The Battle of Borodino: Napoleon Against Kutuzov
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I am grateful to Christopher Summerville who contacted me about writing this book and guided me through the rough waters of writing a manuscript within the publisher’s requirements. Rupert Harding welcomed me to Pen & Sword and always acted with great professionalism.
On a personal level, this book could not have been written without the help and support of my family and friends. I extend my love and thanks to all of them, especially to my wife, Anna, for her unwavering support and love.
Maps
Background
As the sun rose on 24 June 1812, a small figure in an army uniform and bicorn hat stood high on a hill overlooking the Nieman river. Around him, as far as the eye could see, every valley, ravine and hill was covered by an enormous host that swarmed like an anthill. This colossal army was moving in three columns across the bridges constructed the night before. Many soldiers looked with awe at the distant figure of their leader, Emperor Napoleon, watching silently as the advance units almost came to blows, disputing the honour of being the first to step onto foreign soil. Later, near Kovno, a French officer witnessed a Polish squadron fording the river:
They swam together to the middle of the stream but there the swift current swept them apart […] Helplessly adrift, they were carried along by the violence of the current […] [and] no longer tried to swim and lost headway completely […] but as they were about to go down, they turned toward Napoleon and shouted ‘Vive l’Empereur!’
These were the first casualties of a fateful war that would bring down the French Empire and change the course of European history.
The Road to Borodino
The war between Russia and France did not come as a surprise to many contemporaries, since relations between them became increasingly tense after the Treaty of Tilsit of 1807. Emperor Alexander I of Russia did not forget the painful lessons of 1805–07, when his armies were repeatedly defeated by Napoleon, and was well aware of the widespread displeasure prevailing in Russia, particularly in the Army, over the ‘ignominious’ peace of Tilsit. The Russian nobility was irritated by what it perceived as the Russian submission to France, as Prince Sergei Volkonsky described:
The defeats at Austerlitz and Friedland, the Peace of Tilsit, the haughtiness of French ambassadors in St Petersburg, the passive reaction of [Tsar] Alexander to the policies of Napoleon – all were deep wounds in the heart of every Russian. Vengeance, and vengeance alone, was the unshakable feeling with which we all were burning. Those who did not share this feeling – and there were only a few of them – were rejected and despised …
Although Napoleon and Alexander seemed to have reconciled at Erfurt in 1808, the fissures became evident the following year, when the latter was reluctant to support France against Austria. Russia was concerned by Napoleon’s aggressive foreign policy, especially after the annexation of Holland, the Hanseatic cities and Germanic states, including the Duchy of Oldenburg, whose ruler was Tsar Alexander’s brother-in-law.
Meanwhile, the Continental Blockade, which Napoleon initiated in response to the British blockade of 1806, had a profound effect on Europe, and on Russia in particular. It proved disadvantageous to the Russian merchants and nobility, leading to a sharp decrease in Russian foreign trade. Britain was the leading trade partner to Russia, exporting 17.7 million roubles’ worth of goods in 1802, compared to just 500,000 roubles’ worth from France that same year. Prior to 1807, a total of 17,000 great masts were sent from Riga and St Petersburg to the shipyards in England, but this number sharply declined to 4,500 in 1808, and to just over 300 in 1809–10. Besides timber, Russia also actively traded in grain, hemp and other products with Britain, and in 1800 the British Consul noted in the minutes of a Board of Trade meeting that: ‘British merchants had such extensive dealings in all sorts of Russian articles as to export from two-thirds to three-quarters of the whole in commodities.’ Indeed, in 1804, twelve English companies controlled a quarter of Russia’s imports and half of its exports, while other English merchants issued long-term credit to the Russian merchants and nobility. Napoleon’s protective tariff system, on the other hand, sought to safeguard French manufacturers and industry, limiting Russian imports while boosting French exports. Yet the French could provide neither the volume nor the quality of products required in Russia; neither could they replace British spending power when it came to buying raw materials.
