Russia Against Napoleon

Amidst all the tensions and uncertainties of Russo-Austrian relations in the spring and summer of 1813 it helped enormously that Nesselrode was in frequent and secret correspondence with Friedrich von Gentz, one of the leading intellectuals of the counter-revolution in Vienna and Metternich’s closest confidant. Gentz was exceptionally well informed about Metternich’s own thinking and about the opinions and conflicts within Austrian ruling circles. Nesselrode had known Gentz for years and rightly trusted his deep commitment to the allied cause. Gentz could put in a good word for the allies in Metternich’s ear. More importantly, he could explain to Nesselrode the severe constraints within which the foreign minister was operating, shackled as he was not just by the caution of Francis II and some of his advisers, but also by the deep and genuine difficulties facing Austrian rearmament.³²

In comparison to the tortuous diplomacy conducted by Metternich in the first half of 1813, the movements of Schwarzenberg’s observation corps are relatively easy to follow. In January 1813 Schwarzenberg’s men stood directly in the path of a Russian advance through Warsaw and central Poland. As was the case with Yorck’s corps at the other end of Napoleon’s line, the 25,000 relatively fresh Austrian troops would have been a major obstacle to Kutuzov’s overstretched army had it chosen to bar his way. But the Austrians had no interest in defending the Duchy of Warsaw and actually welcomed the Russian advance towards central Europe as a means of weakening and balancing Napoleon’s power. They also had no wish to see their best troops sacrificed in battles with the Russian forces.

Ignoring French orders to cover Warsaw and retreat westwards, Schwarzenberg, on his government’s instructions, concluded a secret agreement with the Russians to retreat south-westwards towards Cracow and Austrian Galicia. An elaborate charade was maintained with the Russians so that Vienna could claim that its troops’ retreat had been necessitated by enemy outflanking movements. The only major force which now remained to cover central Poland was General Reynier’s Saxon corps. This was overtaken and heavily defeated by Kutuzov’s advance guard at Kalicz on 13 February 1813. The result of the Austrian retreat to the south-west was that by the end of February the whole of the Duchy of Warsaw had fallen into Russian hands with the exception of a handful of French fortresses and a small strip of land around Cracow.³³

In the first week of March, with Berlin and all Prussia liberated, and with Miloradovich’s and Wintzengerode’s corps of Kutuzov’s army positioned on the Polish border with Prussian Silesia, the first phase of the spring 1813 campaign was over. For the remainder of the month most of the Russian army was in quarters, resting after the winter campaign and attempting to feed itself and its horses, and to get its uniforms, muskets and equipment into some kind of order. Kutuzov issued detailed instructions to commanding officers about how to utilize this rest-period and they did their best to comply. While quartered near Kalicz, for example, the Lithuania (Litovsky) Guards Regiment trained every morning. All its muskets were repaired by skilled private craftsmen under the eagle eyes of the regiment’s NCOs. Its battered wagons were also repaired. A fifteen-day supply of flour was baked into bread and biscuit against future emergencies. The regiment could not replenish its ammunition because the ammunition parks were still stuck along the army’s line of communication, but each company built a Russian bath-house for itself. Material arrived for new uniforms and tailors’ shops were immediately set up to turn this into uniforms.³⁴

Although the Lithuania Guards Regiment enjoyed a rest in these weeks it received almost no reinforcements. This was true of almost all units in Kutuzov’s and Wittgenstein’s armies. The new reserve forces which had formed in Russia over the winter had been summoned to the front but they would not arrive until late May at the earliest. A handful of men dribbled back to the ranks from hospital or detached duties but they merely filled the gaps left by men falling out through sickness or dispatched from the regiments on essential tasks. At Kalicz, the Lithuania Guards had 38 officers and 810 men in the ranks but the Guards were usually far stronger than the bulk of the army. The Kexholm Regiment, for example, was down to just 408 men in mid-March.³⁵