SUVOROF MILITARY HISTORY THE DARDANELLES. By Major-General Sir C. E. Callwkll, K.C.B. Maps. i8s. net. (This is the latest volume in Constable's ' ' Campaigns and their Lessons" Series, of which Sir Charles Callwell is Editor. ) CHRONOLOGY OF THE WAR. Vol. I., 1914- 1915, 5s. net. Vol. II., 1916-17, 7s. 6d. net. Vol. III., 191 8 (in preparation). Atlas, 3s. 6d. net. 1914. By Field-Marshal Viscount French of Ypres, K.P., etc., etc. and Imp. of 2nd Edition. 2is. net. YPRES 1914. Official account published by German General Staff. 5s. net. BISMARCK. By C. Grant Robertson, C.V.O. 10s. 6d. net. YASHKA: My Life as Peasant, Exile, and Soldier. By Maria Botchkareva. 7s. 6d. net. CONSTABLE & CO. LTD., 10-12 ORANGE ST., LONDON, W.C. 2; AUSTRALASIAN PUBLISH- ING COMPANY LTD. SYDNEY >•. • .• • •• ' • • • • •! ^•^'^/h.^Uaff.^^'"' y lie \Y/ / / (I CI - ()// iwrxrL l/vermy CLiv o rUiuixoL cLrcoujviui bu Jos.CK^i^f'uJ-riii ner, J /(JO cy€4xtfrx)rn(Xkcrutauj.^ul^ IJQQ and Jyuhiisficdy Iti Xoiid en ilijJaiker pK >.- SUVOROF BYW.LYONBLEASE WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MAJOR-GENERAL SIR C. E. CALLWELL, K.C.B. NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY PUBLISHERS FOREWOED An account of the circumstances in which this book was written will best explain its many deficiencies. I began to write it in 1917, when I was on the Staff of a Hospital in Petrograd. Owing to the pressure of my ordinary duties, which were at intervals considerable, I was unable to spend any time in the Imperial Library, where a large collection of papers relating to Suvorof, the Suvorovskii Sbornik, had been deposited. Still less was I able to consult the Military Records at Moscow. I was confined to the study of matter already published, and in Petrograd to such volumes as I could find in the booksellers' shops. Fortunately these were numerous. In November, I was sent down to the Field Hospital on the Roumanian Front, taking with me my manuscript and two or three books. The rest of my library, at some volumes of which I had hardly glanced, I left in a big box. This has by now, I suppose, fallen with my spare kit into the hands of pillagers. At any rate, it was left behind when the Base Hospital went home, and I cannot get hold of it. From Roumania I was recalled to Odessa, where, for the first time, I got into a Public Library. To the City Librarian, Professor Popruzhenko, and his assistant, Mr. Deribas, vii viu SUVOROF I am much indebted. I am even more obliged to Mr. Edmund Harris, in whose house I lived. His own library was very useful, and his natural hospitality seemed to be only aggravated by the triple alliance against him of pneumonia, extortionate demands from his workmen, and a civil war in which his house played an involuntary but conspicuous part. I regret that his recent death in exile prevents me from giving him a copy of the book. I never knew a man who bore with more fortitude and sweetness of temper the blows of a remorseless fortune. As there has been published in Russian an enormous quantity of literature about Suvorof, I think I have been able to gather enough raw material to make a substantially true picture of him. For military events I have been compelled to rely on such books as Pyetrof 's Histories of the Turkish Wars and Milyutin's superb History of the War of 1799, with its abundant citations from original documents. There are as many anecdotes about Suvorof as about our Doctor Johnson, and many of these have been published in one or other of the numerous periodicals interested in Russian antiquities and history. I have, with one or two exceptions, repeated none that are not related by honest eye- witnesses. On the whole, I think that this book will be found to contain as much essential truth as many which are more ostentatiously based upon manuscript authorities, and indeed seem to bear not a little of the original dust upon their pages. My principal omissions are English, French, German, FOREWORD ix Polish, and Italian books. I had not time to learn the Polish language as well as the Russian. Of French and German books I could find only a few in Russia, and of English and Italian, none at all. It is hardly less difficult to lay hands on some of them in England. I have abandoned all hope of getting the books that I left in Petrograd. The Bibliography I have made as complete as I can, though I have not been able to recollect the exact titles of all my Petrograd books. I am very greatly indebted to my wife, who at various times has reduced the whole of my rough manuscript to legibility, and in the end spent many hours in Japan in pounding a clumsy typewriter and making the thing fit for the printer. W. L. B. INTRODUCTION In the following pages the life story is told of a very- remarkable man, of a principal performer in some of the most memorable events in modern history, of the foremost of Russians with the solitary exception of Peter the Great. They present us with the picture of a singular personality, of an ardent patriot, of an excep- tionally brilliant and successful soldier. Strange as were Suvorof's ways and interesting as was his indi- viduality in his private capacity, it is rather in his character of leader of troops and commander in the field that his career must ever be instructive to posterity and attractive to the student of history. Fought for the most part in regions far removed from centres of culture and of military thought, his campaigns have perhaps scarcely been studied as assiduously in the past as they ought to have been, seeing how varied and how far-reaching are the lessons that are to be deduced from them. They shed a beacon light upon the art of countering the mercurial methods of the partisan, which often prove so great a bugbear to leaders of a trained and disciplined soldiery. Of effective achievement mainly and primarily attributable to the fostering of mobility and elasticity in the field, they afford numerous, diversified and striking examples. Those dramatic events of 1800 in Switzerland — the desperate affray by the Devil's Bridge, the sudden tidings of Korsakof's discomfiture, the escape from the trap, the weary retreat over the heights to Chur, admirably indicate what strategical uncertainties and xi xii SUVOROF perplexing tactical problems a general may find himself beset with when he undertakes operations at the head of a formidable force in a mountain country. Nor does the history of war furnish us with many more convincing examples of the dangers and difficulties which assail armies in the field when the plans of their leaders are interfered with by chatterers in distant capitals, than is to be found in the conduct of the Aulic Council and its consequences, after the famous Russian chieftain had been entrusted with the task of driving back the French legions out of the territories which they had overrun. Amongst prominent figures in history, few have been more traduced than has the victor of the Ruimnik and the Trebbia. In consequence of his enthusiasm for monarchial autocracy, Suvorof was anathema to French writers of the Revolutionary era, and they painted his actions in the darkest colours. His name has in this country been too much associated with Lord Byron's mordant and oft -quoted line, "hero, buffoon, half demon and half dirt." Granted that the great soldier was something of a buffoon, the reference to dirt amounted to a cruel libel and the epithet "demon" was wholly inappropriate. Bon Juan pictures him in connection with the taking of Izmail, and, as his conduct on that occasion unquestionably was open to some criticism, it may not be out of place to say a word upon this subject. The fortress had been formally summoned and the Grand Vizier had, very properly, met the summons with an uncompromising refusal. Military authorities in the seventeenth century, and before that era, had been in substantial agreement that a stronghold which would not yield after having been called upon to do so was liable if taken by assault to be sacked and to have its garrison put to the sword. Cromwell always pleaded that no quarter need be given in such a case, and he acted on that principle at Basing House and at Drogheda, although at Gowran House and Old Castletown he contented himself with the massacre of the defending INTRODUCTION xiii officers, sparing the rank and file. As a matter of fact, fastnesses did in practice in those days in nineteen cases out of twenty haul down their flag rather than stand an assault, in deference to what was to all intents and purposes a law of war. With the development of modern ideas and humaner methods, such drastic pro- cedure fell to a great extent into desuetude. But the principle had not been forgotten. Writing to Canning some thirty years after the fall of Izmail, Wellington declared that he would have considered himself justified in putting the garrisons of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz to the sword, and that had he done so at the former it would have saved him 5000 men before the latter place of arms. Twenty years after Izmail, Suchet deliber- ately slaughtered large part of the garrison of Tarragona, and he bitterly upbraided his opponent, the wounded Contreras, for persisting in the defence of an untenable town. It has always to be remembered that the van- quished in a combat can only pray for quarter as an act of grace ; they cannot claim it as a right, although it nowadays is almost always granted. But in the case of storming a fortress this question of quarter to its defenders, as also that of the conduct of the victors towards its citizens, was influenced by the theory that the assailants were entitled to pillage the place. That theory no doubt dated back to the medieval days when warfare was prosecuted with the utmost savagery; but the theory had been carried on into much later days by the mercenaries of the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, for whom prospects and possibilities of plunder provided one of the main inducements to serve. Traditions are amongst soldiers carried on from one generation to another, and there can be no doubt that at the time of Izmail and Sering- apatam and San Sebastian and Tarragona the rank and file of European armies, even perhaps some of the officers, were imbued with the notion that the sacking of a fortified city which had been taken by storm was a xiv SUVOROF procedure that was sanctioned by precedent and was warranted by the circumstances of the case. It will be urged that there was a very substantial difference between what occurred within the Peninsular strongholds taken by British troops, and what occurred within the enceinte of the Turkish fortress on the Lower Danube. The excesses committed in the one case were entirely imauthorised, whereas at Izmail massacre and rapine enjoyed up to a point the full approval of Suvorof and his lieutenants. At Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz there moreover were no reprisals on the part of the victorious troops against the vanquished garrisons, whereas thousands of Osmanli warriors were slaughtered at Izmail without mercy. But in connection with this latter topic we should not forget that the conditions in the cases of the Spanish places of arms differed widely from those that obtained within the Ottoman ramparts. Resistance collapsed as soon as the assailants had won their way within the enceintes of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, whereas there was desperate fighting in the streets of Izmail ; and at San Sebastian, where defence continued after the stormers had forced the breaches, the conquerors took a heavy toll of their antagonists. In so far as the outrages to which the citizens were subjected are con- cerned, the Russians could at least excuse themselves on the ground that Izmail was for the most part peopled by Turks ; the inhabitants of the Spanish fortresses on the other hand were friends of the assailants, not enemies, but that availed them little. Finally, it has to be borne in mind that warfare as between Muscovite and Osmanli had for years past been carried on in ruth- less fashion, that animosity between these hereditary foes was stimulated on both sides by religious fervour, and that there is not the slightest reason to suppose that Ottoman troops who had fought their way into