killing one another, yet every evening and every

morning I got on to my cart and remained for hours at a

time, watching: nor was I the only one who did so. The sight

was really fine, especially at night. At night my soldiers

usually undertake trench-work, and the Turks fling themselves

upon them to hinder them; then one should see and hear the

fusillade! The first night I passed in camp, this dreadful

noise awoke and frightened me: I thought an assault had

begun. I very soon had my horse saddled; but those who had

been already some time in camp told me that I had only to

keep quiet: that this cannonade and fusillade was an ordinary

affair, and they jestingly called it 'Allah.' Then I lay down

again; but not being able to sleep, I amused myself, watch in

hand, counting the cannon-shots, and I counted 110 reports in

a minute. And yet, at close quarters, all this did not look

so terrible as might be supposed. At night, when nothing was

visible, it was a case of who could burn most powder, and with

all these thousands of cannon-shots at most some thirty men

were killed on each side....

This then was an ordinary performance we had every day, and

one in which I took a share when I was sent to the trenches

with orders; but we also had extraordinary performances,

such as the one on the eve of the attack, when a mine of 240

poods (8600 lbs.) of gunpowder was exploded under one of the

enemy's bastions. On the morning of that day the Prince had

been to the trenches with all his staff (and as the General

I was attached to belong to it, I was there too) to make the

final arrangements for next day's assault. The plan--too

long for me to explain here--was so well arranged, all was

so well foreseen, that no one doubted its success. Apropos

of this I must tell you further that I am beginning to feel

admiration for the Prince (for that matter you should hear how

the officers and soldiers speak of him: not only have I never

heard him spoken ill of, but he is generally adored).

That morning I saw him under fire for the first time. You

should see his rather absurd tall figure, his hands behind his

back, his cap on the back of his head, his spectacles, and

his way of speaking like a turkey-cock. One could see that he

was so preoccupied with the general trend of affairs that the

balls and bullets did not exist as far as he was concerned.

He exposes himself to danger so simply that one would say he

was unconscious of it, and involuntarily one fears it only for

oneself; [The text here is obscure, and the meaning a little

doubtful] and then he gives his orders with such clearness

and precision, and is at the same time always so affable with

everybody. He is a great man, _i.e._ a capable and honest man,

as I understand the word: one who has dedicated his whole

life to the service of his country, and not from ambition,

but for the sake of duty. I will give you a trait of his

character connected with the story I had begun to tell you of

the assault. After dinner that same day, the mine was sprung,

and nearly 600 guns opened fire on the fort we wished to take,

and this continued the whole night. It was such a sight and

such an emotion as one never forgets. That evening the Prince,

amid all the commotion, went to sleep in the trenches, that he

might personally direct the assault, which was to begin at 3

o'clock the same night.

We were all there, and as usual on the eve of a battle, we

all made believe not to think of the morrow more than of any

other day, and we all, I am sure, at bottom, felt our hearts

contract a little (and not a little, but a great deal) at

the thought of the assault. As you know, the time before a

fight is the most disagreeable: it is only then that one has

time to be afraid, and fear is a most disagreeable feeling.

Towards morning, the nearer the moment came the more the

feeling diminished, and towards 3 o'clock when we were all

expecting to see a shower of rockets let off, which was the

signal for the attack, I was so well inclined for it that I

should have been much disappointed if any one had come to

tell me that the attack was not to take place. And there!

Just an hour before the time for the attack, an aide-de-camp

comes from the Field-Marshal [Paskévitch, who for a time took

over the supreme command of the army of the Danube] with

orders to raise the siege of Silistria! I can say, without

fear of making a mistake, that this news was received by all,

soldiers, officers, and generals, as a real misfortune, the

more so as we knew from the spies--who very often came to us

from Silistria, and with whom I very often had occasion to

speak--that once we had taken this fort (about which none

of us felt any doubt) Silistria could not have held out for

more than 2 or 3 days. Is it not true that if this news was

calculated to pain any one, it must have been the Prince,

who having all through this campaign arranged everything for

the best, yet saw, in the very middle of the action, the

Field-Marshal override him and spoil the business? Having

this one chance to repair our reverses by this assault, he

received counter-orders from the Field-Marshal at the moment

of commencing! Well, the Prince was not put out of temper for

a moment. He who is so impressionable, was, on the contrary,

pleased to be able to avoid that butchery, the responsibility

for which he would have had to bear; and during the whole time

of the retreat--which he directed personally, not wishing to

cross (the Danube) before the last of the soldiers--which took

place with remarkable order and exactitude, he was gayer than

he has ever been. What contributed much to his good humour,

was the emigration of nearly 7000 Bulgarian families, whom we

took with us as a reminder of the ferocity of the Turks: a

ferocity in which, in spite of my incredulity, I was obliged

to believe. As soon as we quitted the different Bulgarian

villages we had occupied, the Turks returned to them, and

except women young enough for a harem, they made a clean sweep

of all that was in them. There was one village to which I went

from the camp for milk and fruit, which had been exterminated

in this way. So, as soon as the Prince let the Bulgarians

know that those who wished to, could cross the Danube with

our army and could become Russian subjects, the whole country

rose, and with their wives, children, horses and cattle, came

to the bridge: but as it was impossible to take them all, the

Prince was obliged to refuse the last arrivals, and you should

have seen how it grieved him to do so. He received all the

deputations which came from these poor folk, and spoke with

them all: trying to explain the impossibility of the matter,

offering to let them cross without their carts and cattle,

charging himself with their support till they could reach

Russia, and out of his own purse paying for private ships to

transport them; in a word, doing his very best for the welfare

of these people.

Yes, dear Aunt, I should much like your prophecy to come true.

What I desire most is to be aide-de-camp to such a man as he,

whom I love and esteem from the bottom of my heart. Adieu,

dear and kind Aunt. I kiss your hands.

The army retired to Bucharest, and here, at an officers' ball, Tolstoy

seized an opportunity to beg Gortchakóf to have him transferred to

where service would be most active.

The retreat from Silistria took place at the end of June, and on 2nd

August we find Tolstoy starting for Russia. On the journey he fell ill

and had to lie up in hospital. On 13th November in Kishinéf he renewed

his application for an appointment in the Crimea, and was ordered to

Sevastopol, which he reached on the 20th of that month.[17]

[17] In this chapter the dates, when possible, are given new

style (12 days later than the Russian style), in order that

they may tally with English accounts of the Crimean war.

1854

The situation there, at this time, was the following. The Allies had

landed in the Crimea to the north of Sevastopol on 14th September,

and had defeated the Russian army under Ménshikof on the 20th at

Alma. Instead of marching straight into the town, which was almost

undefended, they had then gone round and encamped on the south side,

where they remained inactive till 17th October, by which time Todleben,

an engineer of rare genius, had thrown up earthworks and mounted

guns (many of them taken from the Russian ships Ménshikof sank at

the entrance to the Roadstead). Ménshikof himself had practically

abandoned the town, withdrawing the bulk of his army northward; but

the situation was saved by the patriotism of just that section of the

Russian forces which had been least exposed to the deadening influence

of Nicholas the First's militarism,--namely by the officers and men

of the fleet. Inspired by the example of the heroic Admiral Kornílof

(who lost his life during the siege) they rallied to the defence with a

courageous devotion seldom paralleled. Their example awoke enthusiasm

throughout Russia and compelled Ménshikof to supply reinforcements,

which enabled the town to hold out for eleven months, in spite of the

great superiority of the Allies in rifles, artillery and the modern

equipments of war generally.

