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The only reason that I didn't rate him higher was that the generals that he defeated were not very good, and were easily beaten. You could make an arguement that he deserves an 8 perhaps.
Kutuzov, on the other hand deserves the '4' he got, and maybe not even that. He stumbled into Napoleon's trap at Austerlitz and took a classic beating. His poor deployment and lack of involvement at Borodino should have led to a major defeat. Napoleon missed a great opportunity to attack his left flank and trap the Russian army against the river.
The old board game by Australian group games dsesigns(the one prior to the AH version) Empires in Arms, had a very cohesive and IMO accurate assesment of leadership in the Napoleonic period. Only it took into account two important general skills. Strategic AND grand tactical ability.
For example, most of the staff in the French army of that time all knew and reluctantly spoke about Davout being the most gifted and skilled commander of the time even superior to Napoleon himself. Only he was so obsessive compulsive with his troops and the microcosms of day to day things, he never could see past the horizon when it came to leadership. Which is why Empires in arms did rate him equal to Napoleon in grand tactical ratings. however, when given command of anything larger than two corps(ie Army HQ levels) his command ratings fell like a stone.
All that said, the games ratings are not bad, they're just ok in a game where the effects of leadership are not well applied into the mechanics.
As to the original post about Surovov, yes he was a master at the strategic level(he never allowed himself to get into a fight he couldn't win) but still maybe above average at the tactical levels. But again, a General is only as great as the system he works within. No general of the Russian, Austrian, or Prussian armies could achieve greatness given the inept functioning of their command systems. IMO even an inept FM under French doctrine is going to do better than a good general under the inept commands system that was inherent in the russian system.
Can't recall which French Marshall said it but it went something like this: we taught the Austrians and Russians that the word urgent dispatch doesn't mean after the snow melts.
I can sympathize. This is something i considered bringing up on the beta, but decided agianst it because I personally thought in my gut that it fit. But let me try and give some reasons.
Firstly, the claim that he never lost a battle is not true. Zurich was a fiasco he never fully recovered from (though most of the problem was his subordinate commanders) and he did lose a few fairly minor skirmishes.
Now, he was not BAD. Not by any means. And I think the game reflects that. But it's like the myth that Waterloo was Napoleon's only defeat (usually peddled by British and Dutch fanboys- of which I'll admit to be one- who couldn't find Leipzig on a map).
But his most formidable adversaries were a French army in Italy and Switzerland that was undermanned and underequipped since Napoleon was away, and even then it ultimately proved untenable. The others were against a rather ramshackle group of Polish-Lithunian patriots who were so poorly equipped that they adopted the Scythe as their symbol, and against the heinously incompetent, corrupt, and out of shape Ottoman Turkish army.
By every account he WOEFULLY underestimated the importance of firepower in a way that Napoleon and Wellington did not ("The bullet is a mad thing; only the bayonet knows what it is about," Yeah, riiight.. that's why the Turks smashed your infantry squares at Rymnik with Cold Steel, right? OH wait....) and screwed up at least a leetle bit on the logistics.
Again, that doesn't make him bad. It doesn't even make him merely Good. But it does mean he was not perfect and that coupled with his failing health (him even living past mid 1800 is something he didn't do) and the lack of experience he had facing things like the Grand Battery or skirmishers would not have boded well for him.
"Unfortunately"? From whose perspective?
Again, his Italian and Swiss campaigns featured many brilliant strokes but ultimately ran out of steam and fell apart due to the contradictons between Habsburg and Russian troops and dogged French resistance. He ultimately had to take what troops he had and beat a retreat from Switzerland after facing the Generals who would be Napoleon's subordinate commanders.
Against Napoleon his situation would have been that much more dire. Though if Napoleon were present from the start (and thus was in command of the troops Suvarov historically ravaged at the Adda and others) I think his chances would have been much better.
Many "Historians" are fanboys who let their preferences get in the way of sober assessment, again like the people who say that Napoleon only lost Waterloo (Yeah, nevermind the Russian Army and the massive Austro-German-Swedish auxillary forces it had...).
As I mentioned before, Suvarov's most brilliant opponents were Napoleon's Marshals-to-be, the reserve commaders of the Armee d'Italie while Napoleon was away. The Prussians and especially the Poles were dogged but outnumbered and outgunned, and the Turkish military was catastrophically out of date.