a Russian city would have displayed forbearance. Nobody to-day would suggest that the bloodshed and INTRODUCTION xv pillage which continued at Izmail after the defence had been beaten down were not to be deprecated, nor that Suvorof's attitude in connection with the matter was not open to censure. But the case against him was not in reality so bad as some have pretended. Advance in the art of fortification and in military science completely transformed the conditions of fortress warfare during the century that followed Izmail and Praga, and it is interesting to note that, on the occasion of the one signal instance of a storming that has occurred in these later years, the victorious assailants were Russians and the defenders were Turks. That was at Kars in 1877. But Kars was then secured by detached forts, and it was the detached forts that were taken by storm. There was no question of street fighting. It is not solely due to the relatively indulgent methods of conducting war which — before the Germans re-intro- duced in Belgium and France the practices of a ruder age — were supposed to prevail in these later days, that the horrors of Magdeburg and Drogheda and Izmail are hardly likely to repeat themselves in the course of struggles between civilised races. Long-range artillery, and the influence which this has exerted over the laying out of defence works, also affect this question. The uncouth antics and wayward outbursts which make Suvorof cut so strange a figure in our eyes, were perhaps to some extent a pose ; but they manifested themselves too frequently and at too inappropriate moments to leave much doubt that this remarkable leader of men was not in all respects quite right in the head. Still, history indicates that the type of warrior of ardent temperament who is ever bent on violent offensives when in the field, is apt to prove himself eccentric in other matters. Bliicher was a case in point. In our own annals we have had Nelson, Wolfe, and the " Salamander " Cutts. His eccentricities have perhaps been one cause why Suvorof's outstanding merits as a commander have hardly been sufficiently xvi SUVOROF recognised outside the ranks of his own countrymen. And yet those eccentricities were one of his most precious assets as a chieftain lording it over the impressionable Russian peasantry who composed the rank and file of the armies that he led from victory to victory. His singular personality was a cardinal factor in his handling of his men. His demeanour, his grotesque posturings, his exclamatory communications, may seem to us the tricks of a mountebank, to the soldiers of Catherine and Paul they endeared a general in whom officers and men came to place implicit trust. Next to Frederick the Great, Napoleon and Wellington, unquestionably the greatest soldier of the last half of the eighteenth century and of the wars that followed the French Revolution, Suvorof was in some respects more successful than either of the two former. He never practically had a really untoward reverse on the battlefield to deplore. There was no Kolin and no Kunersdorf in his case to dim the glories of Fokchany and of the passage of the St. Gothard. He met with no discomfiture in combat so distressing as befell Napoleon at Aspern and at Leipzig. Almost as uniformly vic- torious in action as the Iron Duke, Suvorof never experienced so mortifying a failure when compassing the downfall of a stronghold as Wellington encountered before Burgs in Old Castile. He proved himself in the course of his many years of active service in various theatres of war to be an exponent of well-nigh every type of effective military operation, adapting his methods to the circumstances of each particular case with un- failing originality and with consistent good fortune. He mastered the art of vanquishing elusive guerilla bands, whether the bands were composed of Poles fighting under educated leaders or were made up of nomad Tartars, children of the limitless steppes. Otto- man valour and tenacity behind entrenchments had become traditional from the date on which the tide of Turkish penetration westwards began at last to ebb ; but INTRODUCTION xvii Suvorof never quailed when confronted with the Sultan's legions no matter how strongly they might be posted, and he overcame them under such conditions by tactics peculiarly his. Face to face with practised French commanders such as were Macdonald and Joubert, he more than held his own in combat. A plainsman himself and at the head of plainsmen, he nevertheless contrived to prosecute one of the most remarkable mountain campaigns in the history of war ; for a parallel to his forcing his way over the high Alps from Airolo to Altdorf in defiance of stalwart opposition, we have almost to go back to the days of Hannibal. He received his baptism of fire as a young staff officer in the Seven Years' War, winning his spurs as member of the most lethargic army in Europe ; thanks to his precepts and his heartening example, that army less than a generation later rivalled in dash and mobility the fiery levies who fought under the eyes of Dumouriez and Hoche. We may occasionally feel tempted, when conning over the record of what he accomplished, to criticise the pro- cedure adopted in some particular case, to look askance at a policy which verged at times seemingly upon the reckless. And yet we have to admit that, whether he set to work in the right way or in the wrong way, he almost invariably conquered in the end. In war nothing succeeds like success. The result, it is, that counts, and not the means by which the result has been arrived at. Nor were Suvorof 's services to his country at an end when the old man passed away, ignored by his Sovereign and neglected by the court. His teachings and his theory of making war were not forgotten. The tale of his achievements was to animate coming generations of Russian warriors in many a strenuous campaign, and on many a hard-fought field. Had there been no Suvorof tradition, would some of his successors in charge of Muscovite armies, one wonders, have won the signal triumphs that they did ? Would Diebitch have made xviii SUVOROF his swoop almost to the Golden Horn in 1829, and would Paskievitch have been simultaneously carrying all before him by lightning strokes dealt the Osmanli in the inhospitable, roadless tracts of Kars and Erzerum ? Would Tchernaief in 1865, master of only 2000 infantry and a dozen guns, have stormed the great walled city of Tashkend defended by 30,000 fighting men ? Would Gourko have passed the Balkans in mid- winter in 1877, and have come down like an avalanche upon Thrace before the bewildered enemy could gather his scattered legions together to arrest the rush ? The glory of All the Russias is under eclipse, their greatness has for the moment passed away. If ever there is to be a revival, if ever those teeming Slav multitudes are to recover the place in the world which they occupied before the upheaval of 1917, the memory of such men as Suvorof will assuredly have played its part in restoring an emotional race to sanity and in resuscitating the patriotism of a nation that has fallen from its high estate. C. E. C. CONTENTS PAGB Foreword . . vii Introduction by Major-General Sir C. E. Call well, K.C.B. . xi CHAPTER I PREPARATION Ancestry — Early Life — Education — Enlistment and, Promotions — The Seven Years' War — Suvorofs Appreciation of its Lessons— Regimental Command— A Letter— Training his Men 1 CHAPTER n THE FIRST POLISH WAR The state of Poland— Entry of Suvorof on the Scene in 1770— Guerilla Warfare — Battle of Landskron, 1771 — Battle of Stalovitch — Correspondence with the Commander-in-Chief — Siege of Cracow, 1772 — Partition — Correspondence ... 14 CHAPTER m THE FIRST TURKISH WAR Turkish Warfare — Victories of Rumyantsof — Suvorof captures Turtukai, 1773 — Correspondence — Captures Turtukai again —Affair at Hirsof, 1773— Battle of Kozludzhi, 1774— Failure of the Plan of Campaign — Peace of Kutchuk-Kainardzhi — Suvorof marries unhappily — His freakish Character .... 36 XX SUVOROF CHAPTER IV FRONTIEE WORK PAOK Rebellion of Pugatchyof, 1772— Intervention of Suvorof, 1774— Across the Volga— Capture of Pugatchyof— Suvorofs Little Ways— Potyorakin— Correspondence — The Tartars— Revolt in the Crimea, 1777— Squabbles with Prozorovski— Suvorof in Charge — Migration of the Christians — Astrakhan and the Road to India— Grievances — The Tartars again— Feasts and Fights — Correspondence — Command of Petersburg Division, 1785— The Imperial Progress, 1787— Suvorof one of the Sights . 62 CHAPTER V THE SECOND TURKISH WAR Alliance of Russia and Austria against Turkey — Outbreak of War, 1787— Suvorof at Kinburn— Battle at Kinburn, 1787— Suvorof Wounded— Attack from the Sea, 1788— Siege of Otchakof- Letter to his Daughter— Difference with Potyomkin— Suvorof in Moldavia, 1789- Battle of Fokshani— Battle of the Ruimnik — Rewards — Correspondence — Fruitless Campaign of 1790 — The Amiable Coburg — The Storm of Izmail — Alienation of Potyomkin — Peace with Turkey .85 CHAPTER VI KICKING HIS HEELS Suvorof at Petersburg — Sent to Finland — Correspondence — Jealousy — On Military Hospitals — Craving for Work— Daily Life — His Daughter — Books and Newspapers — Ossian — Enjoys a Wedding — Transferred to Kherson — Troubles with Con- tractors and the Treasury — Hospitals again — Letter to a Godson — A French War threatened 125 CHAPTER VII THE SECOND POLISH WAR Poland after the Partition — Rising of 1794 — Rumyantsof sends Suvorof into the Country — Battles of Kruptchitsa and Brest — Halt at Brest — Battle of Kobuilk — Storm of Praga and Capitu- lation of Warsaw — Suvorof as Pacificator — Anecdotes True CONTENTS xxi PAGE and False — Recall to Petersburg, 1795 — An Adventure by the Way — Upsetting the Court — Sent to Tultchin — The Science of Victory — How it worked in Practice — The Foundation of Modern Russian Training — Death of Catherine the Great . 151 CHAPTER VIII DOWNFALL AND EXILE Paul I. and Prussianism — Suvorof fails to please— Dismissed — Exiled — Troubles with his Wife and his Property — His Son — Daily Life— Recalled — Recalcitrant — Plans for a French War — Meditates a Monastery — Recalled again, 1799 — War at last 200 CHAPTER IX THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN, FIRST STAGE The French Revolutionary Armies — Suvorof s Method compared — Paul and Suvorof — Suvorof leaves for Vienna — People and Ministers— Arrival at Verona — Instructing the Austrians — The March to the Adda — Crossing the Adda — Entrance into Milan — Wresthng with the High War Council at Vienna — Entrance into Turin — More Difficulties — Suvorof wants to go Home — Operations in Switzerland — The French cross the Apennines —The March to the Tidone— Battle of the Trebbia— Return to Alessandria 217 CHAPTER X THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN, SECOND STAGE Correspondence and Complaints — The French cross the Apennines again — Battle of Novi — International Fame — A Dinner Party — Anecdotes — Plan of a Swiss Campaign — Its Vices and Dangers 269 CHAPTER XI THE SWISS CAMPAIGN Alternative Routes — March on the St. Gothard — The Pass taken by Storm — Rosenberg's Flank March — The Devil's Bridge — No xxii SUVOROF PAai Thoroughfare over the Mountains — Korsakofs Defeat at Zurich— In the Trap— Decision to fight out of it — Battles in the Muottothal and Klonthal — Through to Glaris — Over the Mountains again — Safe but not Sound — Correspondence — Recall to Russia . . 305 CHAPTER XII RETURN AND DEATH Letting himself go — Meeting with Korsakof — Catching the Wind — Christmas Games — Taking it out of Thugut's Son-in-Law — Correspondence with Nelson — Breaking down — Desperate Remedies— Another Blow from Paul— Arrival at Petersburg- Death 340 BIBLIOGRAPHY 361 INDEX 365 LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS PAOB 1. Map illustrating Operations in Poland . . .17 2. Battle of Landskron 23 3. Battle of Stalovitch 25 4. Map illustrating Operations in Moldavia 41 5. Capture of Turtukai 42 6. Affair of Hirsof 51 7. Battle of Kozludzhi 55 8. Battle of Fokshani . 97 9. Battle of Ruimnik . 101 10. Storm of Izmail 113 11. Battle of Kruptchitsa 157 12. Battle of Brest .... 160 13. Battle of Kobuilk . . 