Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814

by Dominic Lieven

A major new history of the Russian conflict immortalized by Tolstoy in War and Peace Russia's expulsion of Napoleon's Grande Armée in 1812 is considered one of the most dramatic events in European history. However, Tolstoyan myth and an imbalance of British and French interpretations have clouded most Westerners' understanding of Russia's role in the defeat of Napoleon. Based on a fresh examination of Russian military archives, Russia Against Napoleon provides the first-ever history of the period told from the Russian perspective. In Dominic Lieven's account, Russia's victory in 1812 was just the beginning of what would be the longest military campaign in European history, marked by Russia's epic efforts to feed and supply half a million troops as they crossed an entire continent. Moving from the 1807 treaty signed by Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I through the Russian army's improbable entry into Paris in 1814, Lieven provides suspenseful accounts of events, such as the burning of Moscow and the great battles of Leipzig and Borodino, as well as astute analyses of the great military strategists of the time. The result is a magisterial work sure to be eagerly anticipated by military and history buffs alike.

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction, War, France, Russian History, European History

656 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2009

About the author

Dominic Lieven is Professor of Russian studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science, a Fellow of the British Academy and of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Reviews

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tolstoy As Villain: Tolstoy, Tolstory, Tall Story

Russia’s defeat of Napoleon is one of the most dramatic stories in European history. The war has been immortalized by Tolstoy in his epic, War & Peace. There is no great puzzle as to why Russia fought Napoleon. How it fought him and why it won are much bigger and more interesting questions. To answer these questions requires one to demolish well-established myths.

It is not surprising that myths dominate Western thinking about Russia’s role in Napoleon’s defeat. What happened in 1812–14 is usually distorted in British, French and American books. Popular works on the Napoleonic era necessarily follow a rather set pattern.

Fascination with Napoleon, with the timeless lessons to be learned from military genius, along with the fame of Clausewitz, generally seen as the greatest of all thinkers on modern war, has meant that the Russian side of the story paled in comparison. And got short shrift. The result is that the Russian side of the story is ignored or misinterpreted, with historians largely seeing Russia through the prism of French- or German-language sources.

The European Myths

The distortions manifest first as sort of colonial racism. Napoleon himself set the tone by finding few words of praise for any Russian troops other than Cossacks - ascribing to them the cause of his own retreat. Blaming defeat on the Cossacks or the weather was useful. Since the French army had no Cossacks and the weather was an ‘unfair’ act of God, no French officer need fear that by invoking these sources of disaster he was questioning his own superior virility or professional skill.

Thus, studies of the 1812 campaign in English mostly concentrate on Napoleon’s mistakes, on the problems created for the French by Russia’s geography and climate. The year 1813 traditionally belongs to German authors celebrating the resurgence of Prussia and the triumph of German patriotism.

The Russian Distortion

Thus the rest of Europe had a complete version of how events transpired. But, what of Russia itself?

In Russia, the later Decembrist revolt and its suppression was the beginning of the exceptionally bitter split between right and left in Russia which eventually ended in the revolution of 1917. The violent hatred between the two camps helped to poison and distort memories of 1812–14.

When it took over the 1812 myth and made it an integral part of Soviet patriotism, the Communist regime to a great extent set such ideas in stone. The historical reality of Russia’s war effort had to be startlingly distorted to suit official ideology in the Stalinist era. Nobles and the Royalty had to be vilified; a folk hero in the form of Kutuzov had to be elevated; and the significance of mass resistance to Napoleon had to be exaggerated.

The Loudest Voice: Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy was by far the most important nineteenth-century mythmaker as regards his impact on Russian (and foreign) understanding of Russia’s role in the Napoleonic era. Tolstoy depicts elemental Russian patriotism as uniting in defense of national soil.

War and Peace has had more influence on popular perceptions of Napoleon’s defeat by Russia than all the history books ever written. By denying any rational direction of events in 1812 by human actors and implying that military professionalism was a German disease Tolstoy feeds rather easily into Western interpretations of 1812 which blame the snow or chance for French defeat.

And, perhaps most important in the context of this work, Tolstoy, by ending his novel War and Peace in December 1812 with the war only half over and the greatest challenges still to come, he also contributes greatly to the fact that both Russians and foreigners largely forget the huge Russian achievement in 1813–14 even in getting their army across Europe to Paris, let alone defeating Napoleon en route. Thus, the long, bitter but ultimately triumphant road that led from Vilna in December 1812 to Paris in March 1814 plays no part in his work, just as it was entirely marginalized in the Soviet patriotic canon and in contemporary Russian folk memory.

So instead of being a voice for Russia, this popular or ‘Tolstoyan’ Russian interpretation of the war fits rather well with foreign accounts that play down the role of Russia’s army and government in the victory over Napoleon.

Napoleon himself was much inclined to blame geography, the climate and chance; this absolved him from responsibility for the catastrophe. Historians usually add Napoleon’s miscalculations and blunders to the equation but many of them are happy to go along with Tolstoy’s implied conclusion that the Russian leadership had little control over events and that Russian ‘strategy’ was a combination of improvisation and accident.

Inevitably too, Russian lack of interest in 1813–14 left the field free for historians of other nations who were happy to tell the story of these years with Russia’s role marginalized.

Conclusion

The above is a summation of the basic premise of the book. The author goes on to demonstrate that these ‘stories’ are myths and tries to give a detailed analysis of how Russia really defeated Napoleon. He gives details of every campaign, including logistics, troop recruitment, weather patterns, foreign policy manipulations, chance events, etc. It is fascinating yet quite tedious.

For now, I can provide no comments on the author's thesis and can only form an opinion after further exploration of the events through other histories. To me, the premise of the book was more interesting and perhaps more important than the actual content itself, which is passably good but never intriguing.

I can comment on whether this really is essential reading or not for explorers of Tolstoy (and students of Russia, by default) only after finishing War & Peace, but for now it does seem to be.

[Brett C · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting read because it follows the Russian perspective of Napoleon's push into Russia. The book starts out with various maps and the first being the overall advance/retreat of the 1812 campaign. Other maps include a geopolitical map of 1812 Europe, the Smolensk region, the Borodino battlefield, engagements at Bautzen/Katzbach/Kulm, the Leipzig campaign, and other relative maps.

The author gives a good background of Peter the Great's Russia and leads up to Napoleon's invasion. The author gives comparison to Crimean War veteran Leo Tolstoy's perception, characters and setting, and states how "'War and Peace' has had more influence about Napoleon's defeat by Russia than all the history books ever written", pg. 525

Something I found helpful was the illustrated templates of the different combatants. A standard personal appreance picture follows for each at the rank of Private:
1. Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment
2. Finland Guards Regiment
3. Riazan Infantry Regiment
4. Field Artillery officer (Lieutenant)
5. Ekaterinoslav Cuirassier Regiment
6. Dragoon Guards Regiment (Lieutenant)
7. Sumi Hussar Regiment
8. Lithuanian Lancer Regiment

This was a readable book with lots of helpful details. Sometimes I thought it was dry and boring but overall was great. I would recommend it to anyone who wants the historical background in 'War and Peace' and the Napoleonic Wars. Thanks!

[Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Fact Check on War & Peace

Nineteen Century Russia is perhaps my favourite period in the country’s history and War and Peace by Count Leo Tolstoy is definitely my favourite Russian novel. Dominic Lieven is a titan of Russian history, everything he writes is of high quality, with immense knowledge and a thoughtful argument, which is hard to counter. Russia Against Napoleon, in combination of all these factors, for me is a masterpiece.

So we have one masterpiece challenging another. This is the goal of Lieven, to fact check the famous work and to dispel some of the rumours which have been built over the years. Tolstoy believed that events were out of control of individuals, famously pointed out in his epilogue, there were grand events and individual actions. The two never really crossing. Tolstoy also ended his story with the expulsion of the Grande Armée from mother Russia in 1812. Which is interesting as he originally wrote the novel to tell the story of the Decemberists in 1825, as he felt the war was a prelude. Lieven dispels both of these presumptions. He shows the importance of Tsar Alexander I and his close advisors as they challengers Napoleon and fought the war better than the experienced French Emperor and his marshals. The war also did not end in 1812. Three more years were to come, with the brief interlude of the 100 days. In this Russian armies swept across Europe before entering Paris, with Alexander hailed the savour of Europe.

Lieven shows it wasn’t the snow or good luck that defeated Napoleon. These did of course help, but it was the careful administration, prevision of food and horses, alongside the holding of nerve of the Tsar and commanders such as Kutuzov, von Bennigsen and Barclay de Tolly which showed the world the mighty French could be brought down. This in turn allowed the Russians to gather pace and get the Prussians and eventually the Austrians behind them. Driving the emperor west. The legitimacy and strength of Alexander’s reign and dynasty allowed him to pursue the Napoleon like a hunted fox out of Russia for so long. The Corsican general had to rush back to Paris as there were already talks of coups to overthrown him. The sneaky Talleyrand was already planning his next move.

Lieven himself is descended from the Russian military caste and so is able to delve into the inner workings at the top. He is able to place the skill of organisation of the Russians and their importance in the history of the security of Europe. Furthermore he is able to provide the Russian perspectives that have not been openly available to Western readers in the past, by drawing on previously unavailable archival material. Alongside all of this the Stalinist myth of a ‘great patriotic war’ where the peasants rose up on their own to see off the French or that Alexander was an incompetent despot, are finally washed away. An incredible book, one that stays on the shelf.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave this book five stars not because it is beautifully written, but because Russia Against Napoleon delivers not only more than its subtitle promises, but manages to upset much of the apple cart of Napoleonic history. Everyone knows the War and Peace story of Mikhail Kutuzov's courageous "escort" of the Napoleonic invading force to the borders of Central Europe.

