Napoleon's Invasion of Russia

by George F Nafziger

  A Presidio Press Book

  Published by The Random House Ballantine Publishing Group

  Copyright © 1988 by George F. Nafziger

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.

  Presidio Press is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Nafziger, George F.

  Napoleon's invasion of Russia.

  Bibliography: p. 641.

  Includes index.

  1. Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1814—Campaigns—Soviet Union. 2. France. Armée—History—Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1814. 3. Soviet Union. Armiià—History—19th century. I. Title.

  DC235.N24 1988 940.27 88-6029

  eISBN: 978-0-307-53881-9

  v3.0_r1

  Errata to original edition

  appears at the end of the book.

  FOREWORD

  INTRODUCTION

  CHAPTER I The Causes of the 1812 Campaign

  CHAPTER II The French Army: Its Organization, Training and Equipment

  CHAPTER III The Armies of France's Allies

  CHAPTER IV The Organization of the Russian Army

  CHAPTER V Supply Considerations

  CHAPTER VI Preparations for the Invasion

  CHAPTER VII The Battle Is Joined

  CHAPTER VIII The Northern and Southern Operations.

  CHAPTER IX Failure at Smolensk

  CHAPTER X The March on Moscow

  CHAPTER XI Kutusov Turns to Fight

  CHAPTER XII The Turning Point—The Battle of Borodino

  CHAPTER XIII The Hollow Victory

  CHAPTER XIV The Russian Northern Offensive

  CHAPTER XV The Russian Southern Offensive

  CHAPTER XVI The Nightmare at the Berezina

  CHAPTER XVII Aftermath—The French Phoenix

  TERRAIN DIAGRAMS (following page 340)

  Engagement at Romanov, 7 March

  First Battle of Polotsk, 17 June

  Engagement at Mir, 28 June

  Battle of Saltanovka, 11 July

  Battle of Ostrowno, 13/14 July

  Battle of Jakobovo, 19 July

  Battle of Loubino, 7 August

  Battle of Smolensk, 7 August

  Battle of Gorodetchna, 12 August

  Battle of Borodino, 7 September

  Battle of Trautino, 6 October

  Battle of Polotsk, (second battle) 18 October

  Battle at Malo-Jaroslavetz, 24 October

  Battle of Smoliantsy, 1 November

  Battle of Krasnoe, 5 November

  Battle of Berezina, 16 November

  APPENDIX I Treaties

  APPENDIX II Orders of Battle 1810-1811

  APPENDIX III Orders of Battle 1812

  APPENDIX IV Miscellaneous Documentation ……

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Apart from the Battle of Waterloo and the Campaign of the Hundred Days, no episode exerts a greater fascination over the military historian or general reader with an interest in the Napoleonic period than the Campaign in Russia, 1812. The subject has inspired Tchaikovsky's famous Overture, many memoirs by participants who survived the great cataclysm (Russian as well as French and their allies), historical analyses almost without number, numerous notable paintings, perhaps the greatest novel ever written (Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace), a number of films and television series, and at least half-a-dozen war games (boxed and video). Now George F. Nafziger has contributed this impressive volume as the latest—but doubtless not the last—serious study of this great and compulsive theme.

  It is not 175 years since Napoleon launched his huge, ill-fated attack on Tsarist Russia. The subject still grips, confounds, horrifies, yet fascinates the reader—in my case, after all of a quarter-century of study of the Napoleonic era, without the least trace of diminution. Here, indeed, is a titanic struggle with few equals in scale and drama. It is a subject worthy of an ancient Greek tragedian—a compelling cause fought as much against climate and geography as between armies, presided over by gigantic historical figures in Napoleon, Kutusov, Ney, Davout, Barclay de Tolly, and Tsar Alexander I, towering over a joint military cast of a million or more, containing large battles, a myriad individual acts of heroism (and a few infamous acts) all leading up to cataclysmic disaster for la Grande Armée de Russie and to the Gòtterdammerung—the “Twi- light of the Gods55—for undoubtedly the greatest “Grand Captain'9 of modem history, the Emperor Napoleon I.

