Russia Against Napoleon_ The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace - Dominic Lieven [78]
Alexander’s actions and words around the time of Napoleon’s invasion provide some clues to his thinking. He told a Finnish official in August 1812 that the only way to unite Russian society behind the immense sacrifices needed to defeat Napoleon was for the latter to be seen as the aggressor and to invade Russian territory. Fighting on Russian soil, the emperor clearly felt he could appeal for ‘voluntary’ contributions towards the military build-up in a way that would not have been possible had he begun the war himself or fought it abroad, like all the other wars of the previous century. He had already begun to appeal for these contributions on the eve of Napoleon’s invasion. There was therefore a political and financial logic for a bankrupt government to delay full-scale mobilization until war was in sight and it could tap society for contributions. It continued to follow this policy throughout 1812.44
Planning for war began early in 1810. In March of that year Barclay de Tolly submitted a memorandum to Alexander entitled ‘The Defence of Russia’s Western Frontiers’. The document is crucial both for what it did and did not say. Most of its ideas underlay all subsequent planning by Barclay and Alexander, who in the end were the only two people who truly mattered when it came to deciding how to fight the war.
Barclay stressed that of all Russia’s borders the western one was the most vulnerable. It was enormously long and poorly defended by nature or man. Unlike most of Russia’s other borders, there had been no threat on the western frontier since Charles XII’s defeat at Poltava a century before. That explained its lack of fortifications. The minister argued that, if the territories annexed from Poland since 1772 were invaded by an enemy whose forces greatly outnumbered the Russian army, it would be impossible to defend them. The network of fortresses which alone would make it possible to hold this region would cost a fortune and take at least twenty-five years to build. In these circumstances the Russian army must stage a fighting withdrawal across the whole of Belorussia and Lithuania. It must eat up, remove or destroy all the food and fodder available in the region, leaving the enemy to sustain itself in a desert.
The key priority was to establish a strong defensive line along the rivers Dvina and Dnieper, where the Russians must make their stand. A number of fortresses and fortified camps must be constructed to strengthen this line. Barclay believed that it was ‘most probable’ that the enemy’s main thrust would be south-eastwards towards Kiev, though an advance north-eastwards into Courland and Livonia was also possible. In either case, the Russian army facing this advance would seek to slow it down by a fighting withdrawal, without, however, risking a major battle. As the threatened army retreated into its fortified camp, the Russian army at the other end of the line would seek to advance into the enemy’s rear. Barclay added that ‘one cannot expect that the enemy would dare to advance in the centre’ – in other words towards Minsk and Smolensk – but if it did so then the small ‘Reserve Army’ deployed there would draw the enemy onwards and the two main Russian armies would strike into its flanks and rear.
Of Russia’s twenty-three existing divisions, Barclay argued that eight would need to remain in Finland, the Caucasus and the Ottoman border to defend these regions. This assumed some construction of fortresses in Finland, peace with the Ottomans and no Austrian invasion of Wallachia and Moldavia. Even given this optimistic scenario only fifteen divisions – barely 200,000 men – would be available for the western front. Seven of these divisions were to be deployed in the south, in other words on the left of the Russian line. They would block an enemy advance