But what happened next? That's where history commonly ignores the fact that the Russians continued their advance after Kutuzov's death -- continued it, in fact, into the heart of France, where they, with the help of Prussia and Austria, forced Napoleon to surrender. Lieven writes:

At one level it is absurd to call Leo Tolstoy the main villain in this misunderstanding. A novelist is not a historian. Tolstoy writes about individuals' mentalities, values and experiences during and before 1812. But War and Peace has had more influence on popular perceptions of Napoleon's defeat by Russia than all the history books ever written. By denying any rational direction of events in 1812 by human actors and implying that military professionalism was a German disease Tolstoy feeds rather easily into Western interpretations of of 1812 which blame the snow or chance for French defeat. By ending his novel in Vilna in December 1812 he also contributes greatly to the fact that both Russians and foreigners largely forget the huge Russian achievement in 1813-14 even getting their army across Europe into Paris, let alone defeating Napoleon en route. One problem with this is that marginalizing or misunderstanding as crucial an actor as Russia results in serious errors in interpreting how and why Napoleon's empire fell. But it is also the case that to understand what happened in 1812 it is crucial to realize that [Czar] Alexander [I] and Barclay de Tolly always planned for a long war, which they expected to begin with a campaign on Russian soil that would exhaust Napoleon but that would end in a Russian advance into Europe and the mobilization of a new coalition of anti-Napoleonic forces.

Under Lieven's interpretation, the hero of the Napoleonic wars was not Wellington, but Alexander I. He planned it, was at the battles, and exerted powerful diplomacy to raise anti-Napoleonic armies from two powers that Napoleon had already defeated: Prussia and Austria. Wellington beat Napoleon once, at Waterloo, but he had never encountered the Corsican in his battles in Spain and Portugal during the Peninsular Campaign.

When one reads Russia Against Napoleon, the name of Lieven crops up frequently. General Prince Christoph von Lieven and Lieutenant-General Prince Johann von Lieven were two Baltic German nobles in the Russian military who were ancestors of the Dominic Lieven, Professor of Russian History at the London School of Economics, who wrote this excellent and most deserving history.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book I read a long time ago and did not review at the time so my remarks now will necessarily be short, but they are based on what I remember thinking at the time.

Over the years I have read many books about in general and about the Russian campaign in particular and even as teenager I realised that all these books by American, English or French authors were based almost exclusively on French sources. Even pre-perestroika there was no excuse for the way the story of 1812 ignored the Russian perspective. The marvellous thing about Dominic Lieven's book is the way he tells the story from a Russian point of view. This allows him to show that Tsar Alexander I and his generals, diplomats and ministers had been preparing for war with Napoleon for some time. The light thrown on logistics is fascinating because so rarely mentioned in a work that is most definitely not a 'military' history nor is Professor Lieven a 'military' historian.

By providing a more rounded portrait of the war and what led up to it and happened in it then has been found in most Napoleon-centric histories the war takes on a depth and reality that is almost revelatory.

Professor Lieven is a great historian of Russia, particularly under the 'old regime', and his wealth of knowledge and broad research is on display but lightly worn. This is not popular history but the best kind of serious history that can be read and enjoyed by history buffs and used by students of hidtory as we.

If you like reading about Russia or Napoleon this is a book you nee to read.d

[Sud666 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having recently finished the superb classic "War and Peace" by Tolstoy, I decided to follow it up with a good military history of the conflict. Imagine the pleasure I found in this superb military history, that also incorporated certain aspects of the novel.

Lieven, accurately in my estimation, looks at the war from the standpoint of the Russians. While Napoleon's Russia campaign has often been looked at from the British, German, Austrian, and obviously, French viewpoints, it is with this book that the Russian perspective and contribution is highlighted.

Covering the entirety of the war, Lieven excellently uses Russian source material to highlight the contributions of the Russian light cavalry, Cossacks, and Guard Infantry units to the defeat of Napoleon's army. Lieven shows us how Kutuzov's plan to draw in the French, while refusing a direct conflict, helped to set the stage for the French Army's destruction, as well as the superb battle plan to drive him back and eventually occupy Paris. Lieven also highlights the leadership of Tsar Alexander to the overall Allied victory and how he was instrumental in the Allies occupying Paris and ousting Napoleon.

While it is a superb military history, it is also a look at Tolstoy's classic. Lieven shows how Tolstoy's classic helped to shape the mindset for the war in Western minds. He also shows how the Communists also hid the Russian success due to it being "Aristocratic".
I was delighted to find out that when Tolstoy needed a fictional family to embody the world of court and St. Petersburg high society (the Kuragins), he modeled them after the real-life Kurakin family and the character of Prince Boris Drubetskoy, Dmitri Lobanov (cousin to the Kurakins) was also raised in the household of the rich Kurakin family (much like Boris and the Kuragins).
Lieven also points out that Tolstoy, a provincial aristocrat, disliked Mikhail Speansky and unfairly caricatured him in the novel. But Kutuzov did become a national hero thanks to the novel. I was also delighted to find the fictional character of Denisov (the charming and generous Hussar officer) was modeled after the famous real-life Hussar Denis Davydov. who bravely fought rear-guard action against the French during the Russian retreat.
Perhaps Lieven's biggest critique of Tolstoy is his novel's popularity and its grip on the minds of non-military-historians as the prevalent view of the Russian campaign. Lieven also disagrees with Tolstoy's assertion that Tolstoy (near the end of the novel) denies that there is any rational direction in the events of 1812 and his implication that military professionalism was a "German disease". Also by ending the novel in December of 1812, the triumphant Russian march to Paris is never mentioned.

But this is a military history book and one that shows the Russian contribution extremely well and shows its outsized importance. I agree that it was the Old World (the nobility and monarchy) of Russia that helped defeat Napoleon, as well as the fact that three powerful dynasties (Prussia, Russia, and Austria) worked together to defeat Napoleon. An excellent addition to my military history collection.

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book details the years 1812-14 when France battled Russia once again after several unsuccessful campaigns by Russia in 1805 and 1807. I knew little about the Russian effort when I started reading, except for the famous 1812 campaign. That campaign comprises a small part of this book because the author spends much more time developing an understanding of how the Russians turned things around in the intervening years. He also concentrates on the uniting of Prussian, Austrian and Russian forces, which fought France in 1813-4.

This is not a book for a beach read. It is complicated, and it is obvious that the author is an admirer of Tsar Alexander and the Russians. In fact, some of his relatives were part of the Russian establishment during the period. There are maps, but they are at the beginning so are not help as you are reading along.

It is an informative book, but sometimes it is slow-going. It did reinforce my admiration for Barclay de Tolly, which I had formed earlier. He had a difficult job as Commander-in-Chief, but did it well despite the prejudices of many of other officers. The other famous Russian generals are also discussed in detail. It may not be the book for everybody, but you will learn a lot.

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well-written study of Russia’s war with Napoleon. Lieven’s research is solid and it seems that he has examined almost every primary source on the topic. The book is almost entirely told from the Russian perspective, and he aims to show that defeating Napoleon was not just a matter of cold, mud, and weather. He shows how Napoleon was also defeated by the deliberate actions and foresight of Russian leaders and commanders.

The matter of logistics is one often ignored when it comes to the history of the Napoleonic Wars, but Lieven provides a good amount of insight into the topic. Russia’s ability to keep its armies well-supplied was crucial to its victory. Another was Russia’s use of horses; Napoleon had lost almost all of his horses during the invasion; he managed to replace the losses in manpower by 1813, but his lack of effective cavalry forces would hamper his ability to fight in the campaign years that followed.

Most of the book deals with Russian diplomacy, military strategy, and battlefield operations, as well as the mobilization of the Russian home front. Lieven provides lengthy but excellent descriptions of Russia’s ministers and generals, as well as the differences between the Russian and French armies. He describes both conventional military operations and Russia’s use of guerrilla warfare, and he is careful to distinguish this from the one that took place during the Second World War. Lieven also describes how Tsar Alexander came to the decision to pursue Napoleon and how he, remarkably, persuaded Austria and Prussia to form an unlikely alliance. He also describes the role of internal politics and the limitations of Russia as a state. Russia’s attempts at military reform as they struggled against Napoleon are also well-described.

Interestingly, Lieven disputes the idea that the winter played much of a role in the defeat of Napoleon’s invasion. The harsh winter of 1812 only began after the Russians smashed Napoleon on the battlefield. The heroism of Russian troops and the quality of their officers is also emphasized by Lieven. Russia’s soldiers at the time fought bravely, endured much hardship, and were led by men that actually had a good deal of concern about their welfare, unlike Stalin in World War Two.

Although Lieven includes a good number of maps, none of them show any of the campaigns’ troop movements, making them essentially useless. And Lieven describes much of this history in terms of a balance-of-power calculus, even though the nations of the Napoleonic era were not really modern and European nationalism was just in its infancy. Nor does Lieven really provide much insight into people’s character; in too many instances he describes almost every Russian character as “brave” or “courageous”, often as much three times on a single page, even when the activity described is something as simple as marching.

