Abstract
The Napoleonic Wars transformed the status of the Russian Empire within Europe. At the beginning of the campaigns the perception of the other major European powers was that Russia was not capable of inflicting a major defeat on Napoleon without allied support. Alexander I was humiliated at the Battle of Austerlitz on 2 December 1805, and almost suffered the indignity of being captured. Following a further defeat at the Battle of Friedland in June 1807, Alexander had to come to terms with Napoleon at Tilsit (7 July 1807) and had to recognize the dominant position of the French Emperor in central and eastern Europe. Relations between France and Russia deteriorated, particularly as a result of French influence over Poland and the implementation of the Continental System, and led to the invasion of Russia in June 1812 by a massive army of some 680,000 men. The presence of Napoleon’s troops in the Russian Empire was brief compared with the experience of some other European countries, but traumatic in terms of casualties suffered in major battles (Smolensk on 16–18 August and Borodino on 7 September), and the occupation of Moscow. The retreat started in mid-October and the Russian campaign effectively ended on 14 December 1812, with the last troops of the Grande Armée leaving Russian soil. But by now Russia had established its military superiority and became the dominant partner of the coalition which pushed Napoleon back to the borders of France.
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Notes
The literature on Russia during the Napoleonic Wars is too extensive to be listed in full. The excellent recent study by Dominic Lieven, Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807–1814 (London, 2009) includes an extensive bibliography.
The best recent biography of Alexander I is Marie-Pierre Rey, Alexander I: The Tsar Who Defeated Napoleon (Dekalb, IL, 2012), which is a translation of Alexander Ier (Paris, 2009). The proceedings of a recent, 2014, conference on Russia and the Napoleonic Wars which brought together scholars from North America, Western and Eastern Europe and Russia have now been published in a volume entitled Russia and the Napoleonic Wars (Basingstoke, 2015), ed. by Janet M. Hartley, Paul Keenan and Dominic Lieven.
I. P. Shcherov, Zapadnoi region Rossii i Dekabrizm (Smolensk, 2003), 66–71.
Otechestvennaia voina v khudozhestvennykh proizvodeniiakh, zapiskakh, pismakh i vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, compiled by A. V. Mezier (St Petersburg, 1912), 171. See also Janet M. Hartley, ‘Russia in 1812: Part 1: The French Presence in the Gubernii of Smolensk and Mogilev’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 38 (1990): 178–198.
Frederick W. Kagan, The Military Reforms of Nicholas I: The Origins of the Modern Russian Army (London, 1999), 12.
L. G. Beskrovnyi, The Russian Army and Fleet in the Nineteenth Century (Gulf Breeze, FL, 1996), 256–257.
For a general survey of educational developments in the Russian Empire in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century see Janet M. Hartley, A Social History of the Russian Empire 1650–1825 (London, 1999), 125–145;
the most thorough account of the establishment of universities can be found in James T. Flynn, The University Reforms of Alexander I1802–1835 (Washington, DC, 1988).
L. G. Beskrovnyi, Russkaia armiia i flot v XVIII v (ocherki) (Moscow, 1958), 294–297.
For more details on conscription and its consequences see Hartley, Russia 1762– 1825, 29–46, and Janet M. Hartley, ‘The Russian Recruit’, in Reflections on Russia in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Joachim Klein, et al. (Cologne, 2001), 32–42. On militias see Janet M. Hartley, ‘Patriotism in the Provinces in 1812: Volunteers and Donations’, in Russia and the Napoleonic Wars, 148–162.
K. V. Sivkov, ‘Finansy Rossii posle voin s Napoleonon’, in Otechestvennaia voina i russkoe obshchestvo, ed. A. K. Dzhivelegov (Moscow, 1912), vol. 7, 124–137, 131.
Marc Raeff, Michael Speransky: Statesman of Imperial Russia 1772–1839 (The Hague, 1957), 92, 97–98.
V. G. Sirotkin, ‘Finansovo-ekonomicheskoe posledstvia Napoleonovskikh voin i Rossiia v 1814–1824 gody’, Istoriia SSSR 4 (1974): 46–56, 56.
L. G. Beskrovnyi, Otechestvennaia voina 1812 goda (Moscow, 1962), 250.
Richard Pipes, ‘The Military Colonies, 1810–1831’, Journal of Modern History 22 (1950): 205–219, 211.
Quoted in John L. H. Keep, Soldiers of the Tsar: Army and Society in Russia, 1462–1874 (Oxford, 1985), 284.
K. M. Iachmenikhin, Voennye poseleniia v Rossii: Istoriia sotsial’no-ekonomicheskogo eksperimenta (Ufa, 1994), 56.
For more details on the purchase of substitutes for the army see Hartley, Russia1762–1825, 33–34, 79–81. See also Rodney D. Bohac, ‘The Mir and the Military Draft’, Slavic Review 47 (1988): 652–666.
K. M. Iachmenikhin, ‘Ekonomicheskii potentsial voennykh poselenii v Rossii’, Voprosy istorii 2 (1997): 34–48.
L. P. Bogdanov, Voennye poseleniia v Rossii (Moscow, 1992), 53.
A. N. Petrov, ‘Ustroistvo i upravlenie voennykh poselenii v Rossii’, in Materialy k noveishei otechestvennoi istorii: Graf Arakcheev i voennye poseleniia, ed. M. I. Semevskii (St Petersburg, 1871), 85–207, 159;
and S. I. Maevskii, ‘Moi vek ili istoriia generala Maevskogo’, Russkaia starina 10 (1873): 427–464, 435.
Alexander Bitis and Janet M. Hartley, ‘The Russian Military Colonies in 1826’, The Slavonic and East European Review 79 (2000): 323–330, 329.
V. A. Fedorov, ‘Bor’ba krest’ian Rossii protiv voennykh poselenii, 1810–1818’, Voprosy istorii 11 (1952): 112–124, 121.
P. Pavlov, ‘Vospominaniia ochevidtsa o bunte voennykh poselian v 1831’, Istoricheskii vestnik 3 (1894): 738–787, 786.
I. Radzikovskii, ‘Epizod iz bunta voennykh poselian v 1831 godu’, Istoricheskii vestnik 11 (1888): 434–447, 447.
Alexander Bitis, ‘Reserves under Serfdom? Nicholas I’s Attempt to Solve the Russian Army’s Manpower Crisis under Serfdom’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 51 (2003): 185–196.
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Hartley, J.M. (2016). War, Economy and Utopianism: Russia after the Napoleonic Era. In: Forrest, A., Hagemann, K., Rowe, M. (eds) War, Demobilization and Memory. War, Culture and Society, 1750–1850. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-40649-1_5
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