The one area where Alexander may have made an unnecessary concession to Napoleon was Russia’s relations with the Ottoman Empire. Egged on by France, the Ottomans had been at war with Russia since 1806, hoping to use Russia’s defeat at Austerlitz to regain some of the provinces lost in the previous three decades. In the Tilsit treaties France pledged itself to mediate between Russia and the Ottomans, and to support her new ally should the Turks prove intransigent. Alexander hoped that Napoleon would accept Russian predominance in the Ottoman Empire to balance France’s domination of western and central Europe. In reality, for all Napoleon’s grandiose talk about Russo-French collaboration in the Orient and about the impending demise of the Ottoman Empire, his basic policy was to block Russian expansion. No doubt he would have pursued this policy quietly whatever the Treaty of Tilsit said. Giving him a role as mediator merely allowed him more opportunities to realize his goal.61
To make negotiating easier, Alexander and his advisers moved to Tilsit, on the west bank of the river Neman, where Napoleon had his headquarters. The two monarchs spent many hours together, indulging in conversations which ranged far beyond the treaty negotiations and inspecting Napoleon’s troops. Half of Tilsit was handed over to the Russians and the First Battalion of the Preobrazhensky Guards moved in to protect their emperor. All eyes were on the French army, however. A chance to inspect the men who had conquered Europe and to listen as one of history’s greatest generals explained the secrets of his success was not to be missed, especially by a monarch as interested in military matters as Alexander. In any case it suited the emperor’s purposes to play the role of deferential disciple and thereby flatter Napoleon. But the French monarch would have done well to have a careful look at the Preobrazhenskys, because his eventual downfall was to owe much to the Russian army’s veteran regiments.
In most respects the Preobrazhensky Guards were typical of the Russian army, or perhaps more truly, were the perfect embodiment of what a Russian regiment should be. Of course, its officers and veteran NCOs were very committed to their famous regiment. Like all Russian regiments the Preobrazhensky Guards were in many respects a self-contained little world. Soldiers doubled as tailors, cobblers and builders. In addition, a Russian regiment had full-time armourers, blacksmiths, joiners, carpenters, wagon-repairers, farriers and other artisans in its ranks. Doctors were a rather new addition: very unusually the Preobrazhenskys had four. Far more traditional and to be found in every Russian regiment were priests and other junior clergy. Full Orthodox masses were held on Sundays and major holidays. The priests addressed the troops, preaching the duty of loyal service to the tsar as protector of the Orthodox faith and community. Proper treatment of enemy prisoners and civilians was another common theme. In battle some priests were found right up in the firing lines. Their usual place was with the doctors, comforting the wounded and – very importantly – performing the proper burial services for the dead.62
Least typical of the army as a whole were the officers of the Preobrazhensky Guards. Although the great majority of Russian officers were nobles, 6 per cent were the sons of labourers, peasants or, most often, soldiers. In any case most Russian nobles scraped along on small incomes and the same was true of most officers. Roughly one-quarter of them in 1812 owned estates or were their heirs, and most of these estates were small. It was a very rare officer in a line regiment whose family owned more than 100 ‘souls’ (i.e. male serfs). In Alexander’s Russia there was almost no free education of any quality. Artillery officers were usually educated at cadet corps (i.e. military schools designed to train boys to be officers) and most had essential mathematical knowledge as well as foreign languages. But the great majority of infantry and even cavalry officers of the line read and wrote Russian, might have a smattering of arithmetic but had no other educational attainments.63