[Heinz Reinhardt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Russia Against Napoleon, written by Dominic Lieven, himself a Russian of Baltic German lineage, with an ancestor who served the Czar during this epic, stands as the best look at the Russian Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. 
Although there is a section devoted to the background of the French Revolutionary Wars, and Russia’s involvement in them, Lieven is primarily concerned with the Russian role from 1810 onwards. As such, even the period of 1805-1807, when the Russians were very active, but who faced a series of either disastrous defeats at the hands of the French, or won bloody, pyrrhic victories that at best were stalemates, gets only a brief summary. However, the Russians would learn from their mistakes, and their defeats, and would reform their armed forces to make them capable of standing firm against their foes once again.
It’s at this point that I had my first disagreement with Lieven’s tome. 
It’s fanciful to portray the French as nearly invincible in the period from 1804-1807, rather than  what they really were, which is simply really good at the business of war. 
This was an army that had a very recent heritage of near total warfare during the Revolutionary Wars, had won just as many battles as they had lost, and for better or worse (considering the means of doing so), the more capable officers had risen to the top. During these conflicts, the French fought most of Europe, and the Revolution had survived largely on the force of their bayonets.
When Napoleon’s coup effectively ended the Revolution, and reformed it back to a more conservative, normal, (though not fully) European autocratic system, Napoleon also codified the lessons learned during this period, and implemented new ones, as well as codifying older theories that Napoleon found highly superior to any methods then, currently, in play in other European armies. The result was a marvelous weapon of war, that would be unleashed as a first strike weapon, once a Coalition was formed against France, and Napoleon realized that diplomacy was useless. 
However, it is usually here that all of the European armies are denigrated as next to useless in comparison to Napoleon’s forces. 
And it is here that Lieven, though not fully carrying into this line of thought, does stray into these mythological waters. 
The Russians in particular performed superbly against the French during this period, Austerlitz notwithstanding. Austerlitz was, indeed, a catastrophic defeat. But it had less to do with innate Russian, systemic, military ineptness, than it did both the quality of the French Army, the French superior maneuverability and more rapid command and control system, Napoleon’s genius certainly, but also Czar Alexander’s ceaseless battlefield meddling.
At Austerlitz, the Czar’s eager, and well intentioned, meddling into the tactics of the grand battle, did nothing but to muddy the Allied command and control apparatus, and therefore slowed down both Russian and Austrian response times. 
Too many of those who are beholden to the mythical status of La Grande Armée focus almost exclusively upon Austerlitz when judging the quality of the Czarist Army. In doing so they ignore the achievements of the Russians in Poland a year later. 
In late 1806 through the first half of 1807, the Russians waged a brilliant campaign in Poland that delivered Napoleon's first, qualified, setback at the brutal Battle of Eylau. In all of the engagements during the sprawling Polish Campaign, which had numerous minor engagements and set piece battles, and sieges, the Russians gave as good as they got. 
And more than once, the Russians delivered a humbling trouncing to the French. However, their luck ran out and Napoleon caught them making a very unwise offensive while crossing a river, at Friedland. 
Napoleon's crushing victory at Friedland, at least in part, made up for the frustrations of the last half year, and forced Czar Alexander's advisors to pressure the Czar to agree to discuss terms of peace with Napoleon. In all of this, while Lieven doesn't go quite as far as denigrating the Russian performance, as many military historians have, he does, however, not go far enough, in my estimation, in pointing out that even in his glory years, the Russians were Napoleon's toughest opponents. 
This is largely due to the fact that the Russian Army was already a very good army, easily the best of the Ancien Regime armies of Europe. 
While many of Czar Paul's pro-Prussian reforms were undone by many in the Russian Army hierarchy who were highly uncomfortable with too much Germanic influence in their organization (a source of internal tension that will be discussed frequently in this tome), the legacy of the training and standards of fitness that Paul's reforms initially set stayed with the Army. 
And as events would soon prove, by 1810, this professional standard set by Paul's reforms would do the Russian Army tremendous good and blessings. 
Following Lieven's summary of the events leading up to 1810 and '11, Lieven spends a great deal of time discussing the political and strategic situation that Czar Alexander had to deal with. This included the economic chaos that Napoleon's Continental System brought to Russia internally, the rapidly fraying relations between Emperor and Czar, and the external threats which lead to open warfare with both Sweden and the Ottoman Empire. 
During this discussion, which goes into some detail, Lieven spends some time discussing the strategic situation of the French, and this section of the book is a very important one as it further bursts some long standing myths of the Napoleonic era, especially regarding Napoleon himself. 
Liven does not fall into the school of thought that Napoleon was an "antichrist", or "The Ogre" (he even showcases the Orthodox Church's waffling stance on Napoleon, depending upon the Czarist mood toward Napoleon at the time), but neither is he a Napoleon enthusiast. He isn't afraid to burst some myths that have seeped into the English language historiography of the period, both about Napoleon, but also about Russia, but he also doesn't give The Emperor a clean slate, either.
As Lieven stresses, Napoleon had no desire whatsoever to conquer Russia (as some still like to say, entirely sans basis in fact), nor did he view the Russians as a natural enemy of France. Throughout the epoch in question, one nation, and one nation only, was Napoleon's, and France's, bête noir: Great Britain.
Lieven points out to the reader, as many more historians are beginning to stress now as well, that the Napoleonic Wars were, in effect, the climax of what has come to be known as: The Second Hundred Years War. Napoleon's own grand strategic designs must be viewed from the prism of this larger, long standing, conflict between two, global, colonial, and Mercantile empires. 
It would be conflict over the status of the island of Malta, and the leadership of the Knights of Saint John (whom Napoleon hoped would become a protectorate of the Czar, keeping British presence in the Mediterranean balanced by adding a strategic Russian presence, which Napoleon hoped would be a source of arbitration between the competing French and British interests), which would force London to abrogate the Treaty of Amiens in 1803, and eventually lead to the War of the Third Coalition. 
The great Battle of Austerlitz, in Bohemia, would be the culmination of Napoleon's first strike against a Coalition which was already making moves against France, to strategically encircle her, and which had already invaded a sovereign kingdom in Bavaria. 
Rather than wait for the Coalition forces to invade France, Napoleon decided to bring the battle to them, and to force the, very long standing (as in centuries) French strategic imperative of enforcing French hegemony over Germany and German destiny. 
The brief conquest of Prussia was provoked by further British conniving to build yet another Coalition against Napoleon (despite French peace overtures to London), and which saw the Russians forced to engage Napoleon in Poland, rather than Germany as was their original intent. 
Despite doing, extremely, well against Napoleon in Poland, the Russian defeat at Friedland was catastrophic enough to force Czar Alexander to meet Napoleon himself on a raft on the Nieman River outside Tilsit.
And it should be noted that both men hit it off quite well and it would be poor Prussia who would face all of the negativity of the Treaty.
In fact, despite waging a desperately bloody campaign so recently, Napoleon magnanimously enlarged Russian territories and treasure, and while it was clearly done in a desperate bid to bind St. Petersburg to Napoleon's Imperial interests (which were, entirely, based upon waging a global war against the British Empire, and in fulfilling France's long standing, Bourbon, grand strategy of securing French hegemony over the German states), Lieven points out that Napoleon himself was genuine in his enthusiasm for the new alliance. In fact, Napoleon would be more than just a bit of a Russophile, and would consciously try to keep the Czar in his good graces.
Unfortunately, this was simply an impossibility.
First of all, the biggest block to a longstanding, Franco-Russian Alliance was Napoleon's own Continental System. Designed to starve the British economically by depriving the British of trade with the continent of Europe (it was, as Lieven points out, only slightly successful), but it was not damaging to the British heavy industry, which is what really counted in the game of nations. Furthermore, it did more harm to Russian, and ironically French, economic interests in the long run. 
Obviously, Czar Alexander wasn't going to allow his people to suffer in what he saw as a needless fashion to appease an alliance partner who, as time went on, seemed utterly obsessed with doing anything to harm the British, even if it meant damaging all of Europe in the process. Also, Napoleon failed to take into account Russian interests in Germany, especially in regards to Prussia. 
Russia saw itself as the ultimate arbiter of the long standing strategic contest between Berlin and Vienna, and the French strategic imperative of enforcing French hegemony over the whole of the Germanic world (again, not a Napoleonic invention but a native French one), was entirely counter to Russian interests. 
Ever since the days of a predatory Sweden and a Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russia has always been highly nervous about affairs in central Europe.  
Anything that could impact Russian security in what they see as their buffer zone (which includes Poland) is something that will meet with pushback from St. Petersburg then and Moscow now. Napoleon, for all of his genius, was blind to this. 
And his own conflict with Austria in the 1809 War (again, a war that Napoleon did not start, as Lieven points out), only further exacerbated Russian concerns over their buffer zone when Napoleon, again, defeated the Hapsburgs. It didn't help that Napoleon directly went against Czar Alexander's wishes and created the Duchy of Warsaw, a semi-independant Polish state, directly on Russia's borders. 
This was not a willy nilly decision on behalf of Napoleon, but one made after a long standing campaign of diplomatic pressure on the behalf of Polish emigres and Polish Nationalists who saw, in Napoleon and the French Empire, their best chance to revive Poland as an independent country. Russia, who saw Poland as part of their natural frontiers (despite Polish feelings to the contrary), and who weren't all too keen on an independent Poland thanks to historical rivalries and tensions dating back a century and a half prior, was needless to say less than thrilled with Napoleon's decision. 
One of the final straws for the Czar was Napoleon's actions in Spain in 1808 and 1809. 
Although an ally of France for some years, the reigning Bourbon Dynasty in Madrid was highly unpopular both with a large number of the Spanish government, the common people, and Napoleon himself. Much like the Bourbons from France, the Spanish branch of the family was equally as dunderheadedly incompetent, and the Spanish (and Portuguese) violations of the Continental System forced Napoleon to take an active role in the disintegrating Spanish Monarchy. 
However, not being unduly impressed with any of the Spanish candidates for King, Napoleon, in a colossal, callously hubristic move, opted for his own brother, Joseph. 
Although Joseph would go out of his way to be a good Monarch (as much as Napoleon would allow him any autonomy at all, that is), the simple fact was that Joseph wasn't Spanish, and wasn't Catholic, and therefore his mere presence turned an ally into a mortal enemy. Napoleon's less than brilliant decision was compounded when he decided to occupy the entire Iberian Peninsula, and force the issue, setting off The Peninsular War, and convincing Czar Alexander that Napoleon was out merely to conquer and destroy. 
Again, as Lieven, and others, have pointed out, this is a baseless assumption, and an utter misunderstanding of grand strategy and actions of contingency. 
Nevertheless, Alexander was convinced, and he determined to make Russia ready for war with Napoleon at some point in the near future. Combined with Russian violations of The Continental System and trade with the British (again, for the good of the Russian people), both Emperors were soon on a cataclysmic collision course.
Lieven's discussion of the Russian preparations for war, as well as the worry that the Ottomans might hold out long enough to tie down a majority of the Russian Army (which came close to happening), is well analyzed, and when one considers that the Russians were outnumbered two to one by the invaders, it's hard not to see why the strategy of trading space for time, and of scorched earth tactics, was adopted. 
When Napoleon made the, for him genuinely painful, decision to make war on Russia (Lieven points out that, as a means to both further legitimate his own Dynasty, and to further bond France to Russia, Napoleon had hoped desperately to marry a Romanov [one wonders what Josephine's thoughts on this score would be…]) he had assembled an enormous force drawn from nearly every nation in Europe (barely half of the force was French, with a slight majority of the entire force being non-French forces). 
The strategy of falling back, and depriving the European forces of anything logistically viable, despite knowing that it would cause tremendous pain and suffering to the Russian and Ukrainian peoples in the process, was genuinely the only realistic option open to them. 
The best of their forces were far away, having only very recently concluded a long and bloody war with the Ottomans in Moldova and the Caucasus, and these forces had to march a huge distance before they could be ready in the zone of operations. Also, falling back would deny Napoleon the swift and decisive victory he needed by forcing a general set piece battle with the main Russian forces. 
It's telling that, even despite doing quite well against Napoleon until Friedland in Poland in 1807, the Russians were tremendously nervous over facing him in open battle in 1812. 
This also denied to Napoleon the ability to rapidly force a return to the status quo antebellum, which was Napoleon's ultimate war aim, and which, due to Spain, and Napoleon's further dismemberment of the Austrian Empire following victory in 1809, was something Czar Alexander would never accept. 
Lieven's discussion of the military events themselves are from an operational and strategic level, and moves along very rapidly. And though he doesn't go into fine detail, it confirms the general tone as portrayed by George Nafziger in his study on the 1812 War between Russia and the Napoleonic Empire. 
Tactically the Russians did far better than even, it seems, they're willing to give themselves credit for. The Russian Army, outnumbered and outgunned, waged a brilliant rearguard action that likewise continuously harried Napoleon's supply lines, and inflicted an equal share of losses in every single engagement. 
Although The Battle of Smolensk was a European/French victory, it was a pyrrhic one, and the same can be said for Borodino a couple of weeks later. Napoleon was continuously frustrated by being drawn ever deeper into Russia, never his intent as he intended to end the war by the time he reached Minsk. And the further they plunged into Russia, the more their logistical system broke down until it collapsed entirely. 
More Europeans would die of malnutrition and the associated diseases then they would Russian arms. And, of course, the winter only aggravated European/French woes. 
Following the tossing out of Russia of the Imperial Napoleonic host, Lieven discusses the strategic argument within Alexander's Court. Contrary to popular opinion, the Czar's Court was not of one mind, even with the invasion, in their views on Napoleon. 
There were many in St. Petersburg who viewed Great Britain, not Napoleon, and their technocratic, mercantilist empire (their terminology), as the real long term threat to Russia. There was a very large, bare minority, contingent of Czarist advisers who viewed Napoleon and France as a necessary buffer against an ever expanding British Empire which would, undoubtedly, encroach upon Russian interests in Asia and Central Asia as well as the Middle East should Napoleon be ultimately defeated. 
Even though their fears would prove incredibly prescient, as history showed, Czar Alexander, and a small enough of a majority saw this as the chance to make Russia the main power and arbiter of European affairs. 
And the Czar himself began to consciously cast himself as a liberator of Europe from Napoleon. 
This strategic debate sets the backdrop for both the 1813 German, and 1814 French Campaigns, with Count Metternich of Austria being a key figure when Lieven discusses Russian decision making leading up to the invasion of France. 
Despite all that they had been through with the French, and Napoleon, Metternich appreciated Napoleon for who and what he was: a Conservative governor switch placed firmly on the engine of Revolution in Europe. 
Considering that all of his reforms in Europe were designed not to abrogate the Revolution, but longstanding French strategic interests, Metternich felt that Napoleon was a man who could be dealt with as an equal. Austria was likewise very concerned with the growing ties between Berlin and St. Petersburg as well as the encroaching power of London on the continent.
As Lieven points out, however, Czar Alexander was not blind nor deaf to these fears of Austria, and many of his advisors. The Czar himself had cooled in his initial fury against the French following victory in Germany, and Lieven points out that the Czar himself, despite his growing conversion to Orthodoxy (as a real, lived, personal faith as opposed to a mere cultural symbol), was a social revolutionary of sorts, and sympathized with much of Napoleon's reforms such as the idea of a social meritocracy. 
However, the Czar was simply unyielding in his demands that Napoleon must be forced to abdicate as a war aim of the Coalition. 
Even though this war aim would be the source of future conflicts between Russia, Austria and with Great Britain, it also ensured that it would be Russian troops, more than anyone else's, who ultimately triumphed over Napoleon, and who marched in procession down the streets of Paris. 
One part military history, one part political and diplomatic history, part biography of Czar Alexander, and overall a very well written, deeply engrossing book, that tells the full story of Russia's War against Napoleon, from the Russian perspective, written by a Russian who understands the Russians. 
With only a couple of disagreements with the authors own analyses, I have to say this is one of my favorite books on the Napoleonic era. 
Very highly recommended. 

