The information he bought or otherwise acquired covered a range of topics. One report, for instance, concerned Napoleon’s eccentricities, eating habits and growing forgetfulness during a period at the palace of Rambouillet. Given the extent to which the survival of Napoleon’s empire and the fate of Europe hung on this one man’s life and health such reports were significant. Nesselrode begged Speransky to ensure that only he and the emperor saw or mentioned this material. These details of Napoleon’s behaviour were so private that any leak would result in his source being revealed. Nesselrode made a similar plea for total secrecy about another purchased memorandum detailing intelligence operations in Russia’s western borderlands and naming many names. He added that his source for this document was extremely valuable and could produce further such documents if protected. The crucial point was that Russian counter-intelligence must watch the individuals mentioned but stage its arrests in a manner to protect his source at all costs.33
Probably the single most important document bought by Nesselrode was a top secret memorandum on future French policy submitted by the French foreign minister, Champagny, to Napoleon at the emperor’s request on 16 March 1810, in other words at precisely the crucial turning point when the plan to marry a Russian princess had failed, Napoleon had refused to ratify the convention on Poland, and Barclay de Tolly was drawing up his first report on the defence of Russia’s western frontier. Champagny wrote that geopolitics and trade meant that Britain was Russia’s natural ally and a rapprochement between the two powers was to be expected. France must return to its traditional policy of building up Turkey, Poland and Sweden. It must, for instance, ensure that the Turks were kept ready as allies for a future war with Russia. Indeed, French agents were already working quietly on the Ottomans to this end.
As regards Poland, even Champagny’s more modest scenario was to increase the power of the King of Saxony, who was also Grand Duke of Warsaw, by giving him Silesia. A second scenario, which Champagny called ‘more grandiose and decisive and perhaps more worthy of Your Majesty’s genius’, envisaged a full-scale restoration of Poland after a victorious war with Russia. This would entail pushing the Russian border back beyond the river Dnieper, turning Austria eastwards against Russia and compensating it in Illyria for Polish lands it would have to give to the new Polish kingdom. In all circumstances Prussia must be destroyed since it was an outpost of Russian influence in Europe. Within a matter of weeks the memorandum was on Alexander’s desk. In the circumstances its contents were little short of dynamite.34
Aleksandr Chernyshev also had a number of permanent, paid agents. One of them worked in the council of state near the heart of Napoleon’s government, another was in military administration, and a third served in a key bureau of the war ministry. There may well have been more, at least on an occasional basis. The published documents provide rather more details about the content of their reports than is the case with most of the memoranda purchased by Nesselrode. We have everything from general memoranda on the domestic political situation and the position in Spain to detailed information about the redeployment of artillery to infantry battalions, the organization of transport and rear services for future campaigns, and reports on new arms and equipment.
Some of these documents bore explicitly on the coming war with Russia. Chernyshev reported that Napoleon was rapidly increasing his cavalry arm, his measures proving ‘how much he fears the superiority of our cavalry’. Special wagons – larger and stronger than the previous models – were being built to survive Russian conditions. Chernyshev disguised himself to get into one of the workshops where they were being constructed and drew sketches. He reported that one of his sources stated that Napoleon intended to deliver the decisive blow by his central column, which would advance on Vilna under the emperor’s own command. He expected to be able to recruit large numbers of Polish soldiers in Russia’s western borderlands. Probably Chernyshev’s most valuable agent was the officer in the heart of the war ministry who had worked previously for the Russians but whom Chernyshev now exploited to maximum effect. Every month the ministry printed a secret book listing the numbers, movements and deployment of every regiment in the army. On each occasion a copy was delivered to Chernyshev, which he re-copied overnight. The Russians could follow the redeployment of Napoleon’s army eastwards in precise detail. Given the sheer scale and cost of this redeployment one could hardly imagine that it would end without a war, as Chernyshev himself remarked.35
Both Chernyshev and Nesselrode were far more than mere purchasers of secret memoranda. They moved in Paris society, gleaning an immense amount of information along the way. Some but by no means all of this information was provided by Frenchmen who disliked Napoleon’s regime. Chernyshev in particular was accepted into the heart of Napoleon’s own family and intimate circle. King Frederick William wrote to Alexander that Prussian diplomats reported that Chernyshev’s ‘relations with many individuals provide him with means and opportunities that no one else possesses’. Because of their intelligence and political sophistication Nesselrode and Chernyshev could evaluate the huge amounts of information they received and encapsulate it in the very shrewd appreciations they sent to Petersburg. Both men, for instance, were at pains to disabuse Alexander of any illusions that Napoleon would not or could not attack Russia so long as the war in Spain continued. They stressed the enormous resources he controlled but also the implications of his domestic problems for his campaign in Russia. Both men reported that the longer the war dragged on and the further Napoleon was pulled into the Russian interior the more desperate his situation would become.36
The last report that Chernyshev submitted to Barclay de Tolly from Paris gives one a flavour of his overall views and methods, as well as of the aristocratic confidence with which this young colonel wrote to a minister far his senior in age and rank. He noted that ‘I speak often to officers who are of great merit and knowledge and who have no affection for the head of the French government. I have asked them about what strategy would be best in the coming war, taking into account the theatre of operations, the strength and the character of our adversary.’ With one accord these Frenchmen had told him that Napoleon would long for big battles and rapid victories, so the Russians should avoid giving him what he wanted and should instead harass him with their light forces. The French officers told him that ‘the system we should follow in this war is the one of which Fabius and indeed Lord Wellington offer the best examples. It is true that our task will be more difficult in that the theatre of operations is for the most part open countryside.’ Partly for that reason, it was crucial to have large reserve forces held well in the rear so that the war could not be lost by a single battle. But if the Russians could ‘sustain this war for three campaigns then the victory will certainly be ours, even if we don’t win great victories, and Europe will be delivered from its oppressor’. Chernyshev added that this was very much his own view too. Russia must mobilize all its resources, religion and patriotism included, to sustain a long war. ‘Napoleon’s goal and his hopes are all directed towards concentrating sufficient strength to deliver crushing blows and decide the matter in a single campaign. He feels strongly that he cannot remain away from Paris for more than one year and that he would be lost if this war lasted for two or three years.’37