167 14. Storm of Praga 175 15. Crossing of the Adda 229 16. Map illustrating Operations in Italy 249 17. Battles of the Trebbia 255 18. Battle of Novi 283 19. Map illustrating Operations in Switzerlan d 307 20. Battles in the Muottothal and Klonthal 319 21. General Map of Russia . 358 xxm CHAPTER I PREPARATION Ancestry — ^Early life — ^Education — Enlistment and promotions — ^The Seven Years' War — Suvorof s appreciation of its lessons — ^Regi- mental command — A letter — ^Training his men. Of the ancestry and early life of Alexander VftSjsilyevitcJi! Suvorof very little is known. His family^ was of Swedish origin. Probably its founder was a man called Yud;* Suvor, one of the descendants of a Swedish immigrant who settled near Moscow in the sixteenth century. A certain Ivan Grigoryevitch Suvorof was a clerk attached to the Pryeobrazhenski regiment in the time of Peter the Great. By his second marriage this Ivan had a son Vassili, who became the father of the great Alexander. Vassili was a man of good capacity, proof against bribery and influence, a good linguist, and rather more than ordinarily careful in money matters. Born in 1705, he entered the administrative side of the military service, and in 1753 was made General and a member of the Military College. Catherine had a very high opinion of him on account of his " incorruptible honesty." ^ In 1720, while still a boy, he married Avdotya or Evdokia Theodosyevna Manukof, the daughter of a secretary who in 1737 was tried for the misappropriation of funds in his charge.^ There were 1 See Catherine's letter to Dr. Zimmerman, 15th January 1790, Russkaya Starina (1887), 8. The Military College had authority over all matters except the actual conduct of war — commissariat, equip- ment, and the like. ' For some notes about him see Russkaya Starina (1900), civ. 258, 1 B 2 SUVOROF three children of this marriage — Anna, Maria, and Alexander. Alexander was bom at Moscow on the 24th November 1780. Nothing in his ancestry seems to have foreshadowed the coming greatness of Alexander Vassilyevitch. If there were any remarkable members of it, they were mute and inglorious. His father was a respectable administrator; his mother died fifteen years after his birth, and no note of her appearance, character, or influence upon his education has been preserved. But from one source or another the boy had got some unusual aptitude. His health was bad. He was short, thin, and ugly. Nothing in his body suggested power. Nevertheless, his eyes must have had some of the keen- ness and fire which they preserved until the end, and the spirit v/hich looked out from them can never have been feeble. His father intended to find him a post of some civil kind, and he learned, not very well, French, German, and a little Italian. These languages, and the ordinary equipment of a civilised man, reading and writing and the like, were the sum of his regular studies. But his private reading took him into military history and biography. There he read with passion. Some chance encounter among his father's books must have set him on the track down which he was to travel almost until the day of his death. For study of this kind his energy seemed inexhaustible, and, without any of the common childish liking for the pomp of war, he devoted himself, while yet a boy, earnestly to military service. Ordinary companions and ordinary games he had none. When he was not shut in his garret poring over books, he was galloping on horseback in the sun and wind or rain, to harden his body and accustom it to the fatigues of war. This overmastering desire for a military career re- ceived no encouragement from Vassili Suvorof . But the puzzled and anxious father was wise enough not to resort to threats and punishments, and if he did not help the PREPARATION 8 boy, he at least let him alone. There was, at last, a crisis. When Alexander was eleven years old, Hannibal, the negro general of Peter the Great, paid a visit to Moscow.^ The father had the good sense to ask his old colleague's opinion, and Hannibal advised him to let the boy follow his own bent. Vassili gave way. Any youth who wished to become an officer must first pass through the lower ranks, and this wise regulation of Peter the Great was usually evaded by the enrolment of mere babies as privates in the Guards. By the time the child had become a man, he had nominally completed his service as a private and a non-commissioned officer, and could proceed at once along the primrose path of promotion by favour. Alexander Suvorof came late into the service, and he began at the bottom. In 1742 he was enrolled in the Semyonovski Guards, and in 1745 he began actually to serve. The interval he had spent in study, no less ardent and more systematic than before. Plutarch, Cornelius Nepog, and Julius Caesar were his classical authors, Montecucculi and Turenne among the moderns, and he got such acquaintance as was possible with the campaigns of Alexander and Hannibal, of Cond6, Prince Eugen of Savoy, and Mar6chal de Saxe. Hiibner and RoUin gave him some general history and geography. Wolf and Leibnitz some philosophy. For artillery and forti- fication he had Vauban, and his father was able here at least to give him help. When, at the age of fifteen, he put on his private's uniform, he knew more of the history and art of war than most of the carpet officers to whom he had to present arms. This life of reading and meditation continued after he joined his regiment. He did not throw himself into practice as fiercely as into theory, and his work was apparently not well done. No doubt, he had already determined to be a great general, but he was careless about making himself a perfect private. His natural 1 This Hannibal was an ancestor of the poet Pushkin. 4 SUVOROF ' independence of temper and hatred of forms seem to have led him to avoid some of his duties. He did not live in barracks, but with an uncle, who had a commis- sion in the Pryeobrazhenski Guards ; he preferred light duties to heavy ; and on one occasion he played the malingerer. Most of his biographers have represented him as an ardent soldier. But the latest research has shown that he did not work with the unquenchable happiness of a young man whose trade is also his hobby.^ One incident of this period he recalled in later life. He was doing sentry duty at Mon Plaisir in the time of the Empress Elizabeth. She passed by him and offered him a silver rouble. He refused it, saying that the regulations forbade a sentry to take money. " Young man,'* said the Empress, " you know your duty," and offered him her hand to kiss. Then, throwing the rouble at his feet, " I'll put the rouble there on the ground ; when you're relieved, pick it up." He took the coin in due course, and kept it till the day of his death. ^ Few other details of his service have come down to us. His companions were not intimate with him, or they were not of the sort who compose memoirs and diaries, and no letters or memoranda of his own have been preserved. What he looked like, thought, and did during these years of formation cannot be known. The bare facts of his successive promotions are almost all that is on record. In 1747 he was made Corporal, in 1751 Sergeant. From May to October 1752 he was engaged in carrying despatches to Dresden and Vienna. On the 15th April 1754 he became at last a commissioned officer, and received a Lieutenancy in the Ingermanland regiment of infantry. By some freak of fortune, his earliest duties were purely administrative, and it is doubtful whether this born leader of men ever com- 1 Maslovski ; in the Russian Biographical Dictionary, x. 9. This part of the article is based on "Suvorof Soldat" (documents of the Archives of the Semyonovski Regiment), Petrograd, 1900, 2 Fucjljs, Misc., 63. PREPARATION 5 manded a company. He was two years with his first regiment, but seems to have spent a considerable part of the time on leave, engaged in family affairs. In January 1756 he became Senior Commissary of Stores, in the following October Lieutenant General Auditor, attached to the Military College, and in December Senior Major. What the disciple of Caesar and Prince Eugen thought of all this store-keeping and clerking, flour and porridge and pickled cabbage, reports and instructions and accounts, we can only guess. It seems that his father must have been using his interest in the administrative departments to get Alexander on in the service. From the latter' s frequent and unrestrained expressions of feeling in later life, it is obvious that he would rather have been drilling a single company or squadron than be involved in this domestic business. Nevertheless, his chance came in the great war which broke out in 1756.^ The Seven Years' War gave Suvorof his first view of active service. He persuaded his father to use his in- fluence, and as early as 1757 he was sent to the front, but in the capacity of Ober-Proviantmeister.^ His duties were still administrative, the purchase and forward- ing of stores from Memel to the troops actually in the field. But in 1759 he was appointed, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, to the staff of Prince Volkonski, and afterwards to that of Count Fermor, who, in the previous year, had dragged an unwieldy mass of Russian soldiers through the indecisive battle of Zorndorf. Fermor was superseded by Count Saltikof , but remained with the army, and Suvorof was therefore present at the complete but profitless victory of Kunersdorf. He was a mere spectator, but this unparalleled example of 1 Apparently he read in this year two papers before the newly founded Society of Lovers of Russian Literature at Petrograd. They were dialogues, the first between Cortez and Montezuma, the second between Alexander and Herostratos. Neither has any literary merit. Pyetrushevski (2nd edition), 9. » Russkaya Siarina (1887), Ivi. 212. 6 SUVOROF refusal to follow up a victory must have made a profound impression. Had Suvorof been in the place of Saltikof, nothing could have saved Frederick from destruction, and the whole history of modem Germany would have been different. In the subsequent operations of the war he took a more active part. In 1760 he was in Tottleben*s raid on Berlin. In the next year, in command of part of General Berg*s light horse, he distinguished himself in the affair of Reichenbach and in raids upon Frederick's entrenched camp at Schweidnitz. During the siege of Colberg by Rumyantsof he was constantly engaged with the troops of Platen, who attempted to throw supplies into the place. Once he was wounded, two horses were killed under him, and he was twice within an ace of being taken prisoner. He seems to have behaved on every occasion like a gallant cavalry officer, and Berg recommended him as " quick in reconnaissance, bold in fight, and cool in danger." ^ The campaign of 1761 was the last in which the Russian Army took part. The death of the Empress Elizabeth in December was followed by the conclusion of peace by Peter III. The Seven Years' War thus gave Suvorof consider- able experience of all sorts of military activity. But more important than the mere practice in the handling of troops was the understanding which he obtained in this war of the way in which all war should be conducted. All Europe had much to learn from a struggle in which a single state with a highly disciplined army had made head against a combination of much greater apparent strength. But the lessons of the war were for the most part not well learned, not even in Prussia itself. The extraordinary successes of Frederick cast a spell over the military minds of the Continent, and his strategy, 1 Pyetnishevski, 15. Suvorof s work during the Seven Years' War is described in detail in Campagnes du Feldmarechal Souxcarrow, i. 2, et seq. The Campagnes are a pirated reprint of a translation of Von Anting' s biography, of which the greater part was read and corrected by Suvoiof himself. PREPARATION 7 his tactics, his drill, and even his uniforms were imitated with slavish fidelity for a whole generation after his death. The results were generally disastrous. In fact, the chances of a repetition of any particular combina- tion of military events are very slight. " War," said Thucydides, twenty-one hundred years before Frederick, " is the last of all things to go according to programme." Strategy is nothing more than putting a force into the position from which it can strike with most effect, and Frederick's plans were successful, not in virtue of their formal perfection, but because he could rely upon himself and his subordinates to execute marches according to programme, without delay or deviation. As with his strategy, so with his tactics. His turning movements and flank attacks succeeded because his men could carry them out against the enemy who opposed them. There was no special worth in such tactics as against the French armies of the Revolution, which attacked in column at great speed and broke the centre before the wing had closed upon them. The value of Frederick's drill, as of all drill, lay in this, that it accustomed his men to the instantaneous obedience of orders, and made it certain that on the field of battle the word of command would be followed by the execution of the required manoeuvre in the shortest possible time. In short, the successes of Frederick, as of all great commanders, were due to the moral qualities with which he, his generals, and his troops carried out his designs, and not to any mystic properties of the designs themselves. His imitators failed because they and their armies fell short of him and his armies in practical rather than theoretical capacity. They missed the real secret : the boldness of his strokes and the swiftness of his recoveries. Suvorof was not the man to fall into such an error, and the incompetence of the Allies, and especially of the Russians, made a profound impression upon him.