   

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am in two-minds about Dominic Lieven’s book on Russia’s conflict with Napoleon and their contribution to his downfall. Whilst on one-hand it is an in-depth examination of the period 1807 – 1814, especially in regard to the diplomatic and logistically back-story to the conflict; however, on the other hand I find Lieven’s narrative style a little stilted.

The key focus of the book is studying the period from a purely Russian perspective. There are many contemporary Lieven’s scattered throughout the period so there may be a connection with the ‘Baltic Germans’ and the author? Lieven has one chapter on the logistical conditions of maintaining and growing the Russian army on a grand scale, and another chapter on the cultural and political machinations influencing Alexander’s decisions in maintaining home-front morale, which are standouts. If you have read other books on the 1812 campaign, there is nothing new in this examination. His study of the 1813 campaign, leading up to Leipzig, is better as he explores the diplomatic wrangling amongst the allies.

Overall, a sound publication which has merit in your Napoleonic War library as a resource to use when researching points on European diplomacy of the period, but certainly lacking the narrative engagement of contemporaries such as, Zamoyski or Mickaberidze.

[Sotiris Karaiskos · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that contains a great amount of information about the great conflict between Napoleon's army and the Russians, and at the same time refutes many historical myths. I particularly like the fact that is exploring all aspects of history, from the leaders' agreements, to the efforts to feed the army. Despite its complexity, however, it is a very fascinating reading that has the ability to put you at the heart of the events.


Ένα βιβλίο που περιέχει πάρα πολλές πληροφορίες για τη μεγάλη σύγκρουση του στρατού του Ναπολέοντα με τους Ρώσους και παράλληλα διαψεύδει πολλούς ιστορικούς μύθους. Μου αρέσει ιδιαίτερα το γεγονός ότι ερευνά όλες τις πτυχές της ιστορίας, από τις συμφωνίες των ηγετών, μέχρι τις προσπάθειες για τη σίτιση του στρατού. Παρά την πολυπλοκότητα του, όμως, και το πλήθος των πληροφοριών είναι ένα ιδιαίτερα συναρπαστικό ανάγνωσμα που έχει την ικανότητα να σε βάζει στην καρδιά των γεγονότων.

[Readius Maximus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe not the best written book but the information it provides is fascinating and unless things have changed, it's the only book of it's kind that shows the primary role played by Russia in the defeat of Napoleon.

I truly despise how much English language history of this era is devoted to Waterloo. One of the most insignificant and unimportant battles and yet if you believed the nationalistic myth making you would believe this battle is what ended Napoleon's career. You would also believe Wellington won it singlehandedly and ignore the fact that the Prussia's arrived with 100k troops and disrupted Napoleon's planned attempt to break through the British lines. They also conveniently ignore the fact that Russia was crossing the Rhine with 150k troops so as long as Britain and Prussia didn't get wiped out and cause no casualties to the French the matter was decided. Napoleon was done.

What ended up defeating Napoleon is a combination of things that really came together in 1813-14 but started in 1812. This book focuses on the part played by the Russian's and Tsar Alexander, but Napoleon himself seemed to play a major role as well.

The Russian's had excellent intelligence and they had studied Napoleon and knew his weaknesses and what kind of victory he needed, they also knew when he was going to attack. Napoleon needed a quick victory and to defeat the Russian army and force Alexander to negotiate. So the Russian's did the opposite, they retreated which drastically reduced Napoleon's forces so that by the time Borodino happens the French army has gone from several hundred thousand to 135k-125k.

After they chase Napoleon out of Russia, Alexander decides to occupy Poland and drags the Prussian's and finally the Austrian's into an alliance that is able to march all the way to Paris and dethrone Napoleon. Napoleon had previously been able to defeat such alliances because Russia started to far away and their allies would be defeated before they could arrive. But this time with Russian troops already in central Europe they were able to unify and outlast Napoleon and force him back.

The victory is not pretty but it is admirable. The allies never achieve a dramatic success over napoleon but they do manage to crush some of his generals. The greatest victory is at Leipzig where Alexander helps save the allied line from getting penetrated and then pinned against a river and defeated before the rest of the army arrived. It only latter turned into a significant victory because of Napoleon's mistakes of not retreating earlier or making other bridges. So his army was practically destroyed.

The brilliance of the victory really comes from Alexander's planning and diplomacy and in knowing and taking full advantage of Napoleon's weaknesses. The victory could not have happened without him. The ability to supply the army both in retreat and in pursuit all the way to Paris is another major achievement. My favorite part was the bravery and insane discipline and toughness showed by the Russian troops. They were forced off many battlefields, even in France, but they never turned a loss into a defeat by panicking. Napoleon was never able to destroy them. They retreated in order and their rearguards were impenetrable no matter how badly outnumbered they were.

