THREE AGAINST MOSCOW

So man?! swpet'fiC'ia.l c011111arisons have recentlll been dTa1U11. betweenthe RUBs'ian catnpaign of Na1Joleon and that of todall tha·t o,n ana/1/S'is ofthis s~lbjeet wottld seem desiTable. To 11wke tMs analY8'is still cleat'er wehave inclnded anothel' campaign-that of Chat'les XII of Sweden. Up to1941 his ca,Jn1Jaign and Napoleon's wel'e the two llwst celebrated man~hes

on Moscow. Both fa·iled. F?'om this some wonld Wee to draw the conclu·sion that the pI'esent one tntl8t fail too. On/lI tim.e will tell, But Itlreadythe similwrities and differences in the thl'ee camwt'igns. se1JaTated by1'oughl1l a centw'1l fro'ln clleh otltel'. a1'/~ suff'ieientlll clem' fa?' a em/'/.­J}ll'l'ison.-K.M.

CHARLES XII, 1708-1709

With the rise of Peter the Great andhis dl"ive for an outlet to the BalticSea, Russia and Sweden - the mistressof the Baltic - had become the twochief rivals of northeastern Europe.At Karva in 1700 Charles XII, thebrilliant young king of Sweden, defeat­ed Peter's large but primitive army.Believing that he had dealt Russia adeathblow, Charles thereafter for manyyears directed his efforts againstPoland, thus giving Peter time toreorganize his army on the basis of thelessons learnt at Narva and to occupya large section of the Baltic countries.

Finally, with conquered Poland asan ally. Ch3"le~ dp.cioed to turn ~gail1

on Peter. With one Swedish armyunder Le........cnhuupt uL Rigu I,;oyt:ringhis left flank, he crossed the Vistulaearly in 1708 with bis main forceof 46,UOO men. Using all availableparallel l'oads, the Swedes in a quickand exemplary winter march reachedGrodno and Radoszkowicze near Minsk.Here they stayed two and a half monthsto organize the supplies for their fur­ther advance.

Charles faced a serious problem:which road was he to take to reach hisgoal, Moscow? His generals advisedthe northern route through the Balticstates in order to operate from aregion closer to Sweden, to join Lewen-

haupt, and to use Pskov as a base forthe drive against Moscow. But Peter,anticipating this plan, had ordered thedevastation of the Baltic lands and theevacuation of the inhabitants of DOl'pat,Narvu, and other cities to northeasternRussia. Charles, impatient and self­confident, decided to march straighttowards the east and ordered Lewen­haupt to join him with ammunitionand supplies.

The road from Minsk to Moscowleads through the famous gap betweenthe Baltic river Dvina and the BlackSea "ivel' Dniepr, ~ g~p which at itsnarrowest point is 45 miles wide.There iR only one mlljOl' natural obstacleon the way, the Beresina river. Invain did the Russians try to IJ1'eVentCharles' crossing it a few miles southof Borissov, and when they madea stand at Golovtchin, northeast ofMohilev, they were defeated on July3, 1708. While the Russian forces l'e­tired to Smolensk. the traditional postguarding the Dvina-Dniepr gap, Char­les remained for a month in Mohilev,but then, tired of waiting for Lewen­haupt, he pushed on towards Smolensk.He got as far as Tatarsk, and it washere that he made the most momentousdecision of the war: abruptly abandon­ing his previous direction, he turnedat a sharp angle towards the south.leaving orders for Lewenhaupt to follow.

108 THE XXth CENTURY

It was by now the middle of Septem­ber, 1708.

What made Charles give up his head­on drive against MoscoW't For thelast 233 years historians have tried toanswer this question, and many theorieshave been advanced. Evidently Charleshad convinced himself on the one handthat the Russians had strong positionsat the traditional gateway to Moscowand that they were ruthlessly layingwaste the country, thus depriving theSwedes of any supplies. On the other

hand a detour through the[~uth seemedto otTer many advantages. For therethe rich and still intact fields of theUkraine beckoned, a country inhabitedby a population restive under Russiandomination and apparently ready torise under their leader, Hetman Mazepa.There was news of a rebellion againstPeter among the Cossacks of the Don;there was the possibility of aid fromTurkish or Tartar armies; and therewas finally the lack of strong Russiandefenses on the southern approaches toMoscow. There appeared to be only

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@ARLE.SXII1708-1709

MOSCOW

oTul.a.