He was a big believer in cold steel even in comparison to Napoleon, and his trademark was the bayonet charge. He was a master at that, but Napoleon's trademark was the Grand Battery and cold steel charges have a *really sucky success rate* against well defended artillery and infantry.
As Napoleon himself demonstrated when he hit an Anglo-Dutch wall at Waterloo, and how he muddled htrough the redoubts at Borodino.
As for the idea that he deserves to be ranked better than Alexander the Great? NO. Seriously.
Suvarov was a genius in what he did, but he did a Lot Lot Lot less than Alexander did. And while his blunders were less jarring than some of Alex's (heelllo Halicarnassus) the Trebia and Novi are not exactly quite on the level of the spit-inducingly wut that was the Granicus or Gaugamela. And hauling troops ot Italy and Switzerland across friendly Austrian territory is not equal to moving across a hostile empire all the way from Greece to India.
Now, having said that, let me change gears and go in the opposite direction because I like playing Devil's Advocate lik ethat.
Um...what?
Moureau- Napoleon's great rival to the North, victor of Hohenlinden in a way that made Marengo seem like a fiasco in comparison- was not very good?
Massena- The future Marshal who basically trained all the other Marshals, stone of Genoa, and a man who was known as "The Dear Child of Victory"- was not very good?
Heck, even MacDonald- who legitimately was not very good- managed to- without any assistance- make Suvarov fight for his life over three savage days at the Trebia in spite of being quite outclassed, unaided, and generally not that good.
So I really, Really, Really think this underplays the sheer magnitude of what Suvarov accomplished. He took on one of the best French armies at the time- commanded by some of the best officers of the period and a force that outnumbered him, massively outgunned him, and had veteran, eager troops- and gave them several major drubbings.
Ultimately he failed to actually make those drubbings stick and was forced to painfully retreat over the Alps, but let's not sell him short.
Agreed.
Alexander the Great has the advantage of combining military and civil authority into one person: himself. He did not have to deal with the interference of incompetent sovereigns like Tsar Paul, nor was he answerable to nominal superiors like Potemkin. Suvorov achieved what he did despite such interference.
Zurich was lost by Korsakov before Suvorov made it to the battle. At Altsdorf, on 26 September, Suvorov learned of the Russian defeat at Zurich. With no roads nor boats to ferry them across the lake there, the Russians appeared trapped and the French were closing in. However, despite his own age and illness, Suvorov decided to force a way through to Glarus. Bagration's advance guard again threw back the French (Molitor) while Rosenberg's rear guard held off Massena, before rejoining Suvorov at Glarus on 4 October. Again, Suvorov found no Austrian army nor supplies. He decided that to evade the French forces awaiting him, he would march into the 9,000 foot high mountains of the Panikh range towards Ilants. After a difficult march, the Russian army reached Ilants on October 8, finally beyond the reach of the French.
Suvorov's successful escape still cost him as much as one third of his army and all of his guns, but gained him the grudging admiration of Europe and the nickname "the Russian Hannibal." However, despite the Field Marshal's determination to resume the war the following year, the Tsar had had enough of his Austrian and English allies and recalled Russia's armies from Europe.
Sorry, but he is undervalued in this game. Every historian I have read that discusses him, ranks him as one of the greatest generals of all time.
Even in board and computer games that he appears in, has him ranked as one of the best there was. Look at the Empire in Arms scenario. He was ranked almost on par with Napoleon. Europa Universalis even had him ranked as an amazing general. But you're saying that you are correct, and everyone else is wrong.
He should be at least a 10 in this game. Period.
Yes, he did.
But that military organization pointedly did NOT extend deep into the other side of the Hellespont, include diplomacy with the peoples that were in the Persian Empire, or have contingecies to replenish that military organizaiton after it inevitably started taking casualties in the long march in.
Alexander basically had to play improv on those levels in addition to managing half a dozen other things (including engineering and- to say the least- battles).
Would I rate the Russian army that Suvarov inherited on the level of the Philippine Macedonians? No. But it was certainly not nearly nonexistant.
Pyotr the Great's reforms had laid the foundation nearly a century before and had succeeded in beating up not only the Ottomans and Tartar resistance, but also Sweden's Caroliners, previously the great military power in Northern Europe (admittedly after a long and jagged road, but it worked)
And in the decades since it might have slipped but it didn't slip that badly. It fought very respectably against the Prussians under the best soldier-king they ever had and one of the era's great military geniuses, fighting him to a bloody (though somehwat unfavorable) draw at Zorndorf, playing the leading role in shattering him at Kunersdorf, and basically only not marching all the way to Berlin and conquering it because of a massive fluke inheritance at a dire point.
