The Russians in Napoleonic Wars

[Shri]

Guys, not yet released for even BETA i know, but still wondering how Russia (the big bad bear) is modelled.

Russia is whatever criteria chosen the Most Important or Second Most Important country in the whole Napoleonic Period from the Allies point of view. (to bring the Steamroller towards Paris being the goal)
Conversely, also from the French point of view (to keep Russia neutral was the goal here).

1. The thing about Napoleonic Wars unlike the 7 year war or the Great War is "active European Style Diplomacy practised" (in short Back-Stabbing).
Eg: After Tilsit when Napoleon dismantled Prussia and reduced its territory by 45% and Population and Wealth by over 50%, the Russians did some small Land Grab, post 1807 they did even more at the expense of Ottomans, Swedish (Northern War) etc.
Will this system of alliance followed by land grabbing followed by alliance allowed?

The English fought a proxy war in the Baltics against Russia from 1807 to 1812 but from 1792 to 1807 were more or less always allied to Russia and again from 1812+ were allied to Russia and increasingly subsidised the Russian army in Europe.


Asking that- As i want to play as Russia and do all the 'Land Grab' possible but also defeat Nappy. Both goals are contradictory but were achieved by Alexander I.

2. Russian mobilisation problems being raised by the above problem.
Russia had a SERF army, basically the Tsar/Tsarina sent a proclamation to the various territories and rounded up Serfs between 18 and 20 for a 'life-sentence', later reduced to 25 years. The problem is they marched half of Russia to reach their depots and begin training.
Again, once war is declared, they marched all the way from Depots in Transcaucasus, TransTurkestan, Congress Poland, Baltic Regions, Crimea etc to the 'theatre of war' in Germany.

Once the campaign was over, they were sent back to depots to save costs.
How will this be modelled?

Asking because- If Russia is too slow to march into Germany, Austria and Prussia will get spanked by Nappy,
if too fast; the French won't gain enough early victories to compensate for the Russian numbers.

[PhilThib]

1 - Point is covered by the diplomatic system of the game, major powers can have independant policies
2 - Don't know for sure if the army recruited from 'miles' away as you hint...most musketeer regiments (line troops of the Imperial Czarist army of the time) had a local recruitment and were raised on the spot, so the issue is not to have recruits travel thousands miles to reach depot but rather to gather the exisiting regiments from their garrison location to the place where the army will concentrate... the 1805 setup is telling for that purpose, where half of the Russian that fought at Austerliz are thousand miles from the border... concentrating an effective army through miles of under-developped territory will be the real Russian issue.

[Shri]

@Philthib

Great to know that.


BTW, you are correct that garrison depots were concentrated in border areas etc.
I was talking more about the whole messed-up recruitment process. There were hundreds of cases of "eligible men" running away to forests or purposely hurting their palms etc to avoid getting conscripted.
Of-course, the clergy, Jews, Muslims etc were not drafted (this meant more than 20% of the population), the nobility could not be drafted as privates, though if literate they were made into officers directly else NCOs (literacy was quite low).
For a long time, right up to the start of Alexander I's rule or till just before it, the recruits were stamped or tattooed and made to march to depots, guarded on both sides by Cossack Cavalry to stop them from escaping.

Tsarist Russia even in the 1800s only slightly better than Potemkin's villages. It was a topsy-turvy world, but one thing was certain even then that it was a superpower in the making.

[DrPostman]

I didn't realize that Russia was such a mess then.

[PhilThib]

That partly explains the failure of Napoleon there...he went to war in a "backwards" country where the French usual way to wage war and partly live off the country (and also have a perfect supply network) could not work as it did in Western Europe...some of that liability was similarly found in the Spanish peninsula, another French campaign failure... you couple the above with a firm or fierce popular will to resist the 'heathen' invaders (as the French were seen) and you have a good recipe for a disaster

[Shri]

As PhilThib, says a combination of bad Weather and primitive conditions did hurt the French advance (as it would later hurt the German advance in 1941) but more importantly what hit them most was the absolute resoluteness of the Russian army in defence of the 'Rodina' (this is a key factor seen repeatedly in the long history of Russia, often offensive wars resulted in tragic-comic blunders but on the defensive the Russian has been the best soldier ever probably) and this-

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That is the Cossack Cavalry - a unique military unit and symbol of the Tsardom of Russia and the Empire of Russia for nearly 400 years. They provided a range of services from- Imperial Bodyguards of the Tsar and his extended family, Urban Police, Riot Police, Crushing revolts and revolutions, 'escorting' serfs/conscripts as mentioned earlier, 'escorting' prisoners, guarding supply lines, sacking supply lines of the enemy, raiding enemy camps at night, light cavalry duties, etc etc. They were absolutely loyal to the Tsar but were a fiercely independent minded people, who didn't pay taxes and on whom the 'laws' of Tsarist Russia did not apply (they were more or less autonomous under their Hetman-Leader) but paid the Tsar with 20 years of service and bought their own horses to ride.