Tolstoy reached Sevastopol when the defence was already fully

organised, and when (in spite of the repulse experienced by the

Russians at Inkerman) the garrison had gained confidence in their

powers of resistance, and had settled down to a dogged defence.

Of the hospitals, in which the wounded saw one another's limbs

amputated while waiting their own turn; of the staff officers, who

managed to amuse themselves pretty well during the siege; of the

commissariat officers, flourishing amid the general havoc; as well as

of the line and non-commissioned officers and privates, upon whom the

greatest hardships fell, Tolstoy gives vivid glimpses in the Sketches

he wrote during the siege.

A fortnight after his arrival he writes, from somewhere outside the

town, to his brother Sergius, apologising for not having sent him a

letter sooner, and adds:

So much have I learnt, experienced, and felt this year that I

positively do not know what to begin to describe, nor how to

describe it as I wish to.... Silistria is now ancient history, and

we have Sevastopol, of which I suppose you all read with beating

hearts, and where I was four days ago. Well, how can I tell you

all I saw there, and where I went and what I did, and what the

prisoners and wounded French and English say; and _whether it hurts

them and hurts very much_,[18] and what heroes our enemies are,

especially the English? I will tell all that later at Yásnaya or at

Pirogóvo; and you will learn much of it from me through the press.

How this will happen, I will explain later; but now let me give

you an idea of the position of affairs in Sevastopol. The town is

besieged from one side, the south, where we had no fortifications

when the enemy approached it. Now we have on that side more than

500 heavy guns, and several lines of earthworks, positively

impregnable. I spent a week in the fortress, and to the last day

used to lose my way among that labyrinth of batteries, as in a

wood. More than three weeks ago the enemy advanced his trenches at

one place to within 200 yards, but gets no further. When he makes

the smallest advance he is overwhelmed with a hailstorm of shot and

shell.

[18] This must refer to some family joke, as it occurs in

other letters home, apropos of people who were killed.

The spirit of the army is beyond all description. In the times of

ancient Greece there was not such heroism. Kornílof, making the

round of the troops, instead of greeting them with, 'Good health to

you, lads!' says: 'If you have to die, lads, will you die?' and the

troops shout, 'We'll die, Your Excellency! Hurrah!' and they do not

say it for effect. On every face one saw that it was not jest but

earnest; and 22,000 men have already fulfilled the promise.

A wounded soldier, almost dying, told me they captured the 24th

French Battery but were not reinforced; and he wept aloud. A

Company of Marines nearly mutinied because they were to be

withdrawn from batteries in which they had been exposed to

shell-fire for thirty days. The soldiers extract the fuses from

the shells. Women carry water to the bastions for the soldiers.

Many are killed and wounded. The priests with their crosses go

to the bastions and read prayers under fire. In one brigade, the

24th, more than 160 wounded men would not leave the front. It is

a wonderful time! Now, however, after the 24th, we have quieted

down; it has become splendid in Sevastopol. The enemy hardly

fires, and all are convinced that he will not take the town; and

it is really impossible.... I have not yet succeeded in being in

action even once; but thank God that I have seen these people

and live in this glorious time. The bombardment of the 5th [17

October, n.s.] remains the most brilliant and glorious feat not

only in the history of Russia, but in the history of the world.

More than 1500 cannon were in action for two days against the

town, and not only did not cause it to capitulate, but did not

silence one two-hundredth part of our batteries. Though, I suppose,

this campaign is unfavourably regarded in Russia, our descendants

will place it above all others; do not forget that we, with equal

or even inferior forces, and armed only with bayonets, and with

the worst troops in the Russian army (such as the 6th corps) are

fighting a more numerous enemy aided by a fleet, armed with 3000

cannon, excellently supplied with rifles and with their best

troops. I do not even mention the superiority of their Generals.

Only our army could hold its ground and conquer (we shall yet

conquer, of that I am convinced) under such circumstances. You

should see the French and English prisoners (especially the

latter): they are each one better than the other--morally and

physically fine fellows. The Cossacks say it is even a pity to cut

them down, and alongside of them you should see some Chasseurs or

others of ours: small, lousy, and shrivelled up.

Now I will tell you how you will get printed news from me of the

deeds of these lousy and shrivelled heroes. In our artillery

staff, consisting, as I think I wrote you, of very good and

worthy men, a project has been started for publishing a military

newspaper, in order to maintain a good spirit in the army--a cheap

paper (at Rs. 3) and popularly written, so that the soldiers may

read it. We have drawn up a plan and submitted it to the Prince.

He likes the idea very much, and has submitted the project and a

specimen sheet which we also wrote, for the Emperor's sanction.

I and Stolýpin[19] are advancing the money for the publication.

I have been chosen joint editor with a Mr. Konstantínof, who

published _The Caucasus_, a man experienced in such work. The paper

will publish descriptions of the battles (but not such dry and

mendacious ones as other papers) courageous deeds, biographies, and

obituaries of good men, especially the unknown; military stories,

soldiers' songs, and popular articles on engineering, artillery,

etc. This plan pleases me very much: in the first place, I like the

work; and secondly, I hope the paper will be useful and not quite

bad. It is as yet merely a project, until we know the Emperor's

reply, about which I confess I have my fears. In the specimen sheet

sent to Petersburg, we rashly inserted two articles, one by me and

one by Rostóvtsef, not quite orthodox. For this business I want Rs.

1500, which I have asked Valeryán to send me.

[19] Father of the present (1908) Premier of Russia.

I, thank God, am well, and live happily and pleasantly since I

returned from Turkey. In general, my army service divides up into

two periods: beyond the frontier--horrid: I was ill, poor, and

lonely. This side of the frontier--I am well and have good friends,

though I am still poor: money simply runs away.

As to writing, I do not write; but, as Aunty teases me by saying,

'I test myself.' One thing disquiets me: this is the fourth year

I live without female society; and I may become quite coarse and

unsuited for family life, which I so enjoy.

A few days later his battery was moved to Simferópol, a town lying to

the north of Sevastopol, beyond the sphere of actual fighting.

1855

On 6th January (o.s.) he wrote to his Aunt:

[20]On ne se bat plus en rase campagne, à cause de l'hiver qui est

extraordinairement rigoureux, surtout à présent; mais le siège

dure toujours.... J'avais parlé je crois d'une occupation que

j'avais en vue et qui me souriait beaucoup; à présent que la chose

est décidée, je puis le dire. J'avais l'idée de fonder un journal

militaire. Ce projet auquel j'ai travaillé avec le concours de

beaucoup de gens très distingués fut approuvé par le prince et

envoyé à la décision de sa Majesté, mais l'empereur a refusé.

Cette déconfiture, je vous l'avoue, m'a fait une peine infinie et a

beaucoup changé mes plans. Si Dieu veut que la campagne de Crimée

finisse bien et si je ne reçois pas une place dont je sois content,

et qu'il n'y ait pas de guerre en Russie, je quitterai l'armée pour

aller à Pétersbourg à l'académie militaire. Ce plan m'est venu,

1° parce que je voudrais ne pas abandonner la littérature dont il

m'est impossible de m'occuper dans cette vie de camp, et 2° parce

qu'il me paraît que je commence à devenir ambitieux, pas ambitieux,

mais je voudrais faire du bien et pour le faire il faut être plus

qu'un Sub-Lieutenant; 3° parce que je vous verrai tous et tous mes

amis.

