Russia Against Napoleon: The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace

by Dominic Lieven

  The new model musket introduced by Arakcheev was lighter and less clumsy than its predecessors. Given time, he believed that it could become the standard firearm for all infantry regiments. One clear lesson of 1805–7 was that Russian musketry was far inferior to French. The new firearm was intended to help here but in addition Arakcheev issued repeated orders that troops must be trained to aim and shoot accurately. He also produced a very useful booklet on the components, maintenance and cleaning of firearms. Meanwhile energetic measures had been taken to boost production of gunpowder and of cloth for uniforms. By the time he left office in 1810 Arakcheev was able to claim that future demand for military uniforms could now be met from Russian production without the need for the emergency ban on sales to the civilian market which he had been forced to introduce on becoming minister.7

  Arakcheev’s management certainly did improve matters. His successor as minister, General Mikhail Barclay de Tolly, was also extremely strict when it came to failings in the military administration. Shortly after his appointment, however, he noted that the commissariat was being run with outstanding efficiency and was in ‘the very best order’. Supplies and uniforms were beginning to flow into the stores. On the eve of Arakcheev’s retirement as minister, the French ambassador noted that ‘there has never previously been this level of order in the military administration, above all in the artillery and the victualling departments. In general, military administration is in excellent condition.’8

  Nevertheless, through no fault of Arakcheev, there remained many problems. In reality the Russian textile industry was still very hard pressed to meet military needs. New factories and sheep farms could not be created overnight and a bankrupt government was poorly placed to provide subsidies to encourage their development. Arakcheev had partly ‘solved’ shortfalls by extending the lifetime of existing uniforms. In addition, for example, demand had been reduced by requiring the provincial administration to clothe all new recruits in so-called ‘recruit uniforms’ which would have to last them for their first year in the army. Usually grey, and always made of inferior ‘peasant cloth’, these uniforms were much shoddier and less durable than the dark-green woollen tunics of the regular infantry. The ministry of war struggled to provide uniforms for a growing army in 1809–12. It had no chance of stockpiling large reserves for wartime needs, though Alexander tried to encourage this. When war came in 1812 the commissariat had spare uniforms and equipment for only one-quarter of the existing field army. The so-called ‘recruit uniforms’ quickly disintegrated when worn by soldiers on campaign.9

  Similar problems affected Russian firearms. The new musket was an improvement but accurate shooting was still affected by the varying thickness of the paper in Russian cartridges. To accommodate these cartridges, calibres had to be greater than initially planned. Though the new model musket was well designed, Russian labour and machine tools were not capable of mass production of top-quality interchangeable parts.10 Some cartridges still rattled around in the barrel. In addition, lead was in short supply and was very expensive during these years in Russia. In part it was imported secretly and at great cost from Britain. As a result Russian infantry on average had six rounds of live ammunition a year for shooting practice and had to make do with clay bullets. Ordinary British foot soldiers received thirty rounds, light infantrymen fifty. Perhaps most important, efforts substantially to increase the production of muskets failed, above all because of shortages of skilled labour. More than anything else, it was this that sabotaged efforts to boost production at the new arms works near Izhevsk in the Urals, which Arakcheev set up in 1807. Luring skilled foreign labour to the borders of Siberia was a difficult and expensive business. Meanwhile inadequate labour and machine tools, added to a shortage of water to power the machinery, greatly undermined efforts to boost production at Tula in the pre-war years. Although the ministry tried hard to introduce suitable steam-powered machinery at Tula, when the war began Russia had a dangerously small reserve of muskets to arm new units and replace losses in existing ones.11

