Barclay de Tolly

Towards the end of the year 1811, there began to be greater activity in levying troops and in concentrating the forces of Western Europe, and in 1812 these forces — millions of men, reckoning those engaged in the transport and feeding of the army — moved from the West eastward, towards the frontiers of Russia, where, since 1811, the Russian forces were being in like manner concentrated.

On the 12th of June the forces of Western Europe crossed the frontier, and the war began, that is, an event took place opposed to human reason and all human nature. Millions of men perpetrated against one another so great a mass of crime — fraud, swindling, robbery, forgery, issue of counterfeit money, plunder, incendiarism, and murder — that the annals of all the criminal courts of the world could not muster such a sum of wickedness in whole centuries, though the men who committed those deeds did not at that time look on them as crimes.

Translated by Constance Garnett 

These famous words open Part 9 of War and Peace, which encompasses the events of 1812. Everyone in Russia – even those who never bothered to read this monumental novel, relying instead on summaries when they had to write their school essays on Tolstoy – knows what happened next. Under the command of Prince Mikhail Barclay de Tolly, the Russian armies began to retreat, luring the enemy deep into the country. No one liked this. Every schoolchild memorizes the lines from 19th century poet Mikhail Lermontov’s poem, “Borodino”: “In silence we endured our flight, For we were spoiling for a fight.” When Kutuzov finally replaced Barclay de Tolly, everybody rejoiced. Kutuzov made a stand at the Battle of Borodino, but Moscow nonetheless fell into French hands. The city burned – either at the hands of its own residents or the French, or maybe simply by accident. The French left Moscow and that was the beginning of the end for Napoleon’s army.

These few months in Russian history have been a fundamental source of national pride and have generated a vast mythology. One of the myths is alluded to above – the one surrounding the replacement “just in time” of the unpopular Barclay de Tolly by Kutuzov, who was beloved by the troops, the officers, Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Russia’s rulers, and God himself. Barclay de Tolly was suspected of spying for the French, and his foreign-sounding name Barclay de Tolly – inherited from ancestors who came to Russia from Scotland many generations before – was playfully distorted into a similar-sounding Russian phrase roughly translating as empty chatter:  “болтай да и только.”

Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov was universally adored. His praises were sung in 1812 and beyond. He was even revered in Soviet times, in contrast to most who served tsarist regimes. He was sympathetically portrayed by historians and children’s writers; in the popular movie Gusarskaya Ballada [The Cavalry Maiden, literally “Hussar’s Ballad”] he took under his wing the daring Shurochka Azarova – a noble young maiden who was so eager to join the Russian army against the invading French she disguised herself as a boy; and tales of his exploits filled classrooms. In fact, in 1942 a decoration was established in his honor: the Order of Kutuzov. It was instituted one day after Stalin’s infamous Order 227 – the “Don’t give an inch!” order – which promised that those who retreated on the field of battle without orders would be tried and shot.

Kutuzov himself would have us believe he was not the retreating sort. After taking over from the humiliated Barclay, he is famously supposed to have lamented, “With such fine young fellows and he retreated.” Yet, characteristic for Kutuzov, after loudly pronouncing these words for public consumption, he lost no time adopting Barclay’s tactic and ordered a retreat. But now, if countless memoirs are to be believed, everyone was satisfied.

Mikhail Bogdanovich Barclay de Tolly, on the other hand, was not well liked, and no one seemed to believe he could triumph. No one? Well, we do know of one person who held Barclay de Tolly in very high regard: Emperor Napoleon. While the Russian army was universally indignant at being forced to retreat (or was it? – we have the recollections of officers, but nobody seems to have asked the troops), Napoleon appears to have understood that Barclay’s plan would doom him, that the deeper he went into Russian territory, the more tenuous his supply lines would be, forcing him to face a Russian winter without adequate provisions. The Russians retreated and the French marched onward, but the French emperor felt increasingly gloomy. In Vitebsk, he even convened his first military council in many years, calling together his marshals to discuss the possibility of wintering there, in Belorussia. It appears that the great conqueror was starting to doubt himself. 

The Russian troops retreated in perfect order, not leaving behind a single sick or wounded soldier. Soldiers were also permitted to unfasten their uniforms in the heat, something unimaginable in this era of brutal military drills. 

Grand Duke Constantine, the tsar’s brother, approached the troops with the words, “Well, lads, it’s hard to retreat, isn’t it? But there’s nothing to be done – the Commander-in-Chief is a German...” 

When Barclay de Tolly’s army met up with that led by General Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration outside Smolensk, Bagration, who was a far more popular general (and who had been scheming against Barclay for months), launched into Barclay. Nikolai Rayevsky, Bagration’s aide, circled the little house where the generals were meeting, shouting out, “Quiet, the commanders are having a meeting,” so that no one could hear the obscenities Barclay and Bagration were exchanging.

When part of the Russian army confronted the French outside Smolensk, Napoleon felt renewed optimism. Yet when he saw that most of the Russian forces had continued on to Moscow, he was enraged, as were the Russian officers.

What happened next? Barclay was dismissed as commander-in-chief. He was replaced by Kutuzov, a man with a genuine Russian name. The fact that Kutuzov was a very old man (67), was falling apart at the seams, was so obese he could hardly ride a horse, and harbored a mortal fear of Napoleon, was beside the point. Now everything would turn out fine: “Kutuzov has arrived, now the French will get a thrashing.” The retreat continued to Borodino Field, where Barclay was brave to the point of recklessness, having three horses shot out from under him. He came out unscathed (Bagration, however, would die as a result of Borodino, along with 52,000 other Russians and 28,000 French troops), only to face new indignities.

Several days after the Battle of Borodino, a famous council was convened in Fili (then a village outside Moscow; now it is part of the city). What now? A defense of Moscow had not been prepared. After all, Kutuzov had assured everyone that Moscow would never be relinquished. At this point it was Barclay who summoned up the courage to be the first to voice the unpopular verdict. The ancient capital would have to be surrendered to the French. Kutuzov expressed support for this idea, but then sent the tsar a letter in which he asserted that the city had to be surrendered because the army he had inherited from Barclay was not fit for combat. How could he have taken such an army into battle at Borodino? Nobody thought to ask that question. And nobody paused to recall that it had been Barclay who, in 1810 as Minister of War, had rearmed the army and essentially rendered it capable of resisting the French. An enraged Barclay retired from the army, citing deteriorating health. Rocks and cries of “traitor!” were hurled at his carriage. 

The war continued. The Russian army pursued the French, first on Russian territory and then in Western Europe. In April 1813, Kutuzov died. The new commander-in-chief was General Wittgenstein, and in May, after reconstituting his forces, Napoleon dealt the Russian forces two heavy blows, at Lützen and Bautzen. Suddenly it became clear that Barclay should take over as commander-in-chief. Somehow, his foreign-sounding name was no longer a problem. He again led his troops to new victories.

But this did not change anything. Today in Moscow, Kutuzovsky Prospect is a major thoroughfare, while Barclay’s name has been given to a little street. This surprises no one.