[20] There is no more fighting in the open country on account

of the winter, which is extraordinarily rigorous, particularly

just now; but the siege still goes on.... I think I have

mentioned an occupation I had in view, which promised very

well--as I may say, now that it is settled. I had the idea of

founding a military newspaper. This project, at which I worked

with the co-operation of many very distinguished men, was

approved by the Prince and submitted to His Majesty for his

consent, but he has refused.

This disappointment has, I confess, distressed me greatly,

and has much altered my plans. If God wills that the

Crimean campaign should end well, and if I do not receive

an appointment that satisfies me, and if there is no war in

Russia, I shall leave the army and go to Petersburg to the

Military Academy. I have formed this plan, (1) because I do

not want to abandon literature, at which it is impossible to

work amid this camp life; (2) because it seems to me that I am

becoming ambitious: not ambitious, but I want to do some good,

and to do it one must be something more than a Sub-Lieutenant,

and (3) because I shall see you all and all my friends.

In May he wrote again to his brother:

From Kishinéf on 1st November (o.s.), I petitioned to be sent to

the Crimea, partly in order to see this war, and partly to break

away from Serzhpoutóvsky's staff, which I did not like, but most

of all from patriotism, of which at that time, I confess, I had a

bad attack. I did not ask for any special appointment, but left

it to those in authority to dispose of my fate. In the Crimea I

was appointed to a battery in Sevastopol itself, where I passed

a month very pleasantly amid simple, good companions, who are

specially good in time of real war and danger. In December our

battery was removed to Simferópol, and there I spent 6 weeks in a

squire's comfortable house, riding into Simferópol to dance and

play the piano with young ladies, and in hunting wild goats on the

Tchatyrdag [the highest point of the chain of mountains running

across the southern part of the Crimea] in company with officials.

In January there was a fresh shuffling of officers, and I was

removed to a battery encamped on the banks of the Belbék, 7 miles

from Sevastopol. There I got into hot water: the nastiest set of

officers in the battery; a Commander who, though good-hearted, was

violent and coarse; no comforts, and it was cold in the earth huts.

Not a single book, nor a single man with whom one could talk; and

there I received the Rs. 1500 [= about £180 at that time] for the

newspaper, sanction for which had already been refused; and there I

lost Rs. 2500, and thereby proved to all the world that I am still

an empty fellow, and though the previous circumstances may be taken

into account in mitigation, the case is still a very, very bad one.

In March it became warmer, and a good fellow, an excellent man,

Brenévsky, joined the battery. I began to recover myself; and on 1

April, at the very time of the bombardment, the battery was moved

to Sevastopol, and I quite recovered myself. There, till 15 May

(o.s.) I was in serious danger, _i.e._ for four days at a time, at

intervals of eight days, I was in charge of a battery in the 4th

Bastion; but it was spring and the weather was excellent, there was

abundance of impressions and of people, all the comforts of life,

and we formed a capital circle of well-bred fellows; so that those

six weeks will remain among my pleasantest recollections. On 15

May Gortchakóf, or the Commander of the Artillery, took it into his

head to entrust me with the formation and command of a mountain

platoon at Belbék, 14 miles from Sevastopol, with which arrangement

I am up to the present extremely well satisfied in many respects.

The transfer of Tolstoy from Sevastopol to Belbék was not, as he

supposed when he wrote this letter, a whim of Gortchakóf's or of the

Commander of the Artillery, but a result of his having written the

first of his three sketches of the siege of Sevastopol, _Sevastopol in

December_. The article, though not published in the _Contemporary_ till

June, had been read in proof by the Emperor Alexander II [Nicholas had

died 2nd March, n.s.], and had caused him to give instructions to 'take

care of the life of that young man,' with the result that Tolstoy was

removed from Sevastopol. The Dowager Empress Alexándra Fédorovna also

read the story and, it is said, wept over it.

It was, perhaps, at this time (though I am not sure of the date) that

Tolstoy found himself obliged to consent to the sale of the large

wooden house in which he had been born, for the wretched price of 5000

'assignation roubles' (about £170). The house was taken to pieces, and

removed to the estate of the purchaser, where it still stands, though

not now in use.

Apropos of the above letter it should be mentioned that the Fourth

Bastion was the one English writers call 'the Flagstaff Bastion.' It

formed the southernmost point of the fortifications, as a glance at

the accompanying map will show, and it was for a long time the point

exposed to the fiercest fire.

Throughout the siege Tolstoy was accompanied by Alexis, one of the four

serfs presented to the young Tolstoys when they entered the University.

This man (who figures in more than one of Tolstoy's works under

the name of Alyósha) brought him his rations to the bastion, a duty

involving considerable danger. What the bastions were like in the first

months of the siege, we learn from the following passages in the first

part of _Sevastopol_:

[Illustration]

...You want to get quickly to the bastions, especially to that

Fourth Bastion about which you have been told so many and such

different tales. When any one says, 'I am going to the Fourth

Bastion,' a slight agitation or a too marked indifference is always

noticeable in him; if men are joking they say, 'You should be

sent to the Fourth Bastion.' When you meet some one carried on a

stretcher, and ask, 'Where from?' the answer usually is, 'From the

Fourth Bastion.'...

...Beyond this barricade the houses on both sides of the street

are unoccupied: there are no signboards, the doors are boarded

up, the windows smashed; here a corner of the walls is knocked

down, and there a roof is broken in. The buildings look like old

veterans who have borne much sorrow and privation; they even seem

to gaze proudly and somewhat contemptuously at you. On the road

you stumble over cannon-balls that lie about, and into holes full

of water, made in the stony ground by bombs. You meet and overtake

detachments of soldiers, Cossacks, officers, and occasionally a

woman or a child--only it will not be a woman wearing a bonnet, but

a sailor's wife wearing an old cloak and soldier's boots. Farther

along the same street, after you have descended a little slope, you

will notice that there are now no houses, but only ruined walls in

strange heaps of bricks, boards, clay and beams, and before you,

up a steep hill, you see a black untidy space cut up by ditches.

This space you are approaching is the Fourth Bastion.... Here you

will meet still fewer people and no women at all, the soldiers

walk briskly by, traces of blood may be seen on the road, and

you are sure to meet four soldiers carrying a stretcher, and on

the stretcher probably a pale, yellow face and a blood-stained

overcoat....

The whiz of cannon-ball or bomb near by, impresses you unpleasantly

as you ascend the hill, and you at once understand the meaning

of the sounds very differently from when they reached you in the

town.... You have hardly gone a little way up, when bullets begin

to whiz past you right and left, and you will perhaps consider

whether you had not better walk inside the trench which runs

parallel to the road; but the trench is full of such yellow,

liquid, stinking mud, more than knee deep, that you are sure to

choose the road, especially as _everybody_ keeps to the road.

After walking a couple of hundred yards, you come to a muddy

place much cut up, surrounded by gabions, cellars, platforms, and

dug-outs, and on which large cast-iron cannon are mounted, and

cannon-balls lie piled in orderly heaps. All seems placed without

any aim, connection, or order. Here a group of sailors are sitting

in the battery; here, in the middle of the open space, half sunk

in mud, lies a shattered cannon; and there a foot-soldier is

crossing the battery, drawing his feet with difficulty out of

the sticky mud. Everywhere, on all sides and all about, you see

bomb-fragments, unexploded bombs, cannon-balls, and various traces

of an encampment, all sunk in the liquid, sticky mud. You think you

hear the thud of a cannon-ball not far off, and you seem to hear

the different sounds of bullets all around--some humming like bees,

some whistling, and some rapidly flying past with a shrill screech

like the string of some instrument. You hear the awful boom of a

shot which sends a shock all through you, and seems most dreadful.

