Izviestiia o voennykh” dieistviiakh” Rossiiskoi Armii protiv frantsuzov”, pervoi poloviny 1813 goda / Reports on the military operations of the Russian army against the French in the first half of 1813
Sanktpeterburg”: V” Meditsinskoi tipografii, 1813 / Saint Petersburg: Medical Printing House, 1813
8586.d.84, pp. 6–7
This volume, a collection of reports on the Russian pursuit of the French from the territory of the Russian Empire far into Prussia, includes the returns, printed bilingually, of losses submitted by officers of French regiments involved in the catastrophic campaign of 1812. This return for the 5th regiment of Tirailleurs (light infantry skirmishers) shows that by 15 December 1812, of 492 officers and men who had set out, only 41 remained under arms. Battlefield casualties were relatively light: by far the largest number fell into Russian hands through cold, illness and fatigue. Such losses were unsustainable: Napoleon’s era of domination in Europe was coming to an end.
Izviestiia o voennykh” dieistviiakh” Rossiiskoi Armii protiv frantsuzov”, pervoi poloviny 1813 goda / Reports on the military operations of the Russian army against the French in the first half of 1813
Sanktpeterburg”: V” Meditsinskoi tipografii, 1813 / Saint Petersburg: Medical Printing House, 1813
8586.d.84, pp. 6–7
This volume, the second of two published, contains sources from the Russian pursuit of the French Grande Armée far into Prussia in the months that followed the catastrophic close of Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia.
The first section contains returns of casualties suffered by some units in the French army. These returns were seized from the enemy and therefore represent, as the covering note from Field Marshal Prince Kutuzov to the Tsar says, ‘incontrovertible proof’ that previous Russian reports of enormous French losses were ‘not exaggerated’. Four regiments of the French Guards are covered by the returns, which are provided in the original French with a Russian translation on the facing pages. The reports show the situation in December 1812 following the French withdrawal from Smolensk. They make grim reading. There are four categories of losses: those left on the field, those too wounded to follow the army and left in the hands of the Russians, the dead from cold and hunger, and those left behind through cold, illness, or fatigue (this category sees by far the highest figures). For all four regiments, the figures of those lost far outweigh the number of those who remained with the army. Overwhelming casualties had, of course, already crippled the French long before they reached Smolensk on their way back from Moscow.
The remainder of the book contains day-by-day reports from the army’s headquarters and senior staff as the Russians pursued the French far beyond Russia’s borders. Occasional intelligences from Imperial Russia’s other active conflict of the time, the Russo-Persian War, also appear. The Tsar himself makes frequent appearances in the book, as his own headquarters travelled to follow the French retreat. Some events are covered more than once, as different sources follow one another to give a fuller picture. Some sections contain very detailed figures. The description of the siege of Toruń, for example, gives a daily summary of the numbers of projectiles thrown into the fortress. Others, particularly sections which look back at the events of a particular part of the campaign, are more emotional and colourful, with commanders paying homage to the bravery of their troops or describing the army’s reception in a newly taken town or village.
Towards the end of the book is a report of the death of Field Marshal Kutuzov, whose words opened the volume. The Tsar had honoured him with the victory title High Prince Smolenskii in late 1812, to mark his decisive role in the Russian victory at Smolensk. He died in April 1813 at the age of 67 in Bunzlau, having led the victorious army far from the bounds of the empire they served.
The whole book makes for exciting reading and is to be recommended to Russian-reading researchers of the period. The University Library copy bears on its title page a stamp from the library of Prince Aleksandr Nikolaevich Golitsyn (1773–1844). Golitsyn was not a military man, but was a significant figure within the Imperial administration. A trusted adviser of the Tsar, he would have been carefully apprised of the events the book covers, and it is intriguing to think that the University Library’s copy once belonged to him.
