the lion of the russian army - Florida State University

was deployed in three groups along the Vistula River stretching from Warsaw to
Koenisgberg. The main forces consisted of the 1 st Corps of Marshal Louis Nicolas
Davout, the 2 nd Corps of Marshal Nicolas Charles Oudinot and the 3 rd Corps of Marshal
Michel Ney, the 1 st and 2 nd Reserve Cavalry Corps under Marshal Joachim Murat and
Imperial Guard under Marshals Francois Joseph Lefebvre and Edouard Mortier, totaling
about 220,000 men and 628 cannons. This force was under Napoleon’s direct command.
The Central Army, under the command of Napoleon’s stepson, the Viceroy of
Italy Eugene de Beauharnais, consisted of the 4 th Corps of Eugene and the 6 th Corps of
Marshal Laurent Gouvin-Saint-Cyr supported by General Emmanuel Grouchy’s 3 rd
Reserve Cavalry Corps and Italian Royal Guards for a total of 70,000 men and 208
cannons. The army on the right wing consisted of the 5 th Corps of General Jozef
Poniatowski, the 7 th Corps of General Jean Louis Reynier, the 8 th Corps under General
Dominique Vandamme, and the 4 th Cavalry Corps of Marie-Victor Latour-Maubourg,
and amounted to 75,000 men and 232 cannons. Napoleon’s brother, King of Westphalia
Jérôme Bonaparte, commanded these troops. The 10th Corps under Marshal Jacques-
Etienne Macdonald guarded the left flank of the army, and the 30,000 Austrians of
General Karl Philip Schwarzenberg covered the right flank. 23
23 The exact numbers of Napoleon’s army have been debated over the years. Count Philippe
de Segur gives a number of 392,700 men, Napoleon’s Russian Campaign (Boston, 1958,) 2;
Raymond de Montesquiou de Fezensac estimates the strength of Grand Army at 500,000 men, A
Journal of the Russian Campaign of 1812 (London, 1988) 4; Albert Du Casse acknowledged
600,000 men (including the reserves in Germany), Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de la
campagne de 1812 en Russie; suivis des lettres de Napoléon au roi de Westphalie pendant la
campagne de 1813 (Paris, 1852) 35; General Marcellin Marbot records 325,000 men, Memoirs,
II, 215; Carl Clausewitz placed the force at 439,000 men, The Campaign of 1812 in Russia
(London, 1843) 47; John R. Elting acknowledged 430,000 men as a number of men actually
taking part in the campaign, A Military History and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars (New York,
1964) map 107; David Chandler estimated strength of the Grand Army at 449,000 men,
Campaigns of Napoleon, 754; Denniée acknowledged 678,080 men, including reserves. Itineraire
de l’empereur Napoleon pendant la campaigne de 1812 (Paris, 1842), 183-65. Russian authors,
considering documents obtained through Alexander Chernishev’s espionage in 1811, refer to
590,000-650,000 men, including reserves in Poland and Germany. Eugene Tarle, Borodino,
(Moscow, 1962) 3; Nikolay Troitsky, 1812: Velikii god Rossii [1812: The Glorious Year of
Russia] (Moscow, 1988), 52; N.P. Muratov, 1812g. - istoricheski obzor Otechestvennoi voini i
eie prichin [The year of 1812 - Historical Survey of the Patriotic War and its Reasons], (Tambov,
1912), N.F. Garnich, 1812, (Moscow, 1956); Pavel. Zhilin, Gibel’ Napoleonovskoi armii v Rossii
608