Given the emperor’s skill at manipulation, it is quite possible that Alexander nudged Arakcheev into abandoning his ministerial post and joining the State Council in January 1810. In 1808 a war minister had been needed who would restore order to military administration, where necessary by terror. No better candidate for such a task existed than Arakcheev. By 1810, however, the job requirements had changed. An efficient and hard-working administrator was necessary but not sufficient. With conflict against Napoleon beginning to loom over the horizon the army needed a chief who could prepare and plan for war. Arakcheev had never served in the field and was barely competent to discuss strategy or war plans. Barclay de Tolly on the other hand was a front-line soldier with an outstanding wartime record. If Barclay lacked the daring or imagination of a great commander-in-chief, he nevertheless had a solid grasp of tactics and a quick eye to spot the possibilities and dangers of a battlefield. More important, he had not just a realistic grasp of strategy but also the patriotism, resolution and moral courage to sustain this strategy in the face of many obstacles and ferocious criticism. To an extent which was rare, Barclay would put the ‘good of the service’ above personal interests and vendettas. In 1812 Russia was to owe him much for these qualities.
In the two and a half years between his appointment as minister and Napoleon’s invasion Barclay was immensely active. In the sphere of legislation, the new law on the field armies was of greatest significance. It was extremely detailed, taking up an astonishing and unprecedented 121 double-columned pages in the collection of laws. Known as the ‘yellow book’ because of the colour of its cover, the law encompassed all the departments, functions and key officers of the field army, and set out their powers and responsibilities. It also, however, went far beyond this, acting as a handbook for officers on how they should fulfil their tasks.17
Of course there were some errors in such a vast and complicated piece of legislation. The dual subordination of chiefs of staff, both to their own general and to the chief of staff at the next level of command, caused problems. Prussian commentators claimed that their own model, in which all departments had access to commanding generals only through their chiefs of staff, reduced inter-departmental wrangling and freed the supreme commanders from worrying about trivia. The division of responsibility for hospitals between the commissariat (supply and administration) and the medical department (doctors and paramedics) caused much inefficiency in 1812–14. Inevitably, too, the regulations sometimes had to be adapted to wartime realities. For example, the law envisaged a situation in which a Russian commander-in-chief commanded a Russian army operating in the absence of the emperor and on foreign soil. Actually in 1812–14 this never happened: the army was either fighting on Russian soil or operating abroad in Alexander’s presence, though often under the command of foreign generals.
None of this mattered too much, however. For the first time, clear rules were set out for how an army should be run in wartime. Most of the principles established by Barclay worked well in 1812–14. Where necessary these rules could easily be amended to suit conditions on the ground. Six weeks after the army law was issued in early 1812, for example, it became clear that the future war would initially be fought on Russian territory. As regards the feeding and supply of the army, an amendment was immediately published which stated that the law was to be applied to any Russian provinces which the emperor declared to be in a state of war. In these provinces all officials were thereby subordinated to the army’s intendant-general, who had the right to requisition food, fodder and transport at will in return for receipts. The law therefore goes far towards explaining how the Russian treasury sustained the 1812 campaign at such small cost to itself, at least in the short run of the wartime emergency. The clear lines of command and responsibility it established also laid the groundwork for the generally good collaboration of the army and the provincial governors in 1812.18