  Probably the most radical change introduced during Arakcheev’s two years as minister concerned the treatment of recruits. Under the system he inherited new recruits were delivered straight to their regiments, where they received all their military training. This was particularly difficult in wartime but even in normal circumstances the shock of sudden immersion in their regiments could be too much for the peasant recruits. Very heavy sickness and mortality rates resulted. To avoid this, a new system of Reserve Recruit Depots was established in October 1808. Men would be given their initial military training for nine months in these depots. The tempo of training was rather slow, discipline relatively mild and the training cadres were in any case entirely devoted to this task, rather than being subject to the other pressures of regimental service. Arakcheev expressed the hope that this would do something to ease the inevitable psychological stress when – as he put it – a peasant was torn from his accustomed village life and subjected to the totally different society and disciplines of the army.12

  In January 1810 an important new institution was created at the heart of Russian government. The new State Council was Speransky’s brainchild. It was designed to debate and to advise the emperor on all legislation and budgets, and to oversee the ministries. Mikhail Speransky saw the State Council as the first step in the complete transformation of central government. This never happened, but major changes in the ministries’ structure and responsibilities were also under way in these years. In these circumstances it was difficult to predict in which institutions most power would lie. Alexander offered Arakcheev the choice of either remaining minister of war or becoming chairman of the military committee of the new state council. Arakcheev chose the latter, commenting that he preferred to supervise rather than be supervised. Since the new war minister, Barclay de Tolly, was junior to Arakcheev and to some extent owed his promotion to him it may be that Arakcheev believed that he would retain a degree of indirect control over the ministry. In fact, however, Barclay soon showed that he was very much his own man and quickly became Alexander’s chief military adviser, thereby earning the enmity of Arakcheev, who was intensely jealous of anyone who rivalled him for the emperor’s favour.13

  Though his family originated from Scotland, Barclay was in reality a member of the German professional middle class. His ancestors had settled in the Baltic provinces, but Barclay himself was brought up by relatives in the German community of Petersburg. The dominant Lutheran values of his childhood home were obedience, duty, conscience and hard work. He reinforced these values and his own place within the German community in Russia by marrying his cousin, as commonly happened in this era. At the age of 15 he entered Russian military service as an NCO, being promoted to officer rank two years later. Better educated than the normal officer drawn from the Russian gentry, he rose on merit and at modest speed. It took him twenty-one years to rise from cornet to major-general. His skill and courage in the East Prussian campaign of 1806 won him promotion to lieutenant-general, brought him to Alexander’s attention, and secured him a key role in the subsequent war with Sweden. Urged on by Arakcheev, Barclay invaded southern Sweden from Finland across the ice of the Gulf of Bothnia in March 1809, thereby helping greatly to bring Swedish resistance to an end. A grateful monarch promoted Barclay to full general and made him commander-in-chief and governor-general of Finland.14

  Tall, well built and with an upright, commanding presence, the new head of the army looked the part. His slight limp and stiff right arm, both the product of wounds, added to his distinction. But in the jealous world of Petersburg Barclay’s rapid promotion to full general and minister won him many enemies. By temperament, background and experience he was not well suited to Petersburg high society and the imperial court, milieux which a minister ignored at his peril. At court he was respectful but awkward, wooden and insecure. The earnest, proud and sensitive Barclay knew that he lacked the culture, wit or broad education to win respect in this world. Th
e Petersburg aristocracy, many of whose members held top military posts, looked down on him as a solemn, boring German and a parvenu. Barclay did not make friends easily, though men who served near him in time came to admire him greatly. Like all senior Russian generals and ministers, he had acquired his own clients in the course of his career, many of whom were Germans. This did not help his popularity. Whatever Barclay did, however, criticism was inevitable in this world of jealousy and carping: when subsequently he appointed Ivan Sabaneev to be his chief of staff he was criticized for favouring an old regimental colleague over other, abler (and in this case Baltic German) staff officers.15