^ The 1 A Russian infantry regiment required an hour to deploy into battle formation I Vassilyef, Suvorof, 16. 8 SUVOROF soldier will study the failures of his predecessors more safely than their successes. He can learn to avoid their mistakes, but nothing but his own genius will enable him to imitate their triumphs. Suvorof s natural bias against formalism was encouraged by the very events which drove most of his contemporaries into excess of it. They thought that Frederick succeeded through the perfection of his forms. He saw that Frederick's opponents failed through want of mobility, decision, and readiness to take risks. The imitators aggravated want of energy by loading themselves with forms, while he came to the bold and sound conclusion that forms were worse than useless, except as the channels of energy. With him, energy was first and last. " Remember,*' he said, " that victory depends on the legs ; the hands are only the instruments of victory." The essential contrast between the military sincerity of Frederick and the sluggishness and indecision of his opponents thus produced in Suvorof an effect diametrically opposed to that produced in almost all his contemporaries, and made him the most original commander in Europe between Frederick and Napoleon. On the 26th August 1762, Suvorof was promoted to the rank of Colonel. His first command was the Astrakhan regiment of infantry. Tsar Peter was re- moved soon after the conclusion of peace, and Suvorof actually received his promotion from the hands of Catherine. During her absence at Moscow for the coronation, his regiment was in garrison at Petersburg, and after her return, on the 6th April 1763, he was transferred to the Suzdal regiment, which took the place of the Astrakhan regiment. The change from the vigor- ous life of a cavalry leader on active service to the sober management of a garrison unit must have been infinitely depressing. But material for piecing together a con- tinuous narrative of this part of his life is wanting. One private letter alone has been preserved, the first of a long series of complaints. It was written in bad PREPARATION 9 French on the 7th February 1764 to Louise Ivanovna Kulyevna.^ His epistolary style was always disorderly, sometimes incoherent, and in this letter, as usual, he spilled his thoughts on to his paper without any elegance. Come here (Petersburg) ; you will be three or four times a week at a masked ball, two or three times at the theatre ; I profit by it as much as my health allows me, for unfortunately, though I'm never in bed and am not keeping my room, but the goodness of the waters of the Neva has so weakened my stomach that it revolts against me continually, and the air here has bred worms in my belly, endlessly, which torment me to death ; the pains in my head and chest do not diminish, Thin and pale as a homeless ass. My skeleton chatters its ghastly jaw ; Like a ghost through the realm of air I pass. Like a ship that sinks in the ocean's maw. I am almost face to face with death. He drags me step by step from the world. But I hate him, I never want to die so ignominiously, and I should wish never to suffer it otherwise than on the field of Mars. This gloomy letter represented, no doubt, only a mood. But throughout his life, Suvorof was inclined to be unhappy everywhere except on active service, and his passion for hard work in the field and personal distinc- tion was never fully satisfied. Nevertheless, the mere management and training of men gave him some pleasure, and these bursts of complaint must have alternated with periods of real happiness. On the 1st July 1765 his Suzdal regiment was sent to Ladoga, where he made his first experiments in his special methods. He was far enough from the capital, and the loose organisation of the Russian military system allowed him in great measure to follow his own bent, without much inter- ference from inspectors and sticklers for uniformity. Some of his activities were remote from ordinary ^ It is in the Sbornik ; printed in Letters and Papers^ p. 23. 10 SUVOROF conceptions of the duties of a regimental commander. Service in the Russian Army was practically for life, and a regiment could therefore be organised like a great family. The commanding officer could, if he pleased, acquire an enduring influence over his men. This Suvorof set himself to do. He built, besides a cavalry stable, a church and two schools, one for officers' children, and the other for those of private soldiers, and he laid out a garden in which his men worked. But his principal task was the training of his men as soldiers. His orders to his troops and his official letters to his superior officer. General Weimarn, show that he was already putting into practice the theories which he afterwards elaborated for whole armies. He knew that victory fell not to the commander who worked out the most ingenious paper plans, but to him who could call upon his troops, at a moment's notice, to do a two days' march in one day, and fight a battle at the end of it. First and foremost he put the moral equipment of his men. Courage, self-confidence, and the endurance of fatigue were the cardinal virtues. The soldier must be ready and able to go anywhere and face anything, and the very idea of retreat must not be allowed to enter his head. " Help, danger," and other figments of the imagina- tion are all right for old women, who are afraid to get off the stove because they may break their legs, and for lazy, luxurious people, and blockheads — for miserable self-protection, which in the end, whether good or bad, in fact, always passes for bravery with the story-tellers.^ Pusillanimous cavalry tactics he specially condemned. Shock tactics were seldom practised even at this date. The Russian regular cavalryman was still a man who used carbine and pistols rather than a swordsman. The Cossack was little better than a forager. For cavalry to use firearms is extremely undesirable ; sword and lance are incomparably better ; there has 1 Pyetrushevski, i. 66. PREPARATION 11 sometimes been an unexpected opportunity for firing during a pursuit ; but even in this case cold steel is better, because one may find one's self without a shot in one's carbine and cannot afford to waste time in re-load- ing. ... In pursuit the cavalry must simply charge boldly with an unbroken front ; except the flankers, who may fire pistols ; but only with careful aim.^ This desire to accustom his men to fighting at close quarters led him into unusual paths. He enlisted both housewifery and religion in the service of the good cause. He not only built a church, but personally attended to the prayers, and the washing, patching, and darning, of his men. The German or French peasant knows his Church, his faith, and his prayers ; the Russian hardly knows his village priest — in my regiment we taught these peasants a few prayers. So they got to perceive that in everything God was with us, and strove towards honour. The officers know that I myself am not ashamed to work at this. . . . Suvorof was Major, and Adjutant, and everything down to Corporal ; I myself looked into everything and could teach everybody. Every man passed through my hands, and he was told that nothing more remained for him to know, if only he did not forget what he had learned. Thus he was given confidence in himself, the foundation of bravery.2 This was not mere pettifoggery. The Russian army was recruited from among the serfs, and consisted in great part of those whom their masters could most easily spare. Idleness, drunkenness, and dishonesty were thus common qualities, almost qualifications. The Slav lethargy and indifference to appearances, which made even the modem Russian Army the least smart in Europe, allowed personal slovenliness full play in the days of Catherine, and such discipline as existed depended largely on brutal and ferocious punishments. Suvorof tried to improve the character of his men by encouraging 1 Pyetrushevski, 72, 73. » Ibid., 67. 12 SUVOROF godliness and cleanliness together. His regiment was a sort of reformatory school as well as an instrument of war. In the soil thus fertilised, he planted the specific military virtues of obedience, endurance, and speed. He was most original in keeping his men as much as possible on a war footing. Marches by day and night, wading and swimming across rivers, and sham fights were of constant occurrence, and were undertaken with- out warning or preparation.* On one occasion he suddenly ordered his troops to take a monastery by storm, and sent them tumbling over the wall among the monks, who must have taken them for a pack of devils. All these experiments in command were sketches of his later system. He practised his men in hard realities, setting his mind to making them healthy, bold, and hardy, without regard to the niceties of forms. The specifically Prussian virtues, mechanical exactness and complete moral subjection of the subordinate to the conamander, were not there. For those he had to sub- stitute other things more suited to the Slav character ; personal indifference to hardship, and an almost parental relation between officer and soldier. It is not difficult to see in this Ladoga period of Suvorof 's life an elabora- tion of the lessons of the Prussian War. No doubt, he was already master of the art of getting on to intimate terms with his men. He was not yet famous, and there was no Boswell to set him down as he lived among his men at Ladoga. But he must have already been something of the jesting, porridge-eating, back-slapping brother-in-arms that he remained through- out the time of his greatest fame. He was never happier than when he had pulled off his jacket and shirt, and sprawled half-naked in the sun, exchanging jokes on terms of friendship with all. He spared no man while work was to be done, but he encouraged liberty, equaUty, and fraternity when it was finished. If he saw that they darned their socks and washed 1 Pyetrushevski, 68. PREPARATION 18 their shirts, it was not as a schoolmarm, but as one of themselves. Hard work seemed lighter when he shared it, and rough living lost its discomfort when the Colonel himself endured it with the rest. His men grew to like doing their utmost, because they grew to like giving him pleasure. By encouragement and example he wound his unit up to a high pitch, and in 1769 he got the opportunity of playing upon the instrument which he had made. CHAPTER n THE FIRST POLISH WAB The State of Poland — ^Entry of Suvorof on the scene in 1770 — Guerilla warfare — ^Battle of Landskron, 1771 — Battle of Stalovitch — Corre- spondence with the Commander-in-Chief— Siege of Cracow, 1772 — ^Partition — Correspondence. It is a matter for regret that much of Suvorof's mili- tary reputation depends on his successes in Polish Wars. He was thus the