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In addition, Pfühl’s ‘scientific’ predictions as to the precise moment when Napoleon’s supplies would run out may have appealed to Alexander’s liking for tidy, abstract ideas. Undoubtedly the emperor believed that Pfühl’s plan was based on the same concept as Barclay’s earlier proposals. He will also have remembered that in 1806–7 Bennigsen had kept at bay for six months an enemy double his numbers. Nevertheless there is room for some cynicism. Alexander did not want Napoleon to penetrate into the Russian heartland, though he feared that he might do so. Any open admission that Napoleon might reach Great Russia in his initial campaign, let alone the circulation of plans based on such an idea, would have destroyed the emperor’s credit. If Napoleon was to be stopped short of the Great Russian border, Pfühl’s plan seemed the only one currently available. Should it fail, Alexander knew that Pfühl would be the perfect scapegoat. A foreigner without protection, he was also despised by the Russian generals as the epitome of a German pedantic staff officer who knew nothing about war.52

Though Alexander may have retained faith in Pfühl’s plan even in June 1812, it is very hard to believe that the experienced Barclay allowed it greatly to affect his thinking on how the war should be conducted, given the advice he had received from the army’s chief engineer. From Barclay’s perspective, however, the camp at Drissa did no harm. It absorbed almost none of his resources, since it was built with local labour. It was also a useful stopping point in the army’s retreat and almost unique as a place where stores could be established for the retreating army under some kind of protection. In any case, final decisions on Russian strategy rested with the emperor, not with Barclay. But the best guide to Barclay’s thinking immediately before the war is provided by a memorandum written by Chuikevich in April 1812. It says nothing about fortified camps in general or the camp at Drissa in particular.

Chuikevich’s analysis was close to the ideas expressed earlier by Aleksandr Chernyshev. He argued that Napoleon’s whole system of war depended on big battles and rapid victories. For the Russians, the key to victory was ‘to plan and pursue a war exactly contrary to what the enemy wants’. They must retreat, raid enemy communications with their much superior light cavalry, and wear down Napoleon’s forces. ‘We must avoid big battles until we have fallen right back on our supply bases.’ In previous wars, when frustrated, Napoleon had made serious mistakes but his enemies had not exploited them. Russia must not miss this opportunity. Its cavalry could prove lethal in pursuit of a beaten foe. Determination not to negotiate and to continue the war until victory was vital but so too was caution; Fabius, the Roman general whose refusal of battle had so frustrated Hannibal, must be their guide. So too must Wellington’s policy of strategic withdrawal in the Peninsula. ‘However contrary this strategy based on caution is to the spirit of the Russian people, we must remember that we have no formed reserve units behind our front-line forces and the complete destruction of the First and Second armies could have fateful consequences for the Fatherland. The loss of a few provinces must not frighten us because the state’s survival depends on the survival of its army.’ Chuikevich also advocated a number of ways in which Europe might be incited to rise up in Napoleon’s rear. Though unrealistic, they do serve as a useful reminder that for him, Barclay and Alexander the 1812 campaign in Russia was merely the first act in a longer war designed to destroy Napoleon’s domination of Europe.53

Chuikevich’s memorandum did not go into details. It said nothing specific about where Napoleon’s advance might be stopped. Unlike Pfühl, Chuikevich was a practical soldier who understood the uncertainties of warfare. But no one who read the memorandum could be confident that Napoleon’s advance would be halted within the western borderlands. The danger that the war would spread into the Russian