The battle that took place at the beginning of the winter of 1805 near Austerlitz, a town in Moravia, finally secured for Napoleon the glory of one of the greatest generals in history, an outstanding tactician and strategist. Having forced the Russian-Austrian army to “play by its own rules”, Napoleon first put his troops on the defensive, and then, after waiting for the right moment, launched a crushing counterattack and defeated the enemy. Until tomorrow evening, this whole (Russian-Austrian) army will be mine. Napoleon, December 1, 1805

The forces of the parties The Allied army numbered 85 thousand people (60 thousand Russian army, 25 thousand Austrian army with 278 guns) under the general command of General M. I. Kutuzov. Napoleon's army numbered 73.5 thousand people. Demonstration of superior forces, Napoleon was afraid to scare the allies. In addition, foreseeing the development of events, he believed that these forces would be sufficient for victory. Napoleon used the apparent weakness of his army, as this only added to the resolve of the advisers of Emperor Alexander I. His adjutants, Prince Pyotr Dolgorukov and Baron Ferdinand Wintzingerode, convinced the emperor that now the Russian army, led by His Imperial Majesty, was quite capable of defeating Napoleon himself in a pitched battle. This was exactly what Alexander I wanted to hear.

Military council on the eve of the battle The unpopularity, the senselessness of the campaign of the years is especially truthfully revealed by Tolstoy in the pictures of the preparation and conduct of the battle of Austerlitz. In the highest circles of the army, it was believed that this battle was necessary and timely, that Napoleon was afraid of him. Only Kutuzov understood that it was not needed and would be lost. Tolstoy ironically describes the reading by the Austrian general Weyrother of the battle plan he invented, according to which “the first column is marching ... the second column is marching ... the third column is marching ...”, and the possible actions and movements of the enemy are not taken into account. All the leaders of the columns gathered at the military council before the battle of Austerlitz, "with the exception of Prince Bagration, who refused to come." Tolstoy does not explain the reasons that prompted Bagration not to appear at the council, they are already clear. Realizing the inevitability of defeat, Bagration did not want to participate in a senseless military council.

At the council, there is a clash not of opinions, but of vanities. The generals, each of whom is convinced that he is right, can neither agree among themselves nor yield to one another. It would seem that this is a natural human weakness, but it will bring great trouble, because no one wants to see and hear the truth. Therefore, Kutuzov did not pretend at the council "he really slept", with an effort opening his only eye "to the sound of Weyrother's voice."

The bewilderment of Prince Andrei is also understandable. His mind and already accumulated military experience suggest: there will be trouble. But why didn't Kutuzov express his opinion to the tsar? “Is it really necessary for court and personal considerations to risk tens of thousands and my, my life?” thinks Prince Andrew. It now speaks the same feeling with which Nikolai Rostov ran to the bushes in the Battle of Shengraben: “Kill me? Me, whom everyone loves so much!” But these thoughts and feelings of Prince Andrei are resolved differently than in Rostov: he not only does not run away from danger, but goes towards it. Prince Andrei could not live if he ceased to respect himself, if he humiliated his dignity. But, in addition, there is vanity in him, there is still a boy living in him, a youth who, before the battle, is carried far away by dreams: “And now that happy moment, that Toulon, which he has been waiting for so long ... He firmly and clearly speaks his opinion ... Everyone is amazed ... and now he takes a regiment, a division ... The next battle was won by him alone. Kutuzov is replaced, he is appointed ... "

A quarter of a century ago, the stately handsome prince Nikolai Bolkonsky near Chesma or Izmail dreamed of how the decisive hour was coming, Potemkin was being replaced, he was appointed ... And fifteen years later, a thin boy with a thin neck, the son of Prince Andrei, would see in a dream an army ahead of which he walks next to his father, and, waking up, will take an oath to himself: “Everyone will know, everyone will love me, everyone will admire me ... I will do what even he would be pleased with ...” (He is the father, Prince Andrei. ) The Bolkonskys are vain, but their dreams are not about awards: “I want fame, I want to be famous people I want to be loved by them ... ”- thinks Prince Andrei in front of Austerlitz. Prince Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky. Artist D. Shmarinov. Nikolenka Bolkonsky. Artist V. Serov.

