War & Peace (TV Series)

Escape (1972)

Frank Middlemass: Mikhail Kutuzov

Quotes 

• Mikhail Kutuzov : We have not stopped them. Theirs is a forward momentum that cannot be stopped. They're too far from home to stop now. They can only turn back, and that they will not do.

  Marshal Benningsen : We've proved we can make them.

  Mikhail Kutuzov : You prove nothing of the kind. We have proved that we can halt them for a moment, and at what cost, and why?

  Marshal Benningsen : To defend the ancient and sacred capital of Russia.

  Mikhail Kutuzov : To defend the ancient and sacred capital of Russia. Allow me to inform Your Excellency, that phrase is without meaning.

• Marshal Benningsen : With the enemy in Moscow, the heart of our country's been cut from its body.

  Mikhail Kutuzov : Has it? Has it? I say the heart of our country at this moment is not Moscow. It is the Russian army. Lose that and you lose the heart of Russia.

• Mikhail Kutuzov : The thrust of the enemy is the thrust of desperate men. They have only one goal in mind, Moscow, which they see as the end of all their troubles. So they rush towards it with the mindless momentum of an avalanche, and we cannot stop them. We are not strong enough to stop them, and we do not need to stop them.