Russian military planning in 1810-12 was highly confusing topic. It was not that the Russians had a plan, but that they developed several plans simultaneously. The upper echelons of the Russian army after the 1807 defeats went through a similar process as the Prussian army did after Jena/Auerstadt with some elements of the military pushing for revenge while others advocated a more cautious reformism and a defensive approach to French hegemony.

Peter Bagration was the leader of a cluster of officers in the Russian army that supported an aggressive push against the French and their allies. This faction had already reared its head during the 1809 Austrian war when a number of Russian officers were publicly reluctant to aid their French ally in Galicia. Bagration reportedly told the French ambassador that he would not take up arms against Archduke Charles and the Russian army dragged its feet in joint operations with the Duchy of Warsaw troops. The war plan Bagration developed called for a massive reinforcement of military forces of 100000 men around Bialystok with two lines of reserves coupled with fodder and supplies for 250000 men. Concurrent to this military build-up, the plan called for overtures to both Prussia and Austria as well as a trap for diplomatic Napoleon which would provide Russia its casus belli. This trap, and the linchpin of Bagration's offensive was the Duchy of Warsaw. In a March 1812 letter to Alexander I that outlines his thinking, Bagration proposed that the Tsar demand to Napoleon that the Oder River "any other boundary Your Imperial Majesty will consider," be set as the final military boundary of France, leaving the Duchy completely behind the Russian sphere of influence. Since Napoleon would no doubt reject such terms, the Bialystok forces would quickly occupy Warsaw and this would push both Prussia and Austria off the fence. Bagration proposed that Austria would receive Galicia and Tarnopol while a minimum of Prussian neutrality would be guaranteed by the presence of Russian land and seapower so close to its territory.

But Bagration's plan was only one that was floating around Russian military circles at this time. In this planning, the left hand did not know what the right was doing. There was some preparations for the magazines and fodder stores in Vilna and Bialystok, but little in the way of actual groundwork being laid for an offensive. Chief of Staff for the 1st Western Army, General Alexander Yermolov noted in his memoirs that 1st Western Army, that General Levin Bennigsen had told him that the "Emperor did not show me any [approved] operational plan and I do not know any person who had seen it." Meanwhile, the Tsar had approved the defensive plans of General Karl Ludwig August von Phull for a defensive campaign by the Western Armies and von Phull's plan emerged in modified form by Barclay de Tolly. The problem with this defensive plan was it necessitated further construction of depots and it also made it difficult to stop a French invasion for entering into the Empire's interior.

In Russian military planning between 1810-12, Alexander I emerged as decisive bellwether between offensive and defensive strategies. While he had earlier approved Bagration and other offensive-minded officers to develop their plans, he simultaneously called for the development of defensive planning as well. Alexander I often kept these two camps in the dark as to what the other was doing, creating a degree of confusion at the upper echelons of the Russian army as to what it was trying to accomplish. These tensions played out during the 1812 campaign as a "Russian" faction led by the like of Bagration and Kutuzov criticized the "Germans" in charge of the retreat as surrendering Russian territory without a fight (bear in mind, Russian and German was a very plastic form of identity for military elites within the Empire). The incomplete nature of von Phull's preparations meant that Russian depots were often in danger of being overrun by the Grande Armee and had to be destroyed. This retreat and destruction gave the Russian retroactive gloss of a scorched earth campaign caused considerable tension in Russian command circles. Both factions could also claim to be following the wishes of the Tsar, which added to the animosities.

Part of the problem was that Alexander I had decided upon a defensive strategy by early 1812 and had shelved the various offensive plans. The diplomatic overtures that Alexander I had given to both Austria and Prussia in 1811-12 had not borne fruit and neither party was willing to court Napoleon's wrath at this time. The offensive plans mirrored the failed plans of Archduke Charles in 1809 to act before the French and their German allies could mobilize. The swift response of French forces in Germany at war clouds in 1811 was a sign that Napoleon still had the capacity to act quickly. Pace Paul Schroeder's assertions on antithetical nature of French hegemony on the European balance of power, at least in this limited instance of 1811, the balance worked in favor of peace in Central Europe. Neither the Hohenzollerns nor the Habsburgs were willing to risk further defeat so that the Tsar could carve up the Duchy into a client state, however much they loathed operating under the shadow of Napoleonic hegemony.

The irony was that Napoleon's diplomatic envoys and limited espionage networks had told him that deterrence in 1811 had worked. Both Caulaincourt and Jacques Lauriston, who were France's ambassadors to Russia had advised Napoleon that war had been staved off for the moment and negotiations with the Tsar might prevent a future war. But Napoleon drew the opposite conclusion from Russian backpedaling in that the French position in Central Europe and the Duchy was vulnerable. To an extent, this assessment was correct, but in this case the cure was far worse than the disease. The Allied invasion of Russia proceeded with little in the way of a strategic goal other than to defeat the Russian armies at the frontier. There was little groundwork for a postwar political order other than possibly expanding the Duchy or creating a Duchy of Lithuania, and French planning was often quite at a loss as to what to do if the Russians either retreated into the interior or Alexander I was not receptive to Napoleon's entreaties for a lasting peace. Here, the command divisions of the Russian army may have helped undermine Napoleon's plan as retreat was the best option until the offensive/defensive orientation of Russian grand strategy could be sorted out.

The contrasts between Alexander I and Napoleon from 1811 is rather striking. While Alexander walked away from plans to take over the Duchy and relaunch a war in Central Europe because of the failure of Russian diplomacy, Napoleon drew the opposite conclusion. For Napoleon, the cart came before the horse and diplomatic overtures would happen after successful offensive military operations. This made France hostage to victories which would not be forthcoming in the Russian campaign, especially as French defeats only strengthened the hand of the two parties Alexander I had tried and failed to court in 1811, Prussia and Austria. Napoleon's failure in 1812 removed most of the major obstacles that had prevented the Russian offensive plans from transitioning from paper to reality the year before.

Sources

Hartley, Janet M., Paul Keenan, and D. C. B. Lieven. Russia and the Napoleonic Wars. new York: Palgrave, 2015.

Mikaberidze, Alexander. "The Lion of the Russian Army": Life and Military Career of General Prince Peter Bagration 1765-1812. Dissertation, 2003.

_. "Non-Belligerent Belligerent Russia and the Franco-Austrian War of 1809." Napoleonica. La Revue 1 (2011): 4-22.

Whitcomb, Edward A. Napoleon's Diplomatic Service. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1979.