Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
Additional Reading
The leading full account of Nicholas I and his reign, especially valuable on foreign relations and with numerous documentary appendixes, is Theodor Schiemann, Geschichte Russlands unter Kaiser Nikolaus I, 4 vol. (1904–19, reprinted 1969). W. Bruce Lincoln, Nicholas I, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias (1978, reprinted 1989), is a valuable scholarly biography with bibliography. A readable popular study is Constantin de Grunwald, Tsar Nicholas I (1954; originally published in French, 1946). Nicholas Valentine Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825–1855 (1959, reissued 1969); and A.E. Presniakov, Emperor Nicholas I of Russia: The Apogee of Autocracy, 1825–1865 (1974; originally published in Russian, 1925), with an extended introduction by Riasanovsky, are also useful.
Kutuzov, Mikhail Illarionovich, Prince
▪ Russian military commander
original name Mikhail Illarionovich Golenishchev-Kutuzov
born Sept. 5 [Sept. 16, New Style], 1745, St. Petersburg, Russia
died April 16 [April 28], 1813, Bunzlau, Silesia [now Bolesławiec, Pol.]
Russian army commander who repelled Napoleon's invasion of Russia (1812).
The son of a lieutenant general who had served in Peter the Great's army, Kutuzov attended the military engineering school at age 12 and entered the Russian army as a corporal when he was only 14. He gained combat experience fighting in Poland (1764–69) and against the Turks (1770–74), and he learned strategic and tactical techniques from General Aleksandr Suvorov, whom he served for six years in the Crimea. He was promoted to colonel in 1777 and by 1784 had become a major general.
Although he had received a severe head wound and lost an eye in 1774, he actively participated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–91, in which he was again severely wounded. After the war he held a variety of high diplomatic and administrative posts, but he fell into disgrace in 1802 and retired to his country estate. When Russia joined the third coalition against Napoleon three years later, however, Emperor Alexander I recalled Kutuzov and gave him command of the joint Russian-Austrian army that opposed the French advance on Vienna. Before Kutuzov's force could link up with the Austrians, however, Napoleon defeated the latter at the Battle of Ulm. Kutuzov skillfully retreated, after defeating the French at Dürrenstein on Nov. 11, 1805, and preserved his army intact. He proposed to fall back to the Russian frontier and await reinforcements, but Alexander overruled him and engaged the French army in battle at Austerlitz (December 2), suffering a disastrous defeat. Kutuzov was partly blamed for the disaster and was removed from his command. Subsequently Alexander returned Kutuzov to active duty as commander of an army in Moldavia after war had again broken out with Turkey. Kutuzov inflicted several defeats on the Turks and on May 28, 1812, concluded a Russo-Turkish peace settlement favourable to Russia (Treaty of Bucharest).
In June 1812 Napoleon's army entered Russia, and the Russians fell back before him. Under pressure of public opinion, Alexander on August 9 appointed Kutuzov commander in chief of all the Russian forces and, on the following day, made him a prince. Napoleon sought a general engagement, but Kutuzov's strategy was to wear down the French by incessant minor engagements while retreating and preserving his army. Under public pressure and against his better judgment, however, he fought a major battle at Borodino (Borodino, Battle of) on September 7. Although the battle itself was inconclusive, Kutuzov lost almost half his troops and afterward withdrew to the southeast, allowing the French forces to enter Moscow.
Napoleon, having failed to make peace with the Russians and being unwilling to spend the winter in Moscow, left the city in October. He tried to move southwestward, but Kutuzov blocked his attempt to proceed along the fertile, southern route by giving battle at Maloyaroslavets (October 19). By forcing the disintegrating French army to leave Russia by the path it had devastated when it entered the country, Kutuzov destroyed his opponent without fighting another major battle. Kutuzov's troops harried the retreating French, engaging them at Vyazma and Krasnoye, and the remnants of Napoleon's army narrowly escaped annihilation at the crossing of the Berezina River in late November. In January 1813 Kutuzov pursued the French into Poland and Prussia, where he died of disease.
Kutuzov was the finest Russian commander of his day next to Suvorov himself. He typically relied on quick maneuvers and sought to avoid unnecessary battles, husbanding his forces to strike at the proper moment.
Borodino, Battle of
▪ European history
(Sept. 7 [Aug. 26, Old Style], 1812), bloody battle of the Napoleonic Wars, fought during Napoleon's invasion of Russia, about 70 miles (110 km) west of Moscow, near the river Moskva. It was fought between Napoleon's 130,000 troops, with more than 500 guns, and 120,000 Russians with more than 600 guns. Napoleon's success allowed him to occupy Moscow. The Russians were commanded by General M.I. Kutuzov (Kutuzov, Mikhail Illarionovich, Prince), who had halted the Russian retreat at the town of Borodino and hastily built fortifications, to block the French advance to Moscow. Napoleon feared that an attempt to outflank the Russians might fail and allow them to escape, so he executed a crude frontal attack. From 6 AM to noon the fierce fighting seesawed back and forth along the three-mile (five-kilometre) front. By noon the French artillery began to tip the scales, but the successive French attacks were not strong enough to overwhelm Russian resistance. Napoleon, distant from, and perhaps unsure of, the situation on the smoke-obscured battlefield, refused to commit the 20,000-man Imperial Guard and 10,000 other practically fresh troops. Because Kutuzov had already committed every available man, Napoleon thus forfeited the chance of gaining a decisive, rather than a narrow, victory. Both sides became exhausted during the afternoon, and the battle subsided into a cannonade, which continued until nightfall. Kutuzov withdrew during the night, and a week later Napoleon occupied Moscow unopposed. The Russians suffered about 45,000 casualties, including Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration, commander of the 2nd Russian army. The French lost about 30,000 men. Although the Russian army was badly mauled, it survived to fight again and, in the end, drove Napoleon out of Russia.
Constantine, Veliky Knyaz
▪ Russian grand duke
(“Grand Prince,” or “Duke”),Russian in full Konstantin Pavlovich
born May 8 [April 27, Old Style], 1779, Tsarskoe Selo, Russia
died June 27 [June 15], 1831, Vitebsk
son of the Russian emperor Paul I (reigned 1796–1801), younger brother of Alexander I (reigned 1801–25) and elder brother of Nicholas I (reigned 1825–55); he was the virtual ruler of the Congress Kingdom of Poland (1815–30).
Educated by a Swiss tutor under the supervision of his grandmother, the empress Catherine II the Great (reigned 1762–96), Constantine participated in General A.V. Suvorov's campaign in Italy against Napoleon Bonaparte (1799). He was present at the Russo-Austrian defeat at Austerlitz (Dec. 2, 1805), which forced the Austrians to conclude a separate peace with France, and took part in the Russian campaigns of 1807, 1812, 1813, and 1814 against Napoleon.
After the Congress of Vienna (1815) set up the constitutional Kingdom of Poland with the emperor of Russia as its king, Alexander appointed Constantine commander in chief of Poland's armed forces with the powers of viceroy (November 1815). Although Constantine organized the Polish army, he failed to win its support, and he also alienated the Parliament and the general populace with his harsh rule. He nevertheless sympathized with the Poles' desire for autonomy. After his morganatic marriage to a Polish countess, Joanna Grudzińska, May 24 (May 12, Old Style), 1820, he renounced all of his claims to the Russian throne (January 1822).