School of War - Ep 243: Alexander Mikaberidze on Russia’s Failed Battle with Turkey… in 1809

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

Alexander Mikaberidze, Professor of History at LSU Shreveport and contributor to An Unavoidable Evil: Siege Warfare in the Age of Napoleon (From Reason to Revolution 1721-1815),  joins the show to discuss the siege of Brăila and the lessons of the Russo-Ottoman War of 1806-1812. ▪️ Times 00:00 The Shifting Balance of Power in the Black Sea 02:00 Siege Warfare in the Age of Napoleon 04:09 Decisive Battles vs. Positional Warfare 08:30 The Evolution of Strategy: 18th to 19th Century 14:16 The Debate on Siege Tactics in the Russian Military 21:27 Kutuzov's Strategic Evolution 25:26 Geopolitical Context: Russia and the Ottoman Empire's Rivalry 31:31 The Siege of Brăila: A Military Catastrophe 38:39 The Cost of War: Casualties and Consequences 50:40 Lessons in Military Culture: Accountability and Adaptation Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

Around the rim of the Black Sea today, Turkish power seems to be waxing as Russia slugs away in difficult positional warfare in Ukraine. But 200 years ago, amidst the Napoleonic wars, the balance of power was different, with Ottoman power in freefall and the Russian Empire relentlessly on the march. One of my favorite repeat guests, the Napoleonic scholar, Alexander Micah Britsy, joins today to discuss a fascinating and brutal episode from those old bloodlettings along the Danube River. Let's get into it. It is a prescription for war.

The warkey invasion of Hawaii. December 7, 1941, a date which will live in history. The bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a state. We continue to face the great situation in the grand. We'll fight on the beaches. It's a fight on the landing ground. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets which will never surrender. Hi, I'm Aaron McLean. Thanks for joining School of War. I am delighted to welcome back to the show today, Alexander Micah Beridzi. He is the newly appointed Boyd Professor of History. He's also the Ruth Harron-Nole and Dowell and Dahl-Chair at Louisiana State University Shreveport. He's the author of Kutuzov, A Life in War and Peace, which we've discussed in one of my actually favorite episodes of School of War so far. He's also the author of The Napoleonic War is a global history. He's an editor in the Cambridge University, the Cambridge History, the Cambridge History.

of the Napoleonic Wars. He's a friend of School of War at this point, whether he wants to be or not. He's been on the show enough times. Alex, thank you so much for coming back. Thank you so much. No, I am a good friend. So, you know, I appreciate the opportunity to come back and to discuss what I think is a very interesting topic. Well, where else can you come, really, to talk about what we're going to talk about today, which is the Siege of Briaa, which, you know, this is you contributed, but that was a very interesting chapter in a volume called, an unavoidable evil siege warfare in the age of Napoleon on this particular battle, which was a battle that occurred in the in the Russo-O Ottoman War of 1806 to, I guess, 1812.

Not the most studied, I would say, subject, even for those interested in military history, maybe even for those interested in Napoleonic wars, but there were a couple things about it that caught my eye and that seemed to make it worthy of discussion in addition to the fact that I just like anything you write. one was, you know, some would argue with what's going on in Ukraine, which of course is not very far from the battle you're talking about, that we are back in an era of positional warfare, back in an era where the defense has an advantage over the offense. And so that seems to me to suggest that we should pay more attention to sieges and siege craft and see what principles we can apply from the history of that kind of warfare to the present. And then the other is Russo, Ottoman, Russian, Turkish, whatever you want to call it, competition, warfare, Marchlands, Russian-Turkish frenemieship is alive and well in 2025. And so that also seems like a worthy subject. How did you, I mean, did this subject come out of your study of Kutuzov?

How did you become interested in this particular siege? I've been studying Russo-Ottoman rivalry for quite some time, but several years ago, a group of historians who ultimately contributed to this volume, I think we kind of had a conversation about the fact that when we talk about, the age of revolution or kind of age of Napoleon. Usually in popular imagination, it's associated with the decisive battles, right? And kind of the quest for decisive battle, you know, Austerlitz, Yenna, Auerstadt, and so on, your Leipzig, Waterloo.

But I think that narrative obscures the fact that a lot of the warfare that was taking place at this time was actually traditional, kind of conventional and especially siege or a fortress-oriented. And this is especially true when we get. to, let's say, areas like Napoleon's struggle in Peninsula in Spain and Portugal, or especially if we look to the east. And so there, the decisive battles are important, of course, because they can achieve a breakthrough.