Here, on the Pratsenskaya mountain, almost delirious, Prince Andrey will experience moments that will change his life in many ways, determine his entire future. He will hear voices and understand the French phrase spoken over him: "Here is a beautiful death!" “Prince Andrei understood that this was said about him and that Napoleon was talking ... He knew that Napoleon was his hero, but at that moment Napoleon seemed to him such a small, insignificant person in comparison with what was happening between his soul and this high endless sky with clouds running across it ... ”Prince Andrey on the Pratsensky mountain. Artist A. Nikolaev

Accusatory motifs predominate in the scenes of the battle of Austerlitz and the episodes preceding it. The writer reveals the anti-people nature of the war, shows the criminal mediocrity of the Russian-Austrian command. It is no coincidence that Kutuzov was essentially removed from decision-making. With pain in his heart, the commander realized the inevitability of the defeat of the Russian army. Meanwhile, the climax in the depiction of the Battle of Austerlitz is heroic. Tolstoy shows that the defeat at Austerlitz was a disgrace to the Russian-Austrian generals, but not to Russian soldiers. Prince Andrei with a banner in his hands in the attack near Austerlitz. Artist V. Serov. 1951–1953

Nikolai Rostov, in love with the tsar, dreams of his own: to meet the adored emperor, to prove his devotion to him. But he meets Bagration and volunteers to check whether the French arrows are standing where they stood yesterday. “Bagration shouted to him from the mountain so that he would not go further than the stream, but Rostov pretended not to hear his words, and, without stopping, went on and on ...” Bullets buzz over him, shots are heard in the fog, but in his soul there is no longer the fear that owned him under Shengraben. During the battle on the right flank, Bagration does what Kutuzov failed to do near the tsar, delays time in order to save his detachment. He sends Rostov to find Kutuzov (and Nikolai dreams of a tsar) and ask if it is time to join the battle on the right flank. Bagration hoped that the messenger would not return until evening... Until now, we have seen the battle through the eyes of Prince Andrei, who bitterly understood what was happening in front of him. Now Tolstoy passes on an observant position to the uncomprehending, enthusiastic Rostov.

Rostov already feels the madness of what is happening. No matter how little he is experienced, but when he hears “in front of him and behind our troops ... close gunfire”, he thinks: “The enemy is in the rear of our troops? It can't be...” This is where courage wakes up in Rostov. Whatever it is, however, he thought, there is nothing to go around now. I must look for the commander-in-chief here, and if everything is lost, then it is my business to die together with everyone. “Rostov thought about it and went exactly in the direction where he was told that he would be killed.” He feels sorry for himself as he felt sorry for Shengraben. He thinks about his mother, remembers her last letter and pities himself for her... But all this is different, not like it was under Shengraben, because he learned, hearing his fear, not to obey him. He still rides forward, “no longer hoping to find anyone, but only to clear his conscience before himself,” and suddenly he sees his adored emperor alone, in the middle of an empty field, and does not dare to drive up, turn, help, show your devotion. And indeed, what is there to ask now, when the day is coming to evening, the army is defeated, and only Bagration's detachment is saved thanks to the reasonable cunning of his commander.

Depicting military actions and historical characters of emperors and military leaders, the writer criticizes the false state power and people who arrogantly tried to influence the course of events. He considered the military alliances concluded in pure hypocrisy: after all, completely different interests and intentions were hidden behind them. "Friendship" between Napoleon and Alexander I could not prevent the war. Enormous troops had accumulated on both sides of the Russian border, and a clash of two historical forces was inevitable. Meeting of two emperors in Tilsit. Engraving by Lebo from Nadia's original

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(28 )

The allied army is preparing for the battle of Austerlitz. The headquarters are discussing the battle plan. Kutuzov knows that it will be lost. While the Austrian General Weyrother is reading the disposition, he is sleeping. Prince Andrei also had a battle plan ready, but he failed to present it.