Once the allies were able to fight alongside the Russian's, victory would be assured so long as they weren't defeated separately or crushed. A costly draw would be a victory for them. For Napoleon, after losing most of his best troops in Russia, a costly draw would be a major defeat. To win he would have to crush his opponents. This he was unable to do and he was slowly pushed out of Germany and into France.

One of the more interesting parts of the book is learning the different temperaments of some of the different participants. The French were unbeatable when things were going well but as soon as things looked bleak they fell apart. The Russian's were unflappable and doggedly brave but they made poor skirmishers. The Russian's had to be trained before they could skirmish. The French and Spanish made natural skirmishers.

The book doesn't focus on it very much but Napoleon does make a number of mistakes that contribute significantly to his defeat. First is minor and probably didn't have to be fatal but that is the decision to march further into Russia. The Russian's feared most that Napoleon would take Poland and parts of Belorussia and pause to create an independent Poland that could support him as he advanced further. Second was his decision to stay in Moscow so long. He banked everything on Alexander being weak which was a widely held opinion but misguided and the Russian diplomats were all too willing to lead him along. One of the biggest mistakes was his willingness to allow for a several month armistice in mid 1813, this allowed the allies to be much stronger and I believe even Austria to finally be ready. Napoleon had the chance to defeat Russia and Prussia while they were weak and separated before Austria joined and all of Russia's sick and recruits were able to rejoin the army. I already mentioned his failures at Leipzig. In 1812 in Smolensk it was mainly his generals fault but it was his too. They had the chance to catch the Russian's as they withdrew but failed to take advantage of the situation.

This book helps fill in the vast whole in the Western mind in regards to the East. In this case and in ww2 Russia played the leading role and yet most people have very little idea.

It was also interesting to learn indirectly that the British Empire was largely founded during this era. which is ironic since Napoleon's main enemy was Britain. But all the chaos caused by the French distracted the colonial empires and allowed Britain to gain many territories and rise to global dominance with very little cost in blood or money. Which really fit's into what I know about them which is they are vulture who pray on the weak but are themselves weak against the strong. Alexander is even hesitant to remove Napoleon because he knows this will remove a check against Britain, even though Alexander is the driving force behind complexly defeating Napoleon.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought that surely a book this long (around 525 pages) would be about a lot more than strategy and such. But the majority of it was indeed military. I'm giving it 4 stars for two reasons:

1. He manages to make the military stuff interesting even to me.
2. Someone who likes military history would find it a very good read.

His central premise is simple--Russia did a lot more to defeat Napoleon than they are given credit for. I don't know about you, but he is right that I was taught (or picked up somewhere) that Napoleon was defeated by the Russian winter, not the Russians. He makes a very good case and is very thorough with his research.

Would you have thought that a shortage of carts would be a major problem for both sides? It makes sense, but I wouldn't have thought of it--it would do them no good to have food for the men and the horses or weapons and ammunition if they couldn't transport it. It was little details like that that made the military history interesting to me.

[Bryan Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fine history of the epic 1812-1815 war between the Russia and French empires, Russia Against Napoleon rewards both the general reader and the student of the Napoleonic wars.

Dominic Lieven tells a vast story, beginning with Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, then the German wars of 1813 (which include the biggest battle in European history by that time), and concluding with the 1814 invasion of France and (first) defeat of Napoleon. Readers new to this subject will be well treated by Lieven's combination of good organization, narrative skill, and attention to historical actors.

The book's main achievement is to recast the events from a Russian perspective. Lieven makes a convincing case for tsar Alexander I's leadership and strategic thinking, both in military affairs and especially in diplomacy. Alexander conceived of a massive, sustained war, which became

the longest campaign in European history, in less than two years the Russian army had marched from Vilna to Moscow and then all the way back across Europe to Paris. (513)

. Alexander did so despite the different wishes of part-time allies, notably Austria, who did not always want to end Napoleon's rule. Indeed, Alexander, his advisors, and his generals appear as the leading strategic force of the late Napoleonic period:

One key reason why Russia defeated Napoleon was that its leaders out-thought him.(526)

In short, Lieven returns Russia to a central role in the Napoleonic period.

Narratively, this means several things. First, Russia Against Napoleon spends time showing the build up and maturation of the Russian army over time, developing through horrific experience into a world-class fighting machine. Readers may be familiar with accounts celebrating the defensive ferocity of Russian forces opposing the invaders in 1812, but less aware of those forces' improvements in 1813-14. Details here may blur in the mind of a reader new to the period, but are worth absorbing. Second, the book offers a rich and powerful treatment of the 1812 invasion, including good observations about Russia's grand strategy. Third, this means a Russian-centric view of the 1813 and 1814 campaigns, which I found welcome after reading many accounts emphasizing the French and German roles.

Lieven concludes by seeing Russia's triumph as a sign of the ancien regime's potency in the face of modernity. This is a powerful corrective to a progressive reading of history, and also a useful glimpse into Russian culture and its fondness for autocracy. It also lets us take seriously Alexander's achievement in areas usually seen as wins for modernity: espionage, logistical support, and organizational overhauls.

Russia Against Napoleon is also superbly grounded in Russian primary sources. Lieven immersed himself in Russian archives, especially those available after the USSR's fall, giving many rich supports to his narrative and argument.

Let me add one additional item of praise in favor of the book's maps. I'm very picky about historical works and their cartographic presentation. All too often books' maps are incomplete, hard to read, or don't serve the text. In contrast Russia Against Napoleon offers maps that are a joy for the reader: clear to read and well linked to the text. I could always find where actions took place - this is all too rare, and merits an additional star.

Recommended.

[Sid Singh · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Napoleonic wars are a fascinating period of European history and there are few books written on the "Eastern Front" of the war. I had high hopes for Lievin's work. Unfortunately, this book epitomizes the types of books that kill readers interest in history.

The author's writing style is very dry and the book reads like a textbook written for a graduate course in Russian History. Lieven has absolutely no literary skills; rather he inundates the reader with tedious detail after detail that actually causes you to lose the narrative of events. Then, coupled with the fact that he fails to actually present information in a reasonable chronology, the books quickly becomes a serious chore without any actual value. There are nuggets of interesting history buried somewhere within the dross of useless filler, but Lieven's writing style doesn't really encourage the effort needed to find it.

I would also note that the book is clearly written for people who already have substantial knowledge of the Napoleonic wars and the Napoleonic era. For a historic work, the author provides no real context for the events unfolding in the book. The reader is directly thrust into nuanced and rather detailed accounts of Russia's internal politics, geopolitical machinations, and battles. A good history book, particularly about a topic that is not necessarily well known, should provide some context. Heck, even books on WW2, which one presumes most readers are intimately familiar, at least provide some sense of how Hitler came to power, European politics after WW1, etc. Thus, you have a sense of time and place. Lieven completely fails in this task. Quite frankly, without such context, unless you are a graduated student or someone deeply invested in Napoleonic history, you have no understanding of why you should really care about Napoleon in Russia.

I would NOT recommend this book unless you are planning on writing a thesis on Russia and Napoleon. This is not an enjoyable read for amateur historians or lay readers.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent analysis of one of history's most momentous campaigns--Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 and the aftermath-the 1813-14 campaign that led to the downfall of the French emperor. Lieven tells this story from the Russian viewpoint. He also deals with the diplomatic aspects as well as the military action. While Napoleon's retreat from Russia is mainly considered to be due to Napoleon's blunders and the bad weather, Lieven gives credit to the Russian military leaders and, above all, to Czar Alexander I. Alexander determined the winning strategy of falling back into the Russian interior, denying Napoleon the big victories that he wanted. Instead, the czar wanted the French Army to get worn down as it was drawn after the retreating Russians. In hindsight, it seems like the natural strategy. But many Russian generals wanted to attack the French as they invaded. They would have played right into Napoleon's hands. After Napoleon's depleted army retreated out of Russia, the top Russian general, Mikhail Kutuzov, wanted to stop. It was Alexander who wanted to drive on all the way to Paris and remove Napoleon from power. It was due to him that a coalition was built consisting of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Sweden, with the support of Britain, that not only defeated Napoleon in Germany in 1814, but pushed on into France, capturing Paris and bringing about the abdication of Napoleon. Alexander could rightly be called "the liberator of Europe" establishing peace in Europe for most of the century leading to World War I in 1914.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful Napoleonic era history, up there with Peter the Great as my all time favourite military history book. Hits all the spots- detailed, enlightening narratives of napoleonic warfare operations and incredibly tense battles, mobilisation of national resources, diplomatic context motivating the constantly evolving war aims.

Amazing that this is the first history of 1812 told from a russian perspective, due to Lieven's painstaking dedication to researching the russian archives. Really pays off by gaining a view of russian decision making which really enriches the understanding of how and why the russians fought to maximise their chances of success in an admirably sharp way, compared to Napoleon's relative clumsiness. I guess they had everything on the line motivating this sharpness when facing down the grande armée of 600,000 men!

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Professor Lieven spends a little too much time bemoaning the distorted lens (French, English, & Prussian) through which posterity has viewed the Napoleonic period. He must concede that the distortion is somewhat borne out of necessity: La Grande Armee which invaded Russia in 1812-- consisting of a French plurality accompanied by Germans, Italians, Spaniards, Poles, Austrians, Prussians, Swiss, and Portuguese--was a fairly literate (and in some instances, graphophilic) host; that Tsar Alexander's army of illiterate serfs did not hand down to us a comparable trove of diaries, letters, dispatches, and reminisces should not be surprising.

That being said, this is a good, solid piece of history that makes use of Russian archival sources that have been mostly unavailable to Western scholars over the last two centuries. Its scope is appropriately (and necessarily) broad, and the narrative doesn't stop with Marshal Ney's exploits as the last of Napoleon's soldiers to leave Russian soil; contrary to most accounts of the Franco-Russian War of 1812 (the real "War of 1812" for all non-American observers), Lieven aims at a continuous narrative that demonstrates how essential Russia was to bringing France to her knees in 1813-14, and how it was that Cossacks made their way to the Champs-Elysees.

