In January 1810 an important new institution was created at the heart of Russian government. The new State Council was Speransky’s brainchild. It was designed to debate and to advise the emperor on all legislation and budgets, and to oversee the ministries. Mikhail Speransky saw the State Council as the first step in the complete transformation of central government. This never happened, but major changes in the ministries’ structure and responsibilities were also under way in these years. In these circumstances it was difficult to predict in which institutions most power would lie. Alexander offered Arakcheev the choice of either remaining minister of war or becoming chairman of the military committee of the new state council. Arakcheev chose the latter, commenting that he preferred to supervise rather than be supervised. Since the new war minister, Barclay de Tolly, was junior to Arakcheev and to some extent owed his promotion to him it may be that Arakcheev believed that he would retain a degree of indirect control over the ministry. In fact, however, Barclay soon showed that he was very much his own man and quickly became Alexander’s chief military adviser, thereby earning the enmity of Arakcheev, who was intensely jealous of anyone who rivalled him for the emperor’s favour.13
Though his family originated from Scotland, Barclay was in reality a member of the German professional middle class. His ancestors had settled in the Baltic provinces, but Barclay himself was brought up by relatives in the German community of Petersburg. The dominant Lutheran values of his childhood home were obedience, duty, conscience and hard work. He reinforced these values and his own place within the German community in Russia by marrying his cousin, as commonly happened in this era. At the age of 15 he entered Russian military service as an NCO, being promoted to officer rank two years later. Better educated than the normal officer drawn from the Russian gentry, he rose on merit and at modest speed. It took him twenty-one years to rise from cornet to major-general. His skill and courage in the East Prussian campaign of 1806 won him promotion to lieutenant-general, brought him to Alexander’s attention, and secured him a key role in the subsequent war with Sweden. Urged on by Arakcheev, Barclay invaded southern Sweden from Finland across the ice of the Gulf of Bothnia in March 1809, thereby helping greatly to bring Swedish resistance to an end. A grateful monarch promoted Barclay to full general and made him commander-in-chief and governor-general of Finland.14
Tall, well built and with an upright, commanding presence, the new head of the army looked the part. His slight limp and stiff right arm, both the product of wounds, added to his distinction. But in the jealous world of Petersburg Barclay’s rapid promotion to full general and minister won him many enemies. By temperament, background and experience he was not well suited to Petersburg high society and the imperial court, milieux which a minister ignored at his peril. At court he was respectful but awkward, wooden and insecure. The earnest, proud and sensitive Barclay knew that he lacked the culture, wit or broad education to win respect in this world. The Petersburg aristocracy, many of whose members held top military posts, looked down on him as a solemn, boring German and a parvenu. Barclay did not make friends easily, though men who served near him in time came to admire him greatly. Like all senior Russian generals and ministers, he had acquired his own clients in the course of his career, many of whom were Germans. This did not help his popularity. Whatever Barclay did, however, criticism was inevitable in this world of jealousy and carping: when subsequently he appointed Ivan Sabaneev to be his chief of staff he was criticized for favouring an old regimental colleague over other, abler (and in this case Baltic German) staff officers.15
Barclay de Tolly had Arakcheev’s virtues without his vices. He was an efficient, incorruptible, hard-working and meticulous administrator but he was never a pedant. He could also be very tough, even ruthless, when necessary: given the habits of the Russian commissariat this was essential. Unlike Arakcheev, however, Barclay never indulged in superfluous cruelty, rudeness or vendettas. He was both a more efficient administrator and a tougher disciplinarian than Bennigsen, in whose army hunger, indiscipline and banditry had become endemic in 1806–7. As minister and commander-in-chief Barclay did everything possible to stop mistreatment of troops by their officers. His circulars condemned officers who used fear as a means to train and instil discipline into their troops: ‘The Russian soldier has all the highest military virtues: he is brave, zealous, obedient, devoted, and not wayward; consequently there are certainly ways, without employing cruelty, to train him and to maintain discipline.’16
