In Which We Discuss War and Peace, Part 15, Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10

 Chapter 6

It's the 5th of November, but no one's setting off fireworks except in the bullety sense because it's the first day of what will later be called the battle of Krasnoe.  Krasnoe is a place (I googled to check).  After a day of utter shambles, Kutuzov has realised there's no need for a battle - because the French are already running away, so what else could anyone possibly want? - and heads to his headquarters at Dobroe.  There are groups of French prisoners everywhere, because 7000 were captured that day.  Kutuzov gives a brief speech, which soon becomes an old soldier just talking to his comrades, about how Russia has won and now they can even have room to pity their French captives.

Chapter 7

The army has moved and is setting up camp.  Really, you'd think this would have been described at some point earlier in the book, it must have been happening all the time.

Chapter 8

Considering the army is lacking in supplies and it's freezing, you'd think they'd be miserable but they're doing pretty well.  This chapter - like the last one - is mostly just eavesdropping on the day to day life of the soldiers who aren't main characters.  Apparently there's a rumour that the French dead don't rot - "probably because of the food they eat".  Also, sometimes the soldiers refer to older men as "Daddy" which I guess is intended a sign of familiarity and respect, but that's not what it means to me so I have to do a little mental correction every time.  The chapter ends with some of the men hearing a ruckus from fifth company, so they wander over to see what's happening.

Chapter 9

Two French soldiers - Morel and Ramballe - have wandered out of the woods to sit by the fire because they're quite ill.  After first mistaking them for bears, the fifth company offer them vodka, because I'm pretty sure they have to hand in their Russian passports if they don't.   None of fifth company actually speak French, but they have fun trying to repeat Morel's songs in Russian-French gibberish.

Apparently, Ramballe was previously saved by Pierre, but I don't remember that part.

Chapter 10

This one's another history essay.  Apparently, the French army crossing the Berezina river has been lauded as an important, victorious point for Russia, but Tolstoy points out that the Battle of Krasnoe was a bigger loss for them and traversing the Russian countryside picked off most of them.  Everyone - Russian and French - were starving and cold and saving the French prisoners would have meant taking food from the Russians.  Which some Russians did, but there just wasn't enough for everyone, and that's why the French retreated rather than surrendering, because they had a better chance of surviving with a group of other French soldiers rather than hoping the Russians would feed them.  Around this time, the other Russian generals are getting annoyed with Kutuzov for not giving them glorious battles.  How dare he not let thousands of men kill each other unnecessarily?  One of the generals, Chichagov, is under the impression that Kutuzov owes him because Chichagov was honest about Kutuzov doing his job (brokering peace with Turkey in 1911) before he even arrived.  Kutuzov receives an Order of St George of the First Class, which I think is the highest honour possible, despite no one seeming to approve of him.