Russia Against Napoleon

coalition. Though he kept a clear eye on Russian interests, Alexander also floated grandiose principles to underpin lasting European peace and security. A child of the Enlightenment, he liked to speak and see himself in such terms. But his at times almost Wilsonian tendency to proclaim great principles of international order was also rooted in a rather American sense that a country of Russia’s power and geopolitical security could afford to stand on a hill above the common ruck of states and lay down rules for the common good.³³

The war of 1805–7 was a disaster for Russia. Instead of awaiting the arrival of Mikhail Kutuzov’s Russians, part of the Austrian army advanced into Bavaria at the beginning of the 1805 campaign and was cut off and forced to surrender. Kutuzov extricated his army from a potential trap and retreated with great skill eastwards into Moravia. The Russian troops behaved with their habitual calm discipline and held the French at bay in a number of hard-fought rearguard actions. Most notable was the battle at Schongraben on 16 November 1805, immortalized by Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace. In this action the Russians were commanded by the fiery and charismatic Prince Petr Bagration. By the beginning of December the campaign appeared to be swinging in the allies’ favour. Napoleon’s lines of communication were very stretched and Prussia seemed to be on the verge of joining the Austrians and Russians. But Alexander I overrode Kutuzov’s advice and launched the allied army into an attack that led to the catastrophic battle of Austerlitz on 2 December. As a result Austria made peace and the Russians retreated back across their borders.³⁴

For almost a year there followed a strange interlude in which the Russians and French neither made peace nor actually fought each other. This period ended when war broke out between Napoleon and Prussia in October 1806. In the previous decade the Prussians had tried to protect their security and expand their territory by remaining neutral and balancing between France and its enemies. By the autumn of 1805, however, the implications of French hegemony in Germany were drawing Prussia towards the allies. But Berlin prevaricated for too long and Napoleon’s victory at Austerlitz left them at his mercy. In the following months they learned the humiliating price of being his client. In the autumn of 1806 Prussia went to war to regain its position as a proud and independent great power. Instead of trying to hold the line of the river Elbe and await Russian help, however, the Prussian army advanced and was destroyed at the battle of Jena-Auerstadt on 14 October 1806.³⁵

For the remaining eight months of the war the Russians found themselves fighting Napoleon in Poland and East Prussia almost on their own, since only a small remnant of the Prussian army had survived. In these months the Russian army fought well and inflicted heavy losses on the French, especially in the drawn battle of Eylau in February 1807. Their commander was General Levin von Bennigsen, an intelligent strategist and a skilful tactician, who had left his native Hanover as a young officer and transferred to the Russian service. The odds were always heavily against the Russians, however. Napoleon now controlled most of western Europe, Germany and Poland. A coalition able to draw its resources only from Russia and the small province of East Prussia was bound to be outmatched. In any case the Russians had not expected or prepared to wage a life-and-death struggle on their own against Napoleon. The empire’s resources were far from fully mobilized.

Thousands of Russian troops fell ill or deserted for lack of food in the winter of 1806–7. The Russian commissariat was notoriously slow and corrupt. Bennigsen was better at tactics than logistics. He put far too much faith in local Prussian contractors and failed to organize transport, communications and supply bases in his rear. To do him justice, however, the Russians had been plunged into a winter campaign with no warning. Lithuania and Belorussia – in other words the areas immediately behind his army – were much poorer and more sparsely populated than the Great Russian core of the empire or the rich agricultural provinces of south Russia and Ukraine, let alone Germany, Bohemia or France. Bad harvests were frequent and made it doubly hard to procure food for men and horses. Transporting food and fodder into the region from Russia was difficult and expensive because of primitive communications. In addition, there was the currency issue. In Russia itself the paper ruble was almost universally accepted. In the empire’s western borderlands it was either shunned entirely or accepted only at heavy discounts against the silver ruble. This made the cost of sustaining an army in the region ruinously expensive.³⁶

