Russia Against Napoleon (56 page)

The generous provision of horses, officers and veteran troopers goes a long way to explaining why Kologrivov made such a success of forming the cavalry reserves but it is far from the whole story. According to his aide-de-camp, the poet Aleksandr Griboedov, Kologrivov organized not just horse hospitals, blacksmiths and other obvious adjuncts to a depot for cavalry but also picked recruits with key skills, trained others and created workshops to manufacture horse furnishings, saddles and uniforms, thereby not just saving the state a great deal of money but also freeing himself from overdependence on the war ministry’s commissariat.
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Between March and September 1813 Kologrivov sent 106 squadrons to the Field Army. In November 1813 he sent another 63 and had almost as many more ready for dispatch. Dmitrii Lobanov-Rostovsky spent much of his time inspecting units of the Reserve Army before their departure to the Field Army. His comments about the cavalry were always complimentary in all respects. He was usually satisfied with his infantry and artillery reserves too but the artillery’s horses were a frequent cause of complaint, as was the infantry’s equipment. Though he thought most of his departing infantry well trained, there were exceptions. In December 1813, for instance, he commented that the reserves now departing to reinforce Wittgenstein’s corps were too young and needed more time to prepare for combat.
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Perhaps the fairest judges were foreigners, however, not least because they were inclined to make informed comparisons. On 8 June 1813 Sir Robert Wilson watched as Alexander inspected the Guards and Grenadier reserves just arrived from Petersburg and Iaroslavl. Aware that they had spent the last three months on the march, he was astonished by their appearance:

These infantry…and their appointments appeared as if they had not moved further than from barracks to the parade during that time. The horses and men of the cavalry bore the same freshness of appearance. Men and beasts certainly in Russia afford the most surprising material for powder service. If English battalions had marched a tenth part of the way they would have been crippled for weeks and would scarcely have had a relic of their original equipments. Our horses would all have been foundered, and their backs too sore even for the carriage of the saddle.
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Colonel Rudolph von Friederich was the head of the historical section of the Prussian general staff. He had no doubt that the Russian reserves who arrived during the armistice were much superior to most of the Prussian and Austrian reinforcements who joined their field armies at that time. The Russian was ‘an excellent soldier, of course without any intellect, but brave, obedient and undemanding. Their arms, clothing and equipment were very good and on the whole they were well trained.’ Above all, these soldiers who had survived months of gruelling marches were extremely tough and resilient. As to the cavalry, they were ‘in general excellently mounted, well-trained and impeccably uniformed and equipped’. Friederich’s only criticism of the Russian reinforcements was that ‘only the jaeger regiments had been taught to skirmish’.
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As regards training, it helped that the great majority of the reserves had arrived in the Field Army’s encampments by the end of June. Most reserve units were broken up and distributed among the army’s battalions and squadrons. The July weather was fine and the Field Army’s regiments possessed the free time and the veterans to help complete the reserves’ training, including intensive shooting practice. Friedrich von Schubert was the chief of staff of Baron Korff’s cavalry in Langeron’s army corps. In his memoirs he wrote that

