The Western cliche is that "General Winter" defeated the French leader, but the truth is far more complex
Two hundred and ten years ago, on September 15,
1812, the French Army led by Emperor Napoleon entered the Kremlin in
Moscow. In the eyes of the world, it was all over – the largest city in
Russia was lying prostrate at the feet of the world’s greatest military
supremo.
In three months, however, what remained of Napoleon’s
army was fleeing – the corps and regiments mere shadows of their former
selves. The huge forces that invaded Russia in the summer were all but
destroyed by the end of the year; the exact losses are debated to this
day, but the number of soldiers dead or captured is estimated to have
been between 400,000 and 500,000.
Why did Napoleon lose?
The
classic Western narrative is that Napoleon had to retreat because of
the Russian winter, his forces beaten down by the harsh climate. The
standard Russian view is that Napoleon was met by a different natural
force – patriotism, which drove ordinary people to take up arms against
the French invaders, complementing the efforts of the regular army. Leo
Tolstoy’s account of the war contributed to this image, and it’s hard to
compete with the power of his literary genius.
However, little
was random or ‘natural’ in the defeat of Napoleon. First of all, it is
hard to imagine that such a seasoned general had forgotten to consider
the climate of the country he set out to conquer. In fact, Napoleon had
already waged winter campaigns. The Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 was
lost by the Russians under colder temperatures than the Battle of
Berezina – where the Russians prevailed. Meanwhile, the Battle of Eylau,
which ended inconclusively for both parties, occurred during heavy
snowstorms.
In other words, Napoleon was not some African chieftain who could be excused for never having seen snow in his life.
The
grassroots resistance story is also far from accurate. It wasn’t the
first time that Napoleon had to fight against a popular militia – in
Spain, such forces played an auxiliary role to Wellington’s regular
corps, and the French Army wasn’t destroyed so totally and swiftly.
Russians themselves faced a guerrilla war in Finland during the Swedish
campaign of 1808-09, when the winter was extremely harsh. But it did not
stop the Russian offensive. In other words, neither snow nor mass
resistance could guarantee the outcome, and certainly could not ensure
the defeat of a massive army led by a brilliant general.
Unusual war
The War of 1812
was unusual. At first, the French Army advanced and the Russian
defenders pulled back. None of the battles could alter the course of the
conflict. Napoleon then began to retreat, but the ensuing
confrontations did not have any significant impact on the overall
situation either. Napoleon kept going backwards after each one, and the
Russians kept following his army. But the Russians were not simply
reacting to a campaign that seemed to have its own internal logic – they
had a detailed plan.
The scheme had its roots in the failed
campaigns of 1805 and 1806-07. After a series of humiliating defeats,
Tsar Alexander I and Napoleon signed the Treaties of Tilsit. However,
this peace deal did not resolve the conflict between the two countries,
and everyone realized it was nothing more than a brief interlude. . .
_______________________________________________PAUSE FOR AN INTERUPTION FROM HISTORY
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CULTURE WAR
Magazine
Where did the Ukrainian leader learn to rally the public and captivate a western audience?
TV, of course.
"The real-life Zelenskyy, with sunken eyes, unkempt hair and days’
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appears in an olive green T-shirt on TV newscasts and the giant screen.
(Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to the nation in Kyiv, Ukraine on
Feb. 27, 2022, in this photo taken from video provided by the Ukrainian
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himself.
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As
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closer to Jon Stewart’s than Will Ferrell’s; a bemused observer, rather
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. .
."[. ] In a 2017 interview with the website Cinema Escapist — back when he was only a make-believe politician — Zelenskyy said life in Ukraine had bred a particular brand of comedy, heavy on wordplay and satire that reflected current events and helped the public grapple with challenging news. .."
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'...Napoleon was great at achieving tactical objectives, and this presented a
problem. Also, up to that point, Russia had always been part of a
coalition, including Austria and Prussia – but now they were under
Napoleon’s rule and were unable to help. This meant that the enemy would
have a lot more troops, led by the great military commander. Nobody
would have bet on the Russian Army under these circumstances. Therefore,
it needed to come up with asymmetric measures. Using a sports analogy,
the Russians had to drag Mike Tyson into a shooting tournament.
