Kamensky quickly abandoned the army and took himself off to the rear. He was ordered by Alexander to retire to his estates, where soon afterwards he was murdered by his peasants. In Kamensky’s absence the more junior of his two corps commanders, Levin von Bennigsen, more or less seized control of the army, consolidating his position by exaggerating the Russians’ success in the rearguard actions at Golymin and Pultusk in his reports to the monarch. Bennigsen’s allies in Petersburg whispered in Alexander’s ear about his skill and achievement. The emperor responded by overlooking Bennigsen’s role in his father’s murder, appointing him to be supreme commander and loading him down with decorations and financial rewards. To do Bennigsen justice, he certainly was the most competent replacement available for Kamensky, and somebody needed to take control of the situation quickly. He also performed creditably in extricating the army from the dangerous position in which it found itself at the beginning of the campaign. This did not stop his army from becoming a nest of intrigue among the senior generals. The other corps commander, Friedrich von Buxhoeweden, loathed Bennigsen, refused to collaborate with him, and challenged him to a duel. Alexander himself sent General Otto von Knorring to keep an eye on his supreme commander.
A particularly bitter dispute broke out at the beginning of the spring 1807 campaign between Bennigsen and his senior divisional commander, Lieutenant-General Baron Fabian von der Osten-Sacken, yet another Baltic German. The battle between the two men is worth a moment’s attention, not just because it was symptomatic of a major and lasting problem in the army’s upper ranks, but also because the individuals concerned were to play vital roles in the years 1812–14.
Like many of the senior Russian commanders, Osten-Sacken was tough, jealous, stubborn, ambitious and proud. Charming and witty in society, he could be a very different man in his treatment of the officers and men under his command. His personality was probably affected by a sense of unfairness and bitterness which did not finally leave him until he achieved glory and universal respect in 1813–14. In 1740 his father Wilhelm had been the aide-de-camp to Field-Marshal Münnich, the key figure in the army and government of the Empress Anna. Had the regime of Anna and her nephew Ivan VI survived, Wilhelm could have expected a glorious career. His son Fabian would have been enlisted in the Guards almost from birth and by his mid-twenties he would have been a colonel and an imperial aide-de-camp. Instead, Ivan VI was toppled, Münnich exiled, and Wilhelm von der Osten-Sacken banished to a garrison regiment, where he spent the rest of his long career without any further promotion. His son Fabian lived a childhood of poverty and made his way up the military ladder the hard way, through the ranks of the line infantry with every step won by courage and hard work. The progress began when he won promotion to the rank of ensign, the first officer rank, for bravery in action against the Turks in 1769.47
Osten-Sacken loathed Bennigsen. His diaries in 1806–7 are a list of complaints against a commander whom he considered to have mismanaged the army’s medical and commissariat services, failed to seize the opportunities for victory at Eylau, and – perhaps most significantly – neglected ever to consult his second-in-command, namely Osten-Sacken himself, about how to conduct the campaign. At the beginning of the 1807 campaign Bennigsen planned to surprise and trap the isolated corps of Marshal Ney by coordinated movements from different directions by the Russian divisions. Osten-Sacken moved slowly and Ney escaped. Bennigsen accused Osten-Sacken of deliberately sabotaging his plans in order to discredit him and take over the army. Osten-Sacken claimed that the orders were contradictory. The initial inquiry got nowhere: in predictable fashion Bennigsen and Osten-Sacken were supported by their networks of ‘friends’. The process then dragged on for months and only in 1808 did a court martial find against Osten-Sacken.48
