mistake to see Alexander’s foreign policy as ‘imperial’ and as not serving the interests of Russia, however ‘Russia’ is understood. Before 1812 Napoleon had shown rather clearly why his domination of Europe was a great threat to Russian security and economic interests. In 1813 Alexander was entirely right to seize the opportunity of driving the French out of Germany and restoring the foundations of a European balance of power. The subsequent decision to take the Russian army over the Rhine and remove Napoleon is more debatable. In my view, however, Alexander was once again right to believe that Russia above all needed peace and stability in Europe, and that Napoleon’s survival would make both peace and stability impossible. The Napoleonic era is a classic example of how interdependent are Russian and European security. It was also a time when Russia made a great contribution to restoring peace and stability in Europe.
Russians therefore have every reason for pride in what their state and army achieved in 1812–14. Ironically, the traditional obsession of Russian historians with military operations in 1812 at the expense of the two following years does no service to the Russian army’s reputation. Even more than in most activities, there is a huge difference between training for war and its reality. By 1813–14 the army had learned from experience. By then many of the generals were first-rate and staffs were performing much better than at the beginning of the 1812 campaign. On the battlefield in 1813–14 reserves were often utilized and cavalry, infantry and artillery coordinated much more effectively than had previously been the case. Given the enormous distance of military operations from the army’s bases, the reinforcement and supply of the field armies was managed with remarkable skill. Discipline, regimental pride, loyalty to comrades, and pre-modern religious and monarchist loyalties motivated the ordinary soldiers of the emperor’s army whether they fought on Russian soil or abroad. To anyone who has read accounts of the battles of (to take three examples) Kulm, Leipzig and Craonne, the idea that the army’s motivation or fighting spirit declined after 1812 seems very strange.
The final crucial reason for not forgetting 1813–14 is that the history of 1812 makes no sense without it. Alexander and his war minister, Mikhail Barclay de Tolly, planned before 1812 for a war which would last two years at a minimum and probably longer. They made their plans partly on the basis of excellent intelligence about Napoleon’s intentions and about the strengths and weaknesses not just of his army but also of his regime. From the start, their plan was to wear down Napoleon by a defensive campaign in Russia, and then to pursue the defeated enemy back over the frontier and raise a European insurrection against him. There is ample evidence of this thinking in Russian military, intelligence and diplomatic documents. The whole manner in which Russian resources and manpower were mobilized makes sense only in the context of a long war. One key reason why Russia defeated Napoleon was that her top leaders out-thought him. In 1812 they planned and then successfully imposed on him a drawn-out campaign, knowing full well that it was precisely the kind of war he was least equipped to wage. In 1813–14 Alexander’s combined diplomatic and military strategy contributed to isolating Napoleon first in Europe and then even from French elites. Of course Napoleon played a huge part in his own downfall. But his enemy’s capacity for self-destruction was always part of Alexander’s calculation. Russian policy in these years was intelligently conceived and was executed with consistent purpose. It was very far removed indeed from Tolstoyan mythology.
The core of this book is a study of grand strategy, military operations and diplomacy, in other words of power politics. Military and diplomatic policy were closely intertwined in these years and must be studied together. This is particularly true as regards the Russo-Austrian relationship, which was the most sensitive but also probably the most important aspect of Russian foreign policy in 1813–14.
From the summer of 1810 until Napoleon’s invasion, though in principle diplomacy was central, Russian policy was strongly affected by military considerations. The exceptionally valuable information provided by Russian intelligence in Paris persuaded Alexander I that Napoleon was intent on attacking Russia and greatly influenced Russian diplomacy and strategic planning. The Russian emperor’s preference for adopting a defensive military strategy more or less ruled out any possibility that his attempts to secure an alliance with Prussia would succeed. In the campaigns of 1812 and autumn 1813 diplomacy was of little importance and military operations were decisive. This was not true in the spring 1813 and 1814 campaigns, in which diplomatic and political considerations influenced and at times even determined military strategy. In the spring 1813 campaign this almost resulted in disaster. Alexander I decided Russian grand strategy and diplomacy, and often had a big influence on military operations. His views, personality and modus operandi were of crucial importance. Without him the Russian army would probably not have pursued Napoleon into Germany in 1813 and would certainly never have reached Paris. So this book truly is a study of kings and battles.
