When you ask those with a general knowledge of world history how Napoleon lost Russia after taking her capital, they will tell you that it was that nation’s fabled winter. This explanation while broadly true ignores much about the military genius of the French Emperor. He was aware of the challenges of holding his conquests and knew the importance of maintaining supply lines and weathering, if you will the changes of season.
What Napoleon did not count on when he took Moscow was the survival of that’s army and its ability to cut off his supply lines. The Russian army might not have survived Napoleon had it not been for one man: Field Marshal Prince Mikhail Ilarionovich Golenishev-Kutuzov, known to history, as Kutuzov. Had Kutuzov not ordered Russian troops to retreat after the French scored a minor victory at Borodino and allowed Napoleon to take Moscow, there likely never would have been a Waterloo. And New Zealand’s capital would have a different name.
And yet Kutuzov is not nearly as well-known as Wellington.
With his new biography of the Russian Field Marshal, Alexander Mikaberidze seeks to correct that. In a well-researched (over 200 pages of footnotes) book, this Georgian scholar of the Napoleonic wars offers a readable account of how this son of Russian nobility rose to command his nation’s armies just as all seemed lost.
Kutuzov served in Poland, Finland and in various campaigns against the Ottomans, twice suffering injuries to his face, resulting in permanent damage to his right eye.
Tapped to be director general of the Land Noble Cadet Corps, “one of the premier institutions of military education in Russia,” Kutuzov revised its curriculum, “which he found too theoretical and detached.” Drawing “upon his experiences”, Mikaberidze writes, “Kutuzov sought to reorient it to the corps’s original objective—that of training a new generation of military officers.” His program “centered on practical military matters rather than on nonmilitary subjects.”
But Kutuzov learned more than just military tactics. He also learned to play court politics. He studied the tenets of French philosopher and moralist Jean de La Bruyére and became “an accomplished courtier”. As Sergei Mayevskii observed, “no one could match his ability to induce a person to talk or make someone feel special; and no one was as subtle as Kutuzov in sweet-talking and hoodwinking a person he chose to deceive or enchant…. He possessed the craftiest political mind.”
He became a great favorite of Catherine the Great. But despite his political skills, Kutuzov struggled to gain the same esteem in the courts of her successors.
Still. he commanded Russian armies, defeating the Turks in the Bessarabian campaign of 1811, helping secure a treaty on May 28, 1812 that ended “the longest war between the Russian and Ottoman Empires”. Less than a month later, Napoleon’s Grande Armée would gross the Nieman River, invading the Russian Empire. As Napoleon advanced, the Russian army faltered. Clamor arose for Barclay de Tolly, the then-commander, to be replaced.
While there was broad support for Kutuzov to take command, Czar Alexander I was not as favorably disposed to his grandmother’s favorite as she had been. But the czar understood his nation’s need. So, imposing silence on his own feelings, on August 19, 1812, he appointed Kutuzov “as the supreme commander of Russia’s armed forces.”
Nineteen days later, Kutuzov would face off against Napoleon near a little town barely seventy miles west of Moscow: Borodino. There, in one of the bloodiest battles in world history, the French would score a Pyrrhic victory. The Russian army was “driven back from its original positions on the left and in the center but still held a defensive line on the right”.
Having not been completely vanquished, some Russians wanted to stay and fight another day. Kutuzov knew better. He saw how devastated his army was. Still, he announced “an impending attack” in order to “keep the units together and create the impression that the army was in better shape than in actually was.” This announcement was, as his orderly reported, made out of “political considerations”, but as Mikaberidze notes, “these were crucial considerations.”
The political skills Kutuzov gained in learning to maneuver through aristocratic circles as court served him well as he prepared to retreat to Mozhaisk, the Russian army still intact. It may have been early September, but the savvy Russian strategist knew that winter was coming.
His army survived to defeat Napoleon’s forces at Tarutino, prompting the Emperor to abandon Moscow before it was surrounded. And an intact Russian army would harry him as he retreated. He may have scored “a tactical victory” at Maloyaroslavets, but “realized that Kutuzov still held an operational advantage.” While this was only the “third-largest engagement of the campaign”, Mikaberidze writes that it “surpassed the other battles in importance” as “it forced the French to retrace their footsteps through the devastated provinces, where they could not hope to secure sufficient provisions.”
The rest is, as they say, history. Without adequate provisions, Napoloen’s Grande Armée could not weather the Russian winter.
Russia was lost to Napoleon. Soon Germany and Austria would be as well.
In this biography of Kutuzov, Alexander Mikaberidze shows how, through his education in military strategy and tactics as well as court politics, Kutuzov gained the skills to turn a defeat at Borodino into a victory for his nation. And so outwitted one of the greatest military minds of all time.
All too many, even those who study history, know all too little of Prince Mikhail Ilarionovich Golenishev-Kutuzovose. But given the role he played in helping end the Napoleonic Wars, his story needs telling. And that is why Alexander Mikaberidze’s biography needs reading.
Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with fast, free delivery
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Join or create book clubs
Choose books together
Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Frequently bought together
$29.45
Get it as soon as Tuesday, May 14
In Stock
+
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Choose items to buy together.
Similar items that may ship from close to you
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
From the Publisher
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
About the author
Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2023
Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2023
Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2023
Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2023
Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2022
Top reviews from other countries
Colin Platt
Brilliant insight to a complex general
Reviewed in Australia on December 11, 2022