The last part of the War of 1812 is very instructive because it showed that when two nations go to war, the nation with the most successful army on the battlefield isn’t always the side coming out ahead.
The last part of the War of 1812 is very instructive because it showed that when two nations go to war, the nation with the most successful army on the battlefield isn’t always the side coming out ahead.
Book 14, Chapter 1
The last part of the War of 1812 is very instructive because it showed that when two nations go to war, the nation with the most successful army on the battlefield isn’t always the side coming out ahead.
Summary:
Historians agree that successful warfare results in increased political strength for the side with the winning army and a corresponding decrease in political strength for the side whose army loses. The losing side is typically subjugated to the winning side. The last part of the War of 1812 was different. The truth is that the French Army really did better than the Russians at Borodinó. Yet, France lost strength. How could this have been? Tolstoy says that it was because after the battle of Borodinó the Russians gave up on conventional warfare with traditional rules and fought an all-out guerrilla war, now solely aimed at weakening the French in any way possible. Humble Russian peasants, for example, preferred to burn their hay rather than to let the French buy it at any price.
quote from the chapter:
After the burning of Smolénsk a war began which did not follow any previous traditions of war. The burning of towns and villages, the retreats after battles, the blow dealt at Borodinó and the renewed retreat, the burning of Moscow, the capture of marauders, the seizure of transports, and the guerrilla war were all departures from the rules.
Napoleon felt this, and from the time he took up the correct fencing attitude in Moscow and instead of his opponent’s rapier saw a cudgel raised above his head, he did not cease to complain to Kutúzov and to the Emperor Alexander that the war was being carried on contrary to all the rules-as if there were any rules for killing people. In spite of the complaints of the French as to the nonobservance of the rules, in spite of the fact that to some highly placed Russians it seemed rather disgraceful to fight with a cudgel and they wanted to assume a pose en quarte or en tierce according to all the rules, and to make an adroit thrust en prime, and so on-the cudgel of the people’s war was lifted with all its menacing and majestic strength, and without consulting anyone’s tastes or rules and regardless of anything else, it rose and fell with stupid simplicity, but consistently, and belabored the French till the whole invasion had perished.
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