instrument of one of the great political crimes of modem history. In the second half of the eighteenth century the situation of Poland was one with which students of modern Imperialism are familiar. The internal condition of the country had long been one of weakness and uncertainty, and powerful neighbours waited for the time when an excuse for inter- vention should offer itself. Russia, Prussia, and Austria, restrained not by compunction for the perishing nation- ality of Poland, but by their mutual jealousy and distrust, waited and manoeuvred for the moment when they could decently step in to restore that Order, in whose name as many crimes have been committed as in that of Liberty. Each maintained its group of partisans in the country, and through this channel administered, from time to time, further doses of the poison from which the destined victim was suffering. The elective monarchy, and the liherum vetOy or right of a single member of the Diet to prohibit the execution of any of its decrees, made the Polish nobility a very convenient instrument of foreign intrigue. By playing the jealousy of the nobility against 14 THE FIRST POLISH WAR 15 the King and the jealousy of one group of nobles against another, the neighbouring Powers were able to infect the whole state with a creeping palsy. The peasants were mere serfs. The industry and commerce of the country were in the hands of Jews, and there was no Polish middle class. Political power was concentrated in a small space, and pressure upon a very limited area moved the whole fabric. Towards the end of the third quarter of the century the ill condition became acute, and the methods of the expectant heirs more direct. The collapse of the power of the Crown, the factiousness of the nobility, and the complete impotence of the mass of the people made possible the three successive partitions by which the Kingdom of Poland was extinguished. The first appro- priation of territory was made by Austria in 1770, though a formal partition did not take place until two years later. But the earliest steps were taken by Russia. In 1764 Catherine II. secured the election of Stanislav Poniatowski, a discarded favourite of her own, as King of Poland. His election was accompanied and secured by the despatch of Russian troops and the expenditure of a considerable sum of Russian money. This election did not, nor was it intended to, put an end to the political disorganisation of the country. The new King was chosen by the Russian Empress, not because of his capacity for making head against the truculent nobility, but because of his incapacity, of his inevitable need of further assistance from the Power which had set him on the throne. It is not the habit of such an Imperialism as that of Catherine of Russia to spoil its own chances by nominating a strong man where a puppet will suffice. In such a case a lively sense of impotence in the nominee is the first condition of his appointment. The advantages which he can acquire from the appearance of Royalty are to be used for the advantage of his patron. The real governor remains for the time being out of the picture, but near enough to be called in when the 16 SUVOROF difficulties of the domestic situation make it decent to interfere once more. Stanislav was a good-natured man, of modest character and mediocre capacity. Under these conditions his election did not alter the state of Poland. His partisans, of whom the Princes Czartoryski were the most powerful, aimed at the increase of the authority of the Crown as the only means of checking the growing insolence of the nobility. The alternative, an appeal from the Crown to the common people, did not present itself as an alternative, and the absence of any educated non-noble class would have made such an appeal, in fact, fruitless. The Radziwils, on the other side, headed the defenders of the old system, and while one side talked severely of order, the other declaimed in terms of liberty. Complaints against the Czartoryski were lodged in Petersburg, but Catherine and her advisers were still not prepared for strong measures. The sick man must get a little worse before they would divide his estate. The religious disease of Poland combined with the political to reduce the strength of the country against permeation from abroad. At the Diet of Vilna in 1563 it had been decreed that all the nobility of whatever faith, provided they were Christians, should have the same political rights. This Toleration Act had been made the basis of more than one subsequent Royal election, and more than one King, in return for Protestant support, had pledged himself to maintain the rights of the Dissidents, most of whom were members of the Greek Church. But the wars of Russia with Sweden gave the Roman Catholics opportunities of which they were not slow to avail themselves, and the members of the Greek and other Dissenting churches began to suffer disabilities and even persecution. Stanislav was inclined to favour them, and Russia and Prussia, to whom religious liberty was as good political coin as anything else, supported him. In 1768 a Diet was requested to confirm the rights of the Dissidents. The opposition was strong, and Prince THE FIRST POLISH WAR 17 Ryepnin, the Russian representative at Warsaw, went so far as to arrest four Roman Catholics and transport them to Russia. Patriotism wanted no further excuse. On the 1st March 1768 eight of the bolder spirits issued a declaration from Bar, establishing a Polish Confederacy c IS SUVOROF independent of the foreign Governments and their nominees.* The numbers of the confederates grew rapidly. Count Krasinski, and Pulawski, the inspirer of the movement, were chosen as Marshals of the Con- federacy, and the revolt assumed a serious appearance. The affair had now reached the point at which the rival Powers could begin to collect the spoils. It was found necessary to reinforce the Russian troops for the purpose of suppressing the revolt and restoring the power of the Crown. A small army was collected at Smolyensk, under Lieutenant-General Nummers, and Suvorof and his Suzdalskii regiment were included in it. Suvorof was created a Brigadier on the 22nd September 1768, but it was not until February 1770 that he actually handed his regiment over to its new Colonel, Stackelburg. His orders to join Nummers gave him an opportunity of testing the results of his regimental training, and he had every reason to be satisfied. From Ladoga to Smolyensk was more than 570 miles of the worst marching country in Europe. He covered the distance in 30 days ; not a single sick man was left behind at Ladoga, six fell ill on the journey, and one died.^ At Smolyensk he was given the command of a Brigade, comprising four battalions and two squadrons of cavalry. The events of the next two or three years need not be described in detail. Poland was at that time covered with woods and swamps. The villages and most of the towns were collections of miserable hovels. The roads were mere tracks, passable in summer, but for most of the year filled with mud and water, and the only inns were wayside huts occupied by Jews. The warfare was of the guerilla sort, giving opportunity for individual skill and bravery, but for little on the grand scale. Small bands of partisans moved over the wretched 1 A Confederacy, according to the Constitution of Poland, was a sort of legalisation of the divine right of rebellion ; a formal means of protest against Acts of the Crown. Pyetrushevski, i. 29. THE FIRST POLISH WAR 19 country, and Prussiian and Austrian territory afforded them a temporary refuge, in case the local pressure of the Russian troops became too strong. Von Weimarn, the Russian Commander-in-Chief, was a man of more erudition than vigour. Scattered encounters between numerically insignificant bodies of troops took place continually, but the methodical sweeping of the country- side, the only certain way of dealing with such enemies as the Confederates, was not possible to such a man as Von Weimarn, especially when he had so few men at his disposal. The Due de Choiseul, then in power in France, openly supported the Confederates. He had also inspired the Sultan to declare war against Russia, and the double strain was too much for the Russian military machine. Nevertheless, for Suvorof, this was an excellent field for his first practical experiments, and he executed some very fine marches and raids. On one occasion, he carried his infantry in carts from Minsk to Warsaw, a distance of 375 miles, in 12 days.^ On another, he marched 45 miles out from Brest, all night and half the next day on the road, and defeated a detachment of the enemy 2000 strong. In this affair he tried to repeat the English performance at Minden, and charged cavalry with the bayonet ; the Poles galloping away without resistance.^ In the autumn of 1769 he fixed his base of operations at Lyublin, and from that centre struck out, now in one direction, now in another, as he received news of the approach of the enemy parties. On one of these expeditions he fell into the Vistula. A burly grenadier pulled him out by the hair, but he was badly bruised by striking against a pontoon, and was not thoroughly recovered until three months later.^ On the whole, he had little to do, and his energetic nature chafed in inactivity. On the 1st January 1770 he was pro- 1 Campagnes, i. 28. « Pyetrof. On this occasion, owing to the smallness of his force, Suvorof gave orders that quarter should not be given. Nevertheless, he brought back about 40 prisoners. ^ CampagneSt i. 37. 20 SUVOROF moted to the rank of Major-General, but he cared more for work than for anything else, and throughout this year his correspondence is full of complaints. Vigorous operations against the Polish Confederates were impos- sible, largely because the Turkish threat from the south was so much more formidable. The troops actually in Poland were badly led and wanting in discipline, and Suvorof had constantly to draw attention to the slovenli- ness, corruption, and plundering habits of those in command of the co-operating detachments. Of one Lieutenant-Colonel Dryevitz he writes sneeringly : What do I care if he has not studied his Russian grammar for three whole years ? At least I am learning German from him. . . . He*s a foreigner, under no ties to Russia, his interest is in prolonging the war, not in cutting it short. His boasts about his victories are sheer empti- ness ; they were won by his Russian soldiers. What are these mighty dispositions against the rebels ? Only speed, energy, and the discovery of their whereabouts. His intelligent and strong troops he keeps in a bunch, incapable of dealing a blow, rather than use them intelli- gently, with the desire of ending this unrest. The use of him as a commander is the shame of those of us who are his seniors in rank, even if without capacity or worth or service equal to his, the shame of Russia, which has long been free from the age of such barbarities as his. While he is carelessly, luxuriously, magnificently making holiday at Cracow, I with a handful of men am compelled to struggle like a Cossack bandit with every cut-throat who comes along.