By now, however, the key issue had long since become not specific sources of disagreement between France and Russia but the clear evidence that Napoleon was planning a massive invasion of the tsar’s empire. At the beginning of January 1812 the French minister of war boasted that Napoleon’s army had never before been so well equipped, trained and supplied for a forthcoming war: ‘We have been making preparations for more than fifteen months.’ In keeping with the general level of French security before 1812 the boast was made within earshot of a Russian informant. The Russians were in fact exceptionally well informed about French intentions and preparations. Already in the summer of 1810 a number of young and usually very competent officers had been sent as attachés in the Russian missions scattered throughout Germany’s princely courts. Their job was to gather intelligence. Within Germany the greatest source of intelligence was the Russian mission in Berlin, since January 1810 headed by Christoph Lieven. The majority of Napoleon’s units preparing to invade Russia either travelled across Prussia or deployed within it. Since the Prussians loathed the French it was not difficult to gain abundant information about all these units and their movements.31
By far the most important source of intelligence, however, were Russia’s diplomatic and military representatives in Paris. Petr Tolstoy was recalled in October 1808 and replaced as ambassador to Napoleon by Aleksandr Kurakin. By 1810, however, Kurakin had been partly sidelined not just by Napoleon but also by Alexander and Rumiantsev. In part this was because the ambassador, already a martyr to gout, was badly burned in a fire at the Austrian embassy early in 1810 during a great ball to celebrate Napoleon’s marriage to the Archduchess Marie-Louise. It was also, however, because Kurakin was overshadowed by two exceptionally able younger Russian diplomats in Paris.
One of these men was Count Karl von Nesselrode, who served as deputy head of mission under first Tolstoy and then Kurakin. Nesselrode in fact was secretly in direct communication with Alexander via Mikhail Speransky. The other Russian was Aleksandr Chernyshev, not a diplomat but an officer of the Chevaliers Gardes, an aide-de-camp of Alexander I and the emperor’s former page. When first appointed deputy head of mission in Paris Nesselrode was 27 years old. When Chernyshev was first sent by Alexander with personal messages for Napoleon he was only 22. Partly as a result of their brilliant performance during these crucial years in Paris both men made outstanding careers. Ultimately Nesselrode was to serve as foreign minister and Chernyshev as war minister for decades.
In certain respects the two young men were very different. Karl Nesselrode came from an aristocratic family from the Rhineland. His father’s career in the service of the Elector Palatine ended in dramatic style when the elector took objection to his wife’s infatuation with young Count Wilhelm. After serving the kings of France and Prussia, Wilhelm von Nesselrode worked as Russian minister in Portugal, where his son Karl was born and christened as an Anglican at the church of the British legation in Lisbon. Not until late adolescence did Karl Nesselrode have any experience of life in Russia but his subsequent marriage to the daughter of the finance minister, Dmitrii Gurev, strengthened his position in Petersburg society. Nesselrode was a calm, tactful and even at times self-effacing man. That led some observers to miss his great intelligence, subtlety and determination.
No one ever called Aleksandr Chernyshev self-effacing. On the contrary, he was a genius at self-promotion. Chernyshev came from the Russian aristocracy. An uncle, Aleksandr Lanskoy, had been one of Catherine II’s lovers. Aleksandr Chernyshev first gained the Emperor Alexander’s attention at a ball given by Prince Kurakin to celebrate the tsar’s coronation in 1801. The poise, wit and confidence of the 15-year-old immediately struck the emperor and resulted in Chernyshev’s selection as an imperial page. This was to be a fitting start to the career of an elegant and handsome man who glittered in society and always loved the limelight. Chernyshev once wrote of a fellow-officer that he was ‘full of that noble ambition which obliges any individual who feels it to make himself known’. This certainly was a self-portrait too. But Chernyshev was much more than mere ambition and glitter: he was a man of outstanding intelligence, courage and resolution. Though an excellent soldier, in common with other intelligent aristocratic officers of his day his vision was far broader than the narrow military world. Just as Nesselrode’s reports sometimes discussed grand strategy, so too Chernyshev was deeply aware of the political context of Napoleonic warfare.32