Lieven does an admirable job of re-assessing the due credit and blame for the disastrous French invasion, though again, he is to a certain extent spitting into the wind: when history's greatest general assembles (to that point in time) history's largest army, the analysis is naturally going to tend toward "What went wrong?" for Napoleon, rather than "How did the Russians prevail?". History is of course rarely that simple--had General Junot, to take one example, done as ordered and thrown his corps across the Russian line of retreat after Smolensk (16-18 August, 1812), the bulk of Barclay's army would have been smashed, and the outcome of the campaign could have been quite different.

But setting aside the many things that the French did to thwart their own cause, Lieven makes clear that it was superior leadership on the political and strategic levels that ensured Russian victory. The unpopular, foreign-born Barclay de Tolly's even more unpopular decision to retreat before La Grande Armee bore more than a little resemblance to Fabius Cunctator's evasion of Hannibal, and the wisdom of this strategy was borne out by Kutuzov's decision to stand and fight at Borodino: even sapped of much of its strength by desertion, detachments, hunger, and disease, La Grande Armee, 800 leagues from Paris, was still invincible. And if Barclay's strategy of shadowing the French march to Moscow was successful, then Kutuzov's pursuit of Napoleon on the retreat from Moscow was doubly so: by forcing the French to retreat back down the Smolensk-Moscow highway, which had already been thoroughly pillaged and ravaged, Kutuzov assured its virtual destruction by the time he sprung his trap at the Beresina, which very nearly came off in a way that would have shortened Napoleon's first reign by sixteen months.

Above all else, Lieven emphasizes that it was Tsar Alexander's political will that ensured Napoleon's defeat. He never had any intention of treating with the Emperor, and nothing short of the total annihilation of the Russian army would make him reconsider. Time and space were the Tsar's allies, and he made no secret of this fact, even to Armand de Caulaincourt (Napoleon's envoy to St. Petersburg, his confidant, and his Master of Horse during the invasion), whose futile attempts to dissuade Napoleon from invading Russia were met with the famed tug-of-the-ear and pinch-of-the-cheek that were to be found whenever the Imperial charm was on display. Even "the most competent human being who ever lived," as Napoleon was described by Israeli historian Martin van Creveld, should have heeded the advice of others from time to time.

Lieven provides a useful corrective to much of the historiography on this subject, illustrating a broad context within which it becomes possible to see the Russians as decisive agents of their own great triumph, rather than being merely the beneficiaries of Napoleonic blunders and/or Mother Nature. Perhaps it is true to say Napoleon was doomed from the moment that he launched his army into Russia; however, it is just as true to say that it was inspired and canny Russian leadership which ensured that result.

[Jwduke · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only book I have ever seen which presents the Russian perspective (and indeed that of Alexanders I) clearly. This book is very well written, but can be dry in places. The dryness cannot be limited, as the dry writings are necessary. 80% of the book, especially the early chapters, was engaging. I could not put it down. Towards the end and the fall of Paris, I started to loose interest. That is no fault of the book or the writer, being familiar with the history and what took place made it difficult to read and study it; again. I am giving it four out of five stars. However, If you are not familiar with the history, you would more than likely give it a five as the writing would keep the novice engaged.

[William Shieber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes reality beats fiction. In this case, the reality is that Alexander I knew what he was doing. In 1812, Russia defeated Napoleon's invasion not merely because of the tenacity of the Russian spirit or because it's cold in winter, but because Alexander and Barclay de Tolly had prepared for the invasion. Thereafter, Alexander nurtured a military coalition with Prussia and Austria which combined to drive Napoleon out of Germany, Within two years of the invasion of Russia, the Coalition army marched into Paris, with Alexander at its head.

It's a remarkable story, and Lieven tells it well.

[Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn't. I just couldn't do it. I live for this stuff and I found Lieven's chronological retelling of the Russian side of the Napoleonic Wars so dry and devoid of narrative as to be unreadable. And I have literally been trying to finish this book for YEARS.

Good facts and sources, but as for a story or book worth reading cover to cover, this is not that. Like a full length version of Homer's Catalog of Ships with Preobazhenskys instead of Trojans.

[Wieland Wyntin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zonder twijfel één van de beste boeken op het vlak van militaire geschiedenis die ik ooit gelezen heb. Niet alleen krijg je de hele epische vertelling te horen van hoe Rusland tegen Napoleon won in 1812 maar ook hoe de strijd voorgezet werd door de Russen tot en met de slag om Parijs in 1814. Het logistieke apparaat, een aspect dat meestal minder prominent aan bod komt, staat in dit boek juist centraal. Een echt topwerk dat ik ten zeerste aanbeveel!

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book corrects a very serious historical flaw in the popular understanding of the Napoleonic era -- the general belief that Napoleon invaded Russia in a pique of megalomania and was defeated by hunger and cold after the cowardly Russians burned Moscow, that he subsequently evaporated into the historical mists, only to rise up once more after his escape from Elba to be defeated once and for all by the courageous forces of Wellington. This misconception is the fruit of Tolstoy's revisionist War and Peace, subsequent Soviet defacements of czarist military history, and French, Prussian, Austrian, German, and British nationalist hagiographies. The sum of these flawed histories has given weather, hunger and natural forces the place of Napoleon's chief antagonist and placed Wellington and Waterloo at the apex of Napoleon's demise.

What Lieven, who is fluent in Russian, shows, in 500 pages founded on years of researching czarist regimental histories and the personal correspondence of Czar Alexander, his generals, and diplomats, is that Napoleon was defeated by Alexander and his armies. Lieven reveals that Alexander realized well before 1812 that Napoleon's Continental System was and would be disastrous for Russia and that the only means of escaping servitude to French hegemony was the military defeat of Napoleon. At a time when the entire world regarded Napoleon as the greatest military mind of his era, Alexander and his advisers laid out a strategic plan for his defeat and overthrow. They envisioned a multi-year campaign that would begin by goading Napoleon into an invasion of Russia, wearing him down over its enormous distances while denying him the kind of decisive victory he had won at Austerlitz seven years before, and then invading central Europe to break Austria and Prussia free from their alliances with France, before liberating the German principalities, dethroning Napoleon, and returning France to its historic frontiers. With some minor derailments, this is exactly what Alexander and the indefatigable Russian army did.

What is incredibly indefensible about the received version of 1812, at least in the English speaking word, is that the Russians did not run from Moscow, nor burn it. At the outset of the invasion, the Russian army faced the combined armies of Austria, Prussia, Poland, and France led by a Napoleon who seemed invincible. Despite this, the Russian army fought a steady, disciplined and courageous fighting retreat, using up available food supplies as they went, to the outskirts of Moscow where they stood and fought at Borodino -- then the bloodiest battle in the history of the world. The battle is generally regarded as a draw, but in-so-far as it denied Napoleon the decisive victory he needed, Lieven rightly calls it a Russian victory. And the version of events taught in American schools that the cowardly Russians burned Moscow and fled into some mythic Siberian exile is as false; Napoleon occupied a city that had been stripped of its stores and largely abandoned, but the Moscow fire was likely accidental and only as bad as it was because the city's fire brigades had followed its populace. Russians at the time rallied around the idea that the French had burned their capital but that too was untrue. Subsequent accountings of the fall of Napoleon that leave out Borodino and instead credit the Russian winter with Napoleon's defeat should have always been as incredible and as dubious as a history of World War Two that elided Stalingrad. The two battles have many parallels. As Hitler did, Napoleon faced a very well organized, hardy, and in many ways superior Russian army that understood the strategic nature of Russia's great distances and was better equipped, personally and in materiel, to exploit them.

Readers of War and Peace know of Borodino. But Tolstoy's version leaves out Alexander's strategic calculus of baiting Napoleon, wearing him down, and defeating him in a prolonged campaign that ended not on the Russian Plain but in the Rhineland. He makes a historical epic out of the first act of a three act war. After destroying the Grande Armee, Alexander invaded Prussia, reconquered Poland, and convinced Austria to break with the alliance with France which Napoleon had forced on it at the peace table years before. But in 1813 the combined allied armies of Russia, Prussia and Austria faced near defeat on multiple occasions and faced a new Grande Armee which Napoleon assembled after his defeat in Russia in 1812. At Dresden and Leipzig, the two sides fought enormous battles that should be as familiar as the battles of Jena and Austerlitz but which I had never heard a word of until Lieven's book. Lieven goes into great detail discussing allied diplomacy and the conflicting strategic visions of Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia, which faced a similar re-ordering of the European balance of power that the allies faced in 1917 or 1944. He also paints numerous minor portraits of the colorful officers of the allied army, many of them staunch anti-Bonapartist exiles from a variety of nations bent on Napoleon's overthrow. One of the book's strongest points is its emphasis on the logistics of war, the finding of feed for horses, the provisioning and training of troops and new recruits, the difficulties of marching in foreign countries, in inclement weather, and of establishing and securing supply trains that stretched from the Dnieper to the Rhine. As then contemporaneous British observers noted, and Lieven repeats, many of the Russian soldiers who defeated Napoleon marched from their villages in Siberia all the way to the Ukraine where they were trained and outfitted before marching across the rest of Europe to do battle with the greatest commander of the age, and looked healthy, happy, and well-dressed while doing so. One British observer at the time remarked that had a crack British regiment marched so far in so short a time it would have been unable to stand let alone parade and fight. All of this should be as commonly known in the popular history as Hannibal's elephants, Sherman's march to the sea, or Goering's failure to supply the 6th army at Stalingrad.