'So this is it, the Fourth Bastion! This is that terrible, truly

dreadful spot!' So you think, experiencing a slight feeling

of pride and a strong feeling of suppressed fear. But you are

mistaken; this is still not the Fourth Bastion. This is only the

Yazónovsky Redoubt--comparatively a very safe and not at all

dreadful place. To get to the Fourth Bastion you must turn to the

right, along that narrow trench, where a foot-soldier, stooping

down, has just passed. In this trench you may again meet men with

stretchers, and perhaps a sailor or a soldier with spades. You

will see the mouths of mines, dug-outs into which only two men

can crawl, and there you will see the Cossacks of the Black Sea

Battalions, changing their boots, eating, smoking their pipes, and,

in short, living. And you will see again the same stinking mud,

the traces of camp life, and cast-iron refuse of every shape and

form. When you have gone some three hundred steps more, you come

out at another battery--a flat space with many holes, surrounded

with gabions filled with earth, and cannons on platforms, and the

whole walled in with earthworks. Here you will perhaps see four or

five soldiers playing cards under shelter of the breastworks; and

a naval officer, noticing that you are a stranger and inquisitive,

is pleased to show you his 'household' and everything that can

interest you.... He will tell you (but only if you ask) about the

bombardment on the 5th of October; will tell you how only one gun

in his battery remained usable and only eight gunners were left of

the whole crew, and how, all the same, next morning, the 6th, he

fired all his guns. He will tell you how a bomb dropped into one of

the dug-outs and knocked over eleven sailors; he will show you from

an embrasure the enemy's batteries and trenches, which are here not

more than seventy-five to eighty-five yards distant. I am afraid,

though, that when you lean out of the embrasure to have a look at

the enemy, you will, under the influence of the whizzing bullets,

not see anything; but if you do see anything, you will be much

surprised to find that this whitish stone wall which is so near

you, and from which puffs of white smoke keep bursting--that this

white wall is the enemy: is _him_, as the soldiers and sailors say.

It is even very likely that the naval officer, from vanity,

or merely for a little recreation, will wish to show you some

firing. 'Call the gunner and crew to the cannon'; and fourteen

sailors--clattering their hob-nailed boots on the platform,

one putting his pipe in his pocket, another still chewing a

rusk--quickly and cheerfully man the gun and begin loading.

Suddenly the most fearful roar strikes not only your ears but your

whole being, and makes you shudder all over. It is followed by the

whistle of the departing ball, and a thick cloud of powder-smoke

envelops you, the platform, and the moving black figures of the

sailors. You will hear various comments by the sailors concerning

this shot of ours, and you will notice their animation, the

evidences of a feeling which you had not perhaps expected: the

feeling of animosity and thirst for vengeance which lies hidden

in each man's soul. You will hear joyful exclamations: 'It's gone

right into the embrasure! It's killed two, I think.... There,

they're carrying them off!' 'And now _he's_ riled, and will send

one this way,' some one remarks; and really, soon after, you will

see before you a flash and some smoke; the sentinel standing on the

breastwork will call out 'Ca-n-non,' and then a ball will whiz past

you and squash into the earth, throwing out a circle of stones and

mud. The commander of the battery will be irritated by this shot

and will give orders to fire another and another cannon, the enemy

will reply in like manner, and you will experience interesting

sensations and see interesting sights. The sentinel will again call

'Cannon!' and you will have the same sound and shock, and the mud

will be splashed round as before. Or he will call out 'Mortar!' and

you will hear the regular and rather pleasant whistle--which it is

difficult to connect with the thought of anything dreadful--of a

bomb; you will hear this whistle coming nearer and faster towards

you, then you will see a black ball, feel the shock as it strikes

the ground, and will hear the ringing explosion. The bomb will fly

apart into whizzing and shrieking fragments, stones will rattle

into the air, and you will be bespattered with mud.

At these sounds you will experience a strange feeling of mingled

pleasure and fear. At the moment you know the shot is flying

towards you, you are sure to imagine that this shot will kill you,

but a feeling of pride will support you and no one will know of the

knife that is cutting your heart. But when the shot has flown past

and has not hit you, you revive, and, though only for a moment, a

glad, inexpressibly joyous feeling seizes you, so that you feel

some peculiar delight in the danger--in this game of life and

death--and wish that bombs and balls would fall nearer and nearer

to you.

But again the sentinel, in his loud, thick voice, shouts 'Mortar!'

again a whistle, a fall, an explosion; and mingled with the last

you are startled by the groans of a man. You approach the wounded

man just as the stretchers are brought. Covered with blood and dirt

he presents a strange, not human, appearance. Part of the sailor's

breast has been torn away....

'That's the way with seven or eight every day,' the naval officer

remarks to you, answering the look of horror on your face, and he

yawns as he rolls another yellow cigarette.

As the siege progressed, things became worse, and in the last part of

_Sevastopol_ Tolstoy, after telling how one of the characters felt

satisfied with himself, continues:

This feeling, however, was quickly shaken by a sight he came upon

in the twilight while looking for the Commander of the bastion.

Four sailors stood by the breastwork holding by its arms and legs

the bloody corpse of a man without boots or coat, swinging it

before heaving it over. (It was found impossible in some parts to

clear away the corpses from the bastions, and they were, therefore,

thrown out into the ditch, so as not to be in the way at the

batteries.) Volódya felt stunned for a moment when he saw the body

bump on the top of the breastwork and then roll down into the

ditch, but luckily for him the Commander of the bastion met him

just then and gave him his orders, as well as a guide to show him

the way to the battery and to the bomb-proof assigned to his men.

We will not speak of all the dangers and disenchantments our hero

lived through that evening; how--instead of the firing he was used

to, amid conditions of perfect exactitude and order which he had

expected to meet with here also,--he found two injured mortars,

one with its mouth battered in by a ball, the other standing on

the splinters of its shattered platform; how he could not get

workmen to mend the platform till the morning; how not a single

charge was of the weight specified in the Handbook; how two of the

men under him were wounded, and how he was twenty times within a

hair's-breadth of death. Fortunately a gigantic gunner, a seaman

who had served with the mortars since the commencement of the

siege, had been appointed to assist Volódya, and convinced him of

the possibility of using the mortars. By the light of a lantern,

this gunner showed him all over the battery as he might have shown

him over his own kitchen-garden, and undertook to have everything

right by the morning. The bomb-proof to which his guide led him

was an oblong hole dug in the rocky ground, 25 cubic yards in size

and covered with oak beams nearly 2-1/2 feet thick. He and all his

soldiers installed themselves in it.

It was during one of his sojourns in the Fourth Bastion, that Tolstoy

noted down in his Diary the following prayer:

Lord, I thank Thee for Thy continual protection. How surely Thou

leadest me to what is good. What an insignificant creature should

I be, if Thou abandoned me! Leave me not, Lord; give me what is

necessary, not for the satisfaction of my poor aspirations, but

that I may attain to the eternal, vast, unknown aim of existence,

which lies beyond my ken.