Power politics requires the existence of power and is influenced by how much power a state has and what forms this power takes. The book looks at the sources of Russian power in Alexander’s reign. That of course means the imperial army, and in particular its structure of command, tactics, ‘doctrine’ and personnel. But it also means Russian military industry, public finance, horse industry and manpower. Russian strengths and weaknesses in these areas help to explain how the empire fought the war and why it triumphed. As is always the case, the political regime and the social context heavily influenced both the mobilization and the use of the empire’s resources. The basis of the Russian political and social order was serfdom. The imperial army was a professional force whose soldiers were a separate estate of the realm and who served for twenty-five years of their lives. How could and did such a society and army meet and overcome Napoleon’s challenge? The Russian officer corps, and in particular its senior ranks, were very much a part of the overall imperial elite, itself still largely aristocratic. Army, aristocracy and government were a maze of family and patronage networks. It is often impossible to understand how the army functioned unless we take this into account.
The same is true as regards the values and culture of the imperial army’s generals and officers. Honour, publicly displayed courage, and loyalty to regiment and fellow-officers all mattered greatly. So too did living up to one’s status and rank. The battlefield, like the duel, allowed honour to be publicly displayed and defended. In some respects the ‘field of honour’ – in other words the battlefield – was also the ancestor of today’s sporting match. ‘Winning’ meant holding one’s ground and capturing trophies such as cannon and standards. These male warrior values appear not just archaic but also sometimes childish: nevertheless they mattered greatly because they affected morale and kept officers steadfast in the face of death and mutilation. A key problem in the 1812 campaign was that these values cut right across Russia’s strategic imperative to retreat.21
Though the historian can write with some confidence of officers’ values and motivation, understanding the mentalities of the rank and file is far more difficult. In 1812–14 more than 1.5 million men served as privates or NCOs in the army and militia. Only two left memoirs.22 These can be eked out by a few oral reminiscences recorded decades later and by the personnel records of many regiments preserved in the archives. Often, however, one is forced to interpret soldiers’ values through their actions and through what their officers said about them. This has obvious dangers. But a book which simply took as a given the courage, endurance and loyalty of Russian soldiers in the face of awful privations and – sometimes – brutal treatment by their superiors would be ignoring one of the most vital but also at times puzzling elements in the wars.
Russia is the biggest gap in contemporary Western understanding of the Napoleonic era. The aim of this book is to fill that gap. But a more knowledgeable and realistic understanding of Russian power and policy can also change overall perspectives on the Napoleonic era. In this period Russia was less powerful than Britain. Its global reach was much weaker. Unlike Austria or Prussia, however, Russian interests and perspectives were not just narrowly continental. For a significant section of the ruling elite the Napoleonic Wars were in one sense a distraction and a sideshow. They saw Russia’s main interests as lying in expansion southwards against the Ottomans and Persians. These men seldom saw France itself as Russia’s main or inevitable enemy. Most of them believed that the Napoleonic empire was a transient phenomenon, born of exceptional circumstances and Napoleon’s genius. The most impressive member of this group was Count Nikolai Rumiantsev, who was in practice Russia’s minister of foreign affairs from late in 1807 until Napoleon invaded Russia. In his view the greatest long- term challenge to Russia lay in Britain’s growing domination of global finance, trade and industry, and in her monopoly of naval power. This view of Russian interests was ultimately overruled by Alexander I. Above all, it was undermined by Napoleon, who forced the Russian government to make fighting France its top priority. But Rumiantsev’s perspective had some impact on Russian policy in 1812 because it was shared in part by Mikhail Kutuzov. It also provides an interesting insight into some of the underlying realities of the Napoleonic era.
The Napoleonic Wars of 1800–1815 were a global, not just a European struggle.23 This may seem a strange view since the overwhelming majority of the battles in these years occurred in Europe. In that sense the Napoleonic Wars were more European and less global even than the Revolutionary Wars of the 1790s. They were far less global than the Seven Years War or the American War of Independence, in both of which much