^ Suvorof 's complaints on this as on other occasions were partly provoked by the foreign origin of their object, and throughout his life he was almost continually jealous and resentful at having to work under or on equal terms with men of inferior capacity to his own. But he was also thoroughly dissatisfied with the necessarily few opportunities of the Polish affair. In the whole of 1 Pyelnishevski, i. 89. Dryevitz was accused of having cut off the hands of some of his Polish prisoners. Ibid. i. 90. THE FIRST POLISH WAR 21 1770 he only twice encountered the enemy in considerable force, and the Russian triumphs over the Turks at Larga, Kagul, and Tchesma held out the promise of much greater things in the other theatre of war. In 1771 the Polish War assumed larger proportions. The indefatigable Choiseul, not contented with his diplomatic success in Turkey, determined to make the threat from the direction of Poland more serious. In 1769 he had sent the Comte de Tollis with a considerable sum of money to stimulate the Confederates, but de Tollis took his money back to Paris, thinking the enter- prise hopeless. In his place Choiseul sent Dumouriez, who was greatly disappointed with the numbers and character of the Confederates, but determined to make an attempt to convert their undisciplined rabble into an army. He got officers from France, arms from Silesia and Hungary, transport from Bavaria, and with Austrian and Prussian deserters as a nucleus, worked his miscel- laneous collection of men on foot into something approaching military shape. About 60,000 men were ready for the campaign of 1771, and in the spring Dumouriez began a vigorous offensive from the Austrian frontier, proposing to cut off the scattered Russian posts, and even threaten the rear of Rumyantsof's army operating against the Turks in Moldavia. His first efforts prospered. Several Russian detachments were simultaneously beaten in the plain of Cracow and driven across the Vistula with heavy losses. But the Con- federates defeated themselves. With these first victories order disappeared, and the bulk of the army gave itself up to rejoicing and plunder. This was the moment for Suvorof. He had already dispersed several parties of insurgents, and attempted to take the fortress of Land- skron by storm. Here, for the time being, he failed, and, in the course of several unsuccessful attacks, almost all his superior officers were wounded, Suvorof himself being grazed by a bullet. But after the occupation of Cracow by Dumouriez he gained his first substantial 22 SUVOROF victory. Much against his will he was forced to co- operate with Dryevitz, but the result showed that Dryevitz was not so bad as Suvorof had previously made out. On the 10th of May the joint forces encountered Dumouriez himself with a considerable army at Landskron. The Poles lay along a ridge. The fortress itself covered the left flank, and the right and centre were protected by two woods. On the right the ridge was inaccessible, and along the front, in addition to the trees, the slopes were covered with brushwood, which formed a stiff, natural entanglement. The attack of the Russians was expected, the position was carefully chosen, and the fortress with its 30 guns was in itself a most formidable obstacle. But the overthrow of Dumouriez was instantaneous and complete. Suvorof took in the situation at a glance, and, without waiting for his infantry, laimched the Cossacks of Tchuguyef and a squadron of carabineers straight at the enemy's centre. Dumouriez, to whom such a cavalry attack upon unbroken infantry appeared, not unnaturally, absurd, ordered his men to hold their fire until the Russians reached the crest of the ridge itself. This was sound, orthodox, military doctrine, and a steady infantry, by a couple of volleys at point blank range, even without artillery, would have emptied almost every saddle in front of them. But Suvorof knew Dumouriez*s troops better than the French commander himself. As the Cossacks swept yelling up the slope, the Poles turned and ran. Dumouriez and a few other officers in vain tried to stop them, and Miutchiski actually led some of the infantry forward against the Russian foot. But the battle was decided in the first few minutes. The Polish left wing retired in good order into Landskron. But about 500 Poles were killed, two field-guns remained in Suvorof's hands, and the fortress itself was left alone merely because the victors had only 8 guns to bring against the 30 which THE FIRST POLISH WAR 23 defended it. Dumouriez himself shook the dust of Poland from his feet, and went straight back to France.^ Suvorof completed his brief campaign by defeating another detachment of Poles under Pulavski at Zamostye. He then returned to Lyublin. In 17 days he had marched about 475 miles, and fought 8 battles or skirmishes. The defeat at Landskron left the Poles for a time portress of^**^ landskronYi^ ^ Battle of LANDSKRON. SCALE- INGUSH M/l£S O '/z / Z without a leader, and without even the nucleus of what could be called an army. But Count Oginski of Lithuania, who had hitherto held away from the in- surgents, at length threw in his lot with them, and on the 30th August fell suddenly upon a Russian detach- ment under Colonel Albuitch and killed or captured the greater part of it at Rudka. Around him there 1 Pyetrof, iii. 223. Dumouriez gives his own account of the Polish business in La Vie et les Memoires du G&neral Dumouriez. Suvorof himself declared that Dryevitz behaved with " skill, manUness, and courage." Pyetrushevski, i. 104. 24 SUVOROF soon gathered a force of several thousand men, and the work of Landskron seemed all undone. As early as the 28rd July Weimam had warned Suvorof to watch the suspicious movements of Oginski. On the 21st September he sent him elaborate instruc- tions how to act in co-operation with Dryevitz. Whether Suvorof received these instructions or not, is doubtful. At any rate, he learned of the defeat of Albuitch, and wrote on the 1st September to inform Weimarn that he was at once starting for Lyublin. On the 2nd he was at Kotsk, on the 5th at Vyala, and on the 6th at Brest. From there he marched to Byereza, and then to Nesvizh, where he at last got certain information of the where- abouts of Oginski. Bidding Colonel Diring and Lieutenant-Colonel Klxvabulof, who were near at hand with small bodies of troops, to join him as soon as possible, he marched swiftly towards Stalovitch. He had with him 822 men, and Oginski's strength was about 5000. But the Poles had no news of Suvorof, and imagined that there were no Russians in their neigh- bourhood but a few small detachments like that of Diring. They were taken completely by surprise. The village of Stalovitch lay in an open plain in front of a large marsh, across which ran a single cause- way, 200 yards long. Suvorof, avoiding a frontal attack, marched during the night of the 9th round to the rear of the town. It was very dark, and for the last part of the march, the only guide was the light in the bell-tower of a neighbouring monastery. Aiming at the causeway, the Russians dashed across it as the startled enemy opened fire. The village was soon taken, and the Poles, leaving many prisoners and some of their cannon to the Russians, hid themselves in the houses, or fled out of the place. Only Oginski's Guard, his so-called " Janissaries," offered a steady resistance, and Oginski himself barely escaped capture. Some of Albuitch's men heard the shouts and the firing, leaped from the windows of the houses in which they ^ THE FIRST POLISH WAR 25 lay, and joined their comrades. The surprise so far had succeeded. This, however, was only the first stage. A large part of the Polish force lay outside the town, and Oginski was able to collect them in some order in a trenched camp upon a neighbouring hill. Here he was attacked at daybreak by Suvorof . After a brief artillery preparation, the Russians broke in with horse and foot, and the Poles were soon put to flight. Many surrendered. A detachment of 1000 horse under General Byelak came up when the battle was finished, and was sent Battle of STALOYITCR flying after the rest. Oginski got away into Prussia with a handful of horsemen, and the second army of the Polish Republic, like the first, ceased to exist.^ Neither the desperate energy of the Poles nor the readiness of the French to make use of them was ended by this shattering defeat. In September 1771 the Baron de Viomenil arrived in Poland to reconstruct the army of the Republic. On the Russian side Von Weimarn was replaced by Alexander Ilyitch Bibikof, who had served in the Seven Years' War without being stereotyped in the form of a Prussian drill sergeant. The last official transactions between Weimarn and 1 Campagnes, i. 49. Pyetrof, iii. 250. 26 SUVOROF Suvorof were of the bitterest kind. The retiring Commander-in-Chief rebuked the victor of Stalovitch for his presumption in marching against the enemy without express orders, and reported him to the Military- College for giving inadequate information about his proceedings, the losses of both sides, the distribution of the booty, and so forth. Nothing came of this, and Suvorof, who had previously received the 1st Grade of the Order of St. Anne and the 3rd Class of the St. George, was presented in December 1771 with the Order of St. Alexander Nevski, which even Bibikof had not obtained.^ With his new Commander-in-Chief Suvorof succeeded in keeping on better terms. A letter written to Bibikof in awkward French shows that the two were intimate. An animal, I say, of our species, accustomed to troubles in spite of inevitable inconvenience, thinks himself dull when he is without any, and too long occasional rests lull him to sleep. How sweet to me are those wearinesses of the past ! I looked for nothing but the good of my country, embodied in my duty as a servant of my august Empress, without doing special wrong to the people among whom I found myself, and even misfortunes, by whomsoever caused, gave me nothing but encouragement. Reputation is the lot of every honest man ; but I have built this reputation on my country's glory, and its triumphs were only for her profit. Never did self-love, the most often aroused by wandering instinct, become master of my actions, and I forgot myself wherever there was room for patriotism. A wild education so far as social inter- course is concerned, but some innocent habits in my nature and a customary generosity made my labours easy ; my feelings were free and I did not sink beneath them. God ! could I soon but find myself in similar case ! At present I languish in an idle life, fit for those mean spirits, which live only for themselves, which seek the crown of happiness in this lassitude, and from 1 This correspondence between Von Weimarn and Suvorof and the reports to the Military College are in the Moscow Archives of the General Staff, quoted in Pyetrushevski, i. 120. THE FIRST POLISH WAR 27 pleasure to pleasure hurry into bitterness. Misanthropy already casts a shade upon my brow, and I think I foresee in the result a greater suffering ; an active soul should always be fed with the practice of its trade, and frequent exercise is as healthy for it as the ordinary exercises of the body.^ This letter was written on the 5th December 1771. Between the defeat of Oginski and the resumption of hostilities in the spring, Suvorof s energies were occupied in drilling his troops, and endeavouring to maintain discipline under exceptionally difficult circumstances. Polish hospitality was too much for some of his officers and Polish wealth for some of his men, and he was constantly making complaints about coffee parties in Polish country houses and indiscriminate plunder and robbery. He was also very keen in preventing harsh treatment of Polish prisoners and deserters : " Feed them well," he said, " even if you give them more than their due portion." " A generous reception of repentant rebels serves our interest better than the shedding of their blood." The Russians were in Poland to main- tain " peace in Israel," not as foreign conquerors. As for spies, " the rebels have spies only to tell them where we are busying ourselves ; they are so many, that when we hunt them out I examine them and let them go home." 2 But this sort of police war was not to his taste, and the affair at Cracow in 1772 finally disgusted him. The campaign of 1772 was carried on differently from those of previous years. Bibikof decided to divide his troops into three armies ; one to act in the field, and the other two to reduce, one after another, such strong places as remained in Polish hands. As there were no men to spare, the fortresses were to be taken by siege and not by storm. This would in any case have meant an indefinite prolongation of the war, and 1 Bibikof, Memoirs of General Bibikof, 164. ^ Moscow Archives of the General Staff ; quoted in Pyetrushevski, i. 121. 28 SUVOROF unhappily the first place to be captured was the Russian stronghold of Cracow. The commandant was Colonel Stackelburg, Suvorof's successor as head of the Suzdal regiment, a brave man, but destitute of all other soldierly qualities. As Suvorof declared, he never drilled his troops. " Who could be found more worthy, more equitable, more wise than Stackelburg ; only in frost, in rain, in wind, and in the heat he has the belly-ache." In addition to being lazy, Stackelburg was fond of the society of priests and women, and Suvorof was particu- larly displeased with his facility in foreign languages.