On the night before the battle, Prince Andrei dreams of how he will find his Toulon tomorrow. When the army is defeated, he will express his plan to both sovereigns. Bolkonsky alone will lead a division into battle and win the battle. And the next battle will also be won by him alone. In dreams, he already takes the place of Kutuzov.

The prince admits to himself that he wants only one thing - glory. For her, he is ready to give the most relatives and friends: father, sister, wife. At five in the morning, the movement of allied troops begins. People can't see anything because of the heavy fog and smoke from the fires.

Kutuzov, who leads one of the columns of the allied troops, is gloomy and in no hurry to start the battle. The sovereign is dissatisfied and asks why Kutuzov is hesitant, because they are not at the parade and Not on the Tsaritsyn Meadow.

Kutuzov replies that he does not start precisely because they are not at the parade and not at the Tsaritsyn Meadow. Everyone understands his irony. Obeying Alexander, Kutuzov gives the order to attack. The fog begins to dissipate. The Russians suddenly see the French, who are much closer than everyone expected.

The troops are running. Prince Andrei stops them for a while: with a banner in his hands, he runs forward, followed by a battalion. Hand-to-hand combat begins. Wounded, Bolkonsky falls. He sees no longer fighting people, but a high sky, calm and solemn. He's surprised he hasn't noticed it yet.

Rostov is on the right flank, which at nine o'clock in the morning has not yet joined the battle. Bagration sends him to Kutuzov. On the way, Rostov sees crowds of upset Russian soldiers. He also sees the sovereign: he is very pale.

The hero regrets that, due to his indecision, he could not approach Alexander and another person, Captain Tol, helped him cross the ditch. The emperor shook his hand. The battle is lost.

The Russians flee, on a narrow dam they are fired upon by French artillery. Dolokhov jumps on the ice, shouting that he is holding. However, the ice bends and cracks. Others follow him and drown.

Prince Andrey lies on the Pracen height. Napoleon circles the battlefield: in this way, considering the dead and wounded, he educates himself for strength of mind.

Looking at Bolkonsky, he says that his death is beautiful. To a prince who sees the sky, Napoleon's speech seems to be nothing more than the buzzing of a fly. Andrei groans, he is taken to the hospital.

The battle of Shengraben is the only event in the history of the war of 1805 that, from Tolstoy's point of view, had a moral justification. And at the same time, Bolkonsky's first practical encounter with the laws of war, which psychologically undermined his voluntaristic aspirations. The plan to save the bulk of the Russian army by Bagration's detachment was an act of Kutuzov's will, rested on moral law(the “whole” was saved by the sacrifice of the “part”) and was opposed by Tolstoy to the arbitrariness of the decision to fight near Austerlitz. The outcome of the battle is decided by the general "spirit of the army", which is sensitively felt by Bagration. He perceives everything that happens as something foreseen by him. The failed personal "Tulon" of Bolkonsky is contrasted with the "general Toulon" of Tushin's battery, which determined the course of the battle, but was not noticed or appreciated by others.

Shengraben is just as important for the self-determination of Rostov. The incompatibility of inner motivation (ardor and determination) and the objective result (wound and stampede) plunges the hero into an abyss of questions that are terrible for him and again, as on the Ensky bridge (Tolstoy draws this parallel twice), makes Rostov think.

The decision on the battle of Austerlitz is made against the will of Kutuzov. It seemed that all possibilities, all conditions, all "slightest details" were foreseen. Victory is presented not as "future", but already as "past". Kutuzov is not inactive. However, his energy of resisting the speculative constructions of the participants in the military council on the eve of the battle, based on the feeling of the “moral world” of the army, its “common spirit” and the internal state of the enemy’s troops, is paralyzed by the arbitrariness of others vested with greater power. Kutuzov foresees the inevitability of defeat, but is powerless to break the activity of a multitude of arbitrariness and therefore is so inert at the council preceding the battle.

Bolkonsky in front of Austerlitz - in a state of doubt, ambiguity and anxiety. It is generated by the "practical" knowledge acquired next to Kutuzov, the correctness of which has always been confirmed. But the power of speculative constructions, the power of the idea of ​​"triumph over all" translates doubt and anxiety into a feeling of the reliably coming "day of his Toulon", which should predetermine the general course of affairs.

