Russia Against Napoleon

Davydov was not only one of the most successful of the partisans but also the most famous and romantic. A well-known poet, he was immortalized by his friend Aleksandr Pushkin thus: ‘Hussar-poet, you’ve sung of bivouacs / Of the licence of devil-may-care carousals / Of the fearful charm of battle / And of the curls of your moustache.’ Well after his death, Davydov became more famous than ever as the figure on whom Tolstoy based his character Denisov, the charming and generous hussar who loses his heart to Natasha Rostov and in whose band of partisans her brother Petia loses his life in the autumn of 1812.⁷

The most notorious partisan commander was Captain Alexander Figner, who commanded an artillery battery at the battle of Borodino. The fall of Moscow left Figner lost in gloom and determined to revenge himself on the French for his country’s humiliation. The battery’s second-in-command described him as ‘good-looking, of medium height: he was a true son of the North, muscular, round-faced, pale and with light-brown hair. His big, bright eyes were full of liveliness and he had a powerful voice. Figner was eloquent, full of common sense, tireless in all his enterprises and with a fiery imagination. He despised danger, never lost his head and was totally fearless.’ Speaking German, French, Italian and a number of other foreign languages fluently, Figner was also an excellent actor. On a number of occasions he went into enemy camps in and around Moscow to gather intelligence, easily passing himself off as an officer of Napoleon’s multi-national army.⁸

Like many guerrilla commanders in history, however, there was a dark side to the brilliant, cunning and ruthless Figner. In September and October 1812 even Davydov was sometimes disinclined to take prisoners, since these put an intolerable strain on small and fast-moving partisan bands.⁹ Alexander Figner, however, twisted even this practice. One fellow-officer recalls that ‘his favourite and most frequent amusement was first to inspire captured officers’ trust and cheerfulness by his reassuring conversation, and then suddenly to shoot them with his pistol and watch their agonies before they died. He did this well away from the army, which only heard dark rumours which it either disbelieved or forgot amidst the pressures of military operations.’ In the midst of the awful cruelties and extreme emotions of autumn 1812 senior officers were sometimes willing to turn a blind eye to the nastier side of partisan warfare. By 1813, however, with the war no longer on Russian soil, few officers still harboured any great hatred for their enemy. When Figner drowned in the river Elbe trying to escape from the French few of his fellow-officers shed any tears.¹⁰

The many partisan units operating around Moscow overlapped with larger detachments watching the main roads leading out of the city. Some of these detachments also waged partisan war. Their main role, however, was to defend the provinces around Moscow from enemy raiding parties and to provide early warning should Napoleon make any major move out of the city. Of these detachments, the most important was commanded by Major-General Baron Ferdinand von Winzengerode, whose task it was to watch the highroad leading to Tver and thence to Petersburg. Most of Winzengerode’s troops were Cossacks and militia but some regular cavalry were cut off from Kutuzov’s army during the retreat through Moscow and escaped out of the city to the north, joining Winzengerode’s men. Of these reinforcements, the best were the excellent soldiers of the Cossack Life Guard Regiment.

Ferdinand von Winzengerode could best be described as a full-time anti-Bonapartist. His father had been aide-de-camp to the Duke of Brunswick, of all the German dynasties the one most noted for its unwavering hatred of Napoleon. Winzengerode himself transferred on a number of occasions between the Russian and Austrian armies, depending on which service offered the better opportunity to fight the French. Logically enough, having fought with the Austrians in 1809, he moved back to the Russian army early in 1812. In 1812 he was one of a number of political refugees whom hatred of Napoleon had washed up on Russia’s shores. Had circumstances turned out just a little differently, he could easily have been serving alongside many of his compatriots in the King’s German Legion in Spain, under Wellington’s command.