The architect of victory
By April 1812, this
idea was developed into an action plan. Curiously, it was drawn up by a
person who is not well known in present-day Russia. He was Lieutenant
Colonel Pyotr Chuykevich, and he served in the War Ministry’s Special
Office, a secret department not many knew of.
The Special Office
was one of the pet projects of War Minister Michael Barclay de Tolly, a
Russian prince and soldier of Baltic German and Scottish origin. Barclay
de Tolly was a brilliant and successful commander, though his talents
were in areas that do not usually bring military glory – he was great at
organizing supply chains, logistics, and gathering intelligence. In
other words, he was good at the things that are rarely noticed until
they become the army’s biggest weaknesses. Chuykevich was one of his
appointees to the Special Office, which was, in fact, Russia’s first
official intelligence gathering agency.
Chuykevich produced an
analytical note titled ‘Patriotic Thoughts’, which was delivered to
Barclay de Tolly. Having carefully studied the composition of the French
Army and Napoleon’s preferred strategy, the lieutenant colonel reasoned
that the best way forward was to not let the French Army use its
massive advantage in power. He suggested avoiding a general battle to
spare Russia’s troops, and retreating while conducting guerrilla
warfare, especially in the rear of the enemy, in order to hit their
supply lines and exhaust and weaken Napoleon’s army to eventually gain
the advantage.
It was a sound plan. There were only two possibilities for the
formidable French Army to obtain supplies: By having them delivered from
Western Europe, or pillaging and foraging for them. Obviously,
deliveries from the West would not be reliable due to the enormous and
ever-growing distances the convoys would have to cover, as well as the
appalling condition of the Russian roads. And if the French Army was
betting on foraging for supplies locally, another problem arose. Since
the population density in Russia was (and still is) much lower than in
other parts of Europe, Napoleon’s foraging missions had to travel far
and wide in order to obtain enough provisions. And that is when they
would run into a second problem.
Partisan war
The
Russians were creative in organizing partisan operations. In fact, this
designation covered two distinct phenomena. On the one hand, there were
regular detachments active in the rear of the French Army’s operating
line. They were led by officers and consisted of Cossacks, dragoons,
hussars, and sometimes light infantry. They often had their own light
artillery. These units carried out reconnaissance, destroyed foragers,
and intercepted couriers.
The French also had to deal with
irregular units consisting of peasants who sought to prevent marauders
and foragers from entering their villages. Many such units were headed
by the local landlord, who would often be a retired military officer
versed in the basics of military organization. They tried to recruit
peasants who had some experience with weapons and outdoor living –
hunters, whippers-in, foresters, and so on. These units communicated
with each other using church bells.
Naturally, armed peasants
could do little against the French Army, but this was never expected of
them – all they had to do was to alert the regular partisan forces. If
the partisans failed to deter the enemy, the regular army came to the
rescue. This arrangement was not ideal, but it worked much of the time.
Within
this paradigm, the main army forces had a peculiar role. They had to
remain in Napoleon’s sight, limiting his army’s freedom and preventing
it from straggling across a large distance or moving across the country
freely. The Russian Army used this approach because being aware of its
presence, the French could neither relax nor disperse.
As a result, the French forces had not even finished their offensive
when they began to starve. They were unable to obtain enough food, and
couldn't send enough troops to protect communications because Napoleon
needed a force capable of confronting the main Russian Army. In
addition, the Russians were retreating ever further. The French were
already hundreds of kilometers away from their bases and had to leave a
lot of people in the rear to maintain order, while supplies from the
West had dried up.
Why did the Russians surrender Moscow?
The
battle near the village of Borodino, which Mikhail Kutuzov – the
commander-in-chief of the Russian forces – agreed to fight, was at odds
with this logic. However, Kutuzov was a politician as well as a military
leader. He realized that giving up Moscow without a major battle would
be something Russian society would not forgive. Yet he was perfectly
aware of the fact that the reasons for fighting were more political than
military, so, after the first day of the battle failed to result in a
decisive win for either side, instead of pressing on (which would only
have led to the utter defeat of the battle-weary Russian Army), he
retreated and surrendered Moscow to save the Russian forces.