Everything envisaged by the attack plan collapses at once, and collapses catastrophically. Napoleon's intentions turn out to be unpredictable (he does not avoid battle at all); erroneous - information about the location of his troops; unforeseen - his plan to invade the rear of the allied army; almost unnecessary - excellent knowledge of the area: even before the start of the battle in thick fog, commanders lose their regiments. The feeling of energy with which the soldiers moved towards the battlefield turns into "annoyance and anger" (9, 329).

The allied troops, who already saw themselves as attacking, were attacked, and in the most vulnerable place. The feat of Bolkonsky was accomplished, but did not change anything in the general course of the battle. At the same time, the Austerlitz disaster exposed for Prince Andrei the inconsistency between the constructions of the mind and the “revelations” of consciousness. Suffering and the “near expectation of death” revealed to his soul the incorruptibility of the general stream of life (the present), symbolized by the “eternal” sky for all people, and the transient significance of the individual, which the ongoing historical event makes the hero.

Nikolai Rostov is not a direct participant in the battle. Sent by courier, he acts as a spectator, involuntarily contemplating different periods and participation in the battle. That state of mental and spiritual tension, in the power of which Rostov found himself as a result of Shengraben, is beyond his power and cannot be long. Find his instinct for self-preservation? a ground that guarantees security from the intrusion of terrible and unnecessary questions. The "deification" of the emperor, who, from the point of view of Rostov, creates history, destroys the fear of death. The unreasoning readiness to die for the sovereign at any moment brings the question “why?” out of the hero’s consciousness, returns Rostov to the norm of “healthy narrow-mindedness”, thereby predetermining his reasoning about the “duty” of obedience to the government in the epilogue of the novel.

The path of doubts, grave crises, revivals and new catastrophes for both Andrei and Pierre (in the period 1806-early 1812) is the path of knowledge - and the path to other people. That understanding, without which, according to Tolstoy, there can be no talk of “unity of people,” is not only a natural intuitive gift, but an ability and at the same time a need acquired by experience.

For Drubetskoy and Berg, who in the period from Austerlitz to 1812 (i.e., during the period of “failures and defeats”) reach the maximum possible boundaries of “service and personal careers” for each of them, there is no need for understanding. The life-giving element of Natasha at some point leads Drubetskoy away from Helen, but the world of human “dust”, which allows you to easily and quickly climb the steps of the perverted virtues, gains the upper hand. Nikolai Rostov, endowed with "sensitivity of the heart" and at the same time "common sense of mediocrity", carries the ability to understand the intuitive. That is why the question “why?” so often invades his mind, why he feels the “blue glasses of the hostel”, which determine the behavior of Boris Drubetskoy.

This "understanding" of Rostov largely explains the possibility of Marya Bolkonskaya's love for him. However, Rostov's human mediocrity constantly forces him to avoid questions, complexities, ambiguities - from everything that requires significant mental and emotional effort. Between Austerlitz and 1812, Rostov was either in the regiment or in Otradnoye. And it is always "quiet and calm" in the regiment, in Otradnoye - "it is difficult and confused." The regiment for Rostov is a salvation from the "worldly confusion". Otradnoe is “the whirlpool of life” (10, 238). It’s easy to be a “wonderful person” in the regiment, it’s difficult in the “peace” And only twice - after a huge card loss to Dolokhov and at the moment of reflection on the peace between Russia and France concluded in Tilsit - the harmony of “healthy narrow-mindedness” collapses in Rostov. Nikolai Rostov, within the "novel" limits, cannot acquire understanding connected with the depth of knowledge of the particular and general patterns of human life.

For Tolstoy (and his hero of the 1950s) every passing day is a fact of history, living history, a kind of "epoch" in the life of the soul. Bolkonsky does not have this sense of the significance of each passing day. The idea of ​​a personality moving at every “infinitely small moment”, which is the basis of the philosophical concept of “War and Peace”, and the year of separation, which Prince Andrei offers Natasha at the discretion of his father, are clearly correlated in the novel. The law of the movement of personality in time, the power of which the hero has already experienced, is not transferred by him to another person.