And Suvarov saw his first experience there so he doubtless was part of that.
I'm not saying it was Spectacular or that Suvarov did not massively improve it. He did. But the Russian Army was not the anachronistic mess that got swept away at Narva in 1700, it was a serious military contendor by centemporary standards and it had accomplished a fair bit. So I wouldn't denigrate the value of those Russian peasants as raw material.
Firstly, virtually every military commander in this era (and I'd argue in plenty of others and to some degree today) combined civil and military authorit, especially over the civilian populace. Now obviously not all of them were Kings or Emperors, but they could decide a lot on the ground.
Secondly: that can also be a disadvantage because you have to cover more ground and the like.than you can afford to. The Coalition and French forces both suffered this in Italy and Switzerland because of their officers pushing the locals *just* too far and getting driven out of a village or city by scythe wielding farmers or clubbing urban militia.
I certainly would say that Suvarov preformed his role in that very very well indeed, which is part of the reason why th e Swiss still revere him.
Conceded, but there are twofold things.
A: Especially in the era before wireless communications, there's only so much interference people hundreds of miles away can do. The logistics Suvarov had getting in touch with his own allies on the other side of the Alps meant that what interference Tsar Paul and Potemkin could do to him in the field was deeply limited.
B: The flipside of it is also that Alexander could not get any support from Macedonia proper once he marched past a certain point. He basically set the Macedonian government up to work without him for decades and then took his army and walked off the map. So while people back home could not really interfere with him (though some of the Greek subjects tried) he also couldn't exactly get reinforcement Phalangites dropped off to him at Persepolis.
Suvarov could on some level. Reinforcements and logistics were not good- and they had to march a long ways from the Tsardom across Habsburg territory to the war front- but they could come and he could recieve support from Habsburg forces. Without which he would not have been able to have a campaign.
(The battle of the Adda for instance was basically an Austrian battle commanded by Suvarov and aided by some Russian light cavalry.)
People tend to treat battles in this era as singular days or events, where two sides meet on t he field, kill each other until one side leaves. This has a lot of merit, but it tends to forget that the pitched battles were only pa rt of the picture. The real knockout blow from the Battle fo Waterloo- for instance- didn't happen at Waterloo but in the dozens upon dozens of miles leading South from it.
This was similar here, though the worse cavalry country made it harder.
`
While Korsakov was indeed the senior commander on site at Zurich, at the Coalition lost about 16-17 thousand men at it entirely, they lost another 12-20,000 in the weeks after, as Massena's pursuing infantry and cavalry bored down and Suvarov- coming in to try and reinforce Korsakov- basically ran headfirst into his routed formations. With the result that the French had a field day with both of them and Suvarov was sent running with what parts of the Coalition troops he could scrounge.
That's a defeat, no ifs or buts about it, both on a higher level because Suvarov was responsible for the Coalition armies (including Korsakov), and on the personal level because the French caught his troops up in the pursuit and beat him bloody before he and his juniors could organize enough of a fight to beat back the forward pursuit dozens of miles and thousands of casualties later..
And it is still a part of Suvarov's career that I see precious little examination done of, consideirng the "never lost a battle" claims (whereas people have rightfully analyzed the Battle of Nations and Aspen-Essling to death).
I agree, and the fact that Suvarov managed to do all this and extract his forces in a condition where he had lost Zurich, lost support of the countryside, and surrounded by an army in rout if not imminent threat of collapse is a sign of his genius and skill.
He and his men survived what would probably have done lesser commanders in.
But the fact that you still have him being driven to retreat after losing thousands and thousands of troops is not a victory, no matter how you look at it. It's just a matter of how mitigated the defeat was.
Likewise with the retreat from Russia for the Grand Armee.
Agreed, but the reason they got to Bagration and Rosenberg's troops was because the French had thoroughly gutted the troops that had been standing between them and those rear guards. And Bagration wasn't even successful against Molitor in the first attempt to evict him from the advanced positions.
These were probably the turning moments of the campaign which saved the Coalition troops from oblivion, turning the rout into a withdrawal, and all three commanders- Suvarov, Rosenberg, and Bagration- deserve massive accolades for it.
