Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

In late 1990s- Russian historian Sokolov spent a good chunk of his life in French military archives statistically analyzing personal files of soldiers of the French Napoleonic army. He made it through about 7,000-8,000 random personal files which is a fine statistical sample out of 3,000,000 files available (Sokolov also has applied science degree and speaks fluent French).

The fate of French army soldiers recruited in 1804-1805
“The Army of Napoleonâ€

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by August Dean</i>
If a soldier falls behind because of diarrhea and he hopes to catch up with his unit in a next two-three hours as he did many times in Italy, Austria, Germany but instead he is captured by the Cossacks – does he blame the diarrhea or the Cossacks?
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[:D]

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Maj. Gen. D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
~ 2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys) ~
2nd (Union) Brigade, Cavalry Division, Anglo-Allied II Corps
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~ 3rd (Prince of Wales's) Dragoon Guards ~
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I wonder what the proportion for "dying on the march" would be if the Russian Campaign were excluded from Sokolov's study? Perhaps the high losses there skewed his results and that in all the rest of the Napoloenic wars, the number was much lower. Just wondering...

FM Sir 'Muddy' Jones, KG
2nd Life Guards, Household Cavalry

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Sir Muddy</i>
<br />I wonder what the proportion for "dying on the march" would be if the Russian Campaign were excluded from Sokolov's study? Perhaps the high losses there skewed his results and that in all the rest of the Napoloenic wars, the number was much lower. Just wondering...<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I was wondering quite the same thing ... but as the "average" attrition comes out higher than the one from the Russian campaign, it seems unlikely that this campaign is the single factor driving up the numbers.

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[url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_walter/NWC/2nd_Dragoons.htm"][/url]
Maj. Gen. D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
~ 2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys) ~
2nd (Union) Brigade, Cavalry Division, Anglo-Allied II Corps
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~ 3rd (Prince of Wales's) Dragoon Guards ~
[url="http://home.scarlet.be/~tsh40803/AAA/BritGuardHorse.html"][/url]
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I believe that the winter CAN be blamed for alot of the losses due to the fact that loss of wagons WAS based on loss of ANIMALS that pulled them due to the climate. Or the poor condition of the roads which meant that much wheeled transport had to be left behind.

Weather killed many animals as they moved through Poland. No cossacks involved at all.

The Russian efforts are overrated. Its obvious when you read the histories that Kutusov let the winter do his work for him.

For instance, you can say that it was the illness that caused many to fall and out and thus be captured. And captured must also be considered part of the battles too. How do you divide that number up properly?

The French were down by many men before they even reached Smolensk. And more by the time that Borodino was faught. Deduct the desertions and so on no cossacks can account for the invasion losses (for the most part). On the retreat columns were cut off due to the poor condition of the road or swollen rivers. No cossack or hussar of Russia can lay claim on that.

Colonel Bill Peters, 17th Dragoons, III Corps, French Army
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt, Austerlitz and ... more to come)
Swiss-Swedish Army CinC, Musket and Cannon Game Club - Come over and see what we are all about!

Alexey and Bill,

Those are some really interesting statistics and well done for the effort in finding and presenting them Alexey. I believe a lot of what you are saying is correct, however I also agree that what Bill is saying is probably not far off the reality as well.

A balance of the two would seem to me more the answer. Especially when you throw in the combination of both the VASTNESS of inhospitable terrain and the UNDEVELOPED countryside and settlements. Europe provided a lot more opportunity to 'live of the land' and population centres able to provide for LARGE FORCES were considerably more available and over alternate routes.

I belive only the combination of Russian operational strategy, that was reliant on the environmental conditions above, was able to overcome the Napoleon and the French forces.

All credit to the Russian Command for identifying and exploiting this, however it cannot be classed as a brilliant strategy and it did not require a lot of military command and control effort on their part. The cossacks (a significant but again not decisive factor) for example were always able to operate idependantly, the communications network did not leave a lot of choice for alternate routes and approaches. The lesson of the indirect approach had been tuaght to the Russians from L'Emperor's previous victories (Austerlitz and the Polish campaign in particular). Borodino had proven to the Russians they were able to go toe to toe with the French soldier but were unable to defeat them in a stand up fight, even from prepared positions! Therefore it was academic that a large confrontational battle was not what the Russians desired until the French had been crippled through other means.

