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War and Peace Volume 3, Part 2, Chapter 23 Summary

  • Bennigsen rides off along the barrow, and Pierre sees the future Raevsky battery barrow – which is where he’ll be spending the battle. But he doesn’t know this yet, so he doesn’t pay attention.
  • Bennigsen talks to his officers about planning, and Pierre tunes out because it’s boring and he has no idea what they’re talking about.
  • Bennigsen notices and snaps at him for not listening. Pierre tries to cover.
  • Then Bennigsen notices a bunch of soldiers positioned under an elevated piece of land. The better place to secure the hill would be on top, so Bennigsen moves them.
  • What Bennigsen doesn’t know is that the soldiers were put under the hill not to defend the high place, but to be a sneak attack force. He moves them, says nothing to Kutuzov because he hates him, and so destroys a piece of strategy.