The financial strains created by Napoleon’s Continental System quickly developed into a serious problem, distressing merchants and nobles and crippling the Imperial treasury, which struggled to deal with a deficit that increased from 12.2 million roubles in 1801 to 157.5 million in 1809. Such economic tribulations forced the Russian government to gradually relax the enforcement of the blockade, especially with respect to neutral shipping. By 1810 American ships – and English ships with false papers – freely docked in Russian ports, and such ‘neutral’ trade was finally officially sanctioned by Emperor Alexander’s decree of 31 December 1810, which limited the import of French products and allowed trade in non-French merchandise. As English goods found their way from the Russian ports into Eastern and Central Europe, Napoleon realized that the new Russian policy constituted a heavy blow to his Continental Blockade, and St Petersburg’s cooperation in this system could only be enforced by war.6
France and Russia also disagreed on several political issues, the most important being the fate of Poland. Russo-Polish relations can be traced back for centuries and they were largely overshadowed by the rivalry between the two states. In the 1600s Polish invasions of Russia were commonplace and Moscow itself was captured in 1612. But just as Russia turned into a first-rate power, the Polish state declined and was partitioned three times by neighbours Russia, Prussia and Austria in the second half of the 18th century. Russia was the prime beneficiary of these partitions, extending its territory deep into North East Europe. Any discussion of a Polish revival naturally threatened Russian strategic interests in the region. Yet the ink was hardly dry on the Tilsit agreement when Napoleon created the Duchy of Warsaw (albeit under the nominal control of the King of Saxony): an act that St Petersburg immediately considered hostile to its interests.
Napoleon’s interest in consolidating his control over the Poles was further revealed when, after the defeat of Austria in 1809, he incorporated Western Galicia into the Duchy of Warsaw, which, in effect, further expanded the Polish principality. Polish demands for eventual restoration of their kingdom only increased Russia’s concerns that she would be obliged to cede territory. Thus Alexander opposed French designs in Poland and tried to persuade Napoleon to give up his plans. Both emperors spent two years (1809–10) wrangling over this issue and by 1811, the discussions were in deadlock with neither side willing to concede.
Another aspect to Franco-Russian enmity lay in the Balkans, where Russia supported the local Slavic population against the Ottomans. In the 18th century alone, Russia and the Ottoman Empire were engaged in four wars and a fifth had been under way since 1806. At Tilsit Napoleon agreed to give Russia a free hand in the Balkans, but Alexander gradually became convinced that France was far from willing to allow Russian expansion into the Balkans.
Of a minor importance – but still relevant to personal relations between the two emperors – was the matter of Napoleon’s marriage to the Austrian princess Marie-Louise. Back at Erfurt in 1808, Napoleon suggested the possibility of reinforcing a Franco-Russian alliance through his marriage to Alexander’s sister. The Russian royal family was reluctant to allow the ‘Corsican upstart’ to enter its circle and found various excuses to rebuff Napoleon. His initial choice, Grand Duchess Catherine, was quickly married off to the Duke of Oldenburg, while the Empress Mother, Maria Feodorovna, bitterly opposed the marriage of her other daughter, Anna, for whom Napoleon also put in a formal offer. Napoleon considered these rejections as personal slights and a certain distrust began to pervade his relations with the Russian court. Interestingly, when Napoleon eventually married the Austrian princess, the St Petersburg court was s
omewhat piqued, since it signalled the rapprochement between France and Austria and a decline in Russian influence.
In the summer of 1811 Napoleon began preparing for the ‘Second Polish Campaign’, as he called it, attempting to ensure a rapid victory over Russia. The enormous Grand Army of more than 600,000 soldiers and over 1,300 field guns was gathered in German and Polish lands. Approximately half its manpower consisted of troops from Napoleon’s allies, including Austria, Prussia, Saxony, Spain, Bavaria, Poland and Italy. Anticipating an unavoidable war, Russia and France cast around for allies, both seeking support from Austria and Prussia. But the French presence in the Germanic states and the recent defeat of Austria in 1809 left little choice for these countries but to submit to Napoleon.
Napoleon’s overall strategy for the war considered the use of Sweden and the Ottoman Empire to form his extreme flanks, but he was unable to exercise influence on either power. Sweden, protected by the sea and the British Royal Navy, formed an alliance with Russia (April 1812) in return for the promise of Russian assistance in annexing Norway, then in Denmark’s possession. As for the Ottomans, they appeared to be a natural ally for Napoleon but their war had been a failure, with their armies defeated by the Russians and their finances exhausted. By June 1812, Alexander I managed to achieve a significant diplomatic success by concluding the Treaty of Bucharest (26 May) with the Turks.
Preparing for Battle
Napoleon’s Army was deployed in three groups from Warsaw to Königsberg:
Left Flank
• X Corps, under Marshal Jacques-Etienne Macdonald
Central Army Group
Main Army under Napoleon’s direct command
• Imperial Guard, under Marshals François Joseph Lefebvre (Old Guard), Edouard Mortier (Young Guard) and Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bessières (Guard Cavalry)
• I Corps, under Marshal Louis Nicolas Davout
• II Corps, under Marshal Nicolas Charles Oudinot
• III Corps, under Marshal Michel Ney
• I Reserve Cavalry Corps, under General Étienne Nansouty
• II Reserve Cavalry Corps, under General Louis Pierre Montbrun
Army of Italy under the command of Prince Eugène de Beauharnais
• IV Corps, under Prince Eugène de Beauharnais
• VI Corps, under Marshal Laurent Gouvion Saint-Cyr
• III Reserve Cavalry Corps, under General Emmanuel Grouchy
Second Support Army under Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia
• V Corps, under General Józef Poniatowski
• VII Corps, under General Jean Louis Reynier
• VIII Corps, under King Jérôme and General Dominique Vandamme
• IV Cavalry Corps, under General Marie-Victor Latour-Maubourg
Right Flank
• Austrian Corps under General Prince Karl Philip Schwarzenberg
Reserves in Second and Third Lines
• IX Corps under Marshal Claude Victor-Perrin
• XI Corps under Marshal Pierre François Charles Augereau
Napoleon’s strategy was simple and resembled that of his earlier campaigns. Keeping the enemy ignorant of his army’s exact aims, he intended to concentrate overwhelming superiority at a chosen point, attack and destroy the enemy’s field forces, and then dictate peace on his own terms. Knowing the vast scope of the Russian Empire, he sought to engage the Russians as soon as possible. The Emperor had every confidence that he could achieve a desired victory within a few weeks by waging decisive battles in frontier regions. Still, he was well aware of the difficulties ahead. Together with a study of the history and geography of Russia, his previous campaigns in Poland had provided him with experience of fighting in underpopulated areas lacking good roads, and in extreme weather. In 1811 he made extensive logistical preparations and enormous quantities of supplies were amassed in depots in Poland and Germany, and a vast network of supply trains was organized to bring food, ammunition caissons, forges, and ambulances to the Army.
In 1812, Russia’s military forces had over 650,000 men, but these were scattered throughout its vast regions. Some were situated in the Danubian Principalities, others in the Crimea, the Caucasus and Finland, leaving approximately 300,000 men with over 900 guns to face Napoleon’s army during the initial stages of the invasion. The Russian forces facing the Grand Army were deployed in three army groups along the western frontiers of the Empire. The 1st Western Army of General Mikhail Barclay de Tolly (120,000 men and 580 guns) was deployed in the vicinity of Vilna, covering the route to St Petersburg. The 2nd Western Army of General Prince Peter Bagration (49,000 men and 180 guns) was assembled in the area of Volkovysk and Belostock, covering the route to Moscow. General Alexander Tormasov commanded the 3rd Reserve Army of Observation (44,000 men and 168 guns), deployed in the vicinity of Lutsk, to cover the route to Kiev. This force was later renamed the 3rd Western Army.
The three major armies were supported by several reserve corps that constituted a second line of defence. The Russian extreme flanks were covered by Lieutenant General Baron Faddey Steingell’s corps in Finland and Admiral Paul Chichagov’s Army of the Danube in the south.