Take out the winter or take out the vast expanses of desolation then I believe the Russian operational and tactical abilities would not have beaten L'Emperor's forces. The combined strategy was the key to success and they achieved that easily in the end. Napoleon was unable to combat it or come up with an answer it.

Once in Europe the Russian forces could no lonnger use General Winter and General Desolation and had to rely on a combination of coalition armies all implementing the indirect approach to overcome Napoleon.



Col Mike Ellwood
Commander Officer
3rd Dragoon Division
Reserve Cavalry

I agree with you Mike. Had Russia invaded Europe at this time Napoleon would have had sufficient forces to defeat them.

It wasn't the best French-Allied army though and no doubt the Russians would have given Napoleon a run for his money.

Colonel Bill Peters, 17th Dragoons, III Corps, French Army
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt, Austerlitz and ... more to come)
Swiss-Swedish Army CinC, Musket and Cannon Game Club - Come over and see what we are all about!

Bill,
I was more concentrating on the retreat as obviously General Winter does not apply to summer month. Big number of non-combat losses were suffered during the advance to Smolensk – BEFORE they reached native Russian provinces as Belorussia and Lithuanian provinces could not possibly feed the masses of troops Napoleon assembled while poor infrastructure of Belorussia and Lithuania and speed of advance could not allow Grande Armee’s owns transports to catch up with troops.

I believe for this reason Napoleon had a lot of soldiers lost before they arrived into Russia itself. Secondary reason was the fact that Napoleon enlisted too many young men who should not have been enlisted on the first place. While doing inspection in Poland before the invasion he was not happy with the new conscripts.

<i>“I want soldiers who can endure daily hardship of warâ€

<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>
as the "average" attrition comes out higher than the one from the Russian campaign, it seems unlikely that this campaign is the single factor driving up the numbers.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

This is actually what suprised me the most while comparing these two sets of figures.

Major Alexey Tartyshev
Moscow Grenadiers Regiment
2nd Grenadier Division
8th Infantry Corps
2nd Army of the West (NWC)

The British defeated Napoleon at Waterloo?

What about the Prussians! I tire of hearing of the British getting the credit. Its as if Blucher had never shown up!

The army at Waterloo was not the best army that Wellington commanded. It was far too diverse. French blundering lost the day in my opinion. Not so much brilliance by Wellington as poor coordination of attacks.

Ok, the portion of the campaign are you examining mainly is the retreat. Yes, to say that the Russian generals (NOT KUTUSOV WHOM I RATE LOWER THAN SOME FRENCH GENERALS) should not get the credit is obviously wrong. However, lets say that the campaign takes place in Spring, Napoleon retreats in Summer. Would the Russians have captured as many men? I doubt it.

And everything I have ever read says that the Russians let the winter take its course and did not energetically press the French as much as they could. Thus except for battles and certain engagements, the prisoners they took were mainly victims of the winter. Not some brilliant Russian plan.

The key to seeing the Russians is to study Borodino. Only Raevsky and Tolly shine at that battle. Bagratian acted with vain character. Kutusov would not command as he should have.

So I am to believe that due to the brilliance of the Russians they are to be given the majority of the credit for the French losses?

No way, I can never buy that. The French concentrated very well and the Russians were rarely able to defeat them in battles during the retreat. And this with the French being outnumbered for the most part on worse mounts and with artillery being pulled by horses that were in poor condition.

Great gaps were left open for French troops to slip through when in fact if the cossacks were so good they should have been able to setup a series of relay posts sufficient enough to keep the Russian generals TOTALLY informed of French movements.

Anyway, its no use me spending alot of time on this as from what I have read from both Russian and European sources the retreat was a tragic event that would have been MUCH different had it taken place in July.

Colonel Bill Peters, 17th Dragoons, III Corps, French Army
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt, Austerlitz and ... more to come)
Swiss-Swedish Army CinC, Musket and Cannon Game Club - Come over and see what we are all about!

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bill Peters</i>
<br />The British defeated Napoleon at Waterloo?


What about the Prussians! I tire of hearing of the British getting the credit. Its as if Blucher had never shown up!

