"Russian Light Cavalry" Topic

Continue with the good book of Mr. Lieven he said that it was the Russian Light Cavalry who led to the fall of Napoleon because of the interception of French dispaches revealing all of the Emperor's plans and his capital vulnerability.
That this was a fitting end to two years of warfare in which the Russian Light Cavalry had been superior from the start and totally dominant after Septermber 1812.

I supouse he is speaking about the Cossacks (?) because on the field of battle I cannot see how much better was the Russian Cavalry against the French Cavalry.
But I had to take note that the Russian was not the only one Army against Napoleon on 1813-14. There were Prussians, Austrians and much more against the french which fought with evident inferior numbers.

Wonder to know if the Russian Army ALONE could managed those prodigious against the French Army.

Maybe I'm totally wrong to think about that way, but I didn't concurr with the concept without taking in account the Allied which fought side by side with the Russians.

Any comment would be apreciated.

Amicalement
Armand

Armand,

Another good set of questions;

There are a number of points here.

Firstly Lieven shows that Russian espionage had penitrated into the French government very effectively before the invation.

The advantage the Russians have is sheer numbers of cavalry. Now Cossacks are not great battlefield cavalry, but they are excellent at raids and smal actions.

If you have about 90 minutes to spare, there is a lecture given by Dr Lieven here that you can listen to:

link

The lecture is called 'The Tsar Liberates Europe? Russia against Napoleon, 1807-1814' and it about 1/2 way down the web page.

Now with regard to the 1813-14 campaign, personnally I don't thing the Russian alone could have defeated the French, but the Tsar considered it both a religious and political duty remove Bonaparte. The problem of projecting Russian power into western Europe was considerable. The point is that by 1813 the demand for German Nationalism had spread widely so that even French Allies that had benefitted from the relationship, like Bavaria were prepared to turn on the French. States like Prussia were definitely out for revenge and would come to the support of the Russian liberators. Austria had by 1813 become war-weary and did not rise to the cause. The Saxons basically feared the Prussians more than the French and it was only self-preservation that caused them to turn.

I'd recommend that you read Charles Esdaile "Napoleon's Wars: and International History 1803-1815" to put the campaign into a wider comtext.

As a final note, the other month I encountered a German from Saxony. We fell to talking and the subject of his home town came up; he was from Bautzen. He asked me if I knew the place, I said yes as both a visitor and because of the Battle of Bautzen. He had grown up under the old Communist regime and had never be taught about battle, or indeed anything to do with the War of Liberation.

Hope this helps

Elliott

Lieven's book, "Russia against Napoleon" is both an excellent read and a history. It is unfortunate that Armand's question and Elliot's response implies the book leaves it open. In fact, Lieven spends a great deal of time on how important it was for Alexander to gather allies, how much effort was put into this, and how much of the historical drama centered around the uncertainty of the diplomatic outcomes.

As for Russian versus French cavalry on the battlefield, from Bautzen on, that is pretty easily answered. What French cavalry?-) The severe losses to that arm allowed the Allies to retreat unmolested and was a chief motive for Napoleon to agree to the armistice. The Russians did seem to get the better of the minor skirmishes in 1812, as well, and kept the French at bay most of the time.

nvrsaynvr you are quite correct, my bad. Comes from doing the TMP at work ;)

Lieven shows that 2 privinces did not supply men to the army only horses.

Well I think we can certainly agree that the Russian Line cavalry was better than the British cavalry…With the honourable exclusion of the highly professional KGL cavalry of course.

THere have been some heroic efforts by revisonist historians to 'rehabilitate' the reputation of the British cavalry arm, but not very convincingly in my view.

Whereas with a little bit more luck the Russian massed cavalry sweep at Borodino could have delivered a decisive victory then and there…

My friend 138 Squadron Raf, many thanks for your kindly comment and for the link!.
Always a pleasure to read you!.

To Mr. nvrsaynvr I concurr that Lieven books is excelent but I'm only questioning the "Light Cavalry" theme.

You ask about "what cavalry?", well it's true that after the disaster of the Russian invasion Napoleon had few or none riders to fought at Lutzen and Bautzen and true too that he lost the war because of that, but after that, at the Leipzig campaign and 1814 campaign he had CAvalry.
Many excelent riders from Spain and others from depot.
They had fought very big and small battles against their enemies and they didn't performed bad at all!.
And I insist that if Russia would fought ALONE against Napoleon (even with his lack of Cavalry) on 1813-14 it wasn't sure they could won him.
The way to destroyed the Emperor were odds numbers.
Not the Russian Light Cavalry.
But it's only my poor opinion, sir.

