The composition by nations of the first two lines may be stated as follows:—
French and New French 302,000
Germans and Swiss 190,000
Poles and Lithuanians 90,000
Italians, Illyrians, Spaniards, Portuguese 32,000
————
614,000
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THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS GENERALS
The circumstance which most impresses the reader who for the first time, and without knowledge of the conditions, peruses the story of the Franco-Russian campaign of 1812 is that the forces of Russia were, as compared with those of Napoleon, very weak. This weakness in war is familiar enough to all students of Russian history, nor are the reasons far to seek. Since, however, it must appear peculiar to all who regard Russia as a power essentially huge and powerful—the “Colossus of the North”—its causes must be briefly reviewed.
It is true that Russia is a country of vast extent; but her huge territory, to-day very imperfectly developed, was in 1812 largely in an almost primeval condition, while the population was even more sparsely distributed. The country was and is covered in many places by wide expanses of almost impenetrable forest, and by vast tracts of morass. In the western provinces the marshes of Pinsk cover an area of more than 20,000 square miles; and in 1812 they were pierced by only three indifferent roads. The majority of the numerous rivers do not in themselves present grave obstacles to intercommunication or military operations, being in summer shallow and easily fordable, and in winter usually frozen over, but they are often wide, and frequently have soft or sandy beds. The larger of them must be negotiated by means of bridges, and in 1812 bridges were few. Moreover, in Central Russia the soil is generally yielding and sandy, and every small stream has hollowed for itself in the course of ages a gully more or less deep. These gullies, repeatedly recurring, presented considerable obstacles, especially since they were rarely bridged.
The distances to be traversed were and are enormous. Readers of Herodotus will remember how the prospect of the three months’ march from Miletus to Susa frightened Kleomenes and the elders of Sparta. To transfer troops from the Caucasus to St. Petersburg in 1812 involved a journey of even greater magnitude—without the aid of the Royal Road of Persia. Even to-day the Russian roads are comparatively few and bad. In 1812 it was infinitely worse. The few high-roads were frequently very badly maintained; cross-roads of use for military purposes were almost non-existent.
Finally, Russia was as undeveloped politically as economically. The bulk of the peasantry were serfs chained to the soil. The accepted method of enrolling them for the national defence was to call upon the nobles, who owned the greater part of the land, for a levy of so many per hundred or thousand souls. Their interests naturally induced them to endeavour to retain the best and most industrious of their serfs, and to furnish for the army the ill-conditioned or idle, as far as possible. In a country in which corruption has always been rampant the recruiting officials were doubtless amenable to the influence of judicious bribery, and the actual result of a military levy was often far less than it should have been. The slowness of communication, the general poverty of the Government, the lack of factories of clothing, arms and ammunition, added to the difficulty of rapidly and efficiently increasing the armed strength. In 1812 Russia was suffering also from an almost complete cessation of commerce, the result of the British blockade of her coasts brought on by the alliance with Napoleon in 1807, and the financial difficulties were in consequence even greater than usual.