Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

This weekend, I completed reading Tarlé's history of the 1812 campaign that was recommended in the "Stalwart Russians" thread a while ago. I was a little disappointed. The military operations are merely touched on. With this book alone, getting any reasonable idea of the campaign itself would be nearly impossible.

Ample space is given, on the other hand, to three main themes---

1. the Russian peasant, whether as regular soldier or as partisan, was incomparably brave and saved the country single-handedly although everyone else failed him;

2. the Russian elite, political or military, with the single exception of Kutusow, was weak, ignorant and corrupt, and spoke French better than Russian; especially the Tsar was a weakling who possessed the folly and impudence to care about Europe as a whole instead of only for Russia;

3. Kutusow's failure to stop the Grande Armée at the Berezina (or anywhere, for that matter) was not failure at all, but rather the deliberate master stroke of a genius: naturally, three more years of war for Europe and hundreds of thousands more casualties were to be preferred over sacrificing some thousand Russian soldiers in order to end the business there and then. (That tens of thousands of those precious soldiers died during the half-hearted pursuit to the Nyemen, more than any battle against a Grande Armée pinned against or trapped astride the Berezina could positively have cost, seems to have escaped the author.)

These three main themes are repeated over and over, but conclusive proof at least to me seemed to be wanting. In fact, I found the whole approach and style partisan and polemical rather than educating or academic. On the other hand, at least the heavily ideological stuff was confined to the first and last chapter.

In short, I would recommend the book only in order to understand better where some of the recurrent statements about 1812 seem to have originated at least partly. As a history of the campaign, I find it hard to take it seriously.

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D.S. "Green Horse" Walter, Maréchal d'Empire
Duc des Pyramides, Comte de Normandie
Commandant la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3e Division Bavaroise[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/EdM_start.htm"]L'Ecole de Mars[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant la Brigade de Grenadiers de la Moyenne Garde
</center>

Lol! You have not seen his book on the Eastern/Crimean War! After that Campaign 1812 seems to have no idealogical stuff at all! No doubt the text needs filtering form all this. And leaving all the ideology out there in not much left. Still we should not forget that the warfare was never in the center of attention. Politics was and analysis of the political choices and decisions made by both side is not that bad.

<center></center>
<center><b>Eyo Imperatorskogo Velichestva Leib-Kirassirskogo polku
General-Mayor Anton Valeryevich Kosyanenko
commander of Little Russian grenadiers regiment</b></center>

Thanks for the info. A book I will definitely pass on.

Bill Peters
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram)

[url="http://www.fireandmelee.net"]Fire and Melee Wargame site[/url]

Dierk,

I have not read this book but if you are looking for a concise military history of the Russian campaign, I would reccomend George Nafziger's <u>Napoleon's Invasion of Russia</u>(1988). It is not an exhaustive study of all the aspects the campaign but it is a very good introductory militrary history. The most impressive thing about it is the extensive Appendices in the back of the book (which cover about 200+ pages). It contains copies of treaties,political documents, orders of battle, casualties, and all sorts of other statistics. It's worth the read, IMHO.




General der Kavallerie Philip Graf Roubaud
Kommandant
Vienna Militärakademie
Imperial Armee of Austria

Thanks for the tip. Meanwhile, I am good with books on 1812. I read five in the last weeks. [:)]

<center>
D.S. "Green Horse" Walter, Maréchal d'Empire
Duc des Pyramides, Comte de Normandie
Commandant la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3e Division Bavaroise[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/EdM_start.htm"]L'Ecole de Mars[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant la Brigade de Grenadiers de la Moyenne Garde
</center>

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by D.S. Walter</i>
<br />
In short, I would recommend the book only in order to understand better where some of the recurrent statements about 1812 seem to have originated at least partly. As a history of the campaign, I find it hard to take it seriously.
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I would tell a little differently. For understanding of the company 1812 it is one of books which to you it is necessary to read.
Some mutual misunderstanding shown in topic "Stalwart Russians" is caused not by disagreements on technical or only military questions, but misunderstanding (or wrong understanding or even ignoring) psychological questions (and in fact they underlie Gold morale of russian infantry in NRC).
You may it is possible to deny completely, but then it is simply impossible to explain why the military genius Napoleon has hardly carried away legs from mediocre general Kutuzov.