Amicalement
Armand

I haven't read Lieven yet (but want to). But it seems like the conclusion you are drawing, Armand, does not follow from what you said that Lieven stated. Lieven apparently stated that in the final weeks of the war in 1814, Russian light cavalry captured dispatches that revealed the weakness of the french and the vulnerability of the capital.

This presumably led the Russians to push for the seizure of Paris rather than playing cat and mouse with napoleon. Seems to make sense to me.

Your conclusion, that Lieven is claiming that Russian light cavalry won the war and that the coalition and numbers were irrelevant makes no sense and doesn't seem to follow at all from the statements you presented from Lieven.

So … what exactly are you arguing against?

Dear Vendome, I'm reading the book as I had said before and I did not concurr that even taking the courriers from Napoleon the War of 1814 had ended because of the Russian Light Cavalry ALONE…

There were a LOT of other circumstances that push Napoleon down. Of course I admit the importance of the Russian Army and their Light Cavalry (Cossacks?)in particular, but they are not (imho) the only or most important effect.

But it is only my opinion.
I respect yours.

Amicalement
Armand

Lieven does assert that Russian superiority in light cavalry (regular + irregular) was a salient factor in Russian success. Certainly they seemed to dominate the campaign theatre. Armand contention that they did not dominiate big (1812) battlefields begs the question, "Why would one expect them to do something light cavalry didn't do?"

Armand, You stated that the alleged reason that the Russian light cavalry proved to be a key element in N's defeat was "because of the interception of French dispatches revealing all of the Emperor's plans and his capital vulnerability." But then you seem to forget about that last part. If your presentation of what Lieven said is accurate, it is not the action of the light cavalry alone that he asserts to be the chief cause of Napoleon's downfall but rather the allied reaction to the dispatches they captured that led to a bolder strategy. This is based on the words you wrote.

Does Lieven actually say anywhere that Russian light cavalry ALONE was the sole factor that cause the defeat of Napoleon? I rather doubt it from what I've seen of Lieven.

nvrsaynvr's summation of Lieven's point makes sense. Russian light cavalry operating on the fringes of the French army, raiding communications and taking out stragglers DID form a key part of the Russian success in 1812 and the French lacked the cavalry to counter their operations in 1813-14.

It's sort of like saying that allied air superiority in France was pivotal in the success of the allied invasion in 1944. This isn't saying that airpower alone won the war, but that without it, it would have taken longer or been more costly or even failed.

I may have to see if the library has a copy of Lieven.

Armand,

In answer to your original question about whether Russia alone could have beaten Napoleon in 1814, the answer is clearly no. No one european power could have, as the Austrians also had demonstrated on many occasions.

In his lecture, the pod cast in the link, Lieven correctly compares the available mainpower to Napoleon in 1813 with Russia – Napoleon could, and did, build a completlely new army in 1813 which was bigger than his combined Russian and Prussian foe – and not until Austria joined in did that change.

Even after Leipzig Napoleon expected to build another new army over the winter of 1813-14.

refer to Michael V. Leggiere's first book on this campaign here, he illustrates how Napoleon's failure to properly brief his marshals on the need to sacrifice as many man as required in order to retain the land from which he was drawing the new recruits for the new army was at fault.

The marshals, thinking in the old way, traded land for time and pulled their small forces back to preserve the forces they had – exactly the opposite of what Napoleon required of them, as he needed to trade the men he had on the frontier for time, in order to draw new men from the land he still controlled.

Even so, he still managed to produce enough of an army to potentially save his throne – until the cossacks captured the dispateches, and revealed the weakness in Paris.

It is worth considering this as one of the reasons why Davout was left in charge of Paris in 1815 – after his remarkable performance in the siege of Hamburg, Napoleon considered, rightly, that Davout would preserve the capital if need be, while Napoleon could attempt another frederickan style 'government on the road' with his fighting force.

Waterloo saw to the end of that, of course, but even the morning after, all sides expected another series of battles yet to come.

Dear Sires, I accepted your comments as very valid.

Maybe my mistake was to understand that the potential importance of the Russian Light Cavalry was so hight that they were the key to destroyed Napoleon Empire.

For me, always the key of the fall of Napoleon was only one man.

Marshall Blücher.

Without Blücher, I had great doubts if Napoleon would be defeated even with the best Light Cavalry against him.