Battle of Shengraben and Austerlitz in the context of the novel "War and Peace"

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The Battle of Austerlitz in War and Peace is the culmination of the first volume. All the battle scenes in "War and Peace" are the highest points of tension in the narrative, because these are moments when the historical intersects with the personal and transpersonal, life converges with death.

Each battle is the result of many components. Austerlitz is preceded in the “space” of the novel by the intrigues of Prince Vasily, Pierre’s mistakes (disorderly life in St. Petersburg, marriage to Helen) - in the work there is, as it were, an accumulation of “negative energy”, an increase in chaos, confusion, illusoryness. In the scenes of preparation for the battle, the motifs of splendor (review of two emperors), self-confidence of the young (the party of young generals under the young and confident Alexander I, who himself wants to lead the battle) dominate.

Prince Andrei admires Napoleon and dreams of repeating his feat - to save the army, like Napoleon on the Arcole bridge or in the battle of Toulon. For Bolkonsky, this is not just a decisive, courageous act, but a beautiful, sublime, theatrical-elevated one. A mandatory attribute of such a romantic feat is a banner in the hands of a brave man (see the painting by the French artist Jean Antoine Gros "Napoleon on the Arcole Bridge" (1801), located in the Hermitage). In the XV chapter, Prince Andrei imagines his feat as follows: "... with a banner in my hand, I will go forward and break everything that is in front of me."

Nikolai Rostov is delighted with his emperor, he is almost in love with him, like the entire Russian army. Everyone (except the wise old Kutuzov) is animated by imaginary future successes, the generals are developing bold military plans, expecting a brilliant victory ... But the "tower clock" of world history has already begun its movement, still hidden for everyone. The description of the Battle of Austerlitz is deployed by Tolstoy, as it were, on three tiers of the vertical space and with different points vision:

1. Russian troops are wandering in the morning fog in the lowland (the fog, which turned out to be unpredictable, not taken into account in any military plans, hides Napoleon's deceptive maneuver);
2. at the height where Napoleon stands, surrounded by his marshals, it is already completely light and a view from above of the “theater of military operations” opens up, a “huge ball of the sun” solemnly, theatrically spectacularly rises above Napoleon’s head - today, on his birthday, the emperor is self-confidently happy, as "a boy in love and happy";
3. on the Pratsensky heights, where Kutuzov is located with his retinue.

Dramatic events are unfolding here, which are given from the point of view of Prince Andrei - the panic and flight of the Russian troops, his attempt to stop chaos, the realization of a dream of a feat with a banner in his hand, a wound, a fall ... Tolstoy gives this moment through a sharp, unexpected change of angle images: from chaos and fuss of movement - to peace, from the noise of battle - to silence, from the vertical position of the body in space and the gaze turned to the earth - to the horizontal, to the position of a person who has fallen face up, to the sky. "Above him there was nothing but the sky - a high sky, not clear, but still immeasurably high, with gray clouds quietly creeping across it." Not only the angle is changing, the scale in the perception of the world is changing: his idol Napoleon, who stopped over the wounded Prince Andrei, uttering words of praise to the Russian officer, seems small, insignificant next to the opened expanse of infinity, “in comparison with what was now happening between him (Prince Andrei .- E.P.) soul and this high, endless sky ... ”(vol. 1, part 3, ch. XIX). An unbeliever, a skeptic, Prince Andrei peers into the incomprehensible: is there, beyond the threshold of life, someone to whom one can say: “Lord, have mercy on me!”? Prince Andrei is experiencing a moral upheaval, a sharp change in the entire previous system of life values: “Looking into the eyes of Napoleon, Prince Andrei thought about the insignificance of greatness, the insignificance of life, which no one could understand the meaning of, and the even greater insignificance of death, the meaning of which no one could understand. understand and explain from the living. He discovers for himself the presence in the world of “something incomprehensible, but most important”, unequal to the familiar God to whom everyone prays, “the God who<...>sewn into<...>amulet of Princess Mary.