As a
result, by entering Moscow, Napoleon grabbed the cheese in the
mousetrap. Russia's largest city kept him stranded for several weeks.
All that time, the French emperor was trying to negotiate for peace, but
he failed. Those weeks put the Grande Armée on the brink of disaster.
After
a while, the French retreated. As they embarked on the long trek back
home, the weather was fine and the horrors of the ‘dreadful Russian
winter’ – which, in reality, turned out to be quite ordinary – were yet
to come, but the army was already beginning to suffer from starvation.
As the temperatures dropped below freezing, horses started dying, and
some of them were slaughtered for food. No horses meant no cavalry,
making the French vulnerable to Russian mobile cavalry units that were
harassing Napoleon’s army.
The next steps taken by Field Marshal
Kutuzov were predictable. He continued to send in fresh forces against
the French rear guard, trying to avoid major clashes and keeping the
French moving. The Russian troops were not immune to the cold either,
and just like the French, they had stragglers and those who fell ill.
However, while Russian soldiers could stay in nearby villages until they
recovered, the Frenchmen either had to stay behind and be taken
prisoner, or keep going until they developed complications. Once
weakened, they became vulnerable to infection.
Trial by hunger and winter
One of the key
things Kutuzov ordered his officers to do might not sound heroic, yet
was practical. The Russians were deliberately targeting French stores of
food. Thus, the defeat of General Jean-Pierre Augereau’s brigade at the
village of Lyakhovo by partisans was, in essence, a nice bonus in the
hunt for supply depots. The French Army did not freeze to death, but it
was starving, while the battles looked more like executions, as the
Russians used artillery to disperse French units marching past them,
without the need for general engagement.
The French couldn’t put
up much of a fight anyway, as most of their horses had been eaten and
their guns had been left behind. The wounded soldiers faced the same
dilemma as the sick – either be dragged along with the risk of
complications and infections, or be left at the mercy of the Russians –
which was actually not a bad idea. Suffering from the cold and the
hardships of the autumn and later winter pursuit, the Russian troops
were not inclined to inflict even more pain on the captive Frenchmen.
After most of Marshal Michel Ney’s corps was destroyed near Krasny,
survivors simply walked towards the Russian positions to ask where they
could surrender. Their guns were taken away from them and they were sent
to the campfires where Russian soldiers, who were just as cold and
miserable, would give their prisoners vodka to feel a little warmer
inside. This may seem surreal, but not to those who were on a march in
sub-zero temperatures for days.
One of the key elements of this
‘choking’ strategy was an operation undertaken by the small Army of the
Danube led by Pavel Chichagov behind Napoleon’s lines. These days,
Chichagov is mostly remembered as the man who failed to close the trap
and allowed what remained of the French Army to escape at the battle
near the Berezina River. However, the most important part of Chichagov’s
operation was what did before, not during, the Battle of Berezina.
Before he proceeded to try to ensnare Napoleon at the Berezina,
Chichagov captured Minsk, the key supply depot of the French which held
two million daily rations. He did not even have to be at the Berezina,
as he had smashed the French Army’s chances of surviving. Due to a
personal conflict with Kutuzov and his ultimate failure to trap
Napoleon, Chichagov was not hailed as a war hero; however, his main
success was the battle against the supply lines.
And that was the
moment when the bitter cold really set in, killing people who were
trudging westward across snow-covered plains and forests. But the
weather was just the final nail in the Grand Armée’s coffin, finishing
off an army that had already been routed.
***
For
Russia, 1812 signified not just a great military triumph, but also the
victory of intelligence and self-control over brute force. The Russians
had a plan and stuck to it, while Tsar Alexander I was resolute enough
to stay on course even after Napoleon captured Moscow. The courage of
the soldiers, the climate, and other obvious factors played a role, but
the War of 1812 is, above all else, a triumph of strategy and
consistency in pursuing goals.
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