and voices in this immense, restless, brilliant, and proud sphere, Prince Andréy noticed the following sharply defined subdivisions of tendencies and parties:
The first party consisted of Pfuel and his adherents—military theorists who believed in a science of war with immutable laws—laws of oblique movements, outflankings, and so forth. Pfuel and his adherents demanded a retirement into the depths of the country in accordance with precise laws defined by a pseudo-theory of war, and they saw only barbarism, ignorance, or evil intention in every deviation from that theory. To this party belonged the foreign nobles, Wolzogen, Wintzingerode, and others, chiefly Germans.
The second party was directly opposed to the first; one extreme, as always happens, was met by representatives of the other.
The members of this party were those who had demanded an advance from Vílna into Poland and freedom from all prearranged plans. Besides being advocates of bold action, this section also represented nationalism, which made them still more one-sided in the dispute.
They were Russians: Bagratión, Ermólov (who was beginning to come to the front), and others. At that time a famous joke of Ermólov’s was being circulated, that as a great favor he had petitioned the Emperor to make him a German.
The men of that party, remembering Suvórov, said that what one had to do was not to reason, or stick pins into maps, but to fight, beat the enemy, keep him out of Russia, and not let the army get discouraged.
To the third party—in which the Emperor had most confidence—belonged the courtiers who tried to arrange compromises between the other two. The members of this party, chiefly civilians and to whom Arakchéev belonged, thought and said what men who have no convictions but wish to seem to have some generally say. They