General Konstantin Koryakov,
8 Infantry Corps,
Life Guards Litovskii regiment,
Russian Imperial Army
[url="http://www.komikor.narod.ru"][/url]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by konkor</i>
then it is simply impossible to explain why the military genius Napoleon has hardly carried away legs from mediocre general Kutuzov.
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Mainly because Kutusov kept mostly out his way. [:)]

Napoleon lost his ill-advised Russian campaign for strategic reasons. By convention and definition that probably means that Kutusov, as Russian commander-of-chief, won it. But it stretches the meaning of the word "to win" to a considerable degree to apply it to a course of action where the victorious general is just keeping his distance until his opponent's force is destroyed by strategic consumption.

That aside, Kutosov's failure to destroy the Grande Armée completely, instead of offering it a "golden bridge" out of Russia (as Tarlé insists was Kutosov's grand design) had tragic consequences. It meant that all of Europe paid for three more years of war with hundreds of thousands more casualties. A large chunk of these casualties were Russians, more than any decisive battle against the weakened Grande Armée on the Berezina could have cost.

The Berezina was a crushing operational defeat for Kutusow. How an army without a bridging train trapped against a wide river and practically surrounded by three separate and numerically far superior enemy armies can positively escape total annihilation is nearly incomprehensible. Certainly, the main fault rests with Tchichagov for not keeping the back door closed, but even so it's hard to see how the crossing of the Berezina should have been accomplished had Kutosov pursued the Grande Armée more closely. The Napoleonic Wars would have ended there and then, rather than in 1815.

<center>
D.S. "Green Horse" Walter, Maréchal d'Empire
Duc des Pyramides, Comte de Normandie
Commandant la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3e Division Bavaroise[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/EdM_start.htm"]L'Ecole de Mars[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant la Brigade de Grenadiers de la Moyenne Garde
</center>

And we're off again!

One thesis, for which I have little evidence but which was raised by Chandler, was that the Russians saw little benefit in comprehensively defeating Napoleon. Russia would not have gained, but Austria and Prussia would have. Possibly, the Russians thought Napoleon could have held his position in Germany. While hundreds of thousands of further casualties seems a high price for such realpolitical considerations, history is full of such trade offs. If this were the case, Kutuzov was either much smarter than his critics give him credit for, or more closely aligned than is thought with the Russian political establishment. Again, I have no evidence, but a priori it seems at least as plausible as the alternative usually put about, that the Russians were fools who got lucky.

Lt Colonel Neville Worland
Chef d'Etat-Major
Ier Corps de Réserve de Cavalerie
Army du Nord

Doesn't this sound much like post festum rationalization again? The Tsar's explicit orders were for Wittgenstein and Tchichagov to block Nappy's retreat at the Berezina and for Kutusov to destroy him. Kutusov simply failed to comply, and Tchachagov complied, but failed to succeed. About the latter, not much needs being said; he appears to have been simply incompetent. Kutusov, however, deliberately disobeyed the Tsar's orders with his only token pursuit of the Grande Armée--nobody denies that, not even Tarlé (nor Chandler, for that matter). That these orders, if carried out successfully, would have resulted in the complete destruction of the Grande Armée and capture of Napoleon and his entire military elite, is equally uncontentious. So there goes Realpolitik.

What remains open to interpretation are the reasons for Kutusov's disobedience to orders. Tarlé says it was a master plan aimed at saving Russian lifes. (A few pages on he says the seventy-thousand Russian soldiers died in the campaign to the Nyemen. And as mentioned before, many more Russians deaths in the campaigns of 1813/14 were entirely unnecessary except for Kutusov's inaction in the pursuit.) Chandler says he was afraid of facing Napoleon in open battle. What about sheer inertia and incompetence? It would fit with what contemporaries say about his style of command. Afterall, he was an old man.