But what do you do in a situation like on the Danube where the Russians are confronted with a fortified line, kind of fortresses that they have to deal with first before eventually seeking a decisive engagement with an enemy? but especially with an enemy that learns from the past mistakes and avoids a decisive, kind of giving you what you want, which is a decisive battle. And for me, it was an interesting parallel because one of the things that I tried to point out in this chapter is going to want if's possibility. Because we know, for example, that at the end of the 18th century, there was a decision by the Austrians to demilitarize part of what is today, Belgium. what back then was Austrian Netherlands.

And part of the demilitarization was to dismantle most of the fortresses, which were usually historically quite expensive to maintain. And that meant, and all of this is taking place in 1780s. So that meant that when the Revolutionary War began just a decade later, the French armies could, quote unquote, easily cross the Rhine and invade the low countries and establish their presence there. Well, in the Danube region, in what is today, Romania, Bulgaria, part of Serbia.

The Ottomans did not demilitarize. In fact, they maintained a series of major fortresses. And so the dynamic of war, therefore, is very different when you look from the French point of view, which is more mobile and in search of that decisive battle, as opposed to from the Russian perspective where that opportunity is lacking, you still have to confront a conventional siege in which you need to take the positions or kind of focal points of the enemy power. And so the book came out of that realization

that we are actually lacking a good study that would focus on the nature and the craft of siege warfare in the age of Napoleon. And so me and my good friends like Eugene McEncalf who is a great historian of the Russian military enlightenment or Beatrice de Graf from the University of Utrecht who actually focused, for example, on kind of using fortresses in the wake of Napoleon's defeat as a way of constraining France,

or my good friends, Andrew Banford, Joshua Provence, who kind of touched up on different aspects of city warfare. We put together this volume as a way of encouraging others to dig deeper and go beyond the traditional narrative of the Napoleonic Wars. Yeah, I don't want to get us too off track from your chapter, but I kind of wanted to look up the author of the chapter on the Wellington system, the post-Napolionic Wars fortresses in Europe because I maintain a mild curiosity about how an offshore power maintains security posture on the Eurasian landmass after a major conflict. I would encourage you to get in touch with Beatrice de Grau. She's an amazing speaker and an equally great historian.

And she's written a fascinating study on the developing of the new kind of collection. security system in the wake of Napoleon. And Wellington's lines, as Wellington's barriers sometimes referred to, was part of that realization that we need something new to constrain the future aggrandizement of France. I am having Andrew Lambert on the show here soon. We've got him booked for just a couple weeks from now on a related, sort of broader take, but related subject of post-Napolianic order from the British perspective and what it means for Americans today.

Well, let me ask you a really broad question. And you sort of already addressed it, but I just, I want to put it out there explicitly. And it's probably not only broad, but fuzzy. And you'll, you'll help give it clarity. This, this stereotype of the 18th century being very fortress-oriented, positional, the early 19th century, Napoleon in particular being mobile about decision, et cetera, maneuver. You know, I guess when I've heard versions of this story told, it really, it has a lot to do with Napoleon himself and his own stylistic preferences and strategic. vision and it's often portrayed almost as a kind of strategic revolution from what you're saying

and from what you're the whole premise of the book is that it's it's it's not quite as clear a break it's it's not like sieges and fortresses go away in the 19th century but is it is to what extent was it a kind of revolution in thinking about warfare the way something you said a few minutes ago you know that it just sort of happened that napoleon didn't face a line of fortresses so he didn't have to be as concerned with it as he went east you know, is it really mostly accidental or is it due to a new Napoleon-driven-driven style of warfare? Just help us understand a little bit better to what extent the evolution from 18th to 19th century was actually real in this regard. Well, in many ways, we can talk about kind of two, like a parallel tracks of warfare in the age of Napoleon or revolution.

