War & Peace (TV Series)

Borodino (1972)

Roy Spencer: Timohin

Quotes 

• Pierre Bezukhov : Wasn't Barclay de Tolly an able general?

  Prince Andrei Bolkonsky : I don't know what is meant by an able general.

  Pierre Bezukhov : Well, one that foresees the adversary's intentions.

  Prince Andrei Bolkonsky : That's really quite impossible for the most part, since the adversary never knows them himself.

  Pierre Bezukhov : Yet they say that war is like a game of chess, don't they?

  Prince Andrei Bolkonsky : Who says it? The people who fight wars from armchairs. In chess you can think over a move as long as you like. In war one doesn't have that luxury. In chess a knight is always stronger than a pawn, and two pawns are always stronger than one. In war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division, and sometimes weaker than a company. Relative strengths have very little to do with the issue.

  Pierre Bezukhov : On what does success depend?

  Prince Andrei Bolkonsky : On the feeling that's in him, and in me. The battle is won by the side that's most resolved to win it.

  Pierre Bezukhov : Don't numbers make any difference at all?

  Prince Andrei Bolkonsky : They make very little. Did you ask yourself why we lost at Austerlitz? French casualties were about the same as ours, and we had actually more men than they did. We lost because early on in the day we said to ourselves, we are losing, and we did.

  Timohin : That's true, Your Excellency. We had nothing to fight for, then. We wanted to get away from the battlefield as soon as possible. But tomorrow it won't be like this. Fighting on our own soil, it makes a big difference.