WARS and BATTLES
From Ancient Greece - to modern day.
But, as Fouch‚ well warned his imperial master, when he vainly endeavored to dissuade him from his disastrous expedition against the empire of the Czars, the difference between the Russia of 18I2 and the Russia of 1709 was greater than the disparity between the power of Charles and the might of Napoleon. "If that heroic king," said Fouch," had not, like your imperial majesty, half Europe in arms to back him, neither had his opponent, the Czar Peter, 400,000 soldiers and 50,000 Cossacks." The historians who describe the state of the Muscovite empire when revolutionary and imperial France encountered it, narrate with truth and justice how, " at the epoch of the French Revolution, this immense empire, comprehending nearly half of Europe and Asia within its dominions, inhabited by a patient and indomitable race, ever ready to exchange the luxury and adventure of the South for the hardships and monotony of the North, was daily becoming more formidable to the liberties of Europe The Russian infantry had then long been celebrated for its immovable firmness. Her immense population, amounting then in Europe alone to nearly thirty-five millions, afforded an inexhaustible supply of men. Her soldiers, inured to heat and cold from their infancy, and actuated by a blind devotion to their Czar, united the steady valor of the English to the impetuous energy of the French troops." So, also, we read how the haughty aggressions of Bonaparte " went to excite a national feeling from the banks of the Borysthenes to the wall of China, and to unite against him the wild and uncivilized inhabitants of an extended empire, possessed by a love of their religion, their government, and their country, and having a character of stern devotion, which he was incapable of estimating." But the Russia of 1709 had no such forces to oppose to an assailant. Her whole population then was below sixteen millions; and, what is far more important, this population had neither acquired military spirit nor strong nationality, nor was it united in loyal attachment to its ruler. Peter had wisely abolished the old regular troops of the empire, the Strelitzes; but the forces which he had raised in their stead on a new and foreign plan, and principally officered with foreigners, had, before the Swedish invasion, given no proof that they could be relied on. In numerous encounters with the Swedes, Peter's soldiery had run like sheep before inferior numbers. Great discontent, also, had been excited among all classes of the community by the arbitrary changes which their great emperor introduced, many of which clashed with the most cherished national prejudices of his subjects. A career of victory and prosperity had not yet raised Peter above the reach of that disaffection, nor had superstitious obedience to the Czar yet become the characteristic of the Muscovite mind. The victorious occupation of Moscow by Charles XII. would have quelled the Russian nation as effectually, as had been the case when Batou Khan and other ancient invaders captured the capital of primitive Muscovy. How little such a triumph could effect towards subduing modern Russia, the fate of Napoleon demonstrated at once and forever. The character of Charles XII., has been a favorite theme with historians, moralists, philosophers, and poets. But it is his military conduct during the campaign in Russia that alone requires comment here. Napoleon, in the Memoirs dictated by him at St. Helena, has given us a systematic criticism on that, among other celebrated campaigns, his own Russian campaign included. He labors hard to prove that he himself observed all the true principles of offensive war and probably his censures on Charles' generalship were rather highly colored, for the sake of making his own military skill stand out in more favorable relief. Yet, after making all allowances, we must admit the force of Napoleon's strictures on Charles' tactics, and own that his judgment, though severe, is correct, when he pronounces that the Swedish king, unlike his great predecessor Gustavus, knew nothing of the art of war, and was nothing more than a brave and intrepid soldier. Such, however, was not the light in which his contemporaries at the commencement of his Russian expedition regarded Charles. His numerous victories, his daring and resolute spirit, combined with the ancient renown of the Swedish arms, then filled all Europe with admiration and anxiety. As Johnson expresses it, his name was then one at which the world grew pale. Even Louis le Grand earnestly solicited his assistance; and our own Marlborough, then in the full career of his victories, was specially sent by the English court to the camp of Charles, to propitiate the hero of the North in favor of the cause of the allies, and to prevent the Swedish sword from being flung into the scale in the French king's favor.
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