It was due to Tolstoy's own choice that he was exposed to the rough

life of the bastion, for Prince Gortchakóf, at whose house he was a

constant visitor, had offered him an appointment on his staff. This

offer, which at Silistria he had so ardently desired, Tolstoy declined,

having come to the conclusion, subsequently expressed in his writings,

that the influence exercised by the staff on the conduct of a war

is always pernicious! This opinion not only influenced his conduct,

and expressed itself in his novels, but fitted into a general view

of life he ultimately arrived at, a view the consequences of which

must be dealt with in the sequel to this work. For the moment, let

it suffice to mention that whereas he shows a keen appreciation of

Admiral Kornílof's achievement in rousing the spirit of the garrison,

he nowhere praises Todleben's achievement in organising the defence of

the town and improvising that 'labyrinth of batteries' in which Tolstoy

used constantly to lose his way. He says, for instance:

Now you have seen the defenders of Sevastopol.... The principal,

joyous thought you have brought away is a conviction of the

strength of the Russian people; and this conviction you gained,

not by looking at all these traverses, breastworks, cunningly

interlaced trenches, mines and cannon, one on top of another,

of which you could make nothing; but from the eyes, words and

actions--in short, from seeing what is called the 'spirit' of the

defenders of Sevastopol.

To everything a man can do off his own bat and by his own effort,

Tolstoy is keenly alive and sympathetic; but when it comes to a

complex, co-ordinated plan, involving the subordination of many parts

to one whole, he is suspicious or even hostile. Had he remained a

subordinate officer, or even a novelist, it would not have been

specially necessary to draw attention to this peculiarity; but that

we may understand his later teachings, it is important to note all the

roots of feeling from which they grew, and this one among the rest.

To get on however with our tale. One evening, while Tolstoy was sitting

with the adjutants of Count Osten-Sáken, Commander of the Garrison,

Prince S. S. Ouroúsof, a brave officer and first-rate chess player (he

took part in the International Chess Tournament of 1862, in London)

and a friend of Tolstoy's, entered the room and wished to speak to

the General. An adjutant took him to Osten-Sáken's room, and ten

minutes later Ouroúsof passed out again, looking very glum. After he

had gone, the adjutant explained that Ouroúsof had come to suggest

that a challenge should be sent to the English to play a game of chess

for the foremost trench in front of the Fifth Bastion: a trench that

had changed hands several times and had already cost some hundreds of

lives. Osten-Sáken had naturally refused to issue the challenge.

On 16th August Tolstoy took part in the battle of the Tchérnaya (Black

River) in which the Sardinian contingent, which had arrived in May to

reinforce the Allies, much distinguished itself. This last attempt to

relieve Sevastopol failed, as its forerunners had done. Three days

later Tolstoy wrote to his brother saying that he had not been hurt,

and that 'I did nothing, as my mountain artillery was not called on to

fire.'

The end of the siege was now approaching, and on 8th September Tolstoy,

having volunteered for service in Sevastopol, reached the Star Fort on

the North Side of the Roadstead just in time to witness the capture

of the Maláhof by the French, as he has described in _Sevastopol in

August_.[21]

[21] The _8th September_, new style, was _24th August_, old

style.

On the North Side of the Roadstead, at the Star Fort, near noon,

two sailors stood on the 'telegraph' mound; one of them, an

officer, was looking at Sevastopol through the fixed telescope.

Another officer, accompanied by a Cossack, had just ridden up

to join him at the big Signal-post.... Along the whole line of

fortifications, but especially on the high ground on the left side,

appeared, several at a time, with lightnings that at times flashed

bright even in the noonday sun, puffs of thick, dense, white smoke,

that grew, taking various shapes and appearing darker against the

sky. These clouds, showing now here now there, appeared on the

hills, on the enemy's batteries, in the town, and high up in the

sky. The reports of explosions never ceased, but rolled together

and rent the air.

Towards noon the puffs appeared more and more rarely, and the air

vibrated less with the booming.

'I say, the Second Bastion does not reply at all now!' said the

officer on horseback; 'it is quite knocked to pieces. Terrible!'

'Yes, and the Maláhof, too, sends hardly one shot in reply to three

of theirs,' said he who was looking through the telescope. 'Their

silence provokes me! They are shooting straight into the Kornílof

Battery, and it does not reply.'

'But look there! I told you that they always cease the bombardment

about noon. It's the same to-day. Come, let's go to lunch; they'll

be waiting for us already. What's the good of looking?'

'Wait a bit!' answered the one who had possession of the telescope,

looking very eagerly towards Sevastopol.

'What is it? What?'

'A movement in the entrenchments, thick columns advancing.'

'Yes! They can be seen even without a glass, marching in columns.

The alarm must be given,' said the seaman.

'Look! look! They've left the trenches!'

And, really, with the naked eye one could see what looked like

dark spots moving down the hill from the French batteries across

the valley to the bastions. In front of these spots dark stripes

were already visibly approaching our line. On the bastions white

cloudlets burst in succession as if chasing one another. The wind

brought a sound of rapid small-arm firing, like the beating of

rain against a window. The dark stripes were moving in the midst

of the smoke and came nearer and nearer. The sounds of firing,

growing stronger and stronger, mingled in a prolonged, rumbling

peal. Puffs of smoke rose more and more often, spread rapidly along

the line, and at last formed one lilac cloud (dotted here and there

with little faint lights and black spots) which kept curling and

uncurling; and all the sounds blent into one tremendous clatter.

'An assault!' said the naval officer, turning pale and letting the

seaman look through the telescope.

Cossacks galloped along the road, some officers rode by, the

Commander-in-Chief passed in a carriage with his suite. Every face

showed painful excitement and expectation.

'It's impossible they can have taken it,' said the mounted officer.

'By God, a standard!... Look! look!' said the other, panting,

and he walked away from the telescope: 'A French standard on the

Maláhof!'

The point from which the officer in the story, and Tolstoy himself in

reality, watched the assault through a telescope is the spot marked 'a'

on the map on page 112.

The loss of the Maláhof rendered the further defence of the town

impossible, and the following night the Russians blew up and destroyed

such munitions of war as they could not remove from the bastions.

Tolstoy was deputed to clear the Fifth and Sixth Bastions before they

were abandoned to the Allies. When telling me this he added, 'The

non-commissioned officers could have done the work just as well without

me.' While the destruction was proceeding, the Russian forces crossed

the Roadstead by a pontoon bridge which had been constructed during the

siege. The town south of the Roadstead was abandoned, and the defenders

established themselves on the North Side, where they remained till

peace was concluded in February 1856.

After the retreat, Tolstoy was given the task of collating the twenty

or more reports of the action from the Artillery Commanders. This

experience of how war is recorded produced in him that supreme contempt

for detailed military histories which he so often expressed in later

years. He says:

I regret that I did not keep a copy of those reports. They were

an excellent example of that naïve, inevitable kind of military

falsehood, out of which descriptions are compiled. I think many of

those comrades of mine who drew up those reports, will laugh on

reading these lines, remembering how, by order of their Commander,

they wrote what they could not know.

Carrying among other despatches the report he had himself compiled,

Tolstoy was sent as Courier to Petersburg; and this terminated his

personal experience of war. He was still only Sub-Lieutenant, his hopes

of promotion had come to nothing in consequence of a suspicion that

he was the author of some soldiers' songs which were sung throughout

the army at this time. No translation can do justice to these slangy,

topical satires; but that the reader may have some idea of them, my

wife has put into English the following stanzas:

In September, the eighth day,[22]

From the French we ran away,

For our Faith and Tsar!

For our Faith and Tsar!

Admiral Alexander,[23] he

Sank our vessels in the sea

In the waters deep,

In the waters deep.

'Luck to all I wish,' he said then.

To Baktchiseráy[24] he sped then;

'May you all be blowed!

'May you all be blowed!'

Saint Arnaud[25] got out of sight;

And in manner most polite,

Came round to our back,

Came round to our back.

And on Tuesday, I'm afraid

Had no saint come to our aid,

He'd have bagged us all,

He'd have bagged us all.

Our Liprandi, it is true

Captured 'trenchments not a few,

But to no avail!

