Page 1443 - war-and-peace

madness to leave a height which commanded the country
around unoccupied and to place troops below it. Some of
the generals expressed the same opinion. One in particular
declared with martial heat that they were put there to be
slaughtered. Bennigsen on his own authority ordered the
troops to occupy the high ground. This disposition on the
left flank increased Pierre’s doubt of his own capacity to un-
derstand military matters. Listening to Bennigsen and the
generals criticizing the position of the troops behind the
hill, he quite understood them and shared their opinion,
but for that very reason he could not understand how the
man who put them there behind the hill could have made
so gross and palpable a blunder.
Pierre did not know that these troops were not, as Ben-
nigsen supposed, put there to defend the position, but were
in a concealed position as an ambush, that they should not
be seen and might be able to strike an approaching enemy
unexpectedly. Bennigsen did not know this and moved the
troops forward according to his own ideas without men-
tioning the matter to the commander in chief.

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