the reserve squadrons, new recruits and remounts arrived in the regiments from Russia and the training and exercising of the men and the horses lasted from morning until night: it was a very hectic, brisk but cheerful business…the same happened in the infantry and artillery…Our efforts paid off because at the end of the armistice the Russian army was in better condition than at the beginning of the war: fully up to strength, well-equipped, healthy, full of courage and enthusiasm for battle, and with a mass of experienced and tested generals, officers and soldiers in numbers it had never previously possessed.
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The Russian reinforcements moving westwards in the spring and summer filled not just the Field Army but also the allied strategic reserve, in other words the so-called Army of Poland which Alexander ordered General Bennigsen to form in early June.
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Bennigsen’s four infantry divisions had been blockading the fortresses of Modlin and Zamosc in the spring. Some of their units had also been performing an internal security role in Poland. At one point their combined strength was less than 8,000 men. By the end of the armistice, however, just these four divisions were 27,000 strong. In September Bennigsen’s army, which included Count Petr Tolstoy’s militia corps, advanced through Silesia to join the Field Army.
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But Bennigsen’s army could not just set off to Saxony, uncovering the French garrisons besieged in Modlin and Zamosc and leaving the Duchy of Warsaw denuded of troops. When the autumn campaign began, Napoleon was poised in Silesia, within jumping distance of the Polish border. Many Poles awaited his arrival with impatience. If he advanced through Silesia, his fortresses at Danzig, Modlin and Zamosc would become very important. When Alexander ordered Bennigsen forward, he therefore instructed Dmitrii Lobanov-Rostovsky’s Reserve Army to move across the Duchy of Warsaw and take over his role of blockading Modlin and Zamosc, watching Warsaw and Lublin, and overawing the Polish population. At the same time Lobanov was to continue with his troops’ training and to prepare to dispatch further reinforcements to the Field Army.
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In the last months of the war the Reserve Army played a crucial and successful role in Alexander’s strategy. By deploying Lobanov’s men across the Duchy of Warsaw the emperor had released Bennigsen’s army to make what proved to be a major contribution to the autumn 1813 campaign. The Reserve Army’s blockade of Modlin and Zamosc led to the fall of both these fortresses in the winter of 1813. Throughout this period the Reserve Army’s reinforcements continued to flow to the Field Army in Germany and France. At the end of the war, strengthened by troops released by the fall of Danzig and by the first wave of recruits from the 85th recruit levy, the Reserve Army was at unprecedented strength, with more than 7,000 officers and 325,000 men on its rolls. As always, paper strengths did not accurately reflect the numbers actually present in the ranks. Moreover, many of the soldiers were not yet fully trained or armed, and almost one-quarter were sick. Nevertheless, had the struggle with Napoleon continued there would have been no doubt of Russia’s ability to pull its weight on the battlefield. Also to the point, at a moment when other powers might contest Alexander’s right to Poland, not merely did he have a formidable army in the field to deter them, he could also point to a fresh force of well over a quarter of a million men positioned in the region which he was claiming.
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The armistice between Napoleon and the allies was agreed on 4 June. Initially it was set to continue until 20 July. Subsequently, at Austria’s insistence, the allies very unwillingly agreed to extend it until 10 August. During the armistice a peace conference opened in Prague, with Austria mediating between the two sides. Before the conference convened Austria had secretly committed itself to joining the allied cause unless Napoleon agreed to the four minimal Austrian conditions for peace by 10 August. When he failed to do so Austria declared war and the autumn 1813 campaign began. Once this campaign started diplomacy largely took a back seat for three months. The Russians, Prussians and Austrians were agreed on the need to get Napoleon out of Germany and back across the Rhine, and were also agreed that this could only be achieved by military means. Had Napoleon won the initial battles it is possible that rifts would have reopened between the allies, and Austria would have resumed negotiations with Napoleon. In fact, however, diplomacy was mostly confined to consolidating the alliance between the four great powers fighting Napoleon and drawing the smaller German states to their side. Unlike in the spring of 1813 all the decisive moments in the autumn campaign occurred on the battlefield.

On the eve of the armistice Alexander sent Nesselrode to Vienna to clear up misunderstandings and urge the Austrians to take a firmer stand against Napoleon. On the way he met Francis II and Metternich; the latter had decided that at this moment of supreme crisis it was essential for himself and his sovereign to be closer to events. Face-to-face negotiations might well reduce distrust and misunderstanding between the allies and Austria. They would certainly avoid the delays created as messengers shuttled to and from Vienna. For the next ten weeks European top-level diplomacy was concentrated in the small area between Napoleon’s headquarters at Dresden, allied headquarters at Reichenbach in south-western Silesia, the great north-eastern Bohemian chateaux of Gitschin and Ratiborsitz, where many private meetings between the allied leaders occurred, and the Bohemian capital, Prague, where the peace conference took place.

Nesselrode had a series of discussions with Metternich, Francis II and the Austrian military leaders, Schwarzenberg and Radetsky, between 3 and 7 June. Both generals were enthusiastic supporters of entry into the war, so their explanations of the problems facing the Habsburg army’s preparations carried conviction. Nesselrode trusted and saw eye-to-eye with Metternich, whom he had known for many years, and he brought back to allied headquarters a memorandum setting out Austrian views on peace conditions. He emerged from his conversations with all the Austrian leaders convinced that Francis II was indeed the main obstacle to Austria joining the allies but that his opposition was by no means insurmountable. There was no chance, however, of moving the Austrian monarch towards war until Napoleon had been offered and rejected very moderate and minimal terms of peace.

