Russian Army 1812-1814 - EN - Preface

Most Rules are so biased again non-British and French units…
                                                            Dr. Stephen Summerfield

Alexander Yuryevich Averyanov: Ataka Moskovskovo Polka

FOREWORD FROM BOOK BY DOMINIC LIEVEN

Let's start by quoting from Professor Dominic Lieven's book: 

„It is not surprising that what happened in 1812–14 is usually distorted in British, French and American books. Popular works on the Napoleonic era necessarily follow a rather set pattern. In Britain, for example, the bookshelves groan under the weight of works on Nelson and Trafalgar, or Wellington and Waterloo. These are the heroic narratives and the icons of British national identity. Napoleon and his army have also retained their fascination for the English-as well as French-speaking public. In any case, most authors cannot be expected to read many languages or consult archives in a range of countries. They expect to draw their information from the research of specialists. As regards Russia’s role in the defeat of Napoleon, this research and these specialists do not exist...

… there seemed little point in struggling to learn Russian and scrounge for information outside the archives in order to study an army that was still unequivocally Old Regime. The result is that the Russian side of the story is ignored or misinterpreted, with historians largely seeing Russia through the prism of French- or German-language sources."

PREFACE

I got into the Russian army by accident. When we were picking armies, it was left to me after  player agreement. It was clear that Jindra, speaking French and practicing the French martial art of Canne de Combat (Canne Defense, or if you want to savate et bâton defense) was taking frogeaters. Philip chose the Austrians and I did not resist the Russians. And I know a little Russian, too. Of course that was before Ukraine 2022. Besides, who would want to play English army, right? Not enough slope Hills in our wargame club. 

The same problem described by Professor Lieven was a source of real frustration when I was looking for background information. If I wanted more than superficial and often bad information (as I later found out), I had to dig deeper. And so I set to reading, searching the English and Russian internet to get the sources. And now that I have those sources, why not share them. 

It was the work of Prof. Lieven Russia Against Napoleon The True Story of the Campaign of War and Peace that helped me a lot in grasping the army I was looking at with the above-mentioned biased first, but of course legends and half-truths live their own life even on our little sandy patch in the middle of Europe. Incidentally, the professor's great-grandfather, General Christoph Heinrich von Lieven (Christofor Andreyevich Lieven) and other relatives of his occasionally peek out from the pages of the quoted book. 

Most of the available texts are based on non-Russian memoirs written by Russians of German Baltic ethnicity, French émigrés, and then, of course, primary sources from other participants. Neither is an unbiased reading. All of the memoirs are very POV oriented. With hyperbole - the French try to blame the weather, the Cossacks and the weather for the loss. The English parrot the French, the Germans can't get over being liberated by the Russians and need heroes to atone for Jena. The first memoirs of the Austrians come out during WW1... (just for the record, the Russian ones are again full of the perfection of the Tsar's army and His Majesty). Only a minimum of authors - Christopher Duffy for example - had access to Soviet archives and still managed to get by in Russian.  

Only really contemporary works work with Russian archives /Mikaberidze, Lieven, Leggiere, Fuller/. The fundamental merit of Alexander the First for the stability and peace in Europe is somehow passed over, as well as the actions of the Russian army, which bled not only for the power needs of its ruler, but the soldiers themselves out of conviction not only "For God, Tsar and Motherland", but also for peace in Europe.

This article is not a historical excursus or a long-winded treatise on the performance of Russian officers and the quality of Russian muskets. Rather, it is advice to other colleagues who have chosen the Russian army on what mistakes to avoid and what material to draw on. At the same time, I will try to present the idea that the Russian army was not just a bunch of unwashed barbarians and drunkards from the East who shit in the hole, i.e. what the Russian army is showing us today (written in June 2022) in Ukraine. It should be said at the outset that I am not a historian, do not take this series of articles as the most detailed, accurate and infallible statement. 

INSIGHT ON THE RUSSIAN ARMY

If you want to play Russian Army, you have to prepare yourself for the fact that especially the authors of the rules work quite often with the players' expectations and not with reality. And so playing Russia often feels like playing Games Workshop games with an outdated codex (hello Astra Militarum, written in June 2022) The legends and fairy tales about the Russian army are so entrenched, both in the context of the rules and in the context of historical realities, that breaking them down is a long haul. More like a marathon, but it's gradually being remedied. The lack of original sources in other languages and the French and German bravado is simply transposed into the rules, which moreover somehow apply the Franco-English battlefield to all Napoleonic armies, wars and campaigns and only slightly reflect other tactics and procedures. And they often don't address whether it's 1799 or 1814. Warfare has really changed in those 15 years. 