THREE AGAINST MOSCOW 109

one disadvantage: the tremendous dis­tances to be covered.

Charles' decision is one of theturning-points in European history. Theadvantages which he had expected fromhis march to the south did not mate­rialize, but the disadvantage - theenormous size of the country-remain­ed. Charles was soon to feel theconsequences. First Lewenhaupt, stilltrying to catch up with the mainforce, was defeated at Lyessnaya. Helost his supplies and artillery andreached Charles with only half his armyleft. Next it became clear that, in theabsence of careful preparations, themarch to the Ukraine had become anadventure rather than a military enter­prise. The Ukrainians were by nomeans pleased with Charles' unexpecteddecision, which carried the war intothe heart of their country. AlthoughMazepa himself remained true to hispromise to aid Charles, he was joinedby only 2,000 Cossacks, the others eitherholding themselves aloof or, electing acounter-Hetman, even turning againsthim. Though they hated the Russians,the orthodox Ukrainians feared that avictorious Swedish advance into theircountry would ultimately lead to itscontrol by the detested Roman Catho­lic Poles. For Sweden was far away,while neighboring Poland was an allyof Charlca.

Worflt of nll, the 'winter of 1708/0was unusually bitter. When Mazepa'smain bnso, Baturin, was dcatro.}'cd bythe Russians, the Swedes found them­selves without decent winter quarters.

Their communications with Poland andSweden had long been cut. No generaluprising against Moscow occurred inSouth Russia. No aid arrived from theTartars or the Turks. The small-scalewarfare of the winter months allowedno decision to be reached but onlyserved to decimate the Swedish forces.And all the time Peter avoided a battle.He was biding his time. He waiteduntil cold, hunger, guerrilla warfare,and disease had sufficiently weakenedthe isolated army of Charles.

It was not till the summer thatPeter felt his time had come. In thebattle of Poltava on June 7, 1709, some40,000 Russians with 70 guns fought18,000 Swedes with 30 guns. TheRussian army and Peter's generalshiphad both vastly improved in the yearssince Narva. The greatest handicapfor the Swedes was not their smallnumbers but the fact that their kinghad been wounded a few days earlierso that he was prevented from leadinghis men in person. His generals, usedto relying on the genius of their king,made blunders now that they had toact on their own. The Swedes wereutterly defeated. Charles, suffering fromwound-fever, was barely saved fromcapture. Mazepa fled. The army sur­rendered.

For ~weeien. th", hattie of Poltavawas a blow from which she never re­coverod, and ohc hl\3 l"Cn1Uincd asecondary power ever since. For Russiait mcnnt the foundation of her un­disputed hegemony in northeasternEurope.

NAPOLEON, 1812

During the years 1807 to 1812, whileNapoleon was extending his controlover Europe and vainly trying todefeat England through his ContinentalBlockade, Russia under Tsar Alexan­der I was playing for time. Thoughformally an ally, Napoleon could neverbe sure of Russia's position. The finalbreak came in 1812. To force Russiainto a dependable co-operation and

perhaps to open through her the roadto India - the brightest jewel in theBritish crown - Napoleon decided tomarch against Moscow. With thisdecision he accepted war on twofronts, for the fighting in Spain wasstill tying down a French army of290,000 men and claiming considerablelosses. There was also unrest inFrance and other parts of Europe.

110 THE XXtb CENTURY

Yet Napoleon was confident. He hadsome 600,000 men at his disposal inthe east, of which 470,000, "la GrandeArmee," were ready to march intoRussia. His left flank was protectedby strong forces, including a Prussiancorps under Yorck, and his rightflank by some 30,000 Austrians under

Schwarzenberg. On his march towardMoscow he faced two Russian armies,one of 120,000 men under Barclay deTolly in the neighborhood of Vilna, theother, 37,000 strong, under Bagration,south of the Pripet river. In additionto these there were Wittgenstein'snorthern army to guard the approaches

to St. Petersburg, and Tchitchagov'sin the south.

Napoleon began his campaign bycrossing the Nyemen on June 24. Hisplan was to drive a wedge betweenthe two main armies of the Russiall!land to defeat each of them in turn.

March Of Napoleon.