These minimal terms boiled down to four points. The Duchy of Warsaw must be re-partitioned between the Russians, Austrians and Prussians: Prussia must get back Danzig, and Napoleon must evacuate all the fortresses on Prussian and Polish territory: Illyria must be returned to Austria: Hamburg and Lübeck must regain their independence immediately, and other French-occupied towns on the North Sea and Baltic coastlines in due course. On the eve of Nesselrode’s return to allied headquarters at Reichenbach, Metternich wrote to the anxious Philipp Stadion that he had enjoyed many good conversations with the Russian diplomat and that both men understood and appreciated their two countries’ interests and positions. ‘Nesselrode is very well disposed to us and will depart very happy. I believe that I can fully promise you this. His mission has been of real benefit.’
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After Nesselrode’s return to Reichenbach a series of meetings between the Russian and Prussian leaders discussed their response to Metternich’s memorandum and the peace terms which would satisfy the allies. The basic point was that the Russians and Prussians were stuck. They badly needed Austrian assistance. As Nesselrode reminded Christoph Lieven, ‘recent events have shown us just what resources Napoleon still possesses’. Only Austrian intervention could swing the balance in the allies’ favour. Given ‘the extreme distaste which the Emperor Francis shows for war’, the allies had no option but to accept Metternich’s strategy of presenting very moderate terms to Napoleon and comforting themselves with the thought that ‘however inadequate they seem to us, it is very unlikely that the enemy will accept the Austrian conditions, given what we know of Napoleon’s character’. But of course there was a risk that Napoleon would surprise the allies by accepting the Austrian terms. As Metternich subsequently wrote to Stadion, ‘no one could be a reliable judge’ of how Napoleon would react when he finally woke up to the imminent threat of Austrian intervention, ‘given the peculiar character of the man on whom in the last resort peace depends’.
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The Russian problem was that Alexander and Nesselrode were convinced that the Austrian minimal terms were wholly inadequate to guarantee a lasting peace. The very high stakes involved concentrated Russian thinking. More minor issues went out of the window. Alexander and Nesselrode concerned themselves exclusively with achieving a stable peace which would guarantee Russian security. They focused almost entirely on the German question, which they saw as the key Russian interest. Since their thinking was displayed not just in communications to other powers but also in secret internal memorandums there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of their views.

Both Alexander and Nesselrode were convinced that if Napoleon continued to control most of Germany there could be no true European balance of power and no security for Prussia, Austria or Russia. They believed that if Austria only regained Illyria it would still be at Napoleon’s mercy. At a minimum it needed to get back Tyrol, the fortress of Mantua and a strategically defensible frontier in northern Italy along the river Mincio. Understandably, however, the Russians left the Austrians to worry about their own salvation and concentrated on defending Prussian security. The four Austrian conditions would have left Napoleon as master of the Confederation of the Rhine, with his brother Jérôme still on the throne of the kingdom of Westphalia. He would also hold almost the whole length of the river Elbe, including all its key fortified crossings. In these circumstances ‘any hope for the independence of any part of Germany would be lost for good. Prussia would constantly be exposed to attacks which could come at any moment and against which it could only offer a feeble defence, and the Emperor Napoleon could almost at will make himself master of the Baltic coastline, so that any hope of the security of trade would be entirely illusory.’
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Nesselrode wrote to Metternich that, if peace was concluded on the basis of the four Austrian points, it would only be a truce, which would allow Napoleon sufficient time to restore his armies and then reimpose his unchallenged domination of Europe. The sine qua non for any true peace was that Prussia and Austria had to be strong enough to balance France. The stronger they were, the less likely Napoleon would be to challenge the peace settlement. Nesselrode emphasized the uniquely favourable present circumstances. For the first time since 1793 the armies of the three eastern monarchies were potentially united and concentrated for battle in the same theatre. They were superior in numbers, spirit and organization to Napoleon. ‘It would be difficult, maybe even impossible, to re-create a similar conjunction of circumstances if the present ones did not lead to a result which, after so many efforts and sacrifices, did not erect powerful barriers against France.’ If peace was made on the Austrian terms, history would repeat itself. After a short breathing space Napoleon would once again confront Austria and Prussia, who would be too weak and exhausted successfully to resist him. As in the past, the issue would be resolved before Russia’s distant armies could come to her allies’ aid.
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The Treaty of Reichenbach between Austria, Russia and Prussia signed on 27 June set out the four minimal Austrian conditions and guaranteed that Austria would enter the war unless Napoleon had accepted them by the expiry of the armistice on 20 July. The allies made it clear to Metternich, however, that although they would enter negotiations on this basis they would only sign a peace if it included other terms which would end Napoleon’s domination of Germany and guarantee Prussian security. Relations between Austria and the allies reached their lowest ebb when Metternich returned from discussions with Napoleon in Dresden and imposed an extension of the armistice until 10 August. Some of the loudest denunciations of this extension came from Baron Stein. In his case the normal allied view that Austrian peace terms were inadequate was enhanced by fierce disagreement with Metternich about the war’s ultimate goals. Stein wanted a reborn and more united German confederation with a constitution guaranteeing civil and political rights. He appealed to German nationalist feeling to achieve this. Since April 1813, however, Stein’s influence with Alexander had been in decline as Germany failed to revolt against Napoleon and the allies’ need for Austrian assistance became more pressing. Now he attempted to strike back, claiming that Metternich was pulling the wool over allied eyes and that with half a million Russians, Prussians and Swedes ready to take the field against 360,000 enemy troops Austrian help was probably unnecessary anyway. Previously he had supported Nesselrode because the latter shared Stein’s view that Russia should commit herself wholeheartedly to the liberation of Germany from Napoleon. Now, however, he called Nesselrode Metternich’s dupe, a well-meaning but empty weakling.
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In reality Nesselrode was right and Stein was wrong. The allies could not have driven Napoleon out of Germany without Austrian help. At the very moment when Stein was writing these denunciations Metternich was moving quietly to swing Austria towards the allied camp. With peace negotiations now in the offing, Metternich wrote to Francis II that it was essential that he and the emperor were in complete agreement as to future policy. The peace negotiations might have three outcomes. The two sides might agree terms, in which case Austria need only rejoice. Metternich did not need to spell out to Francis how unlikely this outcome was, since the Austrians were well aware how far apart the opposing sides were as regards acceptable peace terms. A second and somewhat likelier possibility was that Napoleon would accept the Austrian minimal terms and the allies would reject them. Metternich wrote that Austria could not determine in advance what to do in this event since to some extent it would depend on contexts and circumstances. Under no circumstances could it side with France, however, and the defeat or dissolution of the allied coalition would be a great threat to Austrian security. Armed neutrality might be a short-term option but it would be very difficult to sustain for any length of time and the only other alternative would be to join the allies.

