Is there a way for Napoleon's Russian Campaign to get local support?

Just as it says:

Could Napoleon find some level of support within Russia?

How would he go about doing this?

I'm thinking he may appeal to minorities (Ruthenians and the Baltic states or Finland) for liberty.

Or he may phrase his invasion as a "libertating the serfs" sort of thing.

What do you think?

It doesn't have to be a wholesale uprising in favor the Napoleon but could there not be some level of support if he does things differently?

Thanks.
 
Just as it says:

Could Napoleon find some level of support within Russia?

How would he go about doing this?

I'm thinking he may appeal to minorities (Ruthenians and the Baltic states or Finland) for liberty.

Or he may phrase his invasion as a "libertating the serfs" sort of thing.

What do you think?

It doesn't have to be a wholesale uprising in favor the Napoleon but could there not be some level of support if he does things differently?

Thanks.
Napoleon didn't go, no where near Finland. There is no way that Finland support will be local. Secondly French soldiers at that time, lived off the land. Any support you have for Napoleon is going to disappear, when a group of Frenchmen turn up and steal your pig.
 
Was there even anything like Ukrainian or Belarusian patriotism among the lower classes at this point?

As for that and the serfs, it wasn't Napoleon's intention to dismantle the Russian Empire or overturn its social institutions.

The greatest fear of the Russian government, of course, was that Napoleon would pose as the liberator of the serfs. Rumours spread amongst the serfs before the invasion that this was Napoleon's intention, and the Russian government responded by stationing troops in each province to counter any peasant unrest. There is evidence that Napoleon considered taking this step. While in Moscow he ordered material relating to the Pugachev revolt (the last great peasant/Cossack rebellion in 1773-75) to be sought out in the archives and private libraries.

The French proclamation 'Réponse d'un grenadier français' which condemned Russian serfdom, promised liberation and called on Russian soldiers to support this cause, had been translated into Russian. There is some evidence to believe that this proclamation was in the possession of Polish troops in Moscow although the extent of its dissemination is not known. In the event, Napoleon failed to act, although he expressed regret over his decision when in exile in St Helena.

In his address to the Senate on his return to France, Napoleon claimed that he took this decision to prevent a bloodbath taking place with serfs massacreing their masters, but there were other good reasons for his inactivity. As his policies towards the Poles and the Lithuanians showed, Napoleon's aims were limited. He was not attempting to overthrow Russian society or Russian tsardom; he wished to defeat the Russian army in battle and then to force Alexander to make peace on his terms, which would involve Alexander agreeing to impose the continental blockade on England. An appeal to the serfs would have made the possibility of peace with Alexander more difficult and the prospect of future co-operation impossible.

There were, however, revolts by serfs against their masters, and damage to their property during the invasion, particularly in territories occupied by the French but also in neighbouring provinces. Serf disturbances were especially prevalent in Smolensk province. A deacon from Smolensk, whose comments were recorded later in the century, recalled that '... during the invasion many of the local peasants behaved in an ungovernable fashion, like brigands'. The Russian government was clearly alarmed by the situation, and detachments of the Russian army moved quickly to crush these risings after the French retreat.

Soviet historians, and some Western historians, have interpreted these revolts in terms of class war. As Russian authority was reasserted fairly rapidly it is impossible to know how this situation would have developed had the French presence, and the chaos caused by the invasion, continued. It seems more likely that the Grand Army gave the peasants not so much ideological inspiration as the opportunity to commit sporadic violence, taking advantage of the temporary collapse of law and order.

If the peasants were making a determined effort to overthrow the social order, then the Grand Army's direct involvement was to subdure revolts rather than to encourage them - R. Villeblanche, the French intendant of Smolensk, instructed his commissioners to send disobedient serfs to Smolensk where he would punish them 'with all the severity of the law'. Disruption of supplies by peasant unrest was not in his interests.

You need to change the aims of the invasion for anything you've mentioned to happen.
 
Napoleon didn't go, no where near Finland. There is no way that Finland support will be local. Secondly French soldiers at that time, lived off the land. Any support you have for Napoleon is going to disappear, when a group of Frenchmen turn up and steal your pig.

Yeah, reducing the importance of living off the land to French armies would help things enormously WRT local support.

Plus, if Nappy was still forced to retreat, his losses might not be quite so catastrophic, since he wouldn't be moving through a land completely denuded of supplies from his advance.
 
Yeah, reducing the importance of living off the land to French armies would help things enormously WRT local support.

