The Russians might well have conceded this had they been defeated by Napoleon, but they were unlikely to do so before the war had even begun. The emperor was in fact discussing the restoration of Poland with his old friend and chief adviser on Polish affairs, Prince Adam Czartoryski. Conceivably, had his feelers to the Poles met an enthusiastic response, he might have considered a pre-emptive strike to occupy the Duchy of Warsaw and win Prussian support, but there is no evidence in the Russian diplomatic or military archives of preparations for an offensive in 1810 or 1811. Alexander was in any case convinced that Russian security and Russian public opinion made it essential that any reconstituted Poland had the Russian emperor as its king. In 1811–12 this idea could not compete in Polish hearts with the hope of a restored Poland, within its full old borders, and guaranteed by the all-conquering Napoleon. The union of the Russian and Polish crowns was also unacceptable to the Austrians.44
By the summer of 1811 Alexander had decided on a defensive strategy. He made this clear to both the Austrians and the Prussians, thereby ruling out the last faint hopes that either country would join him against Napoleon. In August 1811 the emperor told the Austrian minister, the Count de Saint-Julien, that although he understood the theoretical military arguments for an offensive strategy, in the present circumstances only a defensive strategy made sense. If attacked, he would retreat into his empire, turning the area he abandoned into a desert. Tragic though this would be for the civilian population, he had no other alternative. He was arranging echelons of supply bases and new reserve forces to which his field army could retreat. The French would find themselves fighting far from their bases and even further from their homes: ‘It is only by being prepared, if necessary, to sustain war for ten years that one can exhaust his troops and wear out his resources.’ Saint-Julien reported all this to Vienna but added, significantly, that he doubted whether Alexander could hold his nerve and pursue such a strategy when the invasion actually occurred.45
To Frederick William, Alexander was even more explicit. In May 1811 he wrote to the king:
We have to adopt the strategy which is most likely to succeed. It seems to me that this strategy has to be one of carefully avoiding big battles and organizing very long operational lines which will sustain a retreat which will end in fortified camps, where nature and engineering works will strengthen the forces which we use to match up to the enemy’s skill. The system is the one which has brought victory to Wellington in wearing down the French armies, and it is the one which I have resolved to follow.
Alexander suggested to Frederick William that he set up his own fortified camps, some of which should be on the coast where they could be supplied by the British navy. Not at all surprisingly, this prospect did not appeal to Frederick William, whose country would first be abandoned by the Russians and then fought over and ravaged as enemy territory by the French. In his last letter to Alexander before war began, Frederick William explained that he had seen no alternative but to succumb to Napoleon’s pressure and join the French alliance. ‘Faithful to your strategy of not taking the offensive, Your Majesty deprived me of any hope of prompt or real assistance and placed me in a situation where the destruction of Prussia would have been the preliminary to a war against Russia.’46
Though it failed as regards Austria and Prussia, Russian diplomacy did achieve its other key goals by ending the war against Turkey and neutralizing any threat from Sweden.
The Ottomans had declared war against Russia in 1806 in the wake of Austerlitz. This seemed a good opportunity to win back some of the territories and other concessions which the empire had been forced to make to Russia in the last forty years. The Russians instead soon overran the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, and made their acquisition the key Russian war aim. No doubt over-impressed by his father’s achievements, Rumiantsev in particular was hell-bent on acquiring the provinces and too optimistic about how easy it would be to get the Turks to concede them. As war with Napoleon loomed and most Russian diplomats and generals yearned to end the sideshow in the Balkans, Rumiantsev’s stubbornness made him many enemies but in fact there is not much evidence that Alexander was any more willing to give way than his foreign minister.
One reason the Turks proved so recalcitrant was that they were urged to resist Russian demands first by the British and then by the French. Since by 1810 they were well aware that a war between Napoleon and Russia was in the offing, they had every incentive to hold out and wait until the Russians became desperate to cut their losses and redeploy their troops northwards against the French.