Napoleon is unique in the fact that he focuses on the grand strategy, on operational, to a far greater degree than many of his contemporaries did. And certainly he had experience of fighting in the fortified areas like in northern Italy, where in 1796, 1797, he's confronted with an enemy, Austrians, who are entrenched in a so-called quadrilateral area in north-central. central Italy. But I think one of the unique things about Napoleon is that unlike many other contemporaries, he's not as concerned about fortresses and he's more concerned about operationally securing an advantage that will destroy the enemy force in the field and then will force the

fortresses to fall. But of course, in the case of quadrilateral in northern Italy, he's facing a very unique set of circumstances is that those fortresses are largely isolated from the power that's supposed to sustain them. And that's Austrian Empire who is forced to provide the logistical support for fortresses across the Alps. That is dramatically different from, let's say, situation in the Danube where the fortresses are in a flatter terrain, so to speak, and they are directly adjacent to the power that sustains them, that is Ottoman Empire. And therefore, the Russians armies who are operating in the region starting in 1806 do not have the luxury of ignoring the fortresses because they do pose significant threat. And therefore, commanders, the Russian commanders, until about 1810, 1811, in fact, a field compelled to focus a lot of resources on fighting what we now would call a conventional warfare, and that is positional warfare focused on taking these fortified positions.

And only in 18, 10, 1811, the men that you alluded to, you know, the great protagonist of one of my last books, Jerome Michael Kutuzov finally realizes that one way, probably, oh, the only way, given circumstances of bringing the war to an end is to focus on the field army of an enemy and find a way of actually enticing, kind of luring, or baiting the enemy into attacking him because otherwise the Ottomans were simply refusing to give him what he wanted. And that's actually, again, it's an operational, strategically differing situation from Napoleon where the Napoleon's opponents

in 1805, 1806, 1807 are willing to give him the battle, which result in Ulm, in Austerlis, in Jena Aorstadt, in Ailal. And of course, later on, Napoleon is confronted with exactly the same situation where what is he supposed to do? do with an enemy that is unwilling to confront him, like in 1812 in Russia, where he is, of course, will be defeated through this kind of asymmetrical, you know, strategic decision that the Russians employ against him. And opposite that, if we look at the French experiences in the peninsula,

well, there, actually, there is a great focus on the siege warfare. Napoleon is not present, but his marshals are there. And of course, anyone familiar with the peninsula war knows that a lot of the fighting was taking place around the cities and fortresses such as Saragossa and the brutal sieges and that it took the French to seize the city or the great sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos and so on and so on. And so the peninsula is again a little bit different from the rest of the Napoleonic wars because the very nature of the war in the peninsula was quite different. I know the peninsular war mostly through Bernard Cornwell's sharps, novels, which I read. I think I devoured them all at something like the age of 14.

And it's been a while since I got, so it's not the most serious response, but I recommend it, especially to recommend it to young people. Absolutely. Well, one of the interesting things about what you document in your chapter is there's debate amongst the Russian officers, and indeed the Russian monarch about what to do here and about how to deal with these fortresses. And I guess the czar, Alexander, is sort of on the take a page from Napoleon and the West. And the way, side of things. What are you people doing, wasting, you know, blood and treasure, though I guess he's really not, your big point is he's, none of the Russians are all that concerned with the blood, with the Russian blood. But nevertheless, why are you wasting time and money dealing with

these fortresses? You should be, you know, penetrating deep into Ottoman territory and putting things at risk and compelling them to take us seriously. Meanwhile, you have some of his generals pushing back. It just characterize that, that debate in a little bit more detail for us. Why is Alexander where he is and, you know, is there anything to what he's saying? And actually, that's one of the fascinating aspects to looking at this case studies, is that it reveals a lot about the inner culture of a military and the inner dynamics, both of the officer corps and different approaches to pursuing the military objectives, but more broadly, also the relationship between, you know, let's say, quote-unquote,

civil military, right, dynamic. In this case, the relationship between the emperor who says the grand strategy and expects quick results and the military that is expected to deliver them and yet realizes the situation on the ground is radically different from the one that emperor takes for granted. And so in the Russian case, when the war began in 1806, it's a continuation of a much longer struggle between the Russian Empire and the Ottomans that you've mentioned in the beginning of this episode. They fought on several previous occasions, the most important of them being in 17

