“Russia Against Napoleon: The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace”, by Dominic Lieven

 

656 pages, Viking Adult, ISBN-13: 978-0670021574

I guess that Dominic Lieven thought he needed a hook for his book, Russia Against Napoleon: The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace, and so decided that by linking this colossal blunder on Napoleon’s part to Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece would do the trick…I mean, more books have been written about Napoleon Bonaparte than about anyone else in history, more than Christ, Mohammad, Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great (the last estimate for the number of books written on Napoleon was over 300,000). So I guess he thought he needed to stand out in a crowd, especially since his writing style is very dry and his book reads like a textbook written for a graduate course in Russian History. This last bit is important, as Lieven has apparently written a work for people who already have substantial knowledge of the Napoleonic wars and the Napoleonic era, for the reader is thrust directly into nuanced and rather detailed accounts of Russia’s internal politics, geopolitical machinations and battles. I, for one, was fine with this, seeing as I am familiar with all of this stuff, but the lay reader may find a lot of his facts and conclusions a touch mind-boggling if he is unaware of the context. Forewarned is forearmed.

That’s the bad news; the good news is that Lieven’s interpretation of the war is based on considerable research in Russian archives and extensive analysis of Russian secondary literature not used in most prior English language books. In contrast to most prior accounts that focus on Napoleon and tend to view the Russians as relatively passive reactors to French actions, Lieven emphasizes the actions and foresight of the Russian leaders, particularly the emperor Alexander I. Lieven argues well that the 1812 French invasion was the result of deliberate Russian decisions to pursue a war that would eventually allow formation of a Prussian-Austrian-Russian alliance against Napoleonic France and that the Russians anticipated and sought a war of attrition on their own soil. Lieven is particularly good on the complex role of Russian internal politics, the limits on Alexander's freedom of action, and the considerable limitations of the relatively primitive Russian state. In many ways, the best parts of the book are the accounts of how Alexander and his advisers pursued military reform and the administrative apparatus to logistically support the huge effort required by the decision to pursue war with the French. The descriptions of the remarkable efforts undertaken by the Russian state to defend Russia and then to support a large army that moves across much of Europe provide an outstanding look at the power and limitations of European states in this period.

Lieven takes pains to emphasize that the Russian victory was not due to the weather, disease or bad luck. Even before the first shots were fired, Alexander and his generals planned for a long war that would last past 1812 and eventually extend all the way to France. They realized that fighting alone, “Russia would never have destroyed Napoleon’s empire. For this a European grand alliance was needed. Creating, sustaining and to some extent leading this grand alliance was Alexander I's greatest achievement”. One comes away with a higher opinion of the tsar for his skillful, almost Machiavellian powers of manipulation, as he emerges as so wise and farsighted a ruler that almost the only criticism Lieven will make of him is that the czar lacked confidence in his own judgment. Considering the way he has been neglected or denigrated by other historians, such partisanship is forgivable. In the end, though, it was Alexander’s – and Russia’s – misfortune to have succeeded so completely, for victory over France removed any incentive for reforming Russian autocracy. A good, if complex look at the Russian war effort in the second half of the Napoleonic Age. Overall, a fine effort and much better than similar attempts to cover this period, in that it provides a much more complete picture of the Russian side of the conflict.