The Birch to Andrei and for the most part ignored by Kutuzov. The imposition of order persists on the battlefield, however, and to underline its ineffectiveness Tolstoy brings in an outsider. Pierre is “the work’s threshold figure,” a perpetual “tourist,” and through his eyes a battle scene well known to many readers of the time is defamiliarized and rendered indecipherable.29 Pierre comes to Borodino with the purpose of witnessing the war for himself, but his efforts to understand the army’s strategy are continually frustrated. Listening to Bennigsen’s explanation of the position of the troops, Pierre “[strains] each faculty to understand the essential points of the impending battle, but was mortified to feel that his mental capacity was inadequate for the task. He could make nothing of it.”30 The implication, of course, is not that Pierre is deficient but rather that Russia’s military tactics are neither logical nor effective; “even minimal understanding is impossible.”31 This notion, that tactical planning is incompatible with capricious human behavior, is substantiated by Bennigsen’s misunderstanding of the position of the left flank. Finding with surprise that the troops defending the flank have not occupied the highest ground, he declares that it is “madness to leave a height which commanded the country around unoccupied and to place troops below it,” and he swiftly orders them to relocate.32 Pierre, observing the scene, is convinced that Bennigsen must be correct and wonders “how the man who put [the troops] there behind the hill could have made so gross and palpable a blunder.”33 As Tolstoy then reveals, however, the situation is not that simple: the position that Bennigsen criticizes as incapable of defending the flank is actually meant to conceal the troops and orchestrate
an ambush. By “[moving] the troops forward according to his own ideas without mentioning the matter to the commander-inchief,” Bennigsen unintentionally undermines the plan and endangers the troops (824).34 The strategy on the left flank, and the larger strategy of the army as a whole, cannot succeed because the individual wills of men run divergently and counter to one another and because semiotic totalitarianism — in this case, Bennigsen’s belief that victory is always contingent on the higher ground — cannot account for the intricacies, exceptions, and contradictions of life. Prince Andrei reacts so strongly against this kind of strategy because he believes in its futility and because he understands the stakes. By treating battle as a kind of complex mental challenge that can be won or lost with the proper position or the proper sacrifice of men, military strategists become so detached that they understand war as a game rather than what it really is: “murder.”35 Appropriating Tolstoy’s chess metaphor, Andrei first contends that war cannot logically be played like a game, because unlike the pieces on a chessboard, “the relative strength of bodies of troops can never be known to anyone.”36 Beyond this, however, he asserts that war should not, morally, be played like a game. When German officers in the camp declare that “the only aim is to weaken the enemy, so of course one cannot take into account the loss of private individuals,” they are treating war as chess and human beings as pawns.37 This indifference is repugnant to Andrei. “War is not courtesy but the most horrible thing in life,” he tells Pierre, “and we ought to understand that, and not play at war.”38 Military theorists affect to foresee “all contingencies” just as historians affect to interpret all past events — but while semiotic
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