^ Under his command the garrison of Cracow fell into a state of lethargy and invited surprise. On the night of the 21st January the French officers in charge of the Polish levies at Tuintse made a daring attempt against Cracow. Lieutenant-Colonel Choisy was in command, and the enterprise was as successful as it was daring. Stackelburg was invited to a recep- tion at the house of a Polish lady, who had previously complained that the cries of a particular sentry kept her awake at night. The obliging Stackelburg removed the sentry from his post, the exit of the main rubbish shoot of the citadel, and went off to the reception with a light heart. A small party crept in single file up the evil-smelling passage, took the garrison by surprise, and threw open the gates to the main body of the assailants.* Suvorof was furious at this disaster, which was due to sheer negligence on the part of the garrison. He marched from Lithuania upon Cracow. From there he sent a letter to Bibikof, denouncing Stackelburg in un- sparing language. Now I must inform your Excellency of the cause of the incredible happenings in the fortress. Count Stackel- burg ! First, he is one of the darlings of Ivan Ivan- ovitch Weimam, corresponding with him in foreign 1 Moscow Archives of the General Staff, 20C, Bk. 89. ' Moscow Archives of the General Staff and Orders of the Military College, 1773. Pyetrof, iv. 4 ; quoted in Pyetrushevski, 128 et seq. ; Journal de la Si^ge de Cracovie. THE FIRST POLISH WAR 29 languages, and therefore from the day of his taking over the regiment he never drew sword ; secondly, here in a district where he has many acquaintances, priests and old women have utterly turned his head. Instead of being active in usefulness, he is merely a good-natured man, and has slept on the reputation of being that.i He joined forces with General Branitski, and with rather more than 3000 men took such steps as were possible to recapture the citadel. Having no siege artillery, he mounted his field-guns on neighbouring houses, and battered the walls in preparation for an assault. This was a very desperate enterprise. The place was sufficiently strong to withstand the bombard- ment, and he could not afford to lose any of his few hundred men in attempts against unbreached walls. Twice he tried, by firing off cannons behind his lines and moving his men about in confusion, to entice the enemy from their stronghold into traps, but both attempts failed. Two mines were driven through the rocky soil. But Suvorof s was ever the bolder way, and, after one or two sallies had been driven back, he decided to storm the castle on the night of the 18th February, before the galleries were completed. While all his men were concentrated against the citadel, the protection of the rear was entrusted to parties of Jews, called out from the Ghetto and hastily armed. Covered by artillery and musketry fire, the troops advanced against the main gate. The petard attached to the gate failed to shatter it, and a disorderly battle took place around and through the archway, both sides firing at short range, and the assailants climbing at some points into the embrasures from which the cannon were playing upon them. At last, after losing about 100 killed and 45 wounded, Suvorof drew off his men. For the time being there was nothing more to be done. But soon after this failure a messenger from the garrison was captured, and it appeared from the letters taken 1 Bibikof. 80 SUVOROF upon him that the besieged were in want of food and medical stores. There was now no question of aban- doning the blockade. But Suvorof recognised the futility of such proceedings, if it was desired to bring the war to a speedy end, and he wrote to Bibikof in plain terms. So be it I Our unsuccessful storm appeared the extreme of boldness ; but it showed at the time that the impossibility of it was aggravated by our incapacity for such operations. Without Vauban and Cohorn it would have been better for us to study a little in the Petersburg neighbourhood. Our timing was bad. But if we are to go in for single sieges, then there will never be a real end. While we take one fortress, they can fortify themselves in another ; and while we are squan- dering our strength they will certainly get additions to theirs. We shan't take three fortresses in a year.^ Nevertheless, there was nothing to be done but to go on with the blockade. Heavy guns were brought up in April, and substantial damage was at last done to the defences. The defenders were already shaken by their privations. So early as the 29th February Choisy wrote to Viom^nil, " Dry bread, barley porridge and courage are the only food we have for officers and men." ^ The arrival of the siege-guns made further resistance im- possible, and Choisy opened negotiations. On the 12th April it was agreed that the place should be surrendered on the 15th, the garrison to retain their private property, and the French not to be prisoners of war, entitled to be exchanged. On the 15th they marched out. Suvorof gave back the sword which Choisy offered to him, and embraced the defeated but not disgraced commander. About 700 prisoners were taken on this surrender.^ 1 Bibikof, 179. ' Viom6nil, Lettres sur les Affaires de Pologne. • Campagnes, i. 60 ; Pyetrof, iv. 9 ; Journal. Some writers, e.g. Bibikof, say that Suvorof compelled the enemy to come out by way of the rubbish shoot through which they went in. This is untrue. In that case he would hardly have returned Choisy's sword, and he would certainly not have kissed him. THE FIRST POLISH WAR 31 The recapture of Cracow was almost the last military event of the Polish war. A great part of the country was now in the possession of foreign troops. Austria, having long exhausted the possibilities of matrimony, had resorted in this case to more direct methods of aggrandisement. As early as the end of 1770 Austrian forces had occupied the Duchy of Tsips, in Galicia, at a time when the Austrian Government was actually giving shelter in other directions to armed parties of the Confederates. In 1772 she went still further, and by May about 40,000 of her soldiers were in movement towards Cracow. Not wishing to be anticipated, Prussia had disposed troops along and across the western frontier of Poland, and there were now some 20,000 of them actually on Polish soil. The three armies, united only in their intention of getting some part of the country for themselves, were an inconvenience to each other, and tact and good management were constantly required to prevent actual collisions between them. Suvorof seems at this time to have made a journey to Berlin, where he saw Frederick and complained to him of the conduct of the Prussian postmasters.^ But this quasi- political work was even more detestable to him than inactivity, and he wrote at last to Bibikof, begging to be removed. Give in to me, my dear sir. Such a home of philos- ophers as man never saw. Here I have been about four years, and often I think of running away . . . your fault ... I have been rude, and they intrigue against me . . . They quarrel with me . . . I'm a good-natured man ; I don't know how to say " no." Here I'm afraid of my neighbours the Jesuits, and all these D'Altoni. Forgive me . . . Please send some one else. Why the devil should I go on talking with them ? ^ With D'Alton, the Austrian Civilian Commissioner, ^ This fact is stated in one of the Russian periodicals on German authority. I cannot give the exact reference. 2 Bibikof. 82 SUVOROF he came into open conflict, and his embarrassments were ended by his own removal and a request from the Russian Government to the Austrian that D' Alton might be sent somewhere else. But the affairs of Poland had now got beyond his scope. Arms gave place to the toga, and the diplomatists completed the work which the soldiers had begun. The half-hearted attempts of the three conspiring Powers were replaced by open and barefaced villainy. The pretence of restoring order was abandoned, and it became simply a question of dis- tributing plunder. As the actual hour for the crime approached, the motives of the three participators had become defined. Frederick, no doubt, knew his own intentions at an earlier stage than either of his associates. His Silesian experience pointed the way to further enterprises of the same sort, and such an accomplished appropriator of the territory of others saw further along the road to the Partition of Poland than those to whom this would be a first attempt in the kind. The actions of Russia and Austria had been hesitating, but the first years of the Turkish War gave each of them im- portant, though different, reasons for inclining to the views of Prussia. Panin, Catherine's Foreign Minister, had been against partition, not because he sympathised with the Poles, but because he felt that Russia had already the preponderating influence in Poland, and that a united Poland under the thumb of Russia was better than a divided Poland of which two-thirds would be irrevocably lodged in the hands of competing Powers. But Russia had now incurred considerable losses in men and money during the Turkish War, and required some compensation. The Crimea would not be sufficient, and Moldavia and Wallachia, where her most striking vic- tories had been won, could not be annexed without incurring the jealousy of Austria. Austria, on the other hand, had previously feared the strength of Turkey. But now that that strength had been proved to be a mere bubble, it was immaterial to Austria whether THE FIRST POLISH WAR 33 Turkey continued to hold Moldavia and Wallachia or not, so long as they did not swell the formidable re- sources of Russia. An alternative must therefore be found for Russia in some other quarter, and nothing could have been more convenient for this purpose than the territory offered by the disorders and weaknesses of Poland. The three Powers therefore came at last to an agree- ment, and jealousies and antagonisms, which might very well have involved them in an expensive and destructive war, were resolved by the beautiful expedient of an alliance for the plunder of another State. Each appropriated part of Poland, and the residue, with a new constitution, guaranteed by Russia, was left for a time in peace with the good-natured king Stanislav on the throne. The blessed word " compensation " was thus introduced into the vocabulary of Imperialist diplomacy, and the Parti- tion of Poland illustrated with the completeness of perfect art the first principle of the modern science of Empire, that our own property is best protected by sharing in the forcible distribution of that of others. Two contending ambitions are by this means satisfied at the minimum of expense, and two great States, instead of wasting each other in an internecine struggle, combine in perfect harmony to enrich each other at the expense of a third, too weak to defend itself. In more recent times, the doctrine has been practised more frequently at the expense, and often even for the benefit of the inhabitants of uncivilised or barbarous countries. But the first pattern, the Partition of Poland, was done upon the living body of a European people of old civilisation and the greatest natural genius. Italians, Belgians, and Norwegians had afterwards good cause to regret its apparent success, and the world has since been at war to prove that it was in fact a failure. Suvorof had left the Polish stage before the last scene of the tragedy was played out. He had had one more violent conflict with a colleague, this time with a D 84 SUVOROF certain Colonel Renn. In August 1772 he wrote a characteristic letter to Bibikof . With Renn our affairs go from bad to worse. He's a notorious, turbulent, debauched man, evil-minded, and to speak frankly, an appropriator of the goods of others. Here he has done nothing but be churlish, and except what I have said already, he has shown himself fit for nothing. His bulging pocket holds everything. His insults are beyond my patience ; he sets an alto- gether vicious example for others. But Renn made some amends, for at the end of the month Suvorof wrote again : I have forgiven everything, if only Renn will hence- forth refrain from his cunning lies.