  Tolstoy was at pains to portray Napoleon and Kutusov as in the grip of superhuman forces, mere leaves blown to and fro by the winds of Fate, with scant if any power to affect the great issues at stake; but, as this book makes clear, this determinist interpretation is not sustainable, The history of the Campaign of 1812 is in fact an immense “passionate drama” involving the lives and deaths of hundreds of thousands of participants, exalted and humble, their individual destinies very much dependent on the calculated decisions and human foibles, strengths, and weaknesses of their chiefs. It was an age of giants.

  It is hard to comprehend what is meant by casualty figures on the scale involved. The Grande Artnée's central army group—perhaps 450,000-men strong at the outset—-came out of Russia only some 25,000-strong. Of 250,000 horses, only 18,000 skeletal mounts and draught animals survived. Of more than 1,000 guns taken over the Niemen River frontier in June 1812, a mere 120 remained with the army in early January the next year. Possibly the most expensive day in world history, in terms of human loss of life and misery caused by conventional battle, was 7 September 1812—the battle of Borodino. By nightfall a joint total of at least 74,000 soldiers had become casualties, including in their number no fewer than 71 generals. These figures even outshadow those of the first day of the battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916, when 60,000 British troops were mown down by German machine-gun and artillery fire for minimal losses sustained by the defenders. At Borodino, 104 years earlier, it was as if a jumbo-jet loaded with passengers had crashed every three minutes from dawn to dusk in an area barely six square miles in extent—say central London or central New York. Small wonder Napoleon termed it “the most dreadful of my battles.” But the same God of war could claim, a year afterwards, that he had “fought 60 battles and learnt nothing that I did not know at the beginning.” Even if this was a cast-off remark intended for effect rather than literal accuracy, it is a pretty chilling pronouncement. If there was one date when Napoleon should have learnt a great deal, that was surely 7 September 1812,

  For the student of military history, the events of 1812 are full of interest. Although overshadowed by events in Eastern Europe, it should also be recalled that the war in the Iberian Peninsula was reaching its first great climax, as Wellington secured control of the twin corridors linking Portugal and Spain (but not without such gory events as the storming of Badajoz) and then proceeded to commence the liberation of the latter country (aided by the reductions in French manpower ordered by Napoleon to build up his armament along the Polish frontier), leading to the battle of Salamanca (news of which only reached Napoleon on the eve of Borodino—a comment on the communication problems of the time), the joyous occupation of Madrid, and then the setback before Burgos which led to a rapid retreat back to Portugal, with everything to be recontested in 1813. The year 1812 also saw the Anglo-American war break out in the Western hemisphere, with its dramatic frigate actions at sea and its American setbacks on land. It was indeed a year of Destiny for a strife-torn world.

  Some of the major areas of interest the Russian campaign offers are as follows: The causation of t
his great struggle between nations and alliances was many-sided, but was it inevitable? Or could the two power blocs have lived amicably side by side? These are matters with no little modem significance. The preparations for war by both sides and the differing natures of their respective armies also repay study. Were they effective? Could they have been improved? Were the war plans realistic and attainable, or were they rapid improvisations to meet an evershifting situation (particularly the Russian strategy of trading space for time)? The communication, command, and control systems on both sides were stretched to the limit. Could these have been improved? The roles of distance, climate, and local fertility within Russia posed the French with as daunting problems of supply, health, and exhaustion of resources as any faced by Hitler's Wehrmacht in 1941-1944. Did Napoleon take these factors properly into account? The importance of the peasant-partisans under General Davydov in harassing the French lines of communication and supply is much stressed by modern Soviet historians. Was this threat containable in 1812; and, if so, what are the possible implications for today? The French lost more animals—and nearly as many men—in the advance to Moscow as they did in thè celebrated retreat, yet their morale remained high. That certainly cannot be said of the retreat to Poland, What psychological lessons about men under severe physical stress in a hostile environment are relevant to late 20th-century experience? The list could go on almost indefinitely— but George Nafziger's excellent treatment will suggest answers to many of the posed questions, and no doubt give rise to many more. For, as Professor Geyl of the Netherlands once percipiently remarked, “History is indeed an argument without end.”

