Russia Against Napoleon

71 Countess Edling’s memoirs in A. Libermann (ed.), Derzhavnyi sfinks, Moscow, 1999, p. 177, for Kutuzov’s words to Alexander. Kutuzov, vol. 4i, no. 105, Kutuzov to Rostopchin, 17 August 1812 (OS), pp. 90–91.

72 As usual, the best summary account of the council of war is in Entsiklopediia, pp. 666–7. Mikaberidze’s translation of Ermolov’s memoirs gives a strong sense of the game played between him and Kutuzov over responsibility for Moscow’s abandonment: The Czar’s General, pp. 168–72. Bennigsen’s letter to Alexander of 19 Jan. 1813 (OS) in VS, 1, 1903, pp. 235–8, puts his side of the argument.

73 S. I. Maevskii, ‘Moi vek ili istoriia generala Maevskago, 1779–1848’, RS, 8, 1873, pp. 135–67, at p. 143.

74 ‘Iz vospominanii Akinfova’, in Kharkevich (ed.), 1812 god, vol. 1, pp. 205–12. Maevskii, ‘Moi vek’, pp. 143–4.

75 The most up-to-date surveys are, as usual, in Entsiklopediia: see especially the pieces on Moscow (pp. 476–9) and the fire (pp. 482–4). For the figure on private property destroyed, see Bogdanovich, Istoriia…1812 goda, vol. 3, p. 28. For the evacuation of the wounded, see Mikhailovskii-Danilevskii, Memuary 1814–1815, SPB, 2001, p. 189, for a subsequent conversation with Wylie. Also S. Gavrilov, Organizatsiia i snabzheniia russkoi armii nakanune i v khode otechestvennoi voiny 1812 g. i zagranichnykh pokhodov 1813–1815 gg.: Istoricheskie aspekty, SPB, 2003, pp. 143–4.

76 On the barges, see the records of the post-war inquiry in Kutuzov, vol. 4ii, prilozhenie no. 20, pp. 717–18.

77 As always, A. I. Popov, Velikaia armiia v Rossii: Pogonia za mirazhom, Samara, 2002, pp. 178 ff., has an excellent discussion of these issues.

78 V. N. Speranskii, Voenno-ekonomicheskaia podgotovka Rossii k bor’be s Napoleonom v 1812–1814 godakh, candidate’s dissertation, Gorky, 1967, pp. 386–8. Kutuzov, vol. 4i, no. 294, Kutuzov to Voronov, 7 Sept. 1812 (OS), p. 250.

Chapter 7: The Home Front in 1812

1 P. A. Chuikevich, ‘Analiticheskii proekt voennykh deistvii v 1812. P. A. Chuikevicha’, Rossiiskii Arkhiv, 7, 1996, p. 46. S. N. Golubeva (ed.), General Bagration: Sbornik dokumentov i materialov, Moscow, 1945, no. 57, ‘Plan kampanii 1812 goda, predstavlennyi P. I. Bagrationom Aleksandru I’, pp. 130–38. Janet Hartley provides a very useful survey of Russian society’s resistance to Napoleon in ‘Russia and Napoleon: State, Society and the Nation’, in M. Rowe (ed.), Collaboration and Resistance in Napoleonic Europe, Basingstoke, 2003, pp. 186–202.

2 N. Shil’der, Imperator Aleksandr Pervyi: Ego zhizn’ i tsarstvovanie, 4 vols., SPB, 1897, vol. 3, pp. 100–103.

3 MVUA 1812, 17, Barclay to Asch, 21 July 1812 (OS), pp. 157–8.

4 L. G. Beskrovnyi (ed.), Narodnoe opolchenie v otechestvennoi voine 1812 goda: Sbornik dokumentov, Moscow, 1962, no. 2, 6 July 1812 (OS), pp. 14–15.

5 The statistics come from Beskrovnyi (ed.), Narodnoe opolchenie, no. 205, pp. 218–19: these are the final reports of Lieutenant-General Tyrtov, the commander of the Tver militia. C. F. Adams (ed.), John Quincy Adams in Russia, New York, 1970, p. 452.

6 The outstanding work on Russian popular (and other) resistance to Napoleon is A. I. Popov, Velikaia armiia v Rossii: Pogonia za mirazhom, Samara, 2002. Popov also contributed many excellent articles, on ‘People’s War’, peasant disturbances, partisans and adjacent topics, to Entsiklopediia. There are parallels here with Spain, where Charles Esdaile shows that many of the guerrillas were regular cavalrymen. The Russian case was much more clear-cut, however, as one would expect. Unlike in Spain, the Russian state had not collapsed. See Charles Esdaile, Fighting Napoleon: Guerrillas, Bandits and Adventurers in Spain 1808–14, London, 2004.

7 Beskrovnyi, Narodnoe opolchenie, no. 140, Kutuzov to Alexander, 23 Oct. 1812 (OS), pp. 155–6; see e.g. no. 89, pp. 113–17, and no. 121, p. 142, for descriptions of individual actions.