Russia Against Napoleon

A number of Western scholars have written often excellent books in English which provide a background to the empire’s war with Napoleon. See in particular William Fuller’s splendid Strategy and Power in Russia, 1600–1914, New York, 1992, and Patricia Grimsted, The Foreign Ministers of Alexander I, Berkeley, 1969; Janet Hartley, Alexander I, London, 1994, and Russia, 1762–1825: Military Power, the State and the People, London, 2008; John Keep, Soldiers of the Tsar, 1462–1874, Oxford, 1985; John Le Donne, The Grand Strategy of the Russian Empire, 1650–1831, Oxford, 2004; Alexander Martin, Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries: Russian Conservative Thought and Politics in the Reign of Alexander I, De Kalb, Ill., 1997; Alan Palmer, Alexander I: Tsar of War and Peace, London, 1974; Richard Pipes, Karamzin’s Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia: A Translation and Analysis, Ann Arbor, 2005; Nicholas Riasanovsky, A Parting of Ways: Government and the Educated Public in Russia 1801–1855, Oxford, 1976; David Saunders, Russia in the Age of Reaction and Reform 1801–1881, London, 1992; Elise Kimerling Wirtschafter, From Serf to Russian Soldier, Princeton, 1990.

Readers seeking background information on Russian government, society and culture might consult volume 2 of The Cambridge History of Russia, Cambridge, 2006, which I edited, and which contains many excellent contributions by experts in the field of Russian imperial history. Both in this volume and in the books listed in the previous paragraph can be found bibliographies that will lead the interested reader to the rather few academic articles in English on the era of Alexander I and relevant to the wars with Napoleon.

A number of memoirs originally written by Russians who participated in the wars have been translated into English: Nadezhda Durova, The Cavalry Maiden: Journals of a Female Russian Officer in the Napoleonic Wars, ed. and trans. Mary Fleming Zirin, Bloomington, Ill., 1989; Denis Davydov, In the Service of the Tsar against Napoleon: The Memoirs of Denis Davydov, ed. and trans. Gregory Troubetzkoy, London, 2006; Aleksei Ermolov, The Czar’s General: The Memoirs of a Russian General in the Napoleonic Wars, ed. and trans. Alexander Mikaberidze, London, 2006; Boris Uxkull, Arms and the Woman, trans. Joel Carmichael, London, 1966.

Some memoirs and commentaries by non-Russian participants in the wars are also available in English and are valuable for their insights into the Russian war effort. These include: C. F. Adams (ed.), John Quincy Adams in Russia, New York, 1970; A. Brett-James (ed.), General Wilson’s Journal 1812–1814, London, 1964; Lord Burghersh, The Operations of the Allied Armies in 1813 and 1814, London, 1822; the Hon. George Cathcart, Commentaries on the War in Russia and Germany in 1812 and 1813, London, 1850; A de Caulaincourt, At Napoleon’s Side in Russia, New York, 2003; Carl von Clausewitz, The Campaign of 1812 in Russia, London, 1992; the Marquess of Londonderry, Narrative of the War in Germany and France in 1813 and 1814, London, 1830; Baron Karl von Müffling, The Memoirs of Baron von Müffling: A Prussian Officer in the Napoleonic Wars, ed. Peter Hofschroer, London, 1997; Baron von Odeleben, A Circumstantial Narrative of the Campaign in Saxony in the Year 1813, 2 vols., London, 1820; Count P. de Ségur, History of the Expedition to Russia, 1812, 2 vols., Stroud, 2005.