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‘I don’t at all say that all the plans are good,’ said Prince Andrew, ‘I am only surprised at your opinion of Bonaparte. You may laugh as much as you like, but all the same Bonaparte is a great generall.’
‘Michael Ivanovich!’ cried the old prince to the architect who, busy with his roast meat, hoped he had been forgotten: ‘Didn’t I tell you Buonaparte was a great tactician? Here, he says same thing.’
‘To be sure, your excellency.’ replied the architect.
The prince again laughed his frigid laugh.
‘Buonaparte was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He has got splendid soldiers. Besides he began by attacking Germans. And only idlers have failed to beat the Germans. Since the world began everybody has beaten the Germans. They beat no one- except one another. He made his reputation fighting them.’
And the prince began explaining all the blunders which, according to him, Bonaparte had made in his campaigns and even in politics. His son made no rejoinder, but it was evident that whatever arguments were presented he was as little able as his father to change his opinion. He listened, refraining from a reply, and involuntarily wondered how this old man, living alone in the country for so many years, could know and discuss so minutely and acutely all the recent European military and political events.
So this is the quote in question in a version accessible as PDF here, so the reader can make sure to read the full context, p. 228/229.
As to the actual historicity of the quote by the prince, it is of course nonsense. The Germans defeated foreign enemies, even of the non-idle type, on a multitude of occasions. Take the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD, when the Roman Empire was forced to permanently reconsider its policy of conquest into Germania Magna after a crushing defeat at the hands of Cherusci warlord Arminius. Did Arminius' victory force the Roman Empire into paralysis for 400 years? No, of course not. But the Romans reconsidered their risks and rewards for the conquests of German lands and never again tried a campaign at the scale of the one that Arminius fought off.
So, the prince is incorrect in his assertion of the German inability to defeat foreigners, but even with the example of Arminius, you have to concede that his point about the Germans 'beating one another' is not the worst he could have made. Arminius, while educated by the Romans, came home to his father's tribe that was well-versed in forest warfare due to its constant squabbles with neighboring tribes. Arminius met his own end at the hands of a German plot - so to speak of a united national identity would be certainly ahistorical.
Let's take another example, the Battle at the Lechfeld, yet another founding myth of the German nation. Otto I, King of the Germans since 936 and to-be Holy Roman Emperor from 962 onwards, met the Hungarian invaders in 955, close to the city of Augsburg at a field known as the Lechfeld. The four major German cultural groups of the time - Saxons, Bavarians, Swabians and Franconians -, rallied to the side of their king in common agreement that the Hungarian raids into German territories had to end. So the Hungarian enemy certainly marks a "non idler", if you follow the vocabulary of the prince in the source text. The Hungarians were completely destroyed at German hands, suffering close to a 100% casualty rate if you include the brutal mass executions after the conclusion of the struggle. It was the first time that all parts of Germany were represented in a common struggle against a singular common foe, and is thus an important moment in national consolidation, certainly moreso than the largely Cherusci-driven victory in Teutoburg Forest.
But again, with the Battle at Lechfeld, you have this idea of German tribes that overcame their difference to work together on a temporary basis. The division between various German states, especially amplified after the Protestant Reformation of 1517, was always a point of weakness that the leading thinkers of foreign nations were aware of. War and Peace, written in 1867, precedes the first unification of Germany into a singular nation state; but by removing himself from his work by setting it into an era 50 years before him, Leo Tolstoy has warned us to not take his characters at face value. The elderly prince in the source text is a character written to act a certain way and should not serve us as a historical source of actual impressions of the 1860s Russian upper class about German military accomplishments. Just take the following paragraph, where the son attempts to convince the father to amend his opinion with several arguments that he father chooses to ignore. The two are written to be at odds with one another in their assessment of Napoleon's accomplishments and by extension Germany's military record - meaning they are both likely intended to be faulty characters with faulty knowledge and controversial opinions.
So yeah, these two battles should serve as sufficient enough examples of German warriors beating both a logistically and technologically superior enemy and a union of Germans working against a non-idle invader to throw off their invasions. In addition, it must be considered that Leo Tolstoy wrote a novel with characters based on history, not a historical narrative or a historiography. He was a novelist, not a historian.
I've read War and Peace but can't quite remember what part this occurs in, if you would remind me that would help a great deal.
What constituted "Germany" pre-unification (1871), and especially during the Napoleonic Wars, was really a loose collective of nations known as the "Holy Roman Empire". This was body came into being following the crowing of Charlemagne in 800CE. By the time of the Napoleonic Wars, the HRE had devolved into a large number of smaller nations – Barvarians, Münsters, Pomeranian's etc. These nations were still ruled by an Emperor, although to put it in Voltaire's words: "The Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman nor an Empire." Most of them were Germanic language states, and sometimes they didn't get on (
War and Peace kicks off in 1805 with the "Ulm Campaign" in which the newly crowned Emperor Napoleon turned away from England to confront the Eastern enemies of France. At this stage, and until 1806, the HRE was under the leadership of Francis II of Austria. A number of strategic errors and blunders throughout the Ulm Campaign culminated in the battle of Austerlitz on December 2 1805. The result of this battle was catastrophic for Austria (and the HRE) and Russia. The "Treaty of Pressburg" saw substantial losses of territory from the HRE, many of which were converted into the French satellite: The Confederacy of the Rhine.
These losses altered Europe's geopolitics substantially, spurring the War of 1806-07 (Fourth Coalition). The end of which sparked the Anglo-Russian war in 1807, following the "Treaty of Tilsit", which greatly angered Britain. The Anglo-Russian war was largely concerned with the freedom/possession of Polish lands. This war became incentive for Napoleons Russian campaign, one which was so famously disastrous for his grande armée.
Napoleon's army, in the beginning of 1812, was well over half a million strong. It's numbers were not only French, but consisted of Westphalians, Saxons, Prussians, Danes and many more. Considering the previous years of warfare, a large portion of the french armies were Germanic.
So going by that context, I think it could be a comment pointing out the failings of the German states. I think it's tongue in cheek, making fun of the divided nature of the Germans, their collapse in 1805 – a boastful presentation of Russia's military ability, diminishing the approaching grande armée. Of course, we have to remember the Russians were at Austerlitz too.
The quote is less about the historical accuracy of the subject, but rather, given the novelistic setting, it’s purpose.
edit: will be back for sources.
Did Germany as we know it exist then? I thought it was a bunch of sovereign states, unless the Holy Roman Empire was also referred to as Germany..?