Hat Industries 9322 Russian Command 1:32

The Russian army at the end of the 18th century was probably the largest and arguably one of the strongest armies in Europe. During the reign of Catherine II the Great (1762-1796), she won several important victories in the course of the wars with Turkey, won the war with Poland in 1792 and was instrumental in suppressing the Kościuszko Uprising in 1794. Many of them were experienced by one of the best Russian leaders in the history of Russia - Alexander Suvorov, who relied on speed of action, skillful maneuvering with his own forces, but also put emphasis on training his own troops. Another thing is that he often won thanks to the advantage of his own troops. However, this good commander died in 1800, and the entire Russian officer corps was hardly famous for good training or a high level of professionalism. In general battles (at Austerlitz and at Frederick) Tsar Alexander I also had a negative influence on the command of the Russian army, who at Austerlitz did not accept the correct remarks of Mikhail Kutuzov who criticized the battle plan, and as a result of disagreements and personal injuries, did not entrust him with command of the Battle of Frederick . There are also many indications that the plan of the campaign of 1812, which involved drawing French troops deep into the tsarist state, was developed ad hoc and may not have been taken into account from the very beginning by the Russian command. However, these are only assumptions. Nevertheless, in the course of that campaign, the most important Russian officers were, for example, Mikhail Kutuzov, Matvei Platov and Mikhail Barclay de Tolly. In the course of this campaign of 1812, with the enormous and decisive support of "General Frost", the Russians won, but in the course of the 1813-1815 campaign, the Russian officer corps turned out to be quite good and was able to quite skillfully cooperate with its allies.