  No two historians are ever likely to agree, therefore, over every detail. To my mind, however, three overriding questions require to be answered. First, did Napoleon's misreading of the character of Alexander I—the sometime admiring client and fellow-despot of Tilsit, 1807— enable the latter to call the Emperor's bluff in June 1812? It can be argued that Napoleon intended nothing more than a demonstration-in-force upon the western periphery of the Tsar's domains, or at the worst a rapid campaign in western Poland, to bring Alexander back into a compliant frame of mind over the Continental System and other issues. In the event, this proved one of the most costly miscalculations in history— if miscalculation, indeed, it was—and one that cost both sides very dearly in the course of the resolution of the daunting and continuing series of crises that resulted.

  Secondly, given the need to invade Russia, was Napoleon correct in deciding to advance beyond Smolensk in 1812, or should he have wintered, rested, and regrouped around that city before resuming the campaign in the Spring of 1813? Again, this is a most complex question, much bedeviled by benefit of hindsight. However, it would seem that Napoleon's opportunistic tendencies as a gambler drove him on, overwhelming the sound dictates of caution. As the finance minister, Mollieu, trenchantly described it, “Although Napoleon's common sense amounted to genius, he could never see where the possible left off.” The results were Borodino, Moscow—and ultimate disaster.

  Third and last, it can be argued that the greatest and most critical moment of decision for Napoleon came on 25 October 1812, in a stormy conference with six of his marshals in a peasant's hut at Gorodna, in the course of which Murat and Davout almost came to blows. It was one week after the evacuation of Moscow, and the day following the inconclusive battle of Maloyaroslavetcz, where the French had failed to break through the Russian forces holding a river line, thus blocking the French chosen line of retreat towards Poland by way of Kaluga and the unravaged countryside of the Ukraine. The question was, as brilliantly depicted in a fine picture by Vereschagin, “Should we break through or should we retreat?” Finally Napoleon, untypically, settled for what seemed the safer course—to retire—although it is now known that the Russians had abandoned all hope of holding him from Kaluga had he reopened the action. This critical decision, that doomed the Grande Armée to retire along the twice-ravaged route back to Smolensk by way of the ghastly charnel-house of the Borodino battlefield, led to disaster. What might have transpired had the bolder decision been taken? That is the great and unanswerable question.

  “War,” as General James Wolfe of Quebec fame once remarked, “is an option of difficulties. “That is undoubtedly the case, but Napoleon made demonstrably the wrong decision for whatever final reason. Sometimes relatively small events can sway far greater issues. Earlier that same morning, the Emperor had been caught almost unescorted by a surprise attack on the French rear areas by a strong party of Cossacks. He had to draw his sword in self-defense before a rescue could be improvised. The incident—although eye-witnesses avow that the Emperor was at some pains to laugh it off at the time—in fact impressed him deeply. It probably was the issue that tipped the balance in favor of caution at the conference later that day. It certainly caused Napoleon from that day forward to wear poison in a small bag hung around his neck: the fear of possible capture and humiliation worried him more than the frequently encountered prospect of a violent death. But even this psychologically significant precaution let him down in the end. When, on the night of 12 April 1914, some days after his first abdication at Fontainebleau, Napoleon attempted to end his troubles by committing suicide, he swallowed the contents of the bag—but only succeeded in making himself violently sick. Since late October 1812, the poison's potency had diminished.

