The debate lasted a long while, and the longer it continued the hotter it became, passing into clamour and personalities, and the less possible it was to draw any sort of general conclusion from what was uttered. Prince Andrey simply wondered at what they were all saying as he listened to the confusion of different tongues, and the propositions, the plans, the shouts, and the objections. The idea which had long ago and often occurred to him during the period of his active service, that there was and could be no sort of military science, and that therefore there could not be such a thing as military genius, seemed to him now to be an absolutely obvious truth. “What theory and science can there be of a subject of which the conditions and circumstances are uncertain and can never be definitely known, in which the strength of the active forces engaged can be even less definitely measured？ No one can, or possibly could, know the relative positions of our army and the enemy’s in another twenty-four hours, and no one can gauge the force of this or the other detachment. Sometimes when there is no coward in front to cry, ‘We are cut off！’ and to run, but a brave, spirited fellow leads the way, shouting ‘Hurrah！’ a detachment of five thousand is as good as thirty thousand, as it was at Sch？ngraben, while at times fifty thousand will run from eight thousand, as they did at Austerlitz. How can there be a science of war in which, as in every practical matter, nothing can be definite and everything depends on countless conditions, the influence of which becomes manifest all in a moment, and no one can know when that moment is coming. Armfeldt declares that our army is cut off, while Paulucci maintains that we have caught the French army between two fires; Michaud asserts that the defect of the Drissa camp is having the river in its rear, while Pfuhl protests that that is what constitutes its strength; Toll proposes one plan, Armfeldt suggests another; and all are good and all are bad, and the suitability of any proposition can only be seen at the moment of trial. And why do they all talk of military genius？ Is a man to be called a genius because he knows when to order biscuits to be given out, and when to march his troops to the right and when to the left？ He is only called a genius because of the glamour and authority with which the military are invested, and because masses of sycophants are always ready to flatter power, and to ascribe to it qualities quite alien to it. The best generals I have known are, on the contrary, stupid or absent-minded men. The best of them is Bagration—Napoleon himself admitted it. And Bonaparte himself！ I remember his fatuous and limited face on the field of Austerlitz. A good general has no need of genius, nor of any great qualities; on the contrary, he is the better for the absence of the finest and highest of human qualities—love, poetry, tenderness, philosophic and inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he is doing is of great importance （or he would never have patience to go through with it）, and only then will he be a gallant general. God forbid he should be humane, should feel love and compassion, should pause to think what is right and wrong. It is perfectly comprehensible that the theory of their genius should have been elaborated long, long ago, for the ****** reason that they are the representatives of power. The credit of success in battle is not by right theirs; for victory or defeat depends in reality on the soldier in the ranks who first shouts ‘Hurrah！’ or ‘We are lost！’ And it is only in the ranks that one can serve with perfect conviction, that one is of use！”
Such were Prince Andrey’s reflections as he heard the discussion going on around him, and he was only roused from his musing when Paulucci called to him and the meeting was breaking up.
Next day at the review the Tsar asked Prince Andrey where he desired to serve; and Bolkonsky ruined his chances for ever in the court world by asking to be sent to the front, instead of begging for a post in attendance on the Tsar’s person.
