Russia and the Defeat of Napoleon (1812-14)

Abstract

Although a vast and often excellent literature exists on Napoleonic Wars, there remain important gaps and misconceptions in our understanding both of wars themselves and of context in which they were fought. Probably most significant of these gaps and misconceptions concern Russia's role in international relations (including, of course, wars) of Napoleonic era, which is very imperfectly understood both in Russia and in the (1) Some reasons for misunderstanding are specific to Russian or Western historians: in other respects, however, Russian and Western scholarship on era shares similar weaknesses. In this article I look first at Western and then at Russian writing on Russia's role in Napoleon's downfall. I seek to explain why Russia's part in collapse of Napoleon's empire has been misunderstood and underestimated both in Russia and West. I also point to ways in which this has distorted a realistic and balanced understanding of defeat of Napoleon both in Russia and abroad. Given manner in which wars of this era were mobilized by nationalist mythmakers, it is perhaps not surprising that enormous Russian contribution to destruction of Napoleon's empire should have been played down by British, French, and German historians. A more interesting problem is why Russian historians have also contributed to this underestimation of their own country's efforts. This article points finger, above all, at Russian obsession with military operations in 1812, which existed before 1917 Revolution but grew even stronger in Soviet era. The reverse side of this obsession was that Russian historians largely ignored events of 1813-14. Not merely did this do no justice to immense military-operational and logistical efforts of Russian state and army in those years, it also seriously distorted understanding even of Russian strategy in 1812. Inevitably, it also allowed British, French, and German historians free rein to interpret Napoleon's overthrow in manner best suited to serve their own national myths and historiographical traditions. The fundamental purpose of this article is therefore twofold. As regards Western historiography, its aim is to bring Russia back into center of picture, where it belongs. Meanwhile, article seeks to alert Russian historians to importance of 1813-14 as a time not just when tsarist state and army overcame enormous challenges with exceptional skill, but also when Russia made an immense contribution to European peace and stability, to which Russian empire's own security was inseparably linked. In West, very few academics have ever written on Russian military or even diplomatic history in Napoleonic era. (2) one important reason for this is lack of access to Russian military and diplomatic archives until 1990s. (3) Although much memoir material and many volumes of official military (4) and diplomatic (5) documents were published in both tsarist and Soviet eras, there remain key aspects of Russia's role in Napoleonic Wars which can be understood only through extensive research in Russian military archives. Above all, this is true if one attempts to move away from traditional narrow focus of Russian historiography on military operations in 1812. For example, it would be difficult to write convincingly on crucial issues such as mobilization of Russian rear, logistics, formation of reserve forces, or even military operations in 1813-14 without using Russian archival sources. At least as important, however, is fact that military history, and above all history of military operations, has been very unfashionable in Western universities in recent decades. Diplomatic history is only slightly less marginalized. (6) In addition, post-1945 Western scholarship on (3) Access to archives is again becoming a problem, with key archival buildings closing and their holdings awaiting relocation. …