<center>
D.S. "Green Horse" Walter, Maréchal d'Empire
Duc des Pyramides, Comte de Normandie
Commandant la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3e Division Bavaroise[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/EdM_start.htm"]L'Ecole de Mars[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant la Brigade de Grenadiers de la Moyenne Garde
</center>

I accept your view that the evidence of deliberate design is lacking. But what bothers me is the post festum rationalisation exactly matches what I would have thought were Russia's true interests - and no doubt this has led to the endless controversy. Masterly inactivity was the best strategy the Russians could have adopted, both in defence and in pursuit and that pursuit should have stopped well short of the Elbe (as I understand Kutusov wanted to do.) Does it matter that the instrument of this policy was an individual ideally suited to it, rather than a highly motivated firebrand who nonetheless adopted the right strategy?

Lt Colonel Neville Worland
Chef d'Etat-Major
Ier Corps de Réserve de Cavalerie
Army du Nord

Dierk!
As I can see you enough it is correct has seen the main positions from Tarle's book. But I also see that you it has not taken into consideration.
Well, this is your right[:)] But this more offensively for Napoleon.
However campaign of 1812 was failed for him. "Stupid" peasants, "stupid" government and generals, big space, "terrible" climate. What else not provide his military genius?

As spoke Suvoroff. "Today happiness, tomorrow happiness. Save God! Must be someday skill[:D]"

General Konstantin Koryakov,
8 Infantry Corps,
Life Guards Litovskii regiment,
Russian Imperial Army
[url="http://www.komikor.narod.ru"][/url]

Dierk!

Do not read any Soviet book on 1812! These works are not military-historical but military-patriotic, especially since 1942. Their purpose was to glorify our army and to show that Russia (and Soviet Union) had been, was remaining and would be the strongest state in the world. The Soviet authors tried to reduce the importance of the Tsar and German officers of the Russian army and to exaggerate role of Russian common people. Kutuzov was declared an untouchable idol. The Soviet books are far from having an open mind.
At the same time, please, do not offend Evgeniy Victorovich Tarle. He is one of the greatest Russian historians. Of course he wasn’t a military expert and he had to stand within the frames of official ideology so there are a lot of mistakes in his book though it’s the most objective Soviet book on the topic. But his opinion about Kutuzov and Berezina, for example, has strong grounds – it’s likely Kutuzov wanted to give a “golden bridgeâ€

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Vladimir K.</i>
<br />Dierk!

Do not read any Soviet book on 1812! These works are not military-historical but military-patriotic, especially since 1942. Their purpose was to glorify our army and to show that Russia (and Soviet Union) had been, was remaining and would be the strongest state in the world. The Soviet authors tried to reduce the importance of the Tsar and German officers of the Russian army and to exaggerate role of Russian common people. Kutuzov was declared an untouchable idol. The Soviet books are far from having an open mind.
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That's how it looks like!!

I read it because it was recommended by someone in the "Stalwart Russian" threads as important source for his statements. [:)]

<center>
D.S. "Green Horse" Walter, Maréchal d'Empire
Duc des Pyramides, Comte de Normandie
Commandant la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3e Division Bavaroise[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/EdM_start.htm"]L'Ecole de Mars[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant la Brigade de Grenadiers de la Moyenne Garde
</center>

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Vladimir K.</i>
Major V. Komissarenko
Vincent (La Tour) Chevaulegers
KUK Osterreichische armee
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Sir,
Very interesting post! Thank you![:)]

<font color="green"> <b>Général de Division David Guégan Comte de Toulon, Duc de Nimes</b>
Co 11eme division
III Corps, AdN
Co Division d'Infanterie de la Jeune Garde, Garde Impériale


http://home.earthlink.net/~davidguegan/</font id="green">

A book I recently completed reading that was both fascinating and horrific was Napoleon's Invasion of Russia by Paul Britten Austin. It comprised his 3 books. He uses the stories of a 100 survivors and their diaries. The campaign is told thru their eyes. Many details that you do not get to read about. The retreat and the sufferings are the horrific part. As I sit in my warm home with a -16c outside I can only imagine what they went through. I highly recommend it.

I have several other books on the topic but none give you the feeling of being there as this one does.

I also tried to understand why the Russians did not finish them off but came with the opinion that they had their problems as well with the weather. I also think that Napoleon's legend kept them hesitant somewhat. Kutusow's army was not as experienced. Co-coordinating multiple armies and columns could not have been easy. And there is the theory that Kutusow did not want to destroy it completely. Perhaps a little of all of the above.



Lt. Pierre D.
AdR

Board Admin.