But to no avail!

Out of Kishinéf a force

Was expected: Foot and Horse,

And at last they came,

And at last they came.

Dannenberg was in command:

Strictly told to understand

Not to spare his men,

Not to spare his men.

* * * * *

Two Grand Dukes a visit paid:

But the French, quite undismayed,

Blazed away with shells,

Blazed away with shells.

Some ten thousand men were shot:

From the Tsar _they_ never got

Any great reward!

Any great reward!

Then the Prince[26] in anger spoke:

'Oh! our men are wretched folk:

'Why, they've turned their backs!

'Why, they've turned their backs!'

And in this great battle's flare

Heroes only two there were:

The two Royal Dukes!

The two Royal Dukes!

George's Crosses they were given

And to Petersburg were driven

To be fêted there!

To be fêted there!

All the priests with heads bent down

Prayed our God the French to drown,

And there came a storm,

And there came a storm!

There arose a dreadful gale,

But the French just shortened sail,

And remained afloat!

And remained afloat!

Winter came. Sorties we made;

Many soldiers low were laid,

Near those bags of sand,

Near those bags of sand.[27]

For re'nforcements Ménshik prayed;

But the Tsar sent to his aid

Only Osten-Sáken,

Only Osten-Sáken.[28]

Ménshik, Admiral so wise,

To the Tsar writes and replies:

'Oh, dear Father Tsar,

'Oh, dear Father Tsar.

'Sáken is not worth a grain,

And your Royal youngsters twain[29]

They're no good at all!

They're no good at all!'

Royal wrath on Ménshik fell,

And the Tsar felt quite unwell

At the next review,

At the next review.

Straight to heaven he did fare

(Seems they wanted him up there)

Not a whit too soon,

Not a whit too soon!

As on his deathbed he lay;

To his son[30] he this did say:

'Now just you look out,

'Now just you look out!'

And the son to Ménshik wrote:

'My dear Admiral, please note,

You may go to hell,

You may go to hell!'

'And in place of you I'll name

Gortchakóf, you know, the same

Who fought 'gainst the Turks!

Who fought 'gainst the Turks!'

'With few troops he'll go ahead,

And a pair of breeches red

Shall be his reward,

Shall be his reward!'

[22] The Battle of Alma, fought on 8th September, old style =

20th September, new style.

[23] Prince Alexander Ménshikof, who was Commander-in-Chief

in the Crimea till replaced by Gortchakóf. Besides being

diplomatist and General, he was also an Admiral. In the other

verses he is nicknamed 'Ménshik.'

[24] After the Battle of Alma, Ménshikof retreated northward

to Baktchiseráy, almost abandoning Sevastopol.

[25] Saint Arnaud, the French Commander-in-Chief.

[26] Prince Alexander Ménshikof.

[27] Bags of sand were used as temporary protection from

behind which to fire.

[28] Count Osten-Sáken was sent to advise Ménshikof and to

report to the Tsar on his operations.

[29] The Grand Dukes alluded to above.

[30] Alexander II, who succeeded Nicholas I on 2nd March

(n.s.) 1855.

As a matter of fact the responsibility for these songs, which gave

satirical expression to the discontent then very generally felt, was

not entirely Tolstoy's. They originated with a group of officers on

the staff of Kryzhanóvsky, Commander of the Artillery, and some others

(including Tolstoy) who used to meet at Kryzhanóvsky's rooms almost

daily. One of this company used to preside at the piano, while the

others stood round and improvised couplets. In such cases some one has

usually to pay the piper, and that this one should have been Tolstoy,

was a natural result both of the fact that he seems to have been the

chief culprit, and of the attention his literary work was attracting at

this time.

Another matter which appears to have done Tolstoy no good in the eyes

of his superiors, was his refusal to fall in with a reprehensible

practice which by long usage had become as well established as, for

instance, among ourselves, is the purchase of peerages by contributions

to Party funds.

Those in command of various divisions of the army, including the

Commanders of Batteries, used to pay for various things, such as shoes

for the horses, medicine, office expenses, and certain extras for the

soldiers, for which no official allowance was made; and the way the

money for this was obtained was by overestimating the cost and quantity

of stores, and of the fodder required for the horses. The difference

between the actual and estimated cost supplied a revenue which

different Commanders used in different ways. Some spent it all for the

good of the service, though in a manner not shown in the accounts;

others did not scruple to make private profit of it. Tolstoy, during

his command of a battery, refused to take a balance of cash which had

accumulated, and insisted on showing it in the accounts. He thereby

evoked the displeasure of less scrupulous Commanders and called down

upon himself a rebuke from General Kryzhanóvsky, who did not consider

that it lay with a Sub-Lieutenant in temporary command, to attempt to

upset so well-established a custom. From his letters and memoirs we get

clear indications of Tolstoy's feelings towards his brother officers;

his distaste for the common run of them, and his preference for those

who were gentlemanly. Here and there, in memoirs and magazine articles,

one finds records of the impression he in his turn produced on his

companions. One of them relates:

How Tolstoy woke us all up in those hard times of war, with his

stories and his hastily composed couplets! He was really the soul

of our battery. When he was with us we did not notice how time

flew, and there was no end to the general gaiety.... When the Count

was away, when he trotted off to Simferópol, we all hung our heads.

He would vanish for one, two or three days.... At last he would

return--the very picture of a prodigal son! sombre, worn out, and

dissatisfied with himself.... Then he would take me aside, quite

apart, and would begin his confessions. He would tell me all: how

he had caroused, gambled, and where he had spent his days and

nights; and all the time, if you will believe me, he would condemn

himself and suffer as though he were a real criminal. He was so

distressed that it was pitiful to see him. That's the sort of man

he was. In a word, a queer fellow, and, to tell the truth, one I

could not quite understand. He was however a rare comrade, a most

honourable fellow, and a man one can never forget!

One who entered the battery just after Tolstoy left it, says he was

remembered there as an excellent rider, first-rate company, and an

athlete who, lying on the floor, could let a man weighing thirteen

stone be placed on his hands, and could lift him up by straightening

his arms. At a tug-of-war (played not with a rope, but with a stick)

no one could beat him; and he left behind him the recollection of many

witty anecdotes told in that masterly style of which he never lost the

knack.

His private Diary bears witness to the constantly renewed struggle that

went on within him, as well as to his profound dissatisfaction with

himself. Here, for instance, is an estimate entered in his Diary at the

commencement of the war, while he was still at Silistria:

I have no modesty. That is my great defect. What am I? One of four

sons of a retired lieutenant-colonel, left at seven years of age

an orphan under the guardianship of women and strangers; having

neither a social nor a scholarly education, and becoming my own

master at seventeen; with no large means, no social position,

and, above all, without principle; a man who has disorganised

his own affairs to the last extremity, and has passed the best

years of his life without aim or pleasure; and finally who having

banished himself to the Caucasus to escape his debts and more

especially his bad habits--and having there availed himself of some

connection that had existed between his father and the general

in command--passed to the army of the Danube at twenty-six, as

a Sub-Lieutenant almost without means except his pay (for what

means he has he ought to employ to pay what he still owes) without

influential friends, ignorant of how to live in society, ignorant

of the service, lacking practical capacity, but with immense

self-esteem--such is my social position. Let us see what I myself

am like.

I am ugly, awkward, uncleanly, and lack society education. I

am irritable, a bore to others, not modest, intolerant, and as

shame-faced as a child. I am almost an ignoramus. What I do know,

I have learned anyhow, by myself, in snatches, without sequence,

without a plan, and it amounts to very little. I am incontinent,

undecided, inconstant and stupidly vain and vehement, like all

characterless people. I am not brave. I am not methodical in life,

and am so lazy that idleness has become an almost unconquerable

habit of mine.