64 to 1774 and then again 1787 and 79-1. And during those previous campaigns, you have a mix, actually, kind of mixture of decisive fill engagements, but also siege warfare. But each time, whenever the Russians triumph in open battles, their campaign momentum ultimately bogged down against the defensive line of the Ottoman fortresses. And that's a pattern that is repeated from one conflict to another. In fact, if we look at, As I point out in the chapter, if we look at the major development, the major lang engagements of the Russo-Odoman War, two-thirds of them center on sieges

because of Russian inability to gain, even after gaining decisive battle victories, kind of proper battle victories, they can't translate tactical success into the grand strategic success. And so here, when the war begins in 1806, Alexander's actually goals are similar to what his grandmother had or previous Russian rulerset, and that is to expand Russian interests into the Danubean

principalities, or what is today, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, which controlled them. Now, to do that, they have to physically control the land. And here, you have what we've talked about, kind of two options, either destroy the enemy, army in the field, or take the fortresses. Now, taking fortress, of course, is a much more expensive and protracted affair. And so here, we have two approaches to how can we take a fortress. One is a direct assault. And so the direct assault or escalate, as sometimes was referred to, was in many ways highly celebrated in the 18th century, right? The culmination of the military ethos that we've came, we kind of stormed the fortress, and we took it by brute force. But of course,

it's exceptionally costly at the same time. And the most famous example of this, certainly from the Russian military experience is the storming of the Great Ottoman Fortress of Ismail in the fall of 1790 by the most successful Russian general Alexander Savorov. And his actions as Ismail, where he comes, plans, and takes the fortress in less than a week, it became kind of the ultimate example of how to do it. And especially because Ismail was strategically critical to controlling the lower Danube. And so to me, what Ismail does is similar to what Napoleon's Austerlitz did for the quest of decisive battle. Just like in the wake of Austroletes, both Napoleon and his opponents are seeking that decisive engagement where they can knock out the enemy with one blow. So after the fall of Ismail, within the Russian military, there is this ethos that if Sovorov did it, we should be doing the same thing. But it's, of course, very difficult to replicate both the individual skills, really the military genius of Sovorov, but also the particular circumstances that led to the fall of Ismail in 1790.

And then the result of it, this quest for a direct assault will create enormous costs in human. and material resources for the Russian army. As opposed to this, right, opposed to this is kind of methodical reduction blockade, which unlike the assault that can be resolved in a day, takes weeks and months. And the most famous example of this approach in the Russian military history would be Prince Gregory Potomskine's great siege of Ochaakov, another Ottoman fortress in what is today Crimea, in 1788, which lasted. weeks, weeks and weeks,

and involved a lot of blockading, bombardment, kind of repelling the sores, and so on and so on. And so here you have two opposite kind of approaches. And in the wake of the 1788, 1790 events, all the Russian officers are forced to choose.

Which way do you go? Do you take Savorov's approach, quick resolution but costly, or Pachonkins, slower, but more sure reduction of the ornamented folders. And each of these choices have pros and cons. And in this campaign that I've discussed in 18, or 6, 18, 12, we see both of these approaches tried with varying degree of

success. And in the case study, I pointed out that Savoro's example was so influential that most officers wanted to be like Suvorov, and yet none of them was able to achieve that level of success, causing enormous casualties in the Russian army. Well, Kutuzov was there in 1790. Was he not? But his attitude, actually, Briela, in the account you're focusing on, is quite different. He's not so eager to imitate Zubov. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Kutuzov is a fascinating individual and military commander, just to give a listener a broader context of him. He is probably one of the most famous Russian military commanders, especially because he became the great hero of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, and so he features very prominently in the novel, but also because ultimately, you know, he contributes to Napoleon's defeat in 1812, and even though he didn't see long, you know, he didn't live long enough to see the results of his victory because he died in 1813, still, he understood that the decisive blow to the French Empire was delivered essentially under his leadership. He is a Russian nobleman, comes from

a very dis-esteem old Russian noble family, was lucky to study that the good military school specialized in engineering and artillery, and then spent much of his career actually fighting the Ottoman Turks. So he was serving on the field marshal Peter Riemanns, one of the most talented military commanders of the 18th century in 1960s and 1770s. Then he served under Suvoro of Israel.

Suvara famously says that Kutuzzo was on my left flank, but he was my right hand. because of decisive role that he played in the capture of the fortress. But you see evolution of this man, right? This is a man who spent more than four decades in the Russian service, and you see him learning as he goes along. And by the time he gets to 1809, when the siege of Briolet takes place, he realizes that the siege is the way, at least,

his immediate superior commander, Field Marshal, Alexander Rosarovsky, wants to do it, an immediate assault and seizing the cap of the foreclos. on the fly, as Brozorovsky says, that this is actually counterproductive. And Kutuzov wants a more methodical kind of approach, focused more on operationally enticing the ornaments into fighting a battle that will ultimately result in the fall of the fortress rather than risking the lives of the Russian soldiers in climbing those walls. And at this time, in 1809, he will be unable to convince his superiors to listen to him. And unwillingly, in many ways, he's drawn into the siege that will claim thousands of losses. But ultimately, I think the precious lesson that he learns from Brila is to avoid those protracted sieges, to avoid the costly assaults.

