WI: Tsar Alexander fights Napoleon

When Napoleon invaded Russia Alexander I had to pick between two factions from among his generals. The "German" faction led by Barclay de Tolly which advocated a slow retreat that would grind down the Grande Armée and the "Russian" faction led by Bagration who advocated fighting it out in one big battle.

IOTL Alexander went with the slow retreat and came out victorious, but what if he had decided to go with the generals (generally viewed as more competent than Barclay) and brought his 250,000 men to bear against Napoleon? As I understand it the battle would likely have occured in or around Vilnius in Lithuania.

Is there any chance of Russia winning that battle? And if Russia loses that battle would they be able to continue fighting? What would the aftermath be?
 
Drawing Russia out to the battlefield and decisively beating them there was Napoleon's plan for the 1812 campaign in general. He was aware that a prolonged Russian campaign could turn disastrous, so he wanted to defeat the Russian army as fast as possible, which is why I still believe that Borodino was a Russian victory in the end.

If Alexander I faces Napoleon, Napoleon with all of his Grande Armee intact and preparing such an encounter, and with plans to decisively defeat the French rather than delay them like in Borodino OTL, then this would just be an Austerlitz 2.0.
 

longsword14

Banned
I still believe that Borodino was a Russian victory in the end.
A Russian victory meant fending him off somehow, which was sealed when the campaign went so late, beyond any sense of scale. Borodino was tactically a French victory, though when it all ends I do not know what is even the point of holding a piece of bloodied land (same for Malplaquet, the allied side won the battle, but lost twice the soldiers and Villars slipped away to fight again).
 
A Russian victory meant fending him off somehow, which was sealed when the campaign went so late, beyond any sense of scale. Borodino was tactically a French victory, though when it all ends I do not know what is even the point of holding a piece of bloodied land (same for Malplaquet, the allied side won the battle, but lost twice the soldiers and Villars slipped away to fight again).
While Napoleon may have driven off the Russians at Borodino, he failed to achieve what he set out for, which was decisively defeating the Russian army. The Russians retained their army and were in good enough condition to continue mounting offensives, thus dragging out the 1812 campaign for long enough that a French victory was made unachievable.

That's how I view the battle.
 

longsword14

Banned
Tactically speaking, the Russians stood before Moscow to make a stand, the French push them off, using this definition it was a tactical victory. If preserving Russia's own army long enough to make victory impossible for Napoleon was the objective, then that had already been done, so Borodino did not actually make much of a difference.
 
The fascinating thing to me is that the first part of the retreat was led by Barclay de Tolly, and it was only after the fall of Smolensk that Kotuzov was made commander of the army. Barclay, as far as I have been able to find out, was generally rather mediocre in his performance while the general arguing for aggressive action, Bagration, was Suvorov's protege and considered one of the best of the Russian generals at the time. Bagration was killed at Borodino, but everything I know of points to him being not only an experienced military leader but also a general in Suvorov's mold with all the aggresiveness that entails.

I am not certain that a clash between Bagration and Napoleon would be a Austerlitz 2.0 simply because Bagration is a more skilled general than Alexander was at Austerlitz. I don't think the Russians can win the battle but the Russian army was probably one of the few armies that could get anywhere close to competing with the Napoleonic armies IMO.
 

longsword14

Banned
The size of armies involved, the scale of operation, and simple luck means that the result would not be Austerlitz 2.0. The Russians had learnt from their losses and knew how to fulfill their stated political goals.
As to Bagration, I would not go as far as saying that he was far more competent than Barclay, he did well at actions in the Polish Campaign, but he did not show superiority over N's best marshals, at Austerlitz Lannes convincingly drove him away leaving the allied centre at N's mercy, and in 1812 he got his force nearly cut off.
Overall no Kutuzov when it came to fighting, but he never had enough actions for one to elevate him above Barclay, who was quite competent himself.
 
1) Logistical limitations make it extremely unlikely that the 250,000 troops would be able to remain in much close contact, and Napoleon was the past master of divide and conquer.