  Barclay de Tolly had Arakcheev’s virtues without his vices. He was an efficient, incorruptible, hard-working and meticulous administrator but he was never a pedant. He could also be very tough, even ruthless, when necessary: given the habits of the Russian commissariat this was essential. Unlike Arakcheev, however, Barclay never indulged in superfluous cruelty, rudeness or vendettas. He was both a more efficient administrator and a tougher disciplinarian than Bennigsen, in whose army hunger, indiscipline and banditry had become endemic in 1806–7. As minister and commander-in-chief Barclay did everything possible to stop mistreatment of troops by their officers. His circulars condemned officers who used fear as a means to train and instil discipline into their troops: ‘The Russian soldier has all the highest military virtues: he is brave, zealous, obedient, devoted, and not wayward; consequently there are certainly ways, without employing cruelty, to train him and to maintain discipline.’16

  Given the emperor’s skill at manipulation, it is quite possible that Alexander nudged Arakcheev into abandoning his ministerial post and joining the State Council in January 1810. In 1808 a war minister had been needed who would restore order to military administration, where necessary by terror. No better candidate for such a task existed than Arakcheev. By 1810, however, the job requirements had changed. An efficient and hard-working administrator was necessary but not sufficient. With conflict against Napoleon beginning to loom over the horizon the army needed a chief who could prepare and plan for war. Arakcheev had never served in the field and was barely competent to discuss strategy or war plans. Barclay de Tolly on the other hand was a front-line soldier with an outstanding wartime record. If Barclay lacked the daring or imagination of a great commander-in-chief, he nevertheless had a solid grasp of tactics and a quick eye to spot the possibilities and dangers of a battlefield. More important, he had not just a realistic grasp of strategy but also the patriotism, resolution and moral courage to sustain this strategy in the face of many obstacles and ferocious criticism. To an extent which was rare, Barclay would put the ‘good of the service’ above personal interests and vendettas. In 1812 Russia was to owe him much for these qualities.

  In the two and a half years between his appointment as minister and Napoleon’s invasion Barclay was immensely active. In the sphere of legislation, the new law on the field armies was of greatest significance. It was extremely detailed, taking up an astonishing and unprecedented 121 double-columned pages in the collection of laws. Known as the ‘yellow book’ because of the colour of its cover, the law encompassed all the departments, functions and key officers of the field army, and set out their powers and responsibilities. It also, however, went far beyond this, acting as a handbook for officers on how they should fulfil their tasks.17

  Of course there were some errors in such a vast and complicated piece of legislation. The dual subordination of chiefs of staff, both to their own general and to the chief of staff at the next level of command, caused problems. Prussian commentators claimed that their own model, in which all departments had access to commanding generals only through their chiefs of staff, reduced inter-departmental wrangling and freed the supreme commanders from worrying about trivia. The division of responsibility for hospitals between the commissariat (supply and administration) and the medical department (doctors and paramedics) caused much inefficiency in 1812–14. Inevitably, too, the regulations sometimes had to be adapted to wartime realities. For example, the law envisaged a situation in which a Russian commander-in-chief commanded a Russian army operating in the absence of the emperor and on foreign soil. Actually in 1812–14 this never happened: the army was either fighting on Russian soil or operating abroad in Alexander’s presence, though often under the command of foreign generals.

  None of this mattered too much, however. For the first time, clear rules were set out for how an army should be run in wartime. Most of the principles established by Barclay worked well in 1812–14. Where necessary these rules could easily be amended to suit conditions on the ground. Six weeks after the army law was issued in early 1812, for example, it became clear that the future war would initially be fought on Russian territory. As regards the feeding and supply of the army, an amendment was immediately published which stated that the law was to be applied to any Russian provinces which the emperor declared to be in a state of war. In these provinces all officials were thereby subordinated to the army’s intendant-general, who had the right to requisition food, fodder and transport at will in return for receipts. The law therefore goes far towards explaining how the Russian treasury sustained the 1812 campaign at such small cost to itself, at least in the short run of the wartime emergency. The clear lines of command and responsibility it established also laid the groundwork for the generally good collaboration of the army and the provincial governors in 1812.18