And so two years later, when he is a commander of the Russian army, facing the Ottomans. He devises a brilliant operational plan that results in destruction of the Ottoman Field Army and the fall of the fortresses that the Russians spend almost six years trying to capture through the wrecked assaults. And so here, I think the lesson is that this stereotype of Russian army failing to learn from these experiences or to adjust is certainly not true. Individuals like Kutuzov and many others, show the ability of the Russian army to adjust, to improve, to learn on its mistakes in a short period of time and then act upon them.

Those do want to know more about Kutuzov really should go back and listen to our episode on him as our primary subject. I can't remember off the top I had which episode it was, but it really is one of my favorites, mostly because we spent a good chunk of time debating Tolstoy's depiction of Kutuzov, which because, as most of my knowledge about the peninsula war comes from Bernard Cornwell. So before reading your biography, so most of my knowledge about Kutuzov and the Russian military and the Napoleonic era comes from Tolstoy, which, and I only half joke when I say this, there are worse ways to learn military history.

It's a better way, but there are definitely worse ways. Let me ask you one more broad framing question before we get to the siege itself. Talk a bit about why Russia and the Ottoman Empire are having this series of wars and the sort of, you know, I could speculate that in 2025, we're kind of looking at a bit of a rising Turkey and a declining Russia. The reverse seems to have been the case as the 18th gave way to the 19th century. Just give us the broader geopolitical context of all this fighting. Yeah, I think you hit it on the head there, to use the Thucydian trap, I guess, the declining power of the Ottoman Empire in the late 18th century and the rising power of the Russian Empire.

Because at the beginning of the century, at the beginning of 18th century, this decline of the Ottoman Empire is not as pronounced. In fact, in 1710, 1711, the Ottomans had an almost perfect opportunity to deliver a major blow to the Russians when they defeated Peter the Great and during the so-called Prut campaign and, effectively, encircled them. What could have but wonder of what could have happened if the Ottomans were living? a little more stringent in 1711 and didn't let Peter leave the encirclement as easily. I think history might have been quite, quite different. But it was, right? By 1750s, the Ottomans still are capable of keeping parity with the Russians. And it is only in the wake of really seven years' war and the experiences the Russian army gains

and improvements that really accomplishes. And I would argue the fact that you have a generation of the Russian officers, like Riemannso, like Sovorov, like Salkykoche, and. and others who went through this cauldron of the Seven Years' War that were then employed against the Turks and delivered remarkable successes. Romance of is achieving triumphant victories over the Ottomans in late 1760s,

especially early 1770s. And of course, the struggle is economic, it's political, it's geopolitical, it's the vision of the Russian Empire extending into the Ottoman domains in the what is to do in geographical Balkan Peninsula and especially towards the end of the century

we can certainly talk about the grand strategy of the Russian Empire seeking the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire pursuing the quote unquote the Greek project of creating kind of semi-sovereign states on the remnants of the Ottoman domain

and using them as proxious for their own interests. So this is a very fascinating process, which is not just bilateral. It's not just about the Russians and the Ottomans, but of course, both sides are trying to bring their respective allies. So the Ottomans rely on French support to a large degree, and that's true during the Napoleonic wars. And the Russians, for a very long time, had a cooperative, a collaborative approach to the struggle against the Ottomans with the Austrians. But ultimately, especially in 1806 and 1812, The conflict show us that when there are no allies involved,

so there are no other size involved, and Russians can take on the Ottomans one-on-one directly, then here you see the disparity between a premier Western power whose forces have gained experience in fighting in Europe and the Ottoman forces that are struggling to maintain the parity with them. And so this way, that is one of the reasons, reasons why in 1806, 1812, we have very few decisive land engagement, decisive battles, because the Ottomans understand from previous campaigns that in an open battle, they will not be

able to defeat the Russians unless they have a several times, a larger, numerically larger force. And therefore, they fight the Russians in a very asymmetrical, one would say, way, relying on the fortress, relying on raiding, relying on targeting Russian supplies. and in waging protractic war of attrition, and hoping that at a certain point, either the changing international circumstances like the growing conflict between Russia and France or the sheer exhaustion will force the Russians to compromise.