2) Doing exactly what Napoleon wants you to do had a very poor historical record. As Augenis states, the entire point of the campaign was to draw Russia into a decisive battle, hopefully in Poland or at worst Belarus/Lithuania. It was almost accomplished...frittered away by subordinate failure, and would IMO have gone the way Napoleonic battles went. I don't think we can assume another Austerlitz as mentioned above, but I'd also think another Borodino even more unlikely. The latter is still a head scratcher to me, but I think we have to assume that it's entirely UN-Napoleonic style was caused by the situation, given the otherworldly genius still on display during the Six Days. So closer to Austerlitz than Borodino.

3) As far as whether or not Borodino was a victory, it was, but much closer to a Pyrrhic victory by Napoleon's standards. It is worth noting that for almost any other general, attacking roughly equal numbers entrenched on their own terrain in front of their sacred capital at the end of an exhaustive march and coming away with a victory at all would go down as a crowning achievement. That said, it reads like another general's battle plan, with almost none of Napoleon's signature tactics.

Edit:4) In terms of aftermath, I'd imagine Napoleon would be looking for concrete guarantees that Russia would abide by the peace treaty this time, as opposed to trusting in Alexander's honour/character as at Tilsit. Probably liberating some border areas as buffer republics, probably increasing Poland's domain. He wasn't looking for conquest.
 
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The thread title conjured up an image of Alexander and Napoleon engaged in some kind of wrestling cage match on the boat where they organised the Tilsit Treaty.
 
Drawing Russia out to the battlefield and decisively beating them there was Napoleon's plan for the 1812 campaign in general. He was aware that a prolonged Russian campaign could turn disastrous, so he wanted to defeat the Russian army as fast as possible, which is why I still believe that Borodino was a Russian victory in the end.

If Alexander I faces Napoleon, Napoleon with all of his Grande Armee intact and preparing such an encounter, and with plans to decisively defeat the French rather than delay them like in Borodino OTL, then this would just be an Austerlitz 2.0.

This is historically wrong.

Historically, Napoleon had planned a 2 years long campaign (1812-1813) whose limited and rational goal was to roll the russian empire approximately back to its pre-1793 (second break-up of Poland) borders.

It is only in the middle of august 1812 that Napoleon changed his plan and decided to chase the main russian army as fast and as far as possible. Which turned his war plan into a strategic nonsense. This and poor logistics because of the absence of good roads, was the main cause of his failure. Winter had little to do in the fact that Napoleon had made an incredible and terribly costly strategic mistake.

Sure, he had to deal with contradictory goals since, acting both as executive commander in chief of the russian campaign and head of State of France, he finally feared to stay away from his country for a too long time. But he should then either have entrusted the command to someone else like Davout, or have taken the necessary 2 years to implement himself his sound initial war plan.

Now, if Alexander makes the mistake of giving Napoleon the big battle he dreamt of, Napoleon is most probably going to win it and to restore greater Poland.
 
Given the size of the Grande Armee early on and even subtracting the peripheral forces, a staged battle in the Baltics won't be like Austerlitz, it's far too large for that. Rather it would be more like Leipzig only that the Russians get to play the part of the French being encircled by arriving armies.
 
If Alexander I faces Napoleon, Napoleon with all of his Grande Armee intact and preparing such an encounter, and with plans to decisively defeat the French rather than delay them like in Borodino OTL, then this would just be an Austerlitz 2.0.
I am not certain that a clash between Bagration and Napoleon would be a Austerlitz 2.0 simply because Bagration is a more skilled general than Alexander was at Austerlitz. I don't think the Russians can win the battle but the Russian army was probably one of the few armies that could get anywhere close to competing with the Napoleonic armies IMO.
This is historically wrong.

Historically, Napoleon had planned a 2 years long campaign (1812-1813) whose limited and rational goal was to roll the russian empire approximately back to its pre-1793 (second break-up of Poland) borders.