Same thing about the campaing of the 100 days.

But as I always said, it is only my modest opinion.

Many thanks for your truly interesting comments.

Hope other guys (as Mr. Kelly) joint the theme.

Amicalement
Armand

Hi Armand and thanks for the invitation.

Napoleon fell because of three major mistakes-Spain, Russia, and the Continental System. Even after Russia, though, he still had a chance. Berthier and others advised him to take half of the troops out of Spain, who were veterans, and put them in eastern Europe in early 1813 which would have stopped the Russian advance into Europe and probably would have kept Prussia out of the fighting. It also would have strengthened his mounted arm considerably with the veteran light cavalrymen and dragoons that would have then been available.

Here Napoleon seems to have lost some of his strategic ability to see both the big picture and determine what was important and what was not. Spain was a secondary theater and that could be attended to later. The main and decisive theater, as it always had been, was central Europe. 75-100,000 French veterans plus whatever else was immediately available against untried Prussians and exhausted Russians would probably have been decisive. And the French totals I have given here did not include the new army Napoleon was raising to go east.

Putting Suchet in charge in Spain with an army of about 75,000 veterans and pulling them back from most of Spain would have been trouble for Wellington and might have nullified the effects of the Spanish guerillas. Napoleon could also have sent Ferdinand back and let him have his throne.

Napoleon's shortsightedness caused a longer war and the eventual defeat in 1814.

The Russian campaign's losses were not all French, but the loss in horses and artillery was terrible. The artillery was rebuilt very well. It took the cavalry longer.

The Cossacks were not worth much in a standup fight and hated artillery fire and generally would not face it. When there were shortages of Cossacks and the regular Russian light cavalry had to perform the typical light cavalry duties of outposting, scouting, etc., they didn't do it efficiently. Russian cavalry was good in a standup charge, but didn't maneuver well and could be mousetrapped by a good opponent.

Light cavalry was employed on the battlefield as cavalry and was employed in charging the enemy when necessary. French light cavalry was employed in this manner in every campaign. It was employed on the battlefield at Jena and it was Pire's light cavalry division that caused the allies so much trouble at Quatre Bras in 1815. Jacquinot's lancers were one of the units that destroyed the British Union Brigade at Waterloo, along with Farine's cuirassier brigade.

Regarding the teaching and writing of military history, John Lynn wrote an excellent article some years ago on the subject (and I don't have it to hand, unfortunately), but he stated that it wasn't liked as a discipline by 'other' historians. That being the case, military historians branched out into different aspects of military history and unfortunately don't care too much to address the marching and killing that is a great part of military history.

Sincerely,
K

Many thanks Mr. Kevin.
As usuall, a real pleasure to read your text.

Amicalement
Armand

The Continental System resulted directly in Spain and Russia, so it's a little hard to separate them. It's hard to see how Napoleon could have defeated Great Britain without a naval program. Did Napoleon ever demonstrate strategic thinking, or did he just keep rolling the dice because his legitimacy was based on military victory?

Lieven does a very good job of pointing out both how vunerable to defeat Alexander's efforts were and how correctly Alexander anticipated and countered Napoleon's plans. But had the French achieved stasis in Poland, they still would have had to reconquer Spain. Hardly a short war, especially given the actual event took only a year.

When you claim the Russian hussars and lancers were "inefficient" are you appealing to some quantitative checklist I'm not aware of, or are you claiming they were almost as bad as Murat who ran his Corps into the ground?-)

Did French light cavalry enjoy being bombarded?

Does planche XXIV in "Regulations de cavalrie…" illustrate "mousetrapping" or am I simply confused?

The successes of the French light cavalry on the battlefield in the 1815 campaign can hardly make up for their catastrophic failure to track the Prussians after Ligny. Similarly, the battlefield performance of the Russian light cavalry is unimportant to their strategic value. However, they were very good in the numerous cavalry skirmishes during the campaigns.

Did you not see Lieven's comment about outpost duty and scouting? I believe he stated that they had problems with it if Cossacks were absent.

If you can't find it, I'll take another look and give you a citation, but if you have the book, you can find it, can you not?

Sincerely,
K

Kevin, thank you for that clarification. I think it's a little hard to discern you meant the Cossacks were more efficient at scouting an outpost duty than the Russian regular light cavalry. I recall some discussion of Russian heavy cavalry being pressed into service, but not what you refer to. Then again, it's a 600 page book so I might have overlooked it. However, I'll leave it to you to back up your arguments.