But let's not make this look easier than it was, or ignore the fact that by the time it had already gotten this far Suvarov's army itself was in d esperate shape, nevermind the troops from Zurich.
Which again, he had some responsibility for as the joint commander.
Indeed, and this is justly famous. Because it was a military masterstroke and a triumph of human endurance. It saved Suvarov and his army, and few people could have asked for better.
But again, let's not call this something it wasn't. Suvarov's troops got caught up in the fallout from the defeat at Zurich, were chased for miles and miles- and lost thousands of men- before they could muster enough troops to give the French a drubbing bad enough to get them to back the hell off.
Then they used that limited breathing space to make a desperate, emergency withdrawal across the Alps, hemorraging troops and precious supplies all the way across until they reached Austria.
This is the desperate action of an officer in charge of a cornered, defeated army doing the only really feasible action they see. That's impressive in many ways, but it's not something that we can call a victory, or something that the Game models.
Washington's withdrawal from Long Island is largely similar in my opinion, given that they were probably some of the most important manuevers both generals conducted, in the face of a far more numerous and relatively superior (though the Coalition troops were less inferior to the French than the Continental Army was to the Redcoats and German Auxillaries, obviouslly) force, and the monstrously difficult terrain.
But let's not call this a triumph in anything but survival, because it's Not. It is more of one than-say- the retreat from Russia the Grand Armee made. But it's still a disasterous situation to be in and one Suvarov only chose to resort to because of how his troops and allies had taken such a savage tactical drugging.
Pointsof order: For one, the "Third of his army" bit is probably from the figures we have After the pursuit from Zurich died down, and thus was already several Thousand people short from its' proper/full strength. So the overall proportion of losses was almost certainly higher.
Secondly: he had already more than earned the admiration- grudging or otherwise- of Europe and beyond. His victories over the French were reported across the Atlantic, and he was given medals and honors such as the title "Prince of Italy" well before the Swiss mess.
So I'd argue this is selling him short in some ways.
Part of this was because- for one-those armies were already ravaged and badly in need of resupply and reinforcement. And another part was simply that by the time that could happen, the war had gone South. By the time Suvarov and his troops had exited Winter Quarters and *begun* the process of withdrawing further, the Dutch campaign had ended in resounding defeat, Napoleon was back in Europe and in power in Paris getting ready to head back out to North Italy, and Moreau was North of the Alps. And both would start pushing the Habsburgs in a way they simply couldn't deal with.
Even in the Best cases it would have taken time to recover from this, and Paul- for better or more likely worse- just decided to throw in the towel and bring the devastated remnants from Suvarov's Army and the Dutch campaign home. I don't personally think it was a wise move (and his snubbing of Suvarov was heinous), but I can't say I don't understand why.
And to each their own, like I said I can understand that opinion and considered it myself.
And how many of those Have you read?
Considering (as you can see in the edit) you basically took the vast majority of your material in this thread from a single, provably fallible source I'm not impressed.
I would certainly rank him as Up there- and probably one of the best generals of his era- but for one of All Time I'm not so sure.
Again , he had a number of glass jaws that would probably Not have done him any favors in a straight up match with Napoleon or even the post-Bolougne Grand Armee, the idea that he was undefeated in battle is at best dubious and probably not true, and his most famous campaign was also the one that ended on the worst note and helped convince Paul and the like that the war could not be won.
And there's the fact that by 1800 he was quite old and incredibly worn out from the rigors of the war. With all of these factors together, I believe his rating is fair.
Especially since even with the starting Russian Army (based on my guesses) he should be able to *evicerate* the Turks (like he did), rout a pure Duchy of Warsaw army even though they were the benficiaries of significant improvement over the Koskuizko troops, and give most French commanders at Minimum a run for their money.
That I think works.
Board games- like everything else- are at best abstractions and some careful balancing and sausage making. Like this one was.
And I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess it probably Doesn't deal with him in 1800, after the problems with the Winter Retreat.
I hate to tell you this, but as an EU gamer myself, it Covers Hundreds of Years and has never handled the tactical side of things that well. It doesn't exactly model things like leader burnout or the ability to retreat skillfully (which you dedicated a full half of your post to).
So at best this is an imperfect comparison.r
No, YOU are.
