Russia Against Napoleon
Dominic Lieven
Russia Against Napoleon
DOMINIC LIEVEN
Russia Against Napoleon
The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace
VIKING
VIKING
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First American edition
Published in 2010 by Viking Penguin,
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Copyright © Dominic Lieven, 2009
All rights reserved
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Lieven, D. C. B.
Russia against Napoleon: the true story of the campaigns of War and Peace / Dominic Lieven.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN: 1-101-42938-0
1. Napoleonic Wars, 1800–1815—Campaigns—Russia. 2. Russia—History—Alexander I, 1801–1825. 3. Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828–1910. Voina i mir. I. Title.
DC235.L49 2009
940.2‘70947—dc22
2009042564
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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For my courageous wife, Mikiko, and in memory of the regiments of the Imperial Russian Army who fought, suffered and triumphed in the great war of 1812–14
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Acknowledgements
A Note on the Text
1 Introduction
2 Russia as a Great Power
3 The Russo-French Alliance
4 Preparing for War
5 The Retreat
6 Borodino and the Fall of Moscow
7 The Home Front in 1812
8 The Advance from Moscow
9 1813: The Spring Campaign
10 Rebuilding the Army
11 Europe’s Fate in the Balance
12 The Battle of Leipzig
13 The Invasion of France
14 The Fall of Napoleon
15 Conclusion
Appendix 1:
The Russian Army in June 1812
Appendix 2:
Russian Army Corps at the beginning of the autumn 1813 campaign
Notes
Bibliography
Additional Reading in English
Illustrations
Alexander I
Mikhail Barclay de Tolly
Mikhail Kutuzov
Levin von Bennigsen
Peter von Wittgenstein
Petr Rumiantsev
Karl von Nesselrode
Aleksandr Chernyshev
Christoph von Lieven
Mikhail Speransky
Aleksei Arakcheev
Dmitrii Gurev
Fedor Rostopchin
Petr Bagration
Mikhail Miloradovich
Matvei Platov
Eugen of Württemberg
Petr Volkonsky
Aleksei Ermolov
Karl von Toll
Johann von Diebitsch
Aleksandre de Langeron
Fabian von der Osten-Sacken
Ilarion Vasilchikov
Johann von Lieven
Aleksei Gorchakov
Dmitrii Lobanov-Rostovsky
Georg Kankrin
Andrei Kologrivov
Private: Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment
Private: Finland Guards Regiment
Private: Riazan Infantry Regiment
Lieutenant: field artillery of the line – heavy battery
Private: Ekaterinoslav Cuirassier Regiment
Lieutenant: Guards Dragoon Regiment
Private: Sumi Hussar Regiment
Private: Lithuania Lancer Regiment
Napoleon awards the Légion d’honneur to Private Lazarev at Tilsit
Borodino: the Raevsky Redoubt after the battle
Spring 1813: the Cossacks in Hamburg
Fère-Champenoise: the Cossack Life Guard Regiment attacks the French infantry
Picture credits:
George Dawe painting, Bridgeman Art Library/Getty Images
Christoph von Lieven: British Library
Aleksei Arakcheev: British Library
Alexandre de Langeron and Fabian von der Osten-Sacken: British Library
Andrei Kologrivov: British Library
Albrecht Adam sketch: AKG Images
V. Bezotosny
Don Cossack Life Guard Club/Courbevoie
Maps
1 The Campaign of 1812
2 The Campaign of Autumn 1813
3 Europe in May 1812
4 The Smolensk Region
5 The Borodino Battlefield
6 The Crossing of the Berezina
7 The Campaign of Spring 1813
8 The Battle of Bautzen
9 The Battle of the Katzbach
10 August 1813: The Dresden Campaign
11 The Battle of Kulm
12 The Leipzig Campaign
13 The Battle of Leipzig
14 North-Eastern France
15 The Paris Region
Acknowledgements
So many people and institutions helped me to research and write this book that in normal circumstances it would be difficult to know where to start with my thanks. But the help of one institution, the Leverhulme Trust, was so fundamental that beyond question it must come first. In 2006 I was awarded a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship, which left me free to work on my book for the next two years and also funded most of my research in the Russian archives. I owe a huge amount to the generous support of the Trust. Professors Paul Bushkovitch, William Fuller and Geoffrey Hosking supported my application for the fellowship, and to them too I owe many thanks.
In the summer of 2006 I had a two-month fellowship from the British Academy which enabled me to work in the Slavic Library in Helsinki. During these two months I was able to read all the regimental histories of Russian units which participated in the Napoleonic Wars. I also read or at least copied all the journal articles published in Russia before 1917 which were relevant to my topic. For any historian of imperial Russia the Helsinki Library is a unique asset, made all the b
etter by the friendly and efficient help of its staff, led by Irina Lukka. My deep thanks are owed not just to Irina but also to Ulla Tillander, who helped so much to organize my expedition and make it pleasant. Richard Stites and the community of historians working in the Library were also very kind to me.
One part of the Russian State Military Historical Archive’s (RGVIA) holdings on the Napoleonic Wars was microfilmed shortly before I began my research. This is Fond 846, the so-called Voenno-uchenyi Arkhiv (VUA). As anyone looking at my references will see, it contains priceless information for my book. The Librarian of the LSE Library (BLPES), Jean Sykes, and the Library’s main Russian specialist, Graham Camfield, acquired this immensely valuable collection, and left me for ever in their debt.
Even so, the main archival sources for my book had to come from holdings in the Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA) in Moscow other than the VUA. Above all these were the papers of the wartime recruit levies (Fond 1), most of the materials relating to the feeding, equipment and arming of the field armies (Fond 103), the documents of the Reserve Army (Fond 125), and the immensely useful personnel records of Russian regiments (Fond 489). Thanks to Tatiana Iurevna Burmistrova and the staff of RGVIA, I was able to get through all the materials I needed during my six research trips to Moscow.
I would never have been able to do so, however, without the help of Vasili Kashirin. My research was complicated by family needs and by the fact that for part of this time the archive closed for repairs, sometimes with minimal notice. Without Vasili’s help in finding materials and ensuring that I received them this book would be much weaker than it is. More than any other individual, he made an enormous contribution to my research. A number of archivists also deserve my special thanks, and not least Aleksandr Kapitonov. Professor Apollon Davidson and his wife Liudmilla kindly put me up in Moscow on a number of occasions and coped with my grumpiness when something went wrong with the archive.
I owe a big debt to the friends who took me to battlefields. Viktor Bezotosnyi showed me the field at Maloiaroslavets, and was also a constant source of advice, information and friendship. Paul Simmons and Vasili Kashirin spent a memorable day at Borodino with me. Dominic Herbestreit and Christin Pilz took me around the battlefields of Leipzig and also drove me to Kulm, now in the Czech Republic. Even more heroic was my sister, Professor Elena Lieven, who drove me deep into rural Poland to the battlefield of the Katzbach. Our expedition was helped hugely by Alexandra Porada, who helped us negotiate the area.
My agent, Natasha Fairweather, has been a key ally and so have my publishers, Simon Winder and Wendy Wolf, as well as Alice Dawson and Richard Duguid of Penguin. Elizabeth Stratford was an exceptionally efficient copy-editor. I have wanted to write this book since childhood but they encouraged me to do so. I think that the initial spur to write the book in time for the bicentenary in 2012 came, however, from my colleague, Professor James Hughes.
Among others at LSE who helped me enormously, Sue Starkey stands out. She coped with my frequent hysteria when confronted by computers, photocopiers and other technological challenges. Her colleagues in the Government Department’s General Office (Jill Stuart, Cerys Jones, Madeleine Bothe, Hiszah Tariq) also helped me and calmed me down. My colleague, Professor Janet Hartley, very kindly read the text for me and suggested changes. So too did our students, Conor Riffle and Megan Tulac. In my first twenty-four years at LSE I kept as far from the School’s management as possible. While working on this book, however, I was initially head of department and subsequently a member of LSE’s governing council. That gave me some insight into the intelligent, efficient and good-humoured manner in which the School was run by (Sir) Howard Davies, its director. Tony (Lord) Grabiner, chairman of the Board of Governors, showed not just wisdom but great unselfishness, devoting an immense amount of his time to unpaid service to the School to a degree that few members of the academic community realize.
I must also thank Professor Patrick O’Brien for his advice on war, finance and economic issues, and Alexis de Tiesenhausen for his help and advice as regards illustrations.
For the first eighteen months of my research I lived mostly off the excellent holdings of the British Library and owed much to the help of its staff. After joining the London Library halfway through my research, I discovered just how splendid a resource it is for scholars in general and historians of imperial Russia in particular.
I published an article outlining the theme and purpose of this book in Kritika in spring 2006 and would like to thank the editors of the journal and readers of the piece for their useful criticism and advice.
My family – Mikiko, Aleka, Max and Tolly – suffered during my research and writing of the book but helped to keep me going.
A Note on the Text
In the era covered by this book Russia ran on the Julian calendar, which in the nineteenth century was twelve days behind the Gregorian calendar used in most of the rest of Europe. The events covered by this book occurred partly in Russia and partly abroad. To avoid confusion, I have used the Gregorian – i.e. European – calendar throughout the text. Documents are cited in the notes in their original form and when they have dates from the Julian calendar the letters OS (i.e. Old Style) appear after them in brackets.
I have used a modified version of the Library of Congress system for transliterating words from Russian. To avoid bewildering anglophone readers I have not included Russian hard and soft signs, accents or stress signs in names of people and places in the text. A point to note is that the Russian e is usually pronounced ye. Sometimes, however, the e is accented and stressed, appearing in Russian as é. In this case it is generally pronounced as yo, though after some consonants as just o. Among words frequently found in this book, for example, are Petr (i.e. Peter) which is pronounced Pyotr, Potemkin which is pronounced Patyomkin and the Semenovsky Guards Regiment, which is pronounced Semyonovsky. The surname of Aleksandr Chernyshev, who figures prominently in this story, sounds like Chernyshoff in English. Very many Russian surnames end like an adjective in the letters -ii but in deference to English custom I use the letter -y. Thus the reader will come across, for example, Petr Volkonsky, who served as Alexander’s chief of staff, not the grammatically more correct Volkonskii.
When faced with surnames of non-Russian origin I have tried – not always successfully – to render them in their original Latin version. My own name thereby emerges unscathed as Lieven rather than depressed and reduced as Liven. As regards Christian names I also transliterate for Russians but in general use Western versions for Germans, Frenchmen and other Europeans. So Alexander’s chief of staff is called Petr Volkonsky but General von der Pahlen is rendered as Peter, in deference to his Baltic German origins. No system is perfect in this respect, not least because members of the Russian elite of this era sometimes spelt their own names quite differently according to mood and to the language in which they were writing.
Where an Anglicized version of a town’s name is in common use, I have used it. So Moscow rather than Moskva burns down in this book. But other towns in the Russian Empire are usually rendered in the Russian version, unless the German or Polish version is more familiar to English readers. Towns in the Habsburg Empire and Germany are usually given their German version of a name. This is to simplify the lives of baffled readers trying to follow the movements of armies in texts and maps, though when any doubts might exist alternative versions of place names are given in brackets.
The names of Russian regiments can also be a problem. Above all this boils down to whether or not to use the adjectival version (i.e. ending in -skii) as in the Russian. I prefer Moscow Regiment – to take one example – rather than Moskovskii Regiment but I make some exceptions for the Guards. The senior Guards infantry regiments, for example, were named after obscure villages outside Moscow. It makes far more sense to render them in their habitual adjectival form: in other words Preobrazhensky Guards rather than Preobrazhenskoe. Where confusion might occur the alternative variants of th
e regiment’s name are placed in brackets: so, Lithuania (Litovsky) Guards. I have also accepted tradition in using the habitual French version – Chevaliers Gardes – rather than the Russian Kavalergardsky for this regiment and by referring to the Cossack Life Guards.
Russia Against Napoleon
Introduction
Russia’s defeat of Napoleon is one of the most dramatic stories in European history. It has many twists and turns. Not just in 1812 but also for much of 1813 the outcome remained very uncertain with most of the odds seemingly in Napoleon’s favour. His personal history in these years is a tale of hubris and nemesis. There is a rich supporting cast of fascinating personalities who enliven the story and with whom it is often easy to empathize. The story contains two of the greatest battles in European history, Leipzig and Borodino, and many other episodes of great fascination for the military historian. It also tells one much about European society, culture and politics in that era. From the Russian perspective the story has that crucial element, a happy ending. Napoleon’s first Grande Armée was destroyed in Russia in 1812. His second was defeated on the battlefields of Germany in 1813. In the longest campaign in European history, the Russian army pursued the French all the way from Moscow to Paris and led the victorious coalition into the enemy capital on 31 March 1814.
For very many years I have wanted to tell this story. At one level that is the simple purpose of this book. But I am an old-fashioned historian who likes his stories to be true, or at least as close to the truth as an honest, knowledgeable and meticulous study of the available evidence allows. Many years ago I came to the conclusion that the story as told in Western Europe and North America was very far from the truth. Hearing an untrue tale told over and over again annoyed me. Another purpose of this book is therefore to tell the story of how and why Russia defeated Napoleon in what seems to me to be a more truthful way.1
It is not surprising that what happened in 1812–14 is usually distorted in British, French and American books. Popular works on the Napoleonic era necessarily follow a rather set pattern. In Britain, for example, the bookshelves groan under the weight of works on Nelson and Trafalgar, or Wellington and Waterloo. These are the heroic narratives and the icons of British national identity. Napoleon and his army have also retained their fascination for the English-as well as French-speaking public. In any case, most authors cannot be expected to read many languages or consult archives in a range of countries. They expect to draw their information from the research of specialists. As regards Russia’s role in the defeat of Napoleon, this research and these specialists do not exist. No Western professor has ever written a book on the Russian war effort against Napoleon. The surest way to make yourself unappointable in any British, let alone American, university is to say that you wish to study the history of battles, diplomacy and kings.2
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