I am clever, but my cleverness has as yet not been thoroughly

tested on anything; I have neither practical nor social nor

business ability.

I am honest, that is to say, I love goodness, and have formed a

habit of loving it, and when I swerve from it I am dissatisfied

with myself and return to it gladly; but there is a thing I love

more than goodness, and that is fame. I am so ambitious, and so

little has this feeling been gratified, that should I have to

choose between fame and goodness, I fear I may often choose the

former.

Yes, I am not modest, and therefore I am proud at heart, though

shame-faced and shy in society.

That is a grossly unfair estimate of himself, but shows just that sort

of eager injustice to any one who fails to reach the high standard he

sets up, that has always characterised him. His account is inaccurate

in details. For instance, he was not seven, but nearly nine when his

father died. He had not wrecked his affairs to the extent he suggests.

Though his studies had been desultory, he had read widely, with a

quick understanding and a retentive memory. He was master of the

Russian, French and German languages, besides having some knowledge of

English, Latin, Arabic, and Turco-Tartar. (Later in life he added a

knowledge of Italian, Greek and Hebrew.) As for not yet having tested

his cleverness: he had published stories for which the editor of the

best Russian magazine paid him the rate accorded to the best-known

writers; while his awkwardness in society did not depend on ignorance;

on the contrary, he had grown up among people who paid much attention

to manners, and he was himself gifted with social tact, which became

plainly apparent as soon as he attained self-confidence. Any defect in

his manners must have been merely a result of that nervous shyness

natural to highly-strung, sensitive natures, conscious of powers of

a kind society recognises but scantily. Yet, when all is said, his

description gets home: over-emphatic and unfair, like much of his other

writing, it still leaves you in no doubt as to what he meant, and hits

the real points of weakness in the victim he is flaying.

On 5th March 1855 (old style) when he was just recovering from that

fit of depression at Belbék which, as already mentioned, drove him to

gamble, he writes in his Diary:

A conversation about Divinity and Faith has suggested to me a

great, a stupendous idea, to the realisation of which I feel

myself capable of devoting my life. This idea is the founding of

a new religion corresponding to the present state of mankind: the

religion of Christianity, but purged of dogmas and mysticism: a

practical religion, not promising future bliss, but giving bliss on

earth. I understand that to accomplish this the conscious labour of

generations will be needed. One generation will bequeath the idea

to the next, and some day fanaticism or reason will accomplish it.

_Deliberately_ to promote the union of mankind by religion--that is

the basic thought which, I hope, will dominate me.

In that passage one has, quite clearly stated before he was

twenty-seven, the main idea which actuated Tolstoy from the age of

fifty onwards. Already by the literary work he accomplished amid the

bustle and excitement of the siege, he was half consciously moving in

the direction that allured him. During the three months that elapsed

between leaving Bucharest and reaching Sevastopol, he wrote part of

_The Wood-Felling_; a sketch of an expedition such as he had taken part

in the Caucasus; and during the siege of Sevastopol he wrote the first

two parts of _Sevastopol_ and began _Youth_, a sequel to _Childhood_

and _Boyhood_.

1855

It was _Sevastopol_ that first brought European fame to Tolstoy. When,

as already mentioned, _Sevastopol in December_ appeared in the June

_Contemporary_, the Emperor ordered it to be translated into French.

That same month Tolstoy completed and despatched _The Wood-Felling_;

in July he sent off _Sevastopol in May_. Here once again the Censor

exercised his malignant power, and Panáef wrote to Tolstoy from

Petersburg:

In my letter delivered to you by Stolýpin, I wrote that your

article has been passed by the Censor with unimportant alterations,

and begged you not to be angry with me that I was obliged to add

a few words at the end to soften.... 3000 copies of the article

had already been printed off, when the Censor suddenly demanded

it back, stopped the appearance of the number (so that our August

number only appeared in Petersburg on 18 August) and submitted

it to Poúshkin, President of the Committee of Censors. If you

know Poúshkin, you will be able partly to guess what followed. He

flew into a rage, was very angry with the Censor, and with me for

submitting such an article to the Censor, and altered it with his

own hand.... On seeing these alterations I was horror-struck, and

wished not to print the article at all, but Poúshkin explained to

me that I must print it in its present shape. There was no help for

it, and your mutilated article will appear in the September number,

but without your initials--which I could not bear to see attached

to it after that....

Now a word as to the impression your story produces on all to whom

I have read it in its original form. Every one thinks it stronger

than the first part, in its deep and delicate analysis of the

emotions and feelings of people constantly face to face with death,

and in the fidelity with which the types of the line-officers are

caught, their encounters with the aristocrats, and the mutual

relations of the two sets. In short, all is excellent, all is drawn

in masterly fashion; but it is all so overspread with bitterness,

is so keen, so venomous, so unsparing and so cheerless, that at the

present moment when the scene of the story is almost sacred ground,

it pains those who are at a distance from it; and the story may

even produce a very unpleasant impression.

_The Wood-Felling_, with its dedication to Tourgénef, will also

appear in September (Tourgénef begs me to thank you very, very

much for thinking of him and paying him this attention).... In

this story also (which passed three Censors: the Caucasian, the

Military, and our Civil Censor) the types of officers have been

tampered with, and unfortunately a little has been struck out.

Tolstoy's dedication of _The Wood-Felling_ to Tourgénef proceeded

from his admiration for that writer's _A Sportsman's Sketches_, which

to the present time he continues to value very highly, considering

Tourgénef's descriptions of Nature in that book not merely excellent,

but inimitable by any one else.

Nekrásof wrote to Tolstoy in September, about _Sevastopol in August_,

saying:

The revolting mutilation of your article quite upset me. Even

now I cannot think of it without regret and rage. Your work

will, of course, not be lost ... it will always remain as proof

of a strength able to utter such profound and sober truth under

circumstances amid which few men would have retained it. It is

just what Russian society now needs: the truth--the truth, of

which, since Gógol's death, so little has remained in Russian

literature. You are right to value that side of your gifts most

of all. Truth--in such form as you have introduced it into our

literature--is something completely new among us. I do not know

another writer of to-day who so compels the reader to love him

and sympathise heartily with him, as he to whom I now write; and

I only fear lest time, the nastiness of life, and the deafness

and dumbness that surround us, should do to you what it has done

to most of us, and kill the energy without which there can be

no writer--none, at least, such as Russia needs. You are young:

changes are taking place which, let us hope, may end well, and

perhaps a wide field lies before you. You are beginning in a way

that compels the most cautious to let their expectations travel

far....

_The Wood-Felling_ has passed the Censor pretty fairly, though from

it also some valuable touches have disappeared. ...In that sketch

there are many astonishingly acute remarks, and it is all _new_,

interesting, and to the point. Do not neglect such sketches. Of

the common soldier our literature has as yet not spoken, except

frivolously.

Tourgénef, writing from his estate at Spássky to Panáef, said:

Tolstoy's article about Sevastopol is wonderful! Tears came into my

eyes as I read it, and I shouted, Hurrah! I am greatly flattered by

his wish to dedicate his new tale to me.... Here his article has

produced a general furore.

By the side of these contemporary estimates one may set Kropótkin's

appreciation written fifty years later:

All his powers of observation and war-psychology, all his deep

comprehension of the Russian soldier, and especially of the plain

un-theatrical hero who really wins the battles, and a profound

understanding of that inner spirit of an army upon which depend

success and failure: everything, in short, which developed into

the beauty and the truthfulness of _War and Peace_, was already

manifested in these sketches, which undoubtedly represented a new

departure in war-literature the world over.