The other great elision in the Anglo-American telling of Napoleon's overthrow is that the allied armies, with Alexander in their midst, captured Paris in 1814. It is a far different telling of the usual story that Napoleon invaded Russia, encamped in the smoldering ruins of Moscow, only to be defeated by the cold than the true history that Russia fought to a draw the bloodiest battle in history on Moscow's doorstep, harried the Grande Armee to its destruction, liberated Europe, invaded France, and captured Paris. Why has it taken me so long to learn that Alexander sat in Tallyrand's salon debating a Bonapartist regency versus a restoration of the Bourbon crown? Lieven blames nationalist myth-making and the erasure of Czarist history by Soviet historians, but I can't help thinking there has been a concentrated effort since 1917 on the part of American and British academics and the designers of public school curricula to downplay Russia's great triumph over Napoleon.

Hopefully this book will correct the popular misconceptions of the Napoleonic era and establish the headwaters of a long stream of subsequent histories that examine in closer detail, or from other perspectives, the great campaign of 1812-1814. I fault his editor as much as I fault Lieven, but this book is too clumsily written. There is a chronic variation of minor points of style I found distracting. Annoyingly, events we have not yet read about are revealed as having already happened in preceding paragraphs discussing future meetings and decisions. There is a wavering chronology that suggests the book was added to more than it was revised. Some passages, particularly the descriptions of battles, lack the masterful clarity of narration I have grown spoiled to expecting from reading too much Keegan. And several of the maps are not detailed enough, lacking the names of towns where battles were fought and which are discussed in the text, and lacking altogether the topographic features which are of profound importance to the movement of armies and battles narrated in the book. Hopefully someone as dedicated as Lieven will set about correcting these errors for a revised edition. But those gripes aside, this book goes a very long way toward correcting a shameful misunderstanding of Russia's fundamental contribution to Napoleonic history.

[Anca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this with the intention to get a refresher of the historical background of War and Peace. W&P ends with the retreat of the French from Russia in 1812, but this book goes all the way to the overthrow of Napoleon in 1814. Once the War and Peace ground was covered though, my interest kinda dwindled and I took a year long hiatus. Once I picked it back up I realized that was stupid and I dropped off just before things got more interesting. The years 1813-14 are much faster paced - the theatre of operations is larger, battles are more frequent and more action-packed instead of the endless retreating (which was a good Russian strategy in 1812 but rather boring to read about). The political aspect takes on a bigger role, since there were 3 allied powers trying to cooperate, while having different interests at heart. You do need to use the maps more though to understand the military maneuvers.

The book's aim is to offer a historically accurate Russian perspective on the war instead of the usual anglophone - Western POV. As regards his views on Tolstoy's War and Peace, TLDR: He gives credit to Alexander, the Russian army and politics for winning the battle in Russia - as opposed to snow, chance and Napoleon's mistakes exclusively being the Russians' saving grace. With this, he contradicts most of Tolstoy's views on the events.

Overall this is quite readable even for an infrequent history reader as me and was quite suited to my initial purpose. An interesting experiment would be to read this complemented by a Western-sourced book on the events. If you want to keep track of every person and event, you do need to use a list from the very beginning. If Russian novels characters are overwhelming, this is on a whole different level and Dominic Lieven (a historian) doesn't care about you keeping track or giving you refreshers. This can make reading sometimes dry and slow going. I didn't worry about it too much since I only wanted to get a general overview and in the end the more influential people's names inevitably stuck with me. The annex has quite a few maps which proved very helpful.

[Emmanuel Gustin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid piece of military history, sharply focused on the performance of the Russian army and its leadership during 1812-1814. Sometimes tragic, occasionally humorous, this is a factual analysis that seeks to strip away literary tradition and nationalist emotion. Lieven argues that the Russian army of the end of the Napoleonic wars was a formidable fighting force, with good equipment, logistics, training and leadership. Good enough to defeat Napoleon — a Napoleon who was perhaps past his prime, but still a very dangerous opponent.

Lieven is very sympathetic to tsar Alexander II, who sometimes gets a bad press because of his eccentricities and growing religious fervour. In the author’s view, the autocratic tsar of the Russians was an intelligent and flexible leader, who shaped not only the coalition against France, but developed the best possible plan for the post-Napoleon era. Although he admits that like everyone else, Alexander harboured a number of illusions, in particular with respect to Poland.

Apart from the rumbustious adventures of Vladimir Löwenstern (whose memoirs must be quite something) the part of this story that sticks is that of Russian army logistics. Somehow tens of thousands of men and horses had to be provided for in an era of horse-drawn wooden carts. While much of the food was requisitioned locally, this didn’t remove the need to move mobile magazines and their carts across vast distances, in all seasons, over often terrible roads. Lieven justly highlights this achievement, with all the perseverance it required and all the suffering it implied.

[John Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book, which takes a deceptively long time to get through, enriched as it is with detailed Russian military tactics over the greater part of a decade. Russia's war effort against Napoleon was a monumental effort. I particularly enjoyed the episodes where key decision makers had time to consider their multiple options: Kutozov when chasing Napoleon back from Moscow (how far and to what extent?), and the decisions by Napoleon and the allies around Dresden and Saxony in the build up to the battle of Leipzig.

[Ratko Radunović · Rating 5 out of 5]

Napoleonova invazija Rusije 1812. jedna je od najdramatičnijih epizoda u evropskom sjećanju i u tolikoj se mjeri radi o zbivanju epskih razmjera, da se za njega takođe može reći da, istorijski, tvori primjer prvog modernog sveopšteg rata.

Nijedan vojni pohod u istoriji nije bio podvrgnut otvorenijim političkim ciljevima. Otpočetka su studije o toj temi bile vođene porivom da interpretiraju i opravdaju svjetonazor da objektivnost ne postoji, dok sami obim tih studija – preko 5,000 knjiga i dvostruko toliko tekstova publikovanih samo u Rusiji u stotinu godina nakon 1812. (prema podacima istoričara Adama Zamojskog) – očigledno odmaže da se Napoleonova vojna u Rusiji ikada pravilno rastumači.

Posljednju dobru knjigu o ovom pohodu napisao je upravo Zamojski (1812: Napoleonov fatalni marš na Moskvu, 2004), porijeklom Poljak, koji se priklonio više-manje ustaljenom mišljenju (iako dobrano potpomognut i ruskim izvorima sa lica mjesta) da je naposljetku Napoleonovom porazu ipak više doprinijelo loše vrijeme nego ruska vojska. Bez obzira na sve, Zamojski je, šest godina poslije svoje knjige, samo mogao da napiše panegirik o Lievenovoj knjizi. Ona je 2010. nagrađena Volfsonovom nagradom za istoriju, a našla se i među finalistima za prestižnu literarnu nagradu Daf Kuper.

Radi se o prvoj obimnoj studiji koja značajno pomjera istorijske normative, ukazujući na do sada pobliže neispitane detalje o Napoleonovom pohodu na Rusiju. „Ja sam staromodni istoričar“, piše Lieven na početku, „koji voli da njegove priče budu istinite, ili barem što je moguće blizu istini u vidu poštene, inteligentne i minuciozne studije koliko to omogućavaju dokazi na raspolaganju.“ Daleko od revizionizma, knjizi dakako ide u prilog i podatak da ju je publikovao najveći engleski izdavač, Pingvin. Lieven živi u Londonu, predaje na katedri o Ruskoj vladi u Londonskoj školi ekonomije i političkih nauka, i član je Britanske akademije.

Čak i u predgovoru, Lieven ističe da se do sada nijedan profesor sa zapada nije usudio da napiše knjigu o ruskim naporima protiv Napoleona. Tradicionalno gledano, kad je bitka kod Vaterloa u pitanju, Englezi koji su svaku zaslugu pripisali sebi, tek su od nedavno počeli priznavati krucijalni udio pruske vojske u toj pobjedi (u tom kontekstu uopšte ne iznenađuje što je Prusija izgurala Rusiju kao istorijskog tumača kad su u pitanju bile interpretacije o 1813-oj godini, kad je inače izdžikljala Prusija i kad su njemački istoričari akcenat najviše stavljali na svoj patriotizam, ili, pak, što su francuski autori tog perioda glorifikovali Napoleona i njegovu vojsku, pri tom ni ne obraćajući pažnju na studije svojih neprijatelja ili drugih stranih istoričara). Svakako, dodaje Lieven, najsigurniji način da sebe učinite praktično nezapošljivim na britanskim, a kamoli na američkim, univerzitetima jeste da kažete da želite da izučavate „bitke, diplomatiju i kraljeve“.

Budući da stara ratna izreka veli da jedino amateri razmišljaju o strategiji, dok profesionalci misle na logistiku, ovdje je svojevrsni naglasak stavljen na ono što istoričari pri ovakvim temama najmanje obraćaju pažnju: na logistiku, odnosno na dopremanje opreme i hrane namijenjene armiji i stoci. Na isti način u takođe rasplinutim studijama o Aleksandru Velikom donekle i počasno mjesto zauzima malena analiza Aleksandar Veliki i logistika makedonske armije (1978) Donalda V. Engelsa na jedva nešto više od 150 strana. Dobro ukomponovana, plauzibilna, i dobro potkrijepljena logistika je u stvari ono što istoriju neke bitke – i ne samo bitke – podupire odlučujućom dozom faktografije.

Naime, komesarski činovnici imali su prilično jalov status i u francuskoj i u ruskoj armiji, tako da su njihovi napori pobrali veoma malo zasluga među istoričarima. Što je sigurno nesretna okolnost s obzirom da je njihova uloga bila nadasve veća.

Napoleon je uništio svoju armiju 1812. godine najvećma zahvaljujući logističkim propustima. Za razliku od toga, jedan od najvažnijih trijumfa ruske ratne ekonomike bio je uspjeh u prehranjivanju i snadbijevanju više od pola miliona trupa izvan ruskih granica tokom 1813-14. Kako je ovo uopšte odrađeno na evropskom kontinentu koji je u to doba imao samo dva grada sa populacijom od više od pola miliona stanovnika možda je ključni komad ove knjige. Uporedba sa Sedmogodišnjim ratom (1756-63), kada je zapravo logistika pomogla da se obogalji ruski vojni napor, sasvim je na mjestu.