Life, God, death, the eternal sky - these are the final themes of the first volume. Prince Andrei is experiencing a moment of discovery of the truth (“And suddenly a new light was revealed to him ...”). The sky seen at the moment of a crisis, an emotional upheaval, is Tolstoy's most important "situation". Life and death in Tolstoy are always connected, but his heroes most often do not think about death, being in the stream of life. But suddenly the veil covering the truth is removed - and infinity becomes visible ... Prince Andrei is wounded, he dies - and his consciousness is thrown open into another being, life is seen in a different light - as if "from death", from eternity. A spiritual upheaval replaced what Prince Andrei perceived as a feat, the invasion of death changed his consciousness. High heroism acquired a genuine content, becoming highest fortune spirit.

However, everything that happened to Prince Andrei, which is significant in the “spiritual space” of the novel, has no influence on the course of the battle of Austerlitz depicted in “War and Peace”, and not only because his impulse was interrupted by a wound. An individual, even the most significant person in history, according to Tolstoy, does not determine anything. History is created by all people together, it is a living tissue, where every point, every constituent atom comes into contact with its neighbors and sets the living movement for the whole.

The role of emperors in the battle of Austerlitz

The history of mankind consists of victories and defeats in wars. In the novel "War and Peace" Tolstoy describes the participation of Russia and Austria in the war against Napoleon. Thanks to Russian troops the battle of Shengraben was won, and this gave strength and inspiration to the sovereigns of Russia and Austria. Blinded by victories, preoccupied mainly with narcissism, holding military reviews and balls, these two men led their armies to defeat at Austerlitz. The Battle of Austerlitz in Tolstoy's War and Peace was the decisive battle in the War of the Three Emperors. Tolstoy shows the two emperors at first as pompous and self-satisfied, and after the defeat as confused and unhappy people.

Napoleon managed to outwit and defeat the Russian-Austrian army. Emperors fled the battlefield, and after the end of the battle, Emperor Franz decided to submit to Napoleon on his terms.

Kutuzov and Weyrother - who is to blame for the defeat?

The main role in the conduct of this war was assumed by the Austrian military leaders, especially since the battles were fought on the territory of Austria. And the battle near the town of Austerlitz in the novel "War and Peace" was also thought out and planned by the Austrian general Weyrother. Weyrother did not consider it necessary to take into account the opinion of Kutuzov or anyone else.

The military council before the battle of Austerlitz does not resemble advice, but an exhibition of vanities, all disputes were not conducted with the goal of reaching a better and correct solution, but, as Tolstoy writes: “... it was obvious that the goal ... of objections was mainly to make General Weyrother feel so self-confidently, as to schoolchildren-pupils who read his disposition, that he was dealing not only with fools, but with people who could teach him in military affairs.

Having made several futile attempts to change the situation, Kutuzov overslept the entire time the council lasted. Tolstoy makes it clear how much all this pomposity and complacency disgusts Kutuzov, the old general is well aware that the battle will be lost.

Prince Bolkonsky, seeing all this, suddenly clearly realizes that all this ostentatious advice is only to satisfy the own ambitions of the generals of both armies. “Is it really necessary for court and personal considerations to risk tens of thousands and mine, my life?" Andrey Bolkonsky thinks. But, like a true son of his father, Bolkonsky cannot stoop to refusing to take part in the battle, even if he knows for sure that it will be lost.

Battle analysis

Why was the battle lost, and why did Kutuzov try to prevent this attack on the French?

An experienced military man, he was not blinded by small victories over the French army, and therefore could realistically assess the enemy. Kutuzov was well aware that Napoleon was a smart strategist. He was well aware of the number of Russian-Austrian troops, and knew that it exceeded the number of French soldiers. Therefore, it was clear that Bonaparte would try to take any action in order to deceive the enemy into a trap. That is why Kutuzov tried to delay time in order to orient himself and understand what the French emperor was up to.

Even during the battle, having met with the tsar, Kutuzov hesitates, and sends soldiers to attack only after the order of the Russian emperor.

In the description of the Battle of Austerlitz in War and Peace, Tolstoy, showing the battlefield from two opposite sides, as if contrasts the emperors Napoleon, Alexander and Franz.