  The other crucial pre-war legislation transformed the organization of internal security within Russia. To some extent the new law on internal security, issued in July 1811, was a spin-off of efforts to shake out manpower from the army’s rear echelons in order to get the maximum number of soldiers into the ranks of the field armies. Above all this meant combing out men capable of service in the field from the many so-called garrison regiments distributed very unevenly across the empire’s cities and fortresses. Thirteen newly formed regiments, roughly 40,000 trained men, were added to the field army in this way without recourse to an additional levy. Most of the soldiers released from the garrison units were potentially of good quality. Very many of the officers were not, however, since assignment to a garrison regiment (except in the key front-line fortresses on the Baltic coastline) implied that an officer was either physically incapable of front-line service or had a poor record.19

  Roughly 17,000 men of the garrison regiments were deemed unfit for service in the field. They were to form the nucleus of the new internal security forces, with a half-battalion (in other words two companies) deployed in each of the empire’s provincial capitals. They joined the small internal security units which already existed in the provinces and the more numerous but less mobile companies of veterans (invalidy) who were often deployed in the smaller provincial towns. All these units were now integrated into a single command which covered the whole of European Russia. It might have seemed logical to subordinate the internal security troops to Aleksandr Balashev, who, as minister of police, had overall responsibility for preserving order within Russia. But Alexander distrusted his police chief’s growing power and was unwilling to add the internal security forces to his empire. He therefore made the internal security troops a separate organization, commanded by his own aide-de-camp general, Count Evgraf Komarovsky, who reported directly to the monarch.20

  The internal security forces guarded public buildings, and helped to enforce judicial verdicts and to uphold public order, though in the event of widespread unrest they would need reinforcements from the regular army. What really mattered in 1812–14, however, was that they were responsible for guarding prisoners of war and, above all, for mustering recruits and escorting them to the camps where the army’s reserves were being formed. As one would expect, many of the officers of the internal security forces who commanded these escort parties were of low quality. Prince Dmitrii Lobanov-Rostovsky, who commanded the Reserve Army in 1813–14, complained about them constantly and no doubt many recruits suffered at their hands. From the po
int of view of the Russian war effort, however, the new internal security forces were a godsend. Before 1811 regiments had been obliged to send officers and men back to the provinces to collect and escort the new recruits. Even in peacetime this had been a major distraction. In 1812–14, with a vastly expanded army operating far from the empire’s interior, the diversion of effort would have been crippling.21

  It is relatively easy to assess the impact of the new legislation on the field army and the internal security forces. Coming to firm conclusions about the results of Barclay’s efforts to improve military training is more difficult. Hundreds, even sometimes thousands, of kilometres from Petersburg the effect of even the most intelligent and best-intentioned circulars might be muted. It is true that in 1808–12 bright young officers of the line were seconded to the Guards training camps outside Petersburg and were then expected to take the lessons they learned in tactics back to their regiments and teach them to their soldiers. Most generals commanding divisions in these years also did their utmost to ensure effective training of their soldiers. For much of the year even an infantry division, let alone a cavalry one, was quartered over a wide area, however. A great deal therefore depended on the regiments’ commanding officers.22 Some commanders were brutes and pedants. Only rarely were they punished for their brutality if it was seen to threaten the army’s effectiveness. The commander of the Kexholm Infantry Regiment, for example, was actually court-martialled and dismissed the service in 1810 for mistreatment of soldiers on a scale to cause near mutiny.23

  Most commanders were not brutes, however, and some were excellent. Count Mikhail Vorontsov, for example, was the chief of the Narva Infantry Regiment in this period. He echoed Barclay in condemning the use of beatings to train and discipline Russian soldiers. Vorontsov once commented that discipline was far better in the Narva regiment, where such beatings were forbidden, than in the neighbouring 6th Jaegers, whose commander, Colonel Glebov, thought that Russian troops could only be controlled by the rod. Like some other regimental commanders, Vorontsov issued instructions to his officers outlining how they were to fight on the battlefield. Petr Bagration thought these instructions to be a model and reissued them to his whole army.