Russia Against Napoleon

Kutuzov was determined that his exhausted troops should have some rest before embarking on a new campaign across Russia’s borders. The emperor was very unwilling to heed such advice. In his view, not a moment was to be lost at this crucial time while Napoleon was at his weakest, revolt against his empire was bubbling in Europe, and Russian prestige was sky-high. The army must press forward into Germany in order to control as much territory as possible and encourage Prussia and Austria to join the Russian cause. Just before leaving Petersburg Alexander had told one of his wife’s ladies-in-waiting that the only true and lasting peace would be one signed in Paris. On arriving in Vilna he told his assembled generals that their victories would liberate not just Russia but Europe.⁴

Kutuzov had no enthusiasm for this vision. The tired old commander felt that he had done his duty in liberating Russia. Liberating Europe was not Russia’s concern. Kutuzov was not alone in believing this. How many officers shared his view no one can say: the army did not conduct polls and, on the surface at least, the emperor’s word was law. But particularly towards the end of the spring campaign, as exhaustion grew and fortune turned against the allies, foreign observers commented on the lack of enthusiasm for the war at headquarters and among many of the Russian generals. This was less evident at regimental level, where officers and men were bound up in a culture of discipline, courage and mutual loyalty. Once the summer armistice allowed the army to rest and fortune turned the allies’ way again in the autumn, much less was heard of defeatism and exhaustion among the generals. But the spirit of the 1813 campaign for the Russian officers was always rather different to the defence of their homeland in 1812.⁵

To an extent, this was now a campaign like so many in the past for personal glory, honour and promotion. The presence of the emperor with the army meant that rewards showered down on officers who distinguished themselves, a big incentive in a society where rank, medals and imperial benevolence counted for so much. In the officers’ memoirs about 1813 and 1814 one sometimes gets the sense too that they were ‘military tourists’ as they passed through one exotic foreign territory after another, accumulating adventures and impressions as they went. Seducing first Polish, then German and finally French women was a joyful element in this tourism for some of the officers, particularly the aristocratic young Guardsmen. In a way it seemed as much an affirmation of the officers’ manhood, tactical skill and all-conquering spirit as defeating Napoleon on the battlefield.⁶

Admiral Shishkov was too old and too virtuous for such adventures. He was also a dyed-in-the-wool isolationist. Shortly after returning to Vilna with Alexander, he questioned Kutuzov as to why Russia was advancing into Europe. Both men agreed that after the devastation he had suffered in 1812 Napoleon was unlikely to attack Russia again and, ‘sitting in his Paris what harm can he do us?’ When asked by Shishkov why he had not used all his present prestige to press this view on Alexander, Kutuzov answered that he had done so but ‘in the first place he looks on things from a different perspective whose validity I cannot altogether reject, and in the second place, I tell you frankly and honestly, when he cannot deny my arguments then he embraces and kisses me. At that point I begin to cry and agree with him.’ Shishkov himself suggested that at the most Russia should act as Paul I had done in 1798–9, sending an auxiliary corps to help the Austrians but leaving the main efforts for Europe’s liberation to the Germans themselves, supported by British paymasters. Subsequently Kutuzov was to take up this idea, encouraging Karl von Toll to present a plan in late January 1813 whereby the main burden of the war could be passed on to the Austrians, British and Prussians while Russia, ‘because its home provinces are so very distant, will cease to play the leading military role in this war and will become the auxiliary of a Europe mobilized in its entirety against French tyranny’.⁷