"Russian Officer Corp of the Napoleoic wars " Topic

Finally finished this book actually The Russian Officers of the Revolutionary and Napoleoic wars by Alexander Mikaberidze on a ebook reader, wish I had it in a real book as I had wanted it but messed up the order. Anyway it is quite the list of Officers with battles, campaigns and rewards listed. Question it brought up for me was the way officers moved around it doesn't seem there could be good cohesion in leadership. Also the way they moved between branches of infantry, cavalry and artillery did they have good knowledge of details needed but on other hand maybe worked better between units. It is sparking a interest in the Decemberest for me but thats a different subject. Really like the images of many entries and having lots of these men represented in figures is one reason I wanted this.

Trying to post this came up repeats of op

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I agree – great book, I find it always interesting to read about the generals who I paint as miniature figures.

One other thing I wanted to mention reading it it is striking the amount of Officers who are decended from other European countries if not actually former citizens of them.

@14Bore: yes, that seems pretty typical of European armies from the Middle ages right up to the 19th century. I think you will find Scots names in virtually every Napoleonic period army.

It's a great companion to general Russian military history of the era, as you can quickly look up, "what happened to that guy?" while you run through battle descriptions.

Russia was certainly not afraid to hire European expertise when required, so yes, a huge chunk of the officer corps was foreign. This generally worked well, but could lead to tensions, as it did in 1812.

Another nice side-effect of the book is that you get a better picture of the action going on against Sweden and the campaigns against the Turks. Generally, people tend to focus on the fighting against the French, and these get short shrift in English.