Metternich’s memorandum concentrated, however, on the third and likeliest possibility, which was that Napoleon would reject the Austrian terms. In that case Metternich’s unequivocal advice was that Austria must declare war. He concluded his memorandum with a question: ‘Can I count on Your Majesty’s firmness in the event that Napoleon does not accept Austria’s conditions for peace? Is Your Majesty resolutely determined in that case to entrust a just cause to the decision of arms – both those of Austria and of the whole of the rest of united Europe?’
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Francis responded that any decent man must desire stable and lasting peace and that this was all the more true for a sovereign like himself who bore responsibility for the well-being of ‘his good subjects’ and their ‘beautiful lands’. No greed for territory or other advantages could justify war. But he trusted Metternich’s judgement: ‘To a great extent I have you to thank for the present excellent political situation of my monarchy.’ Therefore he agreed with his foreign minister’s conclusions. In the event that Napoleon accepted Austria’s terms and the allies rejected them he would await Metternich’s advice. If Napoleon rejected the Austrian terms then the monarchy would declare war on France.
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In the end therefore everything depended on Napoleon and he played into the allies’ hands. The French representatives at the Prague peace conference arrived late and without powers to negotiate terms. Nothing could have done more to confirm Austrian suspicions that Napoleon was merely playing for time and had no interest in peace. Not until two days before the armistice was due to expire did Napoleon make a serious diplomatic move. On 8 August Caulaincourt, one of the two French delegates to the peace conference, visited Metternich’s quarters to enquire what price Austria required to stay neutral or join the French camp. Not until the day after the armistice expired did the French provide Metternich with a response to the four minimal peace conditions set out by Austria. Napoleon agreed to abandon the Poles and hand over much of Illyria to Austria. He conceded nothing as regards the north German ports, rejected Prussian annexation of Danzig, and required compensation for the King of Saxony to make up for the fact that he had lost his position as Duke of Warsaw. These conditions would never have satisfied Metternich and by now it was in any case too late. Austria had closed the peace conference and now declared war on France.

Ever since August 1813 most historians, French ones included, have condemned Napoleon’s ineptitude in failing to use diplomacy to divide the allies and keep Austria neutral. Even the inadequate concessions presented to Metternich on 11 August might have made an impact on Francis II if put forward as a first move at the beginning of the peace conference. There was room to exploit differences in Austrian and Russo-Prussian war aims, as regards both German and Polish territories. If the peace conference could be extended to include Britain, Napoleon’s chances of sowing dissension must improve further. All the continental powers resented the fact that, while their territories had been occupied and ravaged, the United Kingdom had remained inviolate and become seemingly ever richer. They hoped to achieve territorial concessions by Napoleon in Europe in return for British willingness to hand back French colonies.