^ This was the last of his petty worries, and in October he was transferred to Finland. Once away from the Polish tangle, he began to look back upon it with regret. A letter written to Bibikof on the 21st October, when he had arrived at Vilna, shows how little impression the discomforts had actually made upon him, and shows, too, that his own behaviour had given him good cause for satisfaction. He describes the letter as written " k I'Anglaise." ^ I follow my destiny, which comes from my own country and draws me from a land where I have wanted to do nothing but good, and at least I have always tried to do it. My heart was never embarrassed by it, and my duty never raised an obstacle. Sincere in my acts, I took precautions only against moral evil, and physical evil died out of itself. My unrepentant virtue is well content with the satisfaction which they show towards my conduct ; here they know me from the point of view of the good side of my reputation, since I only stayed here a short time, or at least because I feel I have not served this country well enough. Simple 1 Moscow Archives of the General Staffs quoted in Pyetrushevski, i. 188. • Apparently because of its frankness. Its incoherence is Suvorof s own. THE FIRST POLISH WAR 35 acknowledgement awakes in me a love for this country, where they wish me nothing but good ; I leave it with regret. But if I contemplate the D's, the R's, the Alts, the iniquitous ministers of my guiltlessness, I begin to breathe freely ; here I finish my career as a man of honour, I get rid of them, my feeble complaints aggra- vate my annoyance, greatest where I wished most to exceed my duty. I did not hate them, I could never despise them ; and what change could I expect in their tortuousness, knowing their qualities as I did ? It is true, I did not enter too much into relations with women, but when I did regale myself with them respect was never absent. Time was too short for the practice of that sort of art, and I was afraid of them ; it is they who govern the country here as elsewhere ; I did not feel strong enough to defend myself again^ their charms.^ So ended the second stage of Suvorof's military career. The third followed almost at once. In April he was sent from Finland to the Russian headquarters at Jassy, where he was given a command in the Army of Wallachia under General Saltikof, son of the in- glorious victor of Kunersdorf. 1 Bibikof, 208. " D " is Dryevitz and " R," Renn. CHAPTER III THE FIRST TURKISH WAR Turkish warfare — ^Victories of Rumyantsof — Suvorof captures Tur- tukai, 1773 — Correspondence — Captures Turtukai again — Affair at Hirsof, 1773 — ^Battle of Kozludzhi, 1774^Failure of the plan of campaign — ^Peace of Kutchuk-Kainardzhi — Suvorof marries unhappily — EQs freakish character. The war against the Turks, which began in 1769, was the first stage in the expulsion of that race from the Europe which they had so long desolated and profaned. At the beginning of it, the frontier between Russia and Turkey stretched from Kief on the Dnyepr to the Sea of Azof. Between the two countries swept the vast and uninhabited steppe. The line of the Dnyestr had been fortified by the Turks at Khotin, Bendyeri, and Akker- man, with advanced fortresses at Otchakof and Kinburn, but the real defence of the country was the fertile but untilled desert which lay in front of it. Russia could only hope to attack it through Poland on the one side, and from the Black Sea on the other. A successful advance in either direction would turn the formidable natural obstacles, which could otherwise be overcome only by a superlatively well -organised system of com- missariat and transport. Such a system had hitherto been far beyond the powers of the Russian State, and the campaigns of Minnich, earlier in the century, had broken down owing to the fearful losses inflicted by cold, hunger, and disease. Poland being already open to the passage of Russian troops, these had penetrated 36 THE FIRST TURKISH WAR 87 deeply into Moldavia and Wallachia by the time that Suvorof joined them. This new theatre of war afforded him an admirable opportunity for the display of his genius. The methods adopted generally by the Russians in this war showed a great advance on those of previous campaigns against the Turks. During the eighteenth century, however aggressive the policy and strategy of Russia in its dealings with the Asiatic peril, the tactics of its armies in the field had always been defensive. The soldiers were arranged in such a way as to testify to the terrible reputation of the Turkish hosts in attack. The main formation was the square of infantry, pro- tected at the angles and along the flanks by artillery. Round the square were set the " chevaux de frise '* ; each section of which was carried into action by six men, and was attached by hooks and chains to those on each side of it. Within the square was the infantry reserve, ready to strengthen the sides at whatever point they gave way before the whirlwind rush of the Turkish cavalry. The light baggage train was also collected inside the square, while the heavy waggons were formed into a special lager at a safe distance from the battle- ground. The cavalry was regarded as so hopelessly inferior to the Turkish, that it was kept well in the rear, and only released when the enemy was thoroughly broken by the fire of the artillery and infantry. The whole scheme of this order of battle was thus defensive. The tactical initiative was surrendered to the Turks. Their artillery and infantry were despised, but all their enemies dreaded the ferocious, even if completely un- disciplined attacks of their light horse. These were permitted to sweep down upon the squares in the hope that after one or more attempts their losses from artillery and musketry fire would reduce them to utter chaos. Even then it would be impossible for the square to move in pursuit. Only the cavalry could be expected to follow, and that with the utmost caution. Under 88 SUVOROF these circumstances a decisive victory over the Turks was obtained with great difficulty.^ If driven back by the infantry, they dispersed and fled with such rapidity that an energetic pursuit could seldom be undertaken. A shattering blow against them could as a rule only be delivered when they could be shut in a fortress and besieged. A whole army might be destroyed by storm or capture. But a victory in the field, however much it redounded to the glory of those who took part in it, was seldom of decisive military importance. Against such an adversary, terrible in attack and feeble in defence, devoid of discipline, of calculation, and of endurance, as unresisting and headlong after a defeat in the field as he was reckless, cruel, and covetous before the battle was joined, the certain road to victory was that of resolute aggression. The subsequent mili- tary career of Suvorof and his whole theory of war were largely determined by his experience against the Turks, and his virtues and vices as a general both sprang from the same root. His methods were learned before he served in Turkey, but they were developed and confirmed in this fighting along the Danube. There he became convinced that the secret of success was to march swiftly and to attack boldly, and as he never failed when matched against a slow and irresolute enemy, so he was at last overthrown when he encoun- tered one who marched as swiftly and as boldly as himself, and had at the same time the advantage of numbers and position. Without doubt, there were good soldiers in the Turkish Wars before Suvorof, and he was not the only one who understood how they should be fought. It did not require his appearance to improve upon the old methods of dealing with this barbarous enemy. The need for 1 It is curious to find a Byzantine writer advising the Emperor (circa 500 a.d.) to use exactly the same device for defending Constan- tinople against Scythia. See Oman, Ttie Art of War: The Middle Ages, 23. THE FIRST TURKISH WAR 39 increased mobility, both in attack and in pursuit, was obvious, and Rumyantsof, the Russian Commander- in-Chief, had from the first set himself to abolish much of what was obsolete. The Turks had actually become much less formidable than in previous wars, and their generals were less energetic and their troops less stubborn than in the days when they were the terror of European civilisation. Their system remained the same, but the life had gone out of it, and the Turkish armies, though occasionally energetically and successfully led, were generally of poor quality. Rumyantsof had thus been able to win victories which resembled those of Clive in India. In 1770 at Larga, with 30,000 men, he had beaten more than 80,000 Tartars ; and he followed up this exploit by defeating at Kagul, with only 17,000 men, an army of 180,000 Turks. Rumyantsof retained the square as the ordinary formation of the infantry, finding it, as the English found it a hundred years later in the Sudan, the best means of breaking a charge of fanatics, mounted or on foot. But he reduced its size, and though the " chevaux de frise " were actually used on some occasions in the next Turkish War, their use was almost entirely abandoned by Rumyantsof. In- stead of massing all his troops into a single huge square, he divided them into several squares, with cavalry in the intervals. This plan had all the value of the old in defence, while it enabled the whole force to move with greater freedom against the enemy, and avoid the serious breaches in the formation which might arise from inequalities in the ground. At the same time one square could lend support to another as a solid mass, and at Kagul the broken troops of one unit were in fact saved in this way by throwing themselves into another which simultaneously moved towards them. Rumyantsof had also increased the efficiency of his troops by improving their arms. To make the fire of the infantry more effective, he added to each battalion 50 Jagers, whose shorter and more manageable muskets 40 SUVOROF made them better marksmen than the ordinary grena- diers. The cavalry he found particularly incompetent, and as cavalry they were in fact useless against the Turks. They were armed in such a way as to make them mere infantry on horseback, incapable of charging the enemy. The cuirassiers, in addition to their breast- and back-plates, carried a sword and two pistols; the carabineers carried a sword, carbine, and bayonet, and two pistols ; and the hussars a sabre, carbine, and two pistols. Rumyantsof turned the two last into cold steel cavalry, and made it impossible for them to waste time in firing by depriving them of their carbines and bayonets. They were thus compelled to rely upon their individual courage and the vigour of their attacks, instead of halting to fire off their carbines and being overwhelmed by the superior horsemanship of the Turks. With the artillery Rumyantsof did not interfere. It was immensely superior to the Turkish ; and posted at the angles and on the flanks of the squares of infantry gave confidence to the Russians and inspired a whole- some terror in the ranks of their enemies.^ Enough has been said of the reforms of Rumyantsof to show that he required in some respects little instruction from Suvorof. His tactical changes were exactly those that would have been made by Suvorof himself, and the latter only improved upon them to the extent of employing a number of small squares of equal size in 1 Each regiment took into action two or more light guns, which could, if necessary, be carried on the shoulders of the men. The Russians had, in addition, field artillery, 6- or 9-pounders. See Pyetrof, ii. 4. On earlier methods against the Turks and the reforms of Rumyantsof, see Pyetrof, ii. 426 ; Bogdanovitch, 97 ; Pyetrushevsld, i. 183 ; Valentini, 19. Baron de Tott, in his Mimoires sur les Turcs ei les Tartares (Amsterdam, 1785), says that artillery (sc. field artillery) was unknown to the Turks until this war. He was a French ofiicer, and was at the time engaged in organising the defences of Constan- tinople. His third volume contains an invaluable description of the Turks and his experiments in casting cannon and accustoming the barbarians to their use. He says (i. 128) that the gunners thought more of making a great noise than of hitting their object. Shumla ■"■ 'hill II' ili\llll,',l'';!!i