Above both armies, the same "...clear blue sky, and a huge ball of the sun, like a huge hollow crimson float, swayed on the surface of the milky sea of ​​​​fog." But at the same time, the French troops go into battle confidently and with enthusiasm, and internal friction and disputes are in full swing among the Russian-Austrian army. From this, the soldiers also feel insecure and confused. Including a description of nature in the story of the Austerlitz war in the novel, Tolstoy seems to be describing the scenery in the theater of war. The blue sky of Austerlitz, under which people fought and died, the sun illuminating the battlefield and the soldiers going into the fog to become ordinary cannon fodder in the game of imperial ambitions.

Andrey Bolkonsky

For Andrei Bolkonsky, the battle of Austerlitz is an opportunity to show oneself, to show all one’s best qualities. Just as Nikolai Rostov, before the Battle of Shengraben, dreamed of accomplishing a feat, but, at a moment of danger, he suddenly realized that he could be killed, so Bolkonsky thinks about death before the battle. And Rostov's surprise: “Kill me? Me whom everyone loves so much!” very similar to Bolkonsky’s bewilderment: “Is it really because of court and personal considerations that one should risk tens of thousands and mine, my life?"

But at the same time, the result of these thoughts is different for Rostov and Bolkonsky. If Rostov runs into the bushes, then Bolkonsky is ready to face danger in order to "...finally show everything that I can do." Bolkonsky is vain, just like his father, and his son in the future, but this vanity comes not from empty bragging, but from the nobility of the soul. He dreams not of awards, but of glory, of people's love.

And in the moments of his thoughts about his future exploits, Tolstoy seems to lower him to the ground. The prince suddenly hears the stupid joke of the soldiers:
"Titus, and Titus?"
"Well," replied the old man.
“Titus, go thresh,” said the joker.
“Pah, well, to hell with them,” a voice was heard, covered with the laughter of batmen and servants.

Those people, for the sake of whose love Bolkonsky is ready to go to feats, do not even suspect about his dreams and thoughts, they live an ordinary camp life and joke their stupid jokes.

Tolstoy describes the heroic behavior of Andrei Bolkonsky during the Battle of Austerlitz in ordinary words, without embellishment and pathos. The weight of the banner, which is so difficult to hold that Bolkonsky fled "dragging him by the pole", a description of the injury, when, as if "... from the full swing of a strong stick, one of the nearest soldiers, as it seemed to him, hit him in the head." There is nothing grandiloquent and heroic in the description of his feat, but this is precisely what creates the feeling that heroism is a manifestation of a spiritual impulse in the everydayness of military operations.

Prince Bolkonsky could not have done otherwise, although he was well aware that the outcome of the battle of Austerlitz was a foregone conclusion.

As if emphasizing the vanity of everything that is happening, Tolstoy again returns to the sky over Austerlitz, which Andrei Bolkonsky now sees above him. “Above him there was nothing but the sky - a high sky, not clear, but still immeasurably high, with gray clouds quietly creeping across it. “How quiet, calm and solemn, not at all the way I ran,” thought Prince Andrei, “not the way we ran, shouted and fought ... clouds crawling across this high, endless sky are not at all like that. How could I not have seen this lofty sky before? And how happy I am that I finally got to know him. Yes! everything is empty, everything is a lie, except for this endless sky. Nothing, nothing but him. But even that is not there, there is nothing but silence, calmness. And thank God!.."

Conclusion

Summing up and running brief analysis descriptions of the battle of Austerlitz, an essay on the topic of the Battle of Austerlitz in the novel “War and Peace”, I would like to end with a quote from the novel, which very clearly reflects the essence of all military operations: “Like in a clock, the result of the complex movement of countless different wheels and blocks is only slow and the steady movement of the arrow indicating the time, and the result of all the complex human movements of these one hundred and sixty thousand Russians and French - all the passions, desires, remorse, humiliation, suffering, outbursts of pride, fear, delight of these people - was only the loss of the Battle of Austerlitz, the so-called the battles of the three emperors, that is, the slow movement of the world-historical hand on the dial of the history of mankind.

Whatever happens in this world, all this is just the movement of the hands on the clock ...

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