The three main Russian armies on the eve of 1812:
1st Western Army under General of Infantry Mikhail Barclay de Tolly
• I Infantry Corps of Lieutenant General Peter Wittgenstein
• II Infantry Corps of Lieutenant General Karl Baggovut
• III Infantry Corps of Lieutenant General Nikolai Tuchkov I
• IV Infantry Corps of Lieutenant General Count Pavel Shuvalov
• V Reserve (Guard) Corps of Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich
• VI Infantry Corps of General of Infantry Dimitry Dokhturov
• I Cavalry Corps of Adjutant General Fedor Uvarov
• II Cavalry Corps of Adjutant General Baron Fedor Korf
• III Cavalry Corps of Major General Peter Pahlen III
• Cossack Corps of General of Cavalry Matvei Platov.
2nd Western Army under General of Infantry Prince Peter Bagration
• VII Infantry Corps of Lieutenant General Nikolai Rayevsky
• VIII Infantry Corps of Lieutenant General Mikhail Borozdin
• IV Cavalry Corps of Major General Count Karl Sievers
3rd Reserve Army of Observation under General of Cavalry Alexander Tormasov
• General of Infantry Sergei Kamenski I’s Infantry Corps
• Lieutenant General Yevgeny Markov’s Infantry Corps
• Lieutenant General Baron Fabian Osten-Sacken’s Infantry Corps
• Major General Count Karl Lambert’s Cavalry Corps
Facing Napoleon’s extensive preparations, the Russian government sought to strengthen its defence. But was there an actual plan to lure Napoleon deep into Russia, or was the Russian retreat inevitable considering the circumstances? Historians are divided on whether the Russians truly had a ‘Scythian plan’ or not. Some argue that Barclay de Tolly contemplated this strategy as early as 1807, when he discussed enticing French forces deep into Russia before destroying them. Other scholars reject such suggestions, claiming the Russian government had no tangible plan of retreat and the withdrawal was conducted of necessity when facing a superior enemy force.
The Russian military planning in 1810–11 represents a complicated, if not confusing, picture. Mistrustful of his generals, Alexander concealed military intelligence as well as military plans that were discussed within a close circle of his advisers. Preparations for the war started as early as 1810 and initially the strategy was offensive in nature. But these preparations were halted after Józef Poniatowski, whom Czartoriski tried to persuade to defect to Russia, informed Napoleon about Russian intentions. The strategic planning was still carried on and was conducted in such secrecy that General Bennigsen complained about his exclusion: ‘The Emperor [Alexander] did not show me any parts of the operational plan and I do not know any person who had seen it.’ Meanwhile, the Chief of Staff of the 1s
t Western Army, Major General Yermolov, still believed in the spring of 1812 that: ‘at the present moment everything is arranged for an offensive …’
In the two years leading up to the war, plenty of ink was wasted in drafting various plans and one Russian scholar, in fact, counted as many as thirty submitted by various officers.7 Many of these officers studied the Duke of Wellington’s operations in Spain, as well as Peter the Great’s plans against King Charles XII of Sweden in the 1700s, while Prussian officers, including Gerhard von Scharnhorst, advised the Russians to pursue ‘a defensive war’.8
Among these plans several are worthy of discussion. Minister of War Mikhail Barclay de Tolly presented his plan of action as early as the spring of 1810, proposing to establish a main defensive line along the Western Dvina and the Dnieper rivers. He wanted to: ‘face the enemy on the frontiers, fight the superior enemy forces in the Polish provinces as long as possible and then retreat to the defensive lines, leaving the enemy in a scorched countryside, without bread, cattle or any other means of supplying itself.’ Then, when the enemy exhausted his forces, the Russian armies would launch a counter-offensive.9 Alexander approved this plan later that year and preparations were carried out between August 1810 and December 1811. Cartographic and reconnaissance works were conducted in Western Russia, fortresses at Riga, Dvinsk, Bobruisk and Kiev were repaired, and large depots situated at Vilna and Grodno and other towns.