=== Mat~""ofi<.U}SiM Arrnie)

~~.~.. fenu Around Nllpoltor.l~:. -- "~1 i1'2d Alley"

.Poltava

But the Russians constantly withdrewwithout engaging in any major battleand finally effected a junction of theirarmies at Smolensk. On three occa­sions-at Vilna, Vitebsk, and Smolensk-Napoleon hoped to force the Russiansinto battle, but each time they retired.After their retreat from Smolensk,

THREE AGAINST MOSCOW 111

Kutuzov, the hero of an earlier warwith Turkey and by this time sixty­seven years old, took over the Russiancommand. To reach Smolensk onAugust 18, Napoleon had taken twomonths. He felt he had no time to lose.

In Smolensk Napoleon decided tocarry out what Charles XII had avoided:a head-on attack on Moscow. He had,to be sure, a much larger army thanCharles, but otherwise he faced thesame difficulties, and his army of menand horses was melting rapidly away.The roads were poor, the distancestremendous, the devastation of thecountryside on the part of the retreat­ing Russians ruthless and thorough.From Smolensk eastward Napoleon wasno longer on Polish or Lithuanian butpurely Russian soil. Yet no attemptwas made to win over the Russianpeasants by liberation from their age­old servitude. The French knew thatthey were facing a nation united inpatriotic effort.

Before Moscow Kutuzov decided tomake a stand. In the battle of Borodinoon September 7 Napoleon finally got hislong-awaited chance. (The Germanscrossed the same battlefield on October14.) Each army was about 125 000men strong. The French were exhaustedby the long marches through devastatedlands. Napoleon was not his old self.The Russians resisted stubbornly andboth sides suffered terrible losses, butin the end the Russians gave way andabandoned Moscow. On September 15Napoleon entered the almost empty

city, and on the following day hugefires broke out which laid waste thegreater part of it, destroying quartersand supplies. In vain Napoleon hopedthat the Tsar would sue for peace. Afurther campaign without a baseagainst the elusive enemy was impos­sible. Winter was closing in. Moscowwas at the tip of a long and narrowwedge - its sides hundreds of mileslong. The French were engulfed by ahostile nation armed and patriotic.Only one ruined road linked Napoleonwith Europe. Powerful Russian armieswere threatening his rear 450 and 700miles away, at Drissa and Brest-Litovsk.

On October 19 Kapoleon began hisretreat. What was left of his armywas demoralized and had lost all march­ing discipline. Pressure from Kutuzovforced him to take the same road backover which he had advanced. In theterrible Russian cold a life and deathrace set in for the Beresina river.From three sides atmies were rushingtoward the ford: Napoleon from theeast, harassed by Kutuzov's forcesmarching slightly to the south of him,Wittgenstein from the north, Tchitcha­gov from the south. Against hugeodds and a combined Russian army of129,000, Napoleon effected a crossingof the Beresina during the last daysof November. But only a small numberof Frenchmen reached the other bank,and a few days later Napoleon leftthe miserable remnants of his armyand hurried back to Paris. FromMoscow his path led straight to Leipzig,Elba, Waterloo, and St. Helena.

HITLER, 19U

Two important parallels between thepresent and previous campaigns inRussia have rightly been stressed, thoseof time and space. In all threeinstances serious fighting began in thesecond half of June (Charles XII forc­ed his way across the Beresina onJune 16, Napoleon crossed the borderJune 24, Hitler on June 22) and today,as then, the theater of war lies in the

same endless plains, marshes, and forestsof Eastern Europe.

However, these two parallels areopposed by a long list of divergences.Attention has been called to the factthat Napoleon, starting out almostsimultaneously with Hitler, enteredMoscow on September 15, when theGerman armies were still some 150miles from that city. It is true,

112 THE XXth CENTURY

Napoleon advanced with greater speedthan the German troops, especially asall movements were made on foot. Ifit were a question of winning the raceto Moscow, Napoleon would deserve thecup. But the problem was to defeatRussia. And here Napoleon's speed,far from being an advantage to him,was actually the cause of his downfall.Napoleon marched as rapidly as he didbecause his chief aim, to force theRussians to full battle, was not accom­plished. From the border almost allthe way to Moscow, over a distance of500 miles as the crow flies, Napoleonchased the Russians in vain. AlthoughNapoleon's army marched an averageof almost 6.3 miles per day (520 milesfrom the Nyemen to Moscow in 83days), the Russians managed an aver­age of 9 miles per day for Barclay deTolly's forces and even 16.2 miles perday for Bagration's. When they finallymade a stand at Borodino Napoleon'sarmy ,was tired and decimated by thelong march through devastated country.