The army at Waterloo was not the best army that Wellington commanded. It was far too diverse. French blundering lost the day in my opinion. Not so much brilliance by Wellington as poor coordination of attacks.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I have been sarcastic when referring to Waterloo as "British victory".

This was just to demonstrate the common stereotype – I bet if you do a survey amongst British students hardly anyone would know that out 120,000 Allied troops at Waterloo only 25,000 were British or that there were any other troops involved apart from British. Similarly, the common perception of is that “General Winterâ€

I think the efects of "General Winter" were so overwhelming that it has to be considered the single greatest contributor to the disaster. If General Winter did not sufficiently weaken the French none of the other factors e.g. Cossacks, Russian Army, partisans would have been nearly as significant. In fact without General Winter I doubt there would have been a retreat at all. The winter was equally harsh to both sides and by the end of the retreat the Russian Army was in very bad shape itself and had to abort the pursuit until spring. I think Napoleons lack of understanding of the Russian winter and inability to sustain an a large army so deep in Russia was one of his two greatest blunders. I think Alexely that General Winter enable the Russians to defeat Napoleon and I don't believe they could have without him.


Lieutenant General
Ed Blackburn
Commanding Second Div, II Corps, AAA
3rd Bn / 1st Regiment of Foot Guards

And what about "General Summer", who killed tens of thousands of horses, even before Borodino?

There are so many factors, but they all lead me to a conclusion that it was logistics and supply issues that bled Grande Armee of 1812 to death. Some were caused by bad decisions of the French HQ, some were caused by good decisions of the Russian HQ, some were caused by weather, some were caused by guerilla, some were caused by untrained recruits, some were caused by poor infrastructure in Russia, some were caused by enormous distances involved. Some could have been solved there & then, but some were unavoidable considering technology & knowledge at that time.

Colonel Dominik Derwinski (LoH, OCR, OE, CV, EM, MM)
Duc de Sacile et Comte de Garonne
Commandant Cavalerie de la Jeune Garde
La Grande Armée - IIIe Corps d'Armée - 2ème Division (Friant)

In all European battles with the Russians alone Napoleon was successful.

The Polish campaign was a winter campaign, albiet short, in the 'poor infrastructure' of eastern Europe.

Without a hard and full season of 'General Winter' and without the restrictive and desolute nature of the Russian terrain the Russians were unable to defeat Napoleon in Europe.

Twice Napoleon was defeated in Europe, Liepzig and Waterloo. Both times with a combination of nations, overwhelming numbers and after a series of attritional battles where Napoleon recieved little or no reinforcements and the allies considerable (in relation to any additional French numbers).

No nation alone was ever able to defeat Napoleon. Without General winter and without General Desolation (of the Russian countryside) it is probable that Russia would likely have been overun on a number of occassions both prior to and post the Napoleonic period. Certainly by Napoleon had those two combined conditions not been present. Exactly the same as England and her Island fortress. Russia has her own fortress of circumstances.

Yes Napoleon underestimated this combination and yes the Russian command utilised the combination to gain the success. 1812 was the Russian's only independant strategic and operational success. This allowed them not to depend on battlefield success againt Napoleon and only against his subordinates when success was assured. The strategy latter utilised in 1813/14.

To infer the Russian generals, soldiers or system were superior to Napoleon and the French is unlikely to find any considered agreeance.

Col Mike Ellwood
Commander Officer
3rd Dragoon Division
Reserve Cavalry

As for the geo-political considerations of Kutuzov and the Russians it is correct that without a strong France that England would be dominant in the world. Napoleon recognised that, if Kutuzov did too then all credit to him. I believe the Russian Emperor was convinced for a short while of this too.

Why then did they not stay allied with France and Napoleon? This to me is a most intriguing question, as that alliance would have been dominant world wide had they been able to operate as such and destroy or marginalise the English navy.

My interpretation is that Alexander was swayed by the Russian isolation from Europeand, the percieved 'divine hereditary' of the european monarch's 'club' and the ever present short term economic advantages Britian waived under the corrupt and self interest noses of the European powers.

To that end it can be argued the greatest winner from the Napoleonic period were in fact the British. Thus the British strategy ultimately won out over all others. They became the dominant world power.

Fascinating isn't it [:)]

Col Mike Ellwood
Commander Officer
3rd Dragoon Division
Reserve Cavalry