THE RUSSIAN GENERALS AGAINST NAPOLEON

The Pride of the Russian Army.

Among the adversaries of the Napoleonic army, the Tsar's soldiers proved the most tenacious. Was it not said at the time: " It is not enough to kill a Russian — you must also push him to make him fall "? These men of iron were commanded by a plethora of brave and talented generals, some of whom had nothing to envy in Napoleon's marshals. This book portrays the most celebrated among them: Barclay de Tolly, Kutuzov, Bagration, Bennigsen — as well as several others less well known in France: Platov, the formidable commander of the Cossacks; Yermolov, " the sharpest tongue in the army "; the Tuchkov brothers, a typical example of a military dynasty; and Miloradovich, " the Russian Murat ".

During the gruelling crossing of the Alps, on the battlefields of Austerlitz and Friedland, in the furnace of the Moskova, amid the Finnish ice or beneath the walls of Paris, they were the principal actors in the European wars. For each one, the author presents his family origins, his professional and personal career, recounting in detail his feats of arms and his relations with the reigning sovereign, Alexander I, and with his peers — relations often marked by jealousy and rivalry.

The accounts draw mainly on sources in the Russian language, inaccessible to French-speaking readers: memoirs, private and official correspondence, reports on military operations. A broad and varied panorama on a subject previously unexplored in French historiography.

Natalia Griffon de Pleineville, born in Russia in 1977 and a laureate of the Fondation Napoléon in 1999, has published several works, notably Napoléon en Pologne, 1806-1807, La Première Invasion du Portugal par l'armée napoléonienne, 1807-1808, and Rostoptchine et l'incendie de Moscou.