But beware, if you come across the original Russian texts you will also come across fairy tales. Starting with War and Peace and the memoirs of any one Russian officer, including the comparatively accurate Mikhailovsky-Danilevesky. Incidentally, I may return to fairy tales at some point

What, then, was the Russian army which was to face the Allied Grande Armée. Which, in a campaign of two years, reached from Neman to Moscow and back. And then pursued Napoleon until he marched victoriously over the Champs Elysees. 

In terms of more than just wargaming, this is an army built around an experienced core of NCOs and seasoned officers. An army recently reorganized into all-army corps on the French model, retooled for modern warfare, and learned from the battlefields of Italy, Austria, Prussia, and Sweden. An army equipped with high quality firearms and artillery.  With still inadequate, but much better and unhurried training, under a completely new regulation (1811). 

The Russian soldier came from the ranks of the serfs. He suffered from a lack of imagination, born of a lack of education and generations of inculcated obedience. It took weeks to reach the depot of his regiment, and for weeks after his training was completed he wandered to his regiment, which he probably never left until his death. The six officer schools produced plenty of officers, but with a poor quality of education with a very specific perception of initiative, however, at least the artillery in particular relied on more capable officers. Yet only 2.9% of senior officers studied military science. 

But the Russian army also means excessive nepotism, protectionism, factions, even sects, intrigue among officers and staff service in its infancy. As a result, we get specific commanders in high positions of variable quality. True the wheat was thoroughly separated from the chaff during the campaign, but even so, reading Russian memoirs is a really cool demonstration of how an officer corps is not supposed to work.

However, thanks to the losses we see the meteoric rise of young but capable officers with the right connections, Debich, Toll, Kutaysov, Chernyshev or Eugene of Würtemberg. 

And then there is the Russian concept of military honour, perhaps best defined by Osterman-Tolsty's phrase: "Do nothing, stand and die" at the Battle of Ostrovno. 

As in any army, we have good and capable officers, good and bad units, and good and bad decisions. So what you get on the table is not a bunch of smelly, overgrown dullards, with an incompetent command that confuses the rifle with the pike, but a huge, diverse and modern army. On the battlefield, as efficient or as bad as any other.  The following series of articles summarise what I have been able to glean about the Russian Army in the short time I have been in Napoleonics.

SOME BIBLIOGRAPHY RECOMMENDED IN ENGLISH

Russian Infantry Training Manual 1811 translated by Darrin Boland

Alexander and Yuri Zhmodikov: Tactics of the Russian Army During Napoleonic Wars Part 1 a2; 

Dominik Lieven: Russia Against Napoleon The True Story of the Campaign of War and Peace 

Christopher Duffy: Russia's Military Way to the West

Alexander Mikaberidze: The Russian officer corps in the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, 1792-1815

William C Fuller: Strategy and Power in Russia 1600-1914

John LH Keep: Soldiers of the Tsar: Army and Society in Russia 1462-1874

Alexander Mikaberidze: Russian eyewitness accounts of the campaign of 1812

Alexander Mikaberidze: Russian eyewitness accounts of the campaign of 1807

Kolektiv: Russia and the Napoleonic Wars

RECOMMENDED LINKS

http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/index.html - one of the Mirrors of probably the best Napoleonic web server - the content of the Mirrors differs slightly

http://napoleonistyka.atspace.com/index.html - one of the Mirrors of probably the best Napoleonic web server - the content of the Mirrors differs slightly

http://www.napoleon-series.org/ - another server focused on the Napoleonic Wars

http://www.marksrussianmilitaryhistory.info/#Viskovatov - rough text of translated works of Alexander Vasilyevich Viskovatov

http://www.museum.ru/1812/Persons/index.html - a Russian server mostly specialized on the Patriotic War of 1812, however, for example, the Dictionary of Generals or the Dictionary of Regimental Commanders covers their entire history

The Miniatures Page server. Type TMP+password into Google (TMP+Napoleonic Russian Artillery, for example) and a lot of topics will pop up. The important ones are those commented on by a well-known historian (Zhmodikov, Summerfield) or those commented on by Russian historians while they were online.