And what is fascinating to me is that ultimately the Ottomans, in many ways, came out of this war better than they could have hoped or because of this approach. At the height of this conflict in 1810, 1811, Russians occupy all of what is Moldavia, of Romania, almost all of Romania, parts of Serbia and parts of Bulgaria. But in 1812, when they forced to compromise with Ottoman Empire, they have to give up all of it except for a small sliver of land called Bessarabia.

So the Ottoman approach on grand strategy level actually pays off because they were able to fight this long, kind of long-term conflict on their own terms. So let's talk about Briola, which of course, I say which of course, like I didn't and have to look it up on a map when I first turned to your chapter, which of course is located sort of close to the triple contact point of what is today, Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine. So very relevant, actually, military geography, even today. Anyone interested in the security of Eastern Europe has to keep an eye on this neighborhood, you know, for reasons we could discuss, but which are mostly self-evident. And talk about, well, talk about how it goes so

wrong? You know, you have this successful storming in 1790, which sets the standard. We march up on the gates of Briola. The decision is made to, I guess you could say, invest the fortress as opposed to bypass it. What goes so wrong? Why is it all a giant mess? So I think first, maybe to draw a kind an imaginary map for the listeners, just imagine the Danube River, right? One of the, well, it is the largest river in Europe and certainly a massive military obstacle for anyone seeking to invade the Ottoman Empire from the north. So in order to cross the river, you need to have crucial points on the river, especially the crossing points under your control. And there are several fortresses on the Danube River that the Russians historically wanted to control. And if you kind

of trace the Danube, or sail upstream from the Black Sea into the Danube River, you will first get to places like Tulchia, Ismail, Isakccia, these are all major fortresses. And then you get to Brila, which is on this loop that the Danube River is making on its way to the Black Sea. Because the Russians did stormed Israel in 1790, but ultimately they had to restore it. So in 1806 or in 1809, Israel and many of these fortresses aren't again under the Ottoman control. And that creates problems for the Russians logistically. One of the consistent themes of this war is, sure, if Russians really put their minds to it, they can cross the Danube somewhere else.

The problem is supplying your army across the river in the region that is not necessarily capable of sustaining an army of 70, 80,000 strong. And so for that, you need to have permanent connections between the northern and the southern sides of the banks of the Danube River. And that's why Russians are so keen to seize one of these fortresses. So they have a permanent crossing. And in 1809, and the second kind of context that we need to set for the listeners is what's happening in Europe. Well, in 1809, we have the so-called War of the Fifth Coalition, right?

So this is yet another coalition form to fight Napoleon. Russia is not part of it, or let me kind of put it, it participates in it, but actually on the French side and fights its old ally of Austria. But this is a highly unpopular decision by Emperor Alexander to support Napoleon. And most of the army, and especially officer corps, actually doesn't want to help the French. They want to fight the French. And so what Alexander does is he essentially sends those dissatisfied military officers down to the Danube to fight. And that includes field marshal Alexander Porzorovsky, a famous, prominent Russian commander. I have served in the seven years war, and now he's reached this position of field marshal.

He's not happy about the rapprochamon between France and Russia. He would like to see France defeated. And so Alexander simply gives him this job of fighting Turks. But Prozoroski doesn't want to be in the Daniel, because for him, this is like a second-rate theater. It's like an exile. And what he wants is a quick result. He gets in, gets a victory, right?

puts the flag up and then goes back to the imperial capital. And that's why when he arrives in the summer of 89, he insists on quick results. And the quick results can only be delivered through a direct assault. So you need to storm the fortress. The fortress itself of Brila consists of two fortifications. The citadel itself, which is this inner core of the fortress. And in Bryla's case, it's shaped like a pentagon,

or actually originally built around the Orthodox monastery. It's been recently renovated by the ornaments, and it's well garrisoned, has 35-foot-tall bastions, so quite sizable. And then outside this citadel, you have a much larger outer defense, what the Russians call retrenchment. And this retrenchment is a secondary kind of line of defense, and it consists of earth ramparts, kind of massive, earthworks that have their own kind of five bastions.

And the Ottomans have enough troops to defend the citadel. But if they try to defend the outer earthwork, they will be kind of too thinly stretched. And so they try to play this game where they protect the outer defenses, but they really don't intend on keeping them protected. And so when Prozoroski's army of about 35,000 men arrives at Briola, But Prozorovsky convinced the Council of War and he tells him, I need quick results. And the quick result will be we're going to storm this fortress. Well, Poutuzