Russia Against Napoleon

11 RGVIA, Fond 846, Opis 16, Delo 3385, Bernadotte to Winzengerode, 2 Oct. 1813, fo. 57i; I. Radozhitskii, Pokhodnyia zapiski artillerista s 1812 po 1816 god, 3 vols., Moscow, 1835, vol. 2, p. 246.

12 It is true that some of the 35,000 were sick, but the basic point remains valid: on Bennigsen’s deployment of troops at Dresden, see Feldzug der kaiserlichen Russischen Armee von Polen in den Jahren 1813 und 1814, Hamburg, 1843, pp. 33–6.

13 Mémoires de Langeron, Général d’Infanterie dans l’Armée Russe: Campagnes de 1812, 1813, 1814, Paris, 1902, pp. 222, 298.

14 RGVIA, Fond 846, Opis 16, Delo 3403, fos. 27i–28ii, Sacken to Barclay, 1 Oct. 1813 (OS).

15 Langeron, Mémoires, pp. 299–300.

16 I visited the battlefield on two occasions, before major construction began on the motor-way which will provide a bypass for Leipzig and in the process ruin much of the southern battlefield.

17 Hon. George Cathcart, Commentaries on the War in Russia and Germany in 1812 and 1813, London, 1850, p. 298.

18 Friederich, Herbstfeldzug, p. 294.

19 Ibid., p. 295.

20 Bogdanovich cites Alexander’s words: Istoriia…1813, vol. 2, p. 439.

21 Hoen, Feldzug von Leipzig, pp. 402–10. The possibility of treason is raised by Digby Smith (1813 – Leipzig, Napoleon and the Battle of the Nations, London, 2001, p. 69) but no evidence is provided. My own explanation is partly drawn from Ludwig von Wolzogen, Mémoires d’un Général d’Infanterie au service de la Prusse et de la Russie (1792–1836), Paris, 2002, pp. 179–82.

22 The statistics come from Friederich, Herbstfeldzug, pp. 296–300.

23 Eugen, Memoiren, vol. 3, p. 230.

24 J.-N. Noel, With Napoleon’s Guns, London, 2005, pp. 180–81.

25 Friederich, Herbstfeldzug, p. 232; Mémoires du Général Griois, Paris, n.d., p. 202; Eugen, Memoiren, vol. 3, p. 232. Smith, Leipzig, p. 86, argues that Eugen should have moved his corps out of the line of fire or at least ordered them to lie down. But the prince could not just decamp and leave a hole in the allied line. Moreover, Russian troops (or Prussian and Austrian ones) were not trained to lie down in sight of enemy guns. Even Wellington’s infantry might have hesitated to do so on an open glacis with a mass of enemy cavalry nearby.

26 RGVIA, Fond 489, Opis 1, Delo 754, fos. 38 ff.

27 All this information comes from the personnel records (posluzhnye spiski) of the Murom Regiment in RGVIA, Fond 489, Opis 1, Ed. Khr. 517: each rank has its separate posluzhnoi spisok, beginning on fo. 2.

28 See for instance a report from Diebitsch to Barclay timed at 8 a.m. on 16 October in which the former urges that the Guards be moved forward immediately: unless this was done ‘the distance to Rotha is so great that they will never arrive in time’: Beskrovnyi (ed.), Pokhod, no. 283, Diebitsch to Barclay, 4/16 Oct. 1813, p. 329.

29 As one might expect, the Austrian official history gives most attention to this part of the battle but its account is largely confirmed by Bogdanovich: the Austrians and Russians were not very fond of each other even in 1813 and had become a good deal less so by the time they got round to writing their official histories of the campaign. On the whole, a good rule of thumb is to believe the Russian history when it praises the Austrians, and vice versa. If in doubt, Friederich is often a remarkably fair and neutral arbiter. Hoen, Feldzug von Leipzig, pp. 471–82; Bogdanovich, Istoriia…1813, vol. 2, pp. 461–4; Friederich, Herbstfeldzug, pp. 308–12.

30 Beskrovnyi (ed.), Pokhod, no. 300, Diebitsch’s account of the battle of Leipzig, 1813, pp. 360–81, at pp. 363–5.

31 Cathcart, Commentaries, pp. 306–7.

32 Ibid., pp. 307–8.

33 Ibid., p. 308; P. Pototskii, Istoriia gvardeiskoi artillerii, SPB, 1896, pp. 271–2; A. Mikaberidze, The Russian Officer Corps in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1795–1815, Staplehurst, 2005, p. 382.

34 Bogdanovich, Istoriia…1813, p. 460; Pototskii, Istoriia gvardeiskoi artillerii, pp. 270–73. Beskrovnyi (ed.), Pokhod, no. 299, Sukhozhanet to Iashvili, 29 Dec. 1813/10 Jan. 1814, pp. 358–60; no. 300, Diebitsch’s account of Leipzig, 1813, pp. 365–7.

35 ‘Vospominaniia Matveia Matveevicha Muromtseva’, RA, 27/3, 1890, pp. 366–94, at p. 378.

36 Dnevnik Pavla Pushchina, Leningrad, 1987, p. 128.