It is only in the middle of august 1812 that Napoleon changed his plan and decided to chase the main russian army as fast and as far as possible. Which turned his war plan into a strategic nonsense. This and poor logistics because of the absence of good roads, was the main cause of his failure. Winter had little to do in the fact that Napoleon had made an incredible and terribly costly strategic mistake...

Now, if Alexander makes the mistake of giving Napoleon the big battle he dreamt of, Napoleon is most probably going to win it and to restore greater Poland.
So the bolded raises an interesting question -- would Napoleon have gotten his pitched battle if he had not pursued the Russian army east, but stopped in Vitebsk or Smolnesk? Could he wait for Alexander to send his armies west to him; more to the point, would the Tsar have obliged? If no pitched battle happens before winter sets in, what then? Napoleon, I believe, could have stayed put at no real cost (aside from his own impulses); but what of the court in St Petersberg, where royal coups were always a possibility?

But even if Napoleon does get his battle, I don't know if it's enough to just refer to his past track record; if nothing else, the Emperor showed considerably less generalship skill at Borodino than he had in battles past (relying on frontal assaults rather than attempting to envelope the enemy), was in considerably worse health, and frankly his mental state seemed to be worse than ever.

What do you guys think though -- if Napoleon had held to his original plan for a limited war in Russia, how does the invasion play out, and how is history subsequently affected?
 
I actually read a book about the Russian campaign recently, Russia Against Napoleon, which made a fairly persuasive case, to my mind anyway, that Alexander had more or less planned to follow the "German" (or, rather, Fabian) approach from the start--indeed, before the war even began, due to his experience at Austerlitz. Alexander, the book says, had figured out that the best way to defeat Napoleon was to draw him into Russia, to squeeze blood from him and destroy his logistical train, then to use the enormous resources of Russia to counterattack and invade Europe (thereby actually defeating Napoleon) only once the Grande Armee had been annihilated. I'm greatly summarizing here because it's been several months since I read the book and I only remember the general outline, not the details. I'm afraid I would have some trouble finding specific quotes or anything, but it is a quite good book that's well worth reading.

Anyway, for that reason I don't think there's any great likelihood Alexander is going to pick the "Russian" faction. He wants to keep Bagration around, of course, he's too good a general to get rid of, but rather as a dog on a leash than as the leader of the armies. Alexander knows perfectly well that he doesn't want to fight Napoleon head-on, so he's not going to go with a plan that forces him to fight Napoleon head-on, that would be madness.
 
@Workable Goblin If that is true, and Napoleon played into his hands OTL by marching on Moscow, then that leaves the question of what happens if that doesn't happen; if Napoleon doesn't march on Moscow, and Alexander doesn't send his armies west to confront him, and neither ruler plays into the other's hands, then where does that leave things by winter 1812-13?
 
@Workable Goblin If that is true, and Napoleon played into his hands OTL by marching on Moscow, then that leaves the question of what happens if that doesn't happen; if Napoleon doesn't march on Moscow, and Alexander doesn't send his armies west to confront him, and neither ruler plays into the other's hands, then where does that leave things by winter 1812-13?
Very troublesome for both, though it would hardly be the first time a war began confusedly. Most likely the Armee would be occupying a fair amount of border territory with perhaps some lunges inwards begun later on when Napoleon realized that Alexander wasn't coming to meet him, in an effort to set up launchpads for his 1813 campaign. Much--well, perhaps not "much," but some--depends on whether Napoleon is occupying any Russian soil, where partisans may erupt...that would be a way for Alexander to point to fighting Boney without actually having to throw his army against him.

Otherwise...both are going to be under a lot of pressure to defeat the other, and I'm not sure who will crack first. History suggests Napoleon...I think Tolstoy goes too far in his depiction of the man, but he does correctly point out that Napoleon has won, and won brilliantly, in battle after battle earlier in his life, and so he's likely to think that he can win again if he pushes...
 
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