Herein is to be found the chiefdifference. In both the earlier cam­paigns the Russians succeeded in savingtheir own strength and in evadingbattle until they were ready to fightan enemy far from his base, exhausted,and lost in the enormous space. Tbisthey were able to do because theSwedish and French armies marchedlike slim arrows into the vastness ofRussia. Charles' small force was nevermore than one column. And Napoleon'sarmy of half a million, while startingfrom a broad base, quickly narroweddown to the one column that marchedon the main road to Moscow. TheGerman army today, on the other hand,is moving in a broad front, like aflood tide from the Arctic to the BlackSea. In this frontal attack the Russianarmies must fight, whether they like itor not. They could not adopt thedilatory and withdrawing tactics ofthe previous campaigns because thatwould have meant losing their mainindustrial areas, developed in westernRussia since Napoleon. Thus insteadof saving their strength for the finish

they are suffering heavier losses thantheir opponents.

This difference becomes particularlyclear if we look at the role of Smolenskin the three campaigns. Charles, afteralmost reaching it and without sufficientforces for a head-on attack, tried thedetour through the Ukraine. Aftermarching hundreds of miles practicallywithout fighting-much farther than itwould have been to Moscow-he suffereda tragic defeat. Napoleon passedSmolensk quickly, and on his almostunopposed march to and from Moscowhe lost his entire army. The Germanarmies, after breaking through toSmolensk on July 16, that is a wholemonth before Napoleon, did not followhis example, but waited almost threemonths until their wings had straighten­ed out the front from Leningrad tothe Crimea. When Napoleon marchedeastwards from Smolensk he courteddisaster with his dangerously openflanks threatened from both the northand south. When the German troopsadvanced on October 2, six weeks laterthan Napoleon. their flanks were safelyanchored on the shores of the Balticand Black Seas. And on October 19, whenNapoleon began his disastrous retreat,the German army, without perceptibleloss of striking power, was shellingMoscow.

Both Charles and Napoleon paid forthe speed of their advance with thebreakdown of their communicationsystem::! in the rear. Doth had hopedto live off the land, Charles in theUkrai"ne, Napoleon upon reaching Mos­cow. Both were unprepared for theRussian "scorched earth policy." Inthe end it was not so much the coldof the Russian winter as the lack ofcommunications which caused the col­lapse of their armies.

Neither the Swedes nor the Frenchprepared their campaigns with themeticulous and detailed care and fore­sight of the Germans. Compared withthe present war, where every eventuali­ty has been taken into consideration,their campaigns seem like grand imp~o­

visations. Napoleon had taken wIth

THREE AGAINST MOSCOW 113

him neither winter clothing for hisarmy nor special winter horseshoes.The lack of the latter caused seriouslos~es to his artillery and train as alarge number of horses broke their legsin slipping on the icy roads. For a care­fully equipped army the Russian winterhas one advantage: it bridges all riversand bogs with ice.

There is no need to elaborate on allthe technical differences between thefirst two wars and today. I t is enoughto mention the mechanized equipmentwhich has tremendously increased thespeed and striking power of the armiesand hence reduced the size of Russiafor all practical purposes; the advantageheld in mechanical warfare by a nationtrained for generations in the sphereof industry over a people that in itsmasses has only recently turned towardthe technical fields; the use of hugeairtleets which carry the war far intothe territory behind the Soviet armies,destroying their means of supply andcommunication (the Russians of 1812.could tight from unscathed country

while they destroyed everything in thepath of Napoleon); the existence ofrailroads and motortrucks for carryingsupplies, and so on. There is onedifference, however, which is of evengreater importance: that is the differ­ence in the spirit of the three armiesmarching against Moscow.

The wars of 1708 and 1812 mightalmost be called the personal affairs ofCharles XII and Napoleon. Neither theSwedish nor the French soldier's hadany personal interest in the war, justas Europe in those days had no grudgeagainst Russia nor any fear of her.Charles' men followed him in the spiritof adventure and because they lovedthe brilliant personality and leadershipof their king. Few men in the armiesof Napoleon, which had largely beenraised by force, saw either sense intheir participation or necessity for thecampaign itself, But today Europe andthe soldiers of the German and Alliedarmies know what they are fightingfor and what a Bolshevist victorywould mean.