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and 1940, standing alone, united and undaunted is the finest of all wartime memories. But even from the narrowest and most selfish conception of Russian or British interests 1940 and 1812 were not enough. To remove the enemy threat meant taking the war beyond the country’s borders, and it required allies. In 1941 Hitler and Tojo kindly provided the British with these allies. In 1813 Alexander had to take the great risk of invading central Europe with his exhausted and weakened army to mobilize his potential allies, at times almost needing to grab them by the scruff of the neck in order to get them to serve their own and Europe’s interests. The courage, skill and intelligence he showed in first creating the allied coalition and then leading it to Paris was remarkable.

Alexander acted in this way first and foremost because of a correct view that this is what the interests of Russia – empire, state and people – demanded. This is not to deny that Nikolai Rumiantsev was also partly correct in seeing growing British economic hegemony across the globe as the most important underlying reality of the age. This certainly helps one to put the Napoleonic Wars into global perspective and to understand their logic. But for Russia in 1812–13 the overriding priority had to be the ending of Napoleonic control of Germany. So long as Napoleon held Germany he would be much more powerful than Alexander. The financial costs of sustaining Russian security against the threat he represented would soon become intolerable. Vital Russian security and economic interests could therefore not be protected. In the winter of 1813–14, with Germany liberated, the arguments for and against invading France and seeking to topple Napoleon were more evenly balanced. Perhaps Alexander believed that by so doing it would be easier to satisfy his ambitions in Poland, but the Russian documents show clearly that this was not his main motivation. On the contrary, the emperor believed that so long as Napoleon ruled neither the German settlement nor European peace would be secure.

The basic point was that Alexander was convinced that Russian and European security depended on each other. That is still true today. But perhaps there is some inspiration to be drawn from a story in which the Russian army advancing across Europe in 1813–14 was in most places seen as an army of liberation, whose victories meant escape from Napoleon’s exactions, an end to an era of constant war, and the restoration of European trade and prosperity.

Alexander I

The Commanders

Mikhail Barclay de Tolly

Mikhail Kutuzov

Levin von Bennigsen

Peter von Wittgenstein

Diplomacy and Intelligence

Petr Rumiantsev

Karl von Nesselrode

Aleksandr Chernyshev

Christoph von Lieven

The Statesmen

Mikhail Speransky

Aleksei Arakcheev

Dmitrii Gurev

Fedor Rostopchin

Heroes of 1812

Petr Bagration

Mikhail Miloradovich

Matvei Platov

Eugen of Württemberg

Headquarters

Petr Volkonsky

Aleksei Ermolov

Karl von Toll

Johann von Diebitsch

Army of Silesia

Alexandre de Langeron

Fabian von der Osten-Sacken

Ilarion Vasilchikov

Johann von Lieven

Organising the Rear

Aleksei Gorchakov

Dmitrii Lobanov-Rostovsky

Georg Kankrin

Andrei Kologrivov

Private: Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment

Private: Finland Guards Regiment

Private: Riazan Infantry Regiment

Lieutenant: field artillery of the line - heavy battery

Private: Ekaterinoslav Cuirassier Regiment

Lieutenant: Guards Dragoon Regiment

Private: Sumi Hussar Regiment

Private: Lithuania Lancer Regiment

Napoleon awards Grenadier Lazarev the Légion d’honneur at Tilsit

Borodino: the Raevsky Redoubt after the battle

Spring 1813: the Cossacks in Hamburg

Fère-Champenoise: the Cossack Life Guard Regiment attacks French infantry

Appendix 1

The Russian Army in June 1812

First Western Army: General M. B. Barclay de Tolly

Chief of Staff: Lieutenant-General N. I. Lavrov

Quartermaster-General: Major-General S. A. Mukhin

Duty