Tako Lieven zaključuje da na mnogo načina najveći heroj ruske ratne ekonomike tokom perioda 1812-14. godine nije bilo ljudsko biće već konj. Ovo je inače važilo za većinu kopnenih sukoba u Evropi u toj eri. Konj je bio zamjena za današnje funkcije tenka, teretnog vozila, aviona i motorizovane artiljerije. Stoga je konj proglašen kao vjerovatno i najodlučujući faktor u ruskom porazu Napoleona.

S druge strane, kaže Lieven, enormna superiornost ruske lake konjice isto je odigrala veliku ulogu u onemogućavanju dopremanja hrane i pružanja odmora Napoleonovoj armiji prilikom povlačenja iz Moskve, na taj način je gradualno i uništivši. Bolje reći, 1812. godine, Napoleon nije izgubio samo sve svoje ljude već je, doslovno, izgubio i sve konje na kojima je ušao u Rusiju. Već naredne godine, on je donekle uspio da nadoknadi svoje ljudstvo, ali se potraga za konjima pokazala kao daleko komplikovaniji i, na koncu, najkatastrofalniji problem.

Dabome, Lieven ne zapostavlja ni mnoge druge diplomatske rejone od kojih se sastoji ova mnogoljudna storija s brojnim račvanjima, s tim što prevashodno valjano demonstrira političke i socijalne strukture carske Rusije koje su se odvajkada razlikovale od ostatka Evrope, a što je imalo i posljedice na jedinstvenu prirodu ruske vojske – čije strukture komande, taktike i oružje autor opisuje u autoritativnom detalju.

Međutim, ono što je ipak najinteresantnije jeste taj vječni, dobrostojeći mit o tome kako i zahvaljujući čemu su Rusi porazili Napoleona. Ne bi li se odgovorilo na ova pitanja, autor u toku knjige desetkuje utvrđene mitove, no samo zbog toga što se, kao što je već rečeno, rijetko koji zapadnjak odlučio pozabaviti Napoleonovim pohodom iz ruske perspektive.

Na ovom mjestu je nemoguće zaobići izazivanje ruskih nacionalnih mitova. Prirodno je da oni bukvalno nisu svi do jednoga neistiniti, ali je i zamamno bizaran i unikatan element u ruskoj mitologiji o porazu Napoleona onaj koji taj njihov uspjeh radikalno nipodaštava. Najosnovniji razlog za ovakav stav jeste fakat što je ondašnja Rusija što je porazila Napoleona bila aristokratsko, dinastičko i multietničko carstvo.

Podrivajući događaje iz Napoleonove ere samo zarad ruskih etnonacionalističkih mitova i požrtvovano radeći na tome, neizbježno se izostavlja najveći dio ratne ekonomije.

Lieven, upravo zbog toga, donekle i brani Tolstoja (“prozaista nije istoričar“), koji se, sa gledišta istorije, drži za primarnog negativca u tom nesporazumu – u smislu da je i Zapad u njegovim redovima, a prevashodno o jadu i bijedi rata, spočitao mogućnost da je najposlije snijeg porazio Francuze, a ne ruska vojska. Lieven još brani Tolstoja zbog toga što je, zahvaljujući Ratu i miru, Tolstoj u stvari imao najviše uticaja na popularnu percepciju Napoleonovog poraza od svih knjiga naknadno napisanih o toj invaziji.

Premda ono što Tolstoj izostavlja iz romana koji okončava u Vilni (Viljnus) u decembru 1812. a što i sama ruska, a i zapadna, istorija generalno marginalizuje, jeste grandiozno rusko dostignuće u periodu 1813-14, tačnije njihov pohod na Pariz, usput još jednom porazivši Napoleona.

Staljinistička era prekrajanja istorije ne bi li se udovoljilo zvaničnoj ideologiji, na primjer, držala je ruskog cara Aleksandra I za zloćudnika i zbog toga sasvim izopačila međunarodni kontekst toga rata; Kutuzov je, prirodno/namjerno, izdignut na nivo Napoleona, dok je njegovo aristokratsko porijeklo (kao i veze sa dvorom) moralo da bude zanemareno; značaj masovnog otpora prema Napoleonu valjalo je, stoga, preuveličati. Na drugoj strani, Aleksandar I dočekan je u Parizu kao osloboditelj, jer je naročito Francuzima laknulo što je rat okončan. Štaviše, Francuzi su bili fascinirani manirizmom i šarmom te individue što je isijavala svoju navodnu milostivost i produhovljenost. Naizgled je ostavljao dojam čovjeka nezainteresovanog u trijumf i osvetu, te je velikodušno oslobodio sve Poljake koji su se borili protiv njega. U Londonu su, pak, Cara dočekali Kvekeri i članovi Britanskog biblijskog društva, kao da se radilo o kakvom spiritualnom mudracu ili, čak, avataru.

Još jedan od ključnih razloga zbog čega je Rusija porazila Napoleona je bila mudrost njenih lidera (kao i pravovremeno naimenovanje mnogih mladih ljudi na bitne pozicije). Hiljadu osamsto dvanaeste godine, Napoleon ionako nije bio u mogućnosti da prokljuvi rusko društvo i politiku, niti da istraži ruske unutrašnje slabosti i konstantno političko trvenje. Na kraju je upropastio vlastiti cilj previše se zadržavši u Moskvi u naivnoj nadi da će spas možda stići od Aleksandra, ruske elite ili čak i posredstvom revolta Kozaka (jedine protivničke vojske koju je Napoleon smatrao valjanom).

Nasuprot njemu, Aleksandar je i te kako dobro razumio snagu i slabosti svojeg neprijatelja i taj svoj uvid je u potpunosti iskoristio. Prije invazije tačno je znao kakvu vrstu rata Napoleon traži i priželjkuje. Zato su Rusi organizovali sasvim drukčiju vrstu rata – prolongiranu, razvučenu defanzivnu kampanju, kao i „narodski rat“, koji će staviti u pogon njihovu najveću snagu i izvući na vidjelo Napoleonove slabosti. Već u prvoj godini rata, ruska strategija uspjela je van svačijih očekivanja.

Naravno, ne iznenađuje što se Lieven čudi kako to Rusi tokom istorije mogu više da se identifikuju sa Borodinskom bitkom, koja se vodila pod Kutuzovim pored Moskve, nego sa Bitkom kod Lajpciga što se vodila u Njemačkoj pod Mihailom Bogdanovičem Barklejem de Tolijem (predvodnikom ruske carske armije) i Karlom Filipom, princom od Švarcenberga. Iako su porijeklom bili baltički Njemci, trojica Lievenovih predaka bili su generali u bici kod Lajpciga, učestvujući na ruskoj strani.

Kao izvanredan istoričar (dodaci, fusnote i bibliografija ove knjige broje skoro 100 strana), Lieven – otvoreno ogorčen iskrivljenim Zapadnim gledištem po pitanju rusko-francuskog rata – otpočetka planira i naposljetku i uspijeva da nas podsjeti na duboki i emotivni ruski doprinos evropskoj istoriji, koji je istovremeno i vojnog i političkog karaktera, nešto što se, barem sa strane Zapada, često negira ili prosto zapostavlja u pogledu većine recentnih ratova, a osobito u primjerima oko Napoleona i u vezi sa Drugim svjetskim ratom. Napokon da se stavi tačka i na ovo razdoblje istorije, i to uoči njene 200-godišnjice.
2011

[Captain Sir Roddy, R.N. (Ret.) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent, and eminently readable, political and military history of the latter stages of the Napoleonic Wars from the Russian perspective. Professor Lieven has done a superb job of crafting a suspenseful story involving some truly remarkable characters. His description of the battlefield tactical situations, the strategic implications of the armies moving across Europe in pursuit of Napoleon's Grande Armee is some of the best I've read, and rivals Shelby Foote's treatment of the American Civil War.

What really made this book stand out for me was Lieven's extensive and fascinating portrayal of the diplomatic and political machinations that led to the Allies finally coming together under the common goal of utterly destroying Napoleon's ability to wage war in Europe. For far too long too many people have been under the mistaken impression that it was the British, and the British alone, that led to the defeat of Napoleon. While it is true, in one sense, in another sense Napoleon's final defeat could not have occurred without the dogged perseverance of Tsar Alexander and the truly superb Russian Army that he led to ultimate victory on the long road from Moscow to Paris between 1812 and 1814.

I highly recommend this to any interested in 19th Century European history, and especially to those interested in Napoleonic history. This is an indispensable resource, and ever so well written.

[Frank Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary book. Lieven, a professor of Russian history at the London School of Economics and the direct decendent of three generals who fought at the Battle of Leipzig, gives a whole new perspective to Napoleon's classicly ill-advised invasion of Russia. Using newly available material from Russian archives to show that Czar Alexander and his brilliant general staff, knowing Napoleon was likely to unleash his massive army on Russia, actually planned for a number of years in advance and in tremendous detail their controlled retreat (and scorched earth policy) into the hinterlands of Russia.

Moreover, Lieven -- who has done an almost breathtakenly amount of research to write this book -- shows Alexander was not only militarily brilliant but also something of a diplomatic genius. If you like Napoleonic history -- especially military history -- this is a must-read. It moves quicky and is highly engaging. Highly, highly recommend it.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this in my local bookstore Nicola's and was immediately taken because it turned over most of what I thought I knew about Napoleon's campaign in Russia. Namely that he was defeated by his own over reach and the Russian winter. This book makes the case that he was beaten by superior strategy, fighting forces and tactics, though no doubt winter and over-reach helped. And I had forgotten that the Russians actually pursued the French all the way back to Paris and were part of the allied group that occupied it. An echo of the 1945 end game in Berlin. I am a 100 pages in and it is really well researched and gripping...with lots on things like the Russians ability to breed tough flexible cavalry horses which is the sort of underlying detail I enjoy... More when I have finished