It is worth while to note the very different conclusions to which

Kinglake, the historian of this war, and Tolstoy, its novelist,

arrived. Kinglake holds the war to have been unnecessary, and

attributes it chiefly to the unscrupulous ambition of Napoleon III;

yet he blames the Peace Party very severely for protesting against

it, for had they not done so Nicholas, he thinks, would not have

dared to act aggressively. Kinglake feels that negotiations between

rulers and diplomatists are important, and that anything that prevents

a Government from speaking with authority, makes for confusion and

disaster.

Tolstoy, on the other hand (if I may anticipate and speak of

conclusions not definitely expressed by him till much later), regards

all war and preparation for war as immoral, and wishes this conviction

to become so strong and so general that it will be impossible for any

future Napoleon to plunge five nations into war to gratify his own

ambition.

Kinglake understands things as they are, and knows how easy it is to do

harm with good intentions, but is somewhat blind to the trend of human

progress, and as to what the aim before us should be. Tolstoy, on the

contrary, is chiefly concerned about the ultimate aim, and about the

state of mind of the individual. The actual working of our political

system and international relations are things he ignores. The English

writer sees clearly what is, and cares little about what should be; the

Russian writer cares immensely about what should be, and rather forgets

that it can only be approached by slow and difficult steps, to take

which surefootedly, needs an appreciation of things as they are.

Neither of them manages to say the word which would synthesize their

divergent views: namely, that no self-respecting people should support

or tolerate as rulers, men who seek to gain national advantages by

means not strictly fair, honest and even generous. That is the real key

to the world's future peace. Kinglake's appeal to us not to hamper the

government that represents us, and Tolstoy's appeal to us not to spend

our lives in preparing to slay our fellow men, can both be met in that

way, and, I think, in that way alone.

For an ambitious young officer actually engaged in a war, related to

the Commander-in-Chief, and favourably noticed by the Emperor, even

_partially_ to express disapproval of war, was difficult; and Tolstoy

has told me that, contending with his desire to tell the truth about

things as he saw it, he was at the same time aware of another feeling

prompting him to say what was expected of him.

He, however, like the child in Andersen's story who sees that the

king has nothing on, when every one else is in ecstasies over the

magnificence of the monarch's robes, had the gift of seeing things

with his own eyes, as well as a great gift of truthfulness. These were

the qualities which ultimately made him the greatest literary power

of his century; and in spite of his own hesitation and the Censor's

mutilations, we may still read the description he then wrote of the

truce in which the French and Russian soldiers hobnobbed together in

friendship, a description closing with these words:

White flags are on the bastions and parallels; the flowery valley

is covered with corpses; the beautiful sun is sinking towards the

blue sea; and the undulating blue sea glitters in the golden rays

of the sun. Thousands of people crowd together, look at, speak to,

and smile at one another. And these people--Christians confessing

the one great law of love and self-sacrifice--seeing what they have

done, do not at once fall repentant on their knees before Him who

has given them life and laid in the soul of each a fear of death

and a love of goodness and of beauty, and do not embrace like

brothers with tears of joy and happiness.

The white flags are lowered, again the engines of death and

suffering are sounding, again innocent blood flows, and the air is

filled with moans and curses.

In _Sevastopol_, and in Tennyson's _Charge of the Light Brigade_ (with

its rhymes about 'hundred' and 'thundered,' and its panegyric of those

who knew it was not their business to think, and at whom 'all the

world wondered'), we have two typical expressions of conflicting views

on war: the view of a man who knew it from the classics and was Poet

Laureate, and the view of a man who was in the thick of it, and whose

eyes were connected with his brain.

Thirty-four years later Tolstoy wrote a Preface to a fellow-officer's

_Recollections of Sevastopol_. It could not pass the Censor, but has

been used as a Preface to his own sketches of war in the English

version of _Sevastopol_, translated by my wife and myself, and I cannot

conclude this chapter better than by quoting a few sentences from it.

Speaking of the position of a young officer engaged in the Crimean war,

he says:

To the first question that suggests itself to every one, Why did

he do it? Why did he not cease, and go away?--the author does not

reply. He does not say, as men said in olden times when they hated

their enemies as the Jews hated the Philistines, that he hated the

Allies; on the contrary, he here and there shows his sympathy for

them as for brother men.

Nor does he speak of any passionate desire that the keys of the

Church at Jerusalem should be in our hands, or even that our fleet

should, or should not, exist. You feel as you read, that to him

the life and death of men are not commensurable with questions of

politics. And the reader feels that to the question: Why did the

author act as he did?--there is only one answer; It was because I

enlisted while still young, or before the war began, or because

owing to inexperience I chanced to slip into a position from which

I could not extricate myself without great effort. I was entrapped

into that position, and when they obliged me to do the most

unnatural actions in the world, to kill my brother men who had done

me no harm, I preferred to do this rather than to suffer punishment

and disgrace.... One feels that the author knows there is a law

of God: love thy neighbour, and therefore do not kill him,--a law

which cannot be repealed by any human artifice.

The merit of the book consists in that. It is a pity it is only

felt, and not plainly and clearly expressed. Sufferings and deaths

are described; but we are not told what caused them. Thirty-five

years ago--even that was well, but now something more is needed.

We should be told what it is that causes soldiers to suffer and to

die,--that we may know, and understand, and destroy these causes.

'War! How terrible,' people say, 'is war, with its wounds,

bloodshed, and deaths! We must organise a Red Cross Society to

alleviate the wounds, sufferings and pains of death.' But, truly,

what is dreadful in war is not the wounds, sufferings and deaths.

The human race that has always suffered and died, should by this

time be accustomed to suffering and death, and should not be aghast

at them. Without war people die by famine, by inundations, and by

epidemics. It is not suffering and death that are terrible, but it

is that which allows people to inflict suffering and death....

It is not the suffering and mutilation and death of man's body that

most needs to be diminished,--but it is the mutilation and death of

his soul. Not the _Red_ Cross is needed, but the simple cross of

Christ to destroy falsehood and deception....

I was finishing this Preface when a cadet from the Military College

came to see me. He told me that he was troubled by religious

doubts.... He had read nothing of mine. I spoke cautiously to him

of how to read the Gospels so as to find in them the answers to

life's problems. He listened and agreed. Towards the end of our

conversation I mention wine, and advised him not to drink. He

replied: 'but in military service it is sometimes necessary.' I

thought he meant necessary for health and strength, and I intended

triumphantly to overthrow him by proofs from experience and

science, but he continued: 'Why, at Geok-Tepe, for instance, when

Skóbelef had to massacre the inhabitants, the soldiers did not wish

to do it, but he had drink served out and then....' Here are all

the horrors of war--they are in this lad with his fresh young face,

his little shoulder-straps (under which the ends of his hood are so

neatly tucked), his well-cleaned boots, his naïve eyes, and with so

perverted a conception of life.

This is the real horror of war!

What millions of Red Cross workers could heal the wounds that swarm

in that remark--the result of a whole system of education!

CHIEF AUTHORITIES FOR CHAPTER IV

Birukof.

Behrs.

Bitovt.

Nekrasof's letters to Tolstoy, _Niva_, February 1898.

Also, Tolstoy's _Sevastopol_, and his

Preface to Ershof's _Recollections of Sevastopol_.

Kropotkin, _Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature_: London, 1905.