Politics and geography were the most important reasons for Napoleon’s triumph in 1805–7. The three eastern great powers had not united against him: Prussia was neutral in 1805, Austria in 1806. In fact at no time were the main armies of even two of the eastern powers united on the battlefield against Napoleon. By the time Russian troops arrived in the theatre of operations their allies’ armies had already been defeated. To some extent this was due to foolish Austrian and Prussian strategy, but geography dealt the allies a losing hand. In 1805 it was possible both financially and logistically to concentrate the French armies in the area of Boulogne and to use this as a base from which the entire army could be deployed against the Austrians. For the same reasons it was inconceivable to concentrate the Russian army anywhere near the Austrian or Prussian borders for weeks, let alone months, on end. Even had it been possible, it would probably have made little difference. The distance from the Channel to the Bavarian–Austrian frontier was much less than from the Russian borderlands. Moreover, the French could march through fertile country down many excellent roads, requisitioning as they went to cover their needs. An army which attempted to move at this speed and in this way in the Russo-Austrian borderlands would have starved and disintegrated. The Austrians and Russians managed the movement of Kutuzov’s troops with fair efficiency in 1805; even so, partly thanks to Mack, they arrived too late.³⁷

In 1806 the geographical dilemma of the allies was far worse because Napoleon now had a string of bases and allies in western and southern Germany. His troops were much closer than the Russians to Berlin and the Prussian heartland. Perhaps the Prussians could have held Napoleon on the Elbe long enough for the Russians to arrive but this is anything but certain. If not, the heirs of Frederick II were hardly likely to avoid decisive battle, abandon almost all Prussia and retire to the Oder to await deliverance from Russia. The basic lesson of 1805–7 was that not only must the three eastern monarchies unite but the Russian army must already be positioned in central Europe when military operations began. This finally happened in 1813 but under unique circumstances which no one could have predicted.

Politics and geography were a more important source of disaster in 1805–7 than any failings of the Russian army. Even in 1805 the army was in many respects formidable. Above all this was because of the near legendary courage, resilience and loyalty of the rank and file. Ethnic solidarity contributed to the army’s strength. Most soldiers were Russians, though a significant minority were Belorussians and Ukrainians. Ukrainians were particularly common in the cavalry, which made good sense since the average Ukrainian was far more likely to be familiar with horses than a peasant from northern or central Russia. In this era, however, it was class and religion that mattered above all. What counted therefore was that these men were peasants and Orthodox. In any case in ethno-linguistic terms Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians were if anything closer than the soldiers of a French regiment drawn from Brittany, Lorraine and Aquitaine.³⁸

Most important in creating solidarity were the conditions of military service. Military historians stress that what usually matters most in war is not grand allegiances to country or ideology but the loyalty that binds soldiers to their comrades and their units. In Alexander I’s army this loyalty existed to the highest degree. In the decade before 1812 the average age of conscripts was just under 22³⁹ and soldiers served for twenty-five years. Given high mortality rates even in peacetime, for many soldiers this was a life sentence. Few conscripts were literate, so they could not maintain contact with their homes by letter. The regimental personnel records show that most NCOs never took home leave. Most soldiers did not return to their villages even after retirement from the army. Parents were long since dead and siblings might well not welcome an extra mouth to feed. Particularly on private estates, conscription was sometimes used as a means to rid the community of restless young men and was often conducted unjustly. Neither the landowner nor the village community necessarily welcomed the return of an ageing man, possibly unfit for agricultural work and maybe nursing a grievance against those who had sent him off as a recruit. The noble landowner could forbid a retired soldier to return to his village.⁴⁰

Meanwhile, once the conscript had adapted to military life, the regiment could become a new home. The new soldier’s messmates became a sort of substitute family. If a man died, his possessions went to his comrades. Each company had its own mess cooperative (artel’), into which part of a soldier’s pay, half his outside earnings, and most of any money given as a reward for good service was invested. Particularly in the Guards, the funds of the regimental artels could add up to many thousands of rubles. This money was used to buy the soldiers ‘luxuries’ to supplement their diet of bread and porridge, and to save money by purchasing food, kettles, transport and other items in bulk. Ideally a soldier would serve in the same regiment all his life and many did so. Even when men were moved into new regiments, however, they usually transferred with their whole company, so many collective loyalties and solidarities remained.⁴¹

Prince Eugen of Wuurttemberg, Emperor Alexander’s first cousin, commanded initially a Russian brigade, next