A solid piece of military history, sharply focused on the performance of the Russian army and its leadership during 1812-1814. Sometimes tragic, occasionally humorous, this is a factual analysis that seeks to strip away literary tradition and nationalist emotion. Lieven argues that the Russian army of the end of the Napoleonic wars was a formidable fighting force, with good equipment, logistics, training and leadership. Good enough to defeat Napoleon — a Napoleon who was perhaps past his prime, but still a very dangerous opponent.

Lieven is very sympathetic to tsar Alexander II, who sometimes gets a bad press because of his eccentricities and growing religious fervour. In the author’s view, the autocratic tsar of the Russians was an intelligent and flexible leader, who shaped not only the coalition against France, but developed the best possible plan for the post-Napoleon era. Although he admits that like everyone else, Alexander harboured a number of illusions, in particular with respect to Poland.

Apart from the rumbustious adventures of Vladimir Löwenstern (whose memoirs must be quite something) the part of this story that sticks is that of Russian army logistics. Somehow tens of thousands of men and horses had to be provided for in an era of horse-drawn wooden carts. While much of the food was requisitioned locally, this didn’t remove the need to move mobile magazines and their carts across vast distances, in all seasons, over often terrible roads. Lieven justly highlights this achievement, with all the perseverance it required and all the suffering it implied. ( )

I couldn't. I just couldn't do it. I live for this stuff and I found Lieven's chronological retelling of the Russian side of the Napoleonic Wars so dry and devoid of narrative as to be unreadable. And I have literally been trying to finish this book for YEARS.

Good facts and sources, but as for a story or book worth reading cover to cover, this is not that. Like a full length version of Homer's Catalog of Ships with Preobazhenskys instead of Trojans. ( )

The most thoroughly researched, eye-opening, concise piece of military history I've ever read. A JOY to read. ( )

It is a common misconception, popularized by nationalist sentiments and even Tolstoy himself, that the Russian army was not responsible as it truly was for the defeat of Napoleon in the East. General Winter is most often credited.

This book is a worthy corrective to some of the misconceptions of the Russian campaign - that is, Russia was more responsible for defeating Napoleon than is given credit - by such preeminent sources as The Campaigns of Napoleon, and Tolstoy. The Russian state, although primitive and somewhat lacking in both a social and economic/industrial sense, was led by competent and farsighted leaders who made necessary strategic preparations for defeating an invasion of such magnitude.

Strategic withdrawal was necessary, as well as a total war. Napoleon's army, although excellent in pitched battle, was incapable of sustained guerilla or total wars, as demonstrated in the Peninsular campaign.

Alexander I, in particular, is given credit for forming an alliance system, often by 'the scruff of his neighbors necks', as he bargained their compliance.

Even in peacetime, Russia threw its weight around, redrawing the territorial lines of Europe in the Congress of Berlin, redrawing German and Polish states according to their demands.

These campaigns still have very much to teach us, and Lieven does very well in bringing new facts to light.

Only major complaint is that some better maps would have been useful. It's hard to keep track of military campaigns without them. ( )

The Author Mr. Lieven, had access to Russian archives to write a story of the 1812-1814 campaigns in which Russia contributed to the dismanteling of the Napoleonic Empire.

The strategy and the respective national myths of previous historians are well detailed in that for political reasons - the 1827 coup by former generals of the 1812 campaigns to topple absolutism in Russia - more was written over the 1812 part of the campaign than on the next two years. This happened to diminish the importance of the fact that Russian armies marched - led by Prussian general - through western Europe with Platov's cossacks ending camping in Paris!

In popular imagery, the Tolstoi [War and Peace] version of this campaign prevails, only telling the fatal march to Moscow and back.

It is to the credit of Mr. Lieven that he goes further though the title of the book seem to infer that only Napoleon went at war against Russia even though he had assembled what would now be called a "coalition of the willing". ( )