Plus, if Nappy was still forced to retreat, his losses might not be quite so catastrophic, since he wouldn't be moving through a land completely denuded of supplies from his advance.
Except...... living off the land and not taking huge supply trains, was what enabled French armies to engage in campaigns of maneuver, so switching to a full supply train is going to alter the way the campaign plays out, anyway.
Finally a lot of his losses happened well before he began to retreat.
 
Except...... living off the land and not taking huge supply trains, was what enabled French armies to engage in campaigns of maneuver, so switching to a full supply train is going to alter the way the campaign plays out, anyway.
Finally a lot of his losses happened well before he began to retreat.

If the French promised the serfs freedom and land, could Napoleon's armies advance with support from some of the locals?
 
If the French promised the serfs freedom and land, could Napoleon's armies advance with support from some of the locals?

Of course. That was the point. It would have been a game changer. And that was the great fear of the russian aristocracy when it had become clear that the war was going to break out again.

If you read contemporary sources (those written before the outcome of the war was written which are far more reliable that sources written 20 years after the war and in which many people explained that they had foreseen that events would turn the way they turned), many members of the russian ruling elite were extremely pessimistic because they thought that Russia could but lose this war. They thought Russia would lose not only because they had to face all napoleonic Europe but because they were deeply aware that if Napoleon ever proclaimed the liberation of the serfs, the whole political system of Russia would collapse.

But this risk of social revolution was in fact close to nil because Napoleon was not a revolutionary. He was the man who wanted to halt the revolutionary spiral of the first years of the french revolution. He wanted to be accepted as a trustable and stable player on the european diplomatic stage (in which he failed but he failed for an other reason : his expansionist hegemonism). He wanted to be accepted in the european concert of kings.
 
And if the danger had seemed real, might not the Tsar have anticipated it by proclaiming emancipation himself? After all, he could at least communicate with the peasants (via the Orthodox clergy) which is more than most of the French could.
 
And if the danger had seemed real, might not the Tsar have anticipated it by proclaiming emancipation himself? After all, he could at least communicate with the peasants (via the Orthodox clergy) which is more than most of the French could.

That wouldn't have sat well with the aristocracy. Remember, his father had been assassinated after implementing some reforms to improve the lives of peasants.
 

LordKalvert

Banned
If the French promised the serfs freedom and land, could Napoleon's armies advance with support from some of the locals?

No. Serfdom was a much more complex system than people realize and the Russian version by 1812 is not that great of a burden on the serfs. Yes, the serfs had obligations but so did the landlords

In Russia, the system is stable and it is finally abolished from above without any pressure from below. In fact, many of the serfs quite happily remained serfs after the emancipation act offered them the right to leave the system. In the end, the Tsar made redemption mandatory
 
Just as it says:

Could Napoleon find some level of support within Russia?

How would he go about doing this?

I'm thinking he may appeal to minorities (Ruthenians and the Baltic states or Finland) for liberty.

Or he may phrase his invasion as a "libertating the serfs" sort of thing.

What do you think?

It doesn't have to be a wholesale uprising in favor the Napoleon but could there not be some level of support if he does things differently?

Thanks.

Maybe he declares the serfdom to be abolished ? Would this appeal to the rual serf Russian population or not ?
 
That wouldn't have sat well with the aristocracy. Remember, his father had been assassinated after implementing some reforms to improve the lives of peasants.

True, but being defeated and forced into a humiliating peace with Napoleon would have posed a similar danger. If he felt sufficiently cornered, he might have risked it.
 
I've always suspected that their would be a mixture of both revolutionaries and Czarist supporters amongst the peasantry. I would assume the Church would support the Czar.
 
The last major cossack rebellion was 40 years previously - I don't know whether there was a possibility of encouraging the cossacks to rebel.

The problem would be communications - both getting the message of support to the cossacks and overcoming the Czarist nationalist propaganda
 
No. Serfdom was a much more complex system than people realize and the Russian version by 1812 is not that great of a burden on the serfs. Yes, the serfs had obligations but so did the landlords

In Russia, the system is stable and it is finally abolished from above without any pressure from below. In fact, many of the serfs quite happily remained serfs after the emancipation act offered them the right to leave the system. In the end, the Tsar made redemption mandatory

Well, actually that.
You see the Russians did not see it like 'serfdom'. It was seen as power which father had over his children. Sort of. The children are supposed to be obedient, Father is supposed to be kind and forgiving. Something like that. You get the point, I guess.

Any support you have for Napoleon is going to disappear, when a group of Frenchmen turn up and steal your pig.
And that.
The unorthodox French stealing all your provisions and sentencing your family to die this winter...
They are definitely sent from Hell to ruin you, the local Orthodox priest said so.
 
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