International Affairs
Although the reforming impulse at the Russian court did not die out after 1803, it had to give way for a time to the government’s concern with international affairs. Peter the Great’s conquests in the early eighteenth century had brought Russia into the European state system; the ensuing wars and alliances showed Russia to be an intimate partner in the balances and conflicts of the system. The country could not stand apart from the upheaval now being caused in the European state system by Napoleonic France’s wide-ranging conquests, rearrangements of national borders, and dominance of continental policy.
At first, Alexander merely put a close to the wildly fluctuating policies of his father, who had begun his reign as an enemy of France and ended it as France’s ally against England. Alexander recalled an expeditionary force his father had sent to conquer British territories in India and composed other differences with Great Britain so that the mutually beneficial trade between the two countries could resume. In 1803, when hostilities reignited between France and Great Britain, Alexander hoped to be able to act as a peacemaker and tried above all to restrain Napoleon’s expansionist policies. Relations between Russia and France took a sharp turn for the worse in 1804 when Napoleon seized the Duke of Enghien from a neighbouring neutral country and had him summarily executed for plotting the overthrow of the French government. Alexander’s protest at the execution was met with contempt from Napoleon. Soon after, Russia joined a new coalition against Napoleonic France, which led to war the following year and a major defeat of Austrian and Russian forces at Austerlitz. After further defeats in 1806, abandonment by his allies, and the opening of hostilities between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, Alexander saw no option but withdrawal from the war largely on terms dictated by Napoleon in the summer of 1807 at Tilsit, a town on the Niemen river in Poland. The famous accords signed at Tilsit had the practical effect of dividing Europe between France and Russia and also committed Russia to adhere to the continental blockade through which France hoped to undermine British commerce and finances.
Mikhail Speranskii’s Reforms
Concern about the inadequacies of the Russian political order continued. Alexander seemed to see the problem as essentially one of personnel, a shortage of honest and effective administrators. Others, however, recognized the need as well for structural changes. One of these was Mikhail Speranskii, a priest’s son, who rose from humble origins to the pinnacle of Russian government. A brilliant seminary student and teacher, he became secretary to a highly placed aristocrat, served in the Ministry of Internal Affairs early in Alexander’s reign, and by 1808 had risen to the position of State Secretary, the leading official for domestic affairs. No less than Alexander, Speranskii lamented the deficiencies of Russian officials and convinced the tsar to introduce exams for promotion to senior government ranks, a step that did not endear him to the many noble officials who had gained their positions through patronage and without the necessary educational and technical qualifications. Speranskii also proposed legal and financial reforms and achieved some success in stabilizing the currency and increasing tax revenues. His financial measures included a temporary tax on the nobility, which, again, won him no friends among that important class.
The most sweeping changes proposed by Speranskii touched political and administrative organization and included a plan for the separation of powers patterned on Montesquieu’s ideas. He proposed to divide the Senate into separate administrative and judicial hierarchies and to create a third branch of government, the legislative, with an assembly elected on a narrow franchise. The entire system was to be capped by a cabinet headed by the emperor and called the State Council. Although Speranskii undoubtedly had won the emperor’s agreement to pursue such a project, Alexander ultimately refused to approve major changes and implemented only the plan for the State Council, which was established in 1810 together with a reorganization of government ministries. By this time, the clouds of war were again gathering as Napoleon prepared the invasion of Russia. Whether or not Alexander was inclined to additional government reforms, this was not the time to launch a political experiment that could have compromised lines of authority. Moreover, Speranskii was unpopular with the nobility because of his crack-down on incompetence and support of financial policies harmful to noble interests. The nobility supplied Russia’s military leadership and officer corps, and to solidify support for the regime in the face of the impending challenge, Alexander sacrificed Speranskii’s policies and indeed Speranskii himself, whom he exiled to Siberia on trumped-up charges just before the invasion by Napoleon’s armies.
Napoleon’s Invasion
Napoleon’s Grande Armée entered Russia in June 1812. Its forces numbered nearly half a million, almost twice the strength of the Russian army. However, only half the invading army was French, the rest being composed of troops from countries conquered by Napoleon, which were less than reliable instruments for the pursuit of French aims. The size of Napoleon’s army also presented grave problems of supply, especially after the Russian generals decided to withdraw deep into the country while stripping away supplies and housing in the path of Napoleon’s advance. Napoleon had hoped to destroy the Russian army in the western borderlands or, if they chose not to fight near the border, to corner them at the first great fortress city of Smolensk, where he was certain they would make a stand. He miscalculated. The Russians mounted a spirited but brief defence of Smolensk, withdrawing after just two days and burning the city as they left. Russian generals, particularly Mikhail Kutuzov, to whom Alexander gave command after the fall of Smolensk, had learned in earlier encounters with the French that they could not expect to win a pitched battle against Napoleon’s superior leadership and disciplined troops. Their hope lay in the exhaustion of the Grande Armée as failing supplies and disease steadily reduced its numbers, morale, and fitness. Alexander courageously supported this strategy despite its unpopularity with a large segment of influential opinion and mounting, sometimes vicious, criticism of his national leadership.
The Russians could not surrender Moscow without a fight and decided to make a stand at Borodino, a village in the western reaches of Moscow province. This epochal battle proved costly for both sides, but especially so for the French, who could not replace their losses at Borodino—nearly one-third of the remaining able-bodied men. Although the Russians pulled back (to save what remained of their army) and left open the road to Moscow, Napoleon’s occupation of the ancient capital brought no resolution to the conflict. Moreover, as Napoleon reached the heights above the city’s western outskirts and waited for the ‘boyars’ to greet him in submission, he saw not a delegation of the defeated but ominous veins of smoke rising from many points in the city, signs of the fires set by retreating Muscovites that would rage for nearly a week and leave much of the capital in ruins. It was the middle of September by the time Napoleon entered Moscow, a devastated city without adequate shelter for his troops; foraging parties sent out of the town encountered fire from Russian troops, and the Russian winter was soon to close in. Alexander steadfastly refused to negotiate. The hopelessness of the French position was apparent.
A month after its arrival, the Grande Armée departed from Moscow, moving out towards the south in the hopes of retreating through a region untouched by the Russian scorched-earth policy. But Russian forces met the invaders at Maloiaroslavets and forced them back onto the path of destruction by which they had entered the country, helping to turn what might have been an orderly withdrawal into an increasingly desperate and disorganized flight. Russian partisans harried Napoleonic forces and picked off stragglers the entire way. Napoleon himself abandoned the army to its fate and made a dash for France to raise new forces. Only about 10 per cent of the original invading army was able to escape from Russia in good order. The end of the Napoleonic empire in Europe was in sight. Alexander, emotionally lifted by the great victory and inspired by a wartime religious conversion, prepared to play a leading role in creating a new order for Europe.