If you seriously think nobody believes Suvarov lost a battle or that he was the equal or greater of Alexander the Great (who by the way faced complications Suvarov Never had to face which you overlookd), you haven't done a whole lot of research. Heck, the minor details you messed up (like the idea that the march across the Alps was what gained him the grudging respect he had actually earned months ago by that point) show it.
In general people who think there is no way but theirs tend to.
But if you don't believe me, ask the SWISS. Who probably revere him more than anyone save his fellow Russians, who scrupulously tracked the movements of him and h is army, and practically made folk locations out of them.
And yet they will ALSO point you to the mass graves of the troops he left behind, including those that Littered the miles from Zurich to Altdorf before they could muster enough of a response to stop them, to say nothing of where he had to ditch his heavy gear and hemorrage troops marching across the Alps.
Like it or not, you don't get to ignore that I have considered the evidence and some of the primary sources to draw my own conclusions.
And you also don't get to ignore that the most likely simulation of his retreat from Switzerland would have been a battle he commanded against Massena (with Korsakov as a subordinate officer) where he retreated from the battle in light of losses, and suffered a serious but not fatal drubbing in the pursuit.
(Which brings me to another point: for all the time you waxed poetic in this, did you ever- even Once- ask yourself "Ok, what would these events look like modelled by this game's engine, with its' quirks and limitations?"
Go on, answer it. And if you have one, give it.)
You are welcome to your opinion;
But if you want to actually convince someone, you're going to have to do a LOT better than reciting "common knowledge" (which again, flubs basic facts like how he hd the respect of Europe well Before the Alps crossing).
And you certainly are going to have to do better than uncritically citing a bunch of other game engines (like EU of all things) and acting rude, condescending, and underinformed,
Which is how your last post is.
To paraphrase Phillip K D-ick, the Truth is that which- when you stop believing in it- continues to exist.
And you can't change the fact that while he was accomplished in many ways, charging a grand battery with bayonets would have been a poor match (and certainly is in this game's system) or that a costly retreat costing most of your heavy equipment and army is not a great success.
Edit: Well, whaddya know?
http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/biographies/c_suvorov.html
It looks like "Suvarov" took most of his analysis of the end of the Swiss Campaign from basically one source, the one above. Quite literally doing it word for word, without bothering to cite it. Because apparently for all that he disagreed with me on, he *couldn't actually come up with a counter argument* on how I was wrong on his own short of stealing someone else's rote.
Couldn't even take the intelligence he gleamed from this and otehr people and put it in his own words!
I hate to tell you this, but One Source (especially one that gets a few details wrong) is NOT the equal of a more in depth study, or checking out different sources.
In the merits of the site, I'd say it's... Ok. Basic stuff, decent for an introduction and colorful enough to give a decent grasp of Suvarov's character and accomplishments. But really, Really, REALLY damn inadequate for a final judgement.
It's why I didn't resort to copy/pasting wholesale from some website or single source. I wrote up all my thoughts on th is thread- right or wrong- BY MYSELF. From My conclusions and thoughts about different sources.
I didn't have to plagerise for the content of my posts, or appeal to vague (or in the game of games questionable) authority.
If you're trying to bludgeon me to silence with a single source you claim is "everyone'"s opinion, you've already lost.
Seriously? Perhaps you need to go back and read your holier than thou post before accusing someone else of this. How many times in this post have you tried to be condescending and rude? Is your life really this shallow?
The reason I cited one source, was because it concisely summariazed everyting I wanted to say, and I did not have the time to sit here and write a dissertation, just to make myself appear smarter than everyone else, as you have so elaborately tried to do yourself. I can promise you, I have read more on that era than you will ever hope to., including taking college courses in it. I realize you probably have nothing better to do than attack people and be condescending and rude, just to make yourself seem smarter than everyone else, but I have a life.
Oh, and I find it funny that you are trying to look smarter and more superior than everyone else(however, I have never heard the word "underinformed", perhaps you meant uninformed?), yet you mispelled the name of the very person we are discusing, EVERY single time you typed his name. Good job.
Feel free to spend another good portion of your time responding to this post as well. I am sure you cannot wait to show how superior you are by attacking me again, and try to prove how intellectually superior you are over me and everyone else, and maybe one or two people that read your tripe might be impressed, however, I, most assuredly, am not. Either way, I could care less, and I can promise you, I will never respond to, nor take the time to ever read anything you have to say again.