"The Cossacks in the Memoirs of German Soldiers in the..." Topic

…Grande Armée.

"The figure of the Cossack looms large in the memoirs of German soldiers of the Russian Campaign. Initially, the Cossacks were a people inhabiting the lower Dnieper, Don and Ural river basins. In the early modern period they had allied themselves to the Russian Tsars and had played a key role in the extension and subjugation of the imperial frontiers. The Cossacks had become a special military estate within Russian society by the end of the eighteenth century. The relationship had, however, often been tense. Russian attempts to control and reduce the autonomy enjoyed by the Cossacks hosts had led to episodic revolts, the most recent and serious the Pugachev rebellion of 1773-1775. These rebellions had been bloodily suppressed by Russian imperial forces, but deep suspicion characterised the Russian elite's view of the Cossacks on the eve of the 1812 campaign.

The campaign was ‘to be one of the defining events of the nineteenth century for the Cossacks' (O'Rourke: p. 138). During 1812 the number of Cossacks was swelled by an appeal for volunteers to face the invader. Twenty-two militia regiments were formed in response to this appeal. The militia regiments were joined by four regular Cossack regiments already in the Don region. Through forced marches they met with the main Russian army under the command of General Kutuzov in October. A potent mixture of patriotism, xenophobia, promises to restore the old privileges and the chance of enrichment through looting the Grande Armée swelled the Cossack ranks to somewhere between 16,000 and 20,000 by mid-October 1812. Although the Cossacks operated alongside the regular Russian cavalry, they really distinguished themselves as light, irregular cavalry. Often operating behind enemy lines, they provided the Russian army with vital reconnaissance during the campaign whilst disrupting the Grande Armée's lines of communication. They also swept down on stragglers from the Grande Armée, supply columns and foraging parties. The operations of the Cossack bands thus made foraging a dangerous activity for the soldiers of the Grande Armée. This compounded the logistical problems already caused by extended supply lines and the Russian's scorched earth policy that beset Napoleon's forces. Cossacks also provided a link between the regular Russian military and the partisan bands that emerged in the course of the campaign. In some instances they operated alongside the partisans, such as the band led by Lieutenant-Colonel Denis Davidov…"
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