  Russia has never fallen to direct invasion from the West—except, arguably, in 1917, but that debacle was due as much to internal revolution as to external factors. The Teutonic Knights attempted it in the 15th century, Charles XII of Sweden in 1708-1709, Napoleon in 1812, and Adolf Hitler in 1941. Each would-be conqueror in turn failed, defeated by distance and climate as much as by the sturdy defence of their Motherland, “Holy Russia,” by the inhabitants. Each successive attacker might have done worse than to study the history of what had happened to his forebears and thus avoided some of the identical pitfalls each encountered and fell into in turn. Perhaps Field Marshal Lord Montgomery of Alamein, K.G., had a point when he wrote in the 1960s, “in my view one of the basic rules of war is-—don't march on Moscow.” The ancient state of Muscovy has only been conquered from the East.

  “The Emperor's health has never been better.” Thus ended the famous bulletin which broke the news to an already long-apprehensive French public of the climactic disaster that had befallen the army in Russia. Napoleon had indeed failed, but, as I remarked a fifth of a century ago in The Campaigns of Napoleon, it had been “the failure of a giant surrounded by pygmies.” Still, the failure was probably not undeserved for all that. The reader must make up his or her mind on this, and many other issues, after reading this new book. Its author has chosen to replough a much-traversed furrow of 19th-century military and political history, but the task has rarely been done with more attention to facts and detail. Not everyone will agree with all of his arguments and interpretations—why, after all, should they?—but they should take them seriously. As the French philosopher Voltaire expressed it in the 18th century, “I may disagree wholeheartedly with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to express it.” So may it be— now and always.

  DAVID G. CHANDLER, Head, Department of War Studies, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Vice President of La Commission Internationale d'Histoirie Militaire, author of The Campaigns of Napoleon, etc. Sandhurst and Yateley May Day, 1987.

  This work is intended to be an examination of the military aspects of the greatest campaign and undertaking of Napoleon's career. There is so much to be said and studied on this campaign that for the 170 years since its occurrence, authors and historians have filled countless volumes lining the shelves of libraries throughout the world.

  Many of those works are directed at a cursory review of the military actions and dwell on the immense losses and misery of the disastrous retreat from Moscow. Other works concentrate on the strategic aspects of the campaign and those missed opportunities that might have turned the campaign in Napoleon's favor.
Still other works concentrate on the politics and personalities of this dynamic period.

  In contrast to those works, which tend to be broad-scoped studies, this work will address all the factors that comprise or impacted the military aspects of the campaign. In addition to a review of the military operations, ranging from the tactical to the strategic, it will address the political, economic, and supply considerations that were so important to the campaign.

  Researching the tactical action revealed many excellent sources, but a number of instances were found where period accounts contradicted one another. De Segur's account of the battle of Ostrowno has the 8th Hussars attacking and defeating three Russian cavalry regiments that stood motionless as each was attacked and defeated in its turn, abandoning their artillery to be captured by the French. In contrast, General Wilson's account of the battle has two squadrons of Russian hussars and a half horse battery engaging and defeating the French Hussars, driving them back on their parent formation. It was then this larger formation, a division, that defeated the Russians and captured their artillery.

  With such divergent accounts, it was often difficult to ascertain what was fact and what was the author's bias. When several sources were reviewed, the most commonly reported and plausible account was more heavily weighted when the account presented in this work was prepared. Such detail as regimental names and numbers were generally accepted from every source presenting such data. If none of the accounts agreed very closely in their detail, a composite account was developed and the most obvious nationalistic biases were removed.

  A great diversity of spelling of Russian names was found in the various sources consulted. Most of the sources used were French and their transliterations vary significantly from those used by the Germans, the second principal linguistic source. Only one period English source was used, Wilson, and he provided a third spelling of many names. The selection of a consistent form for each name was, therefore, very difficult. An effort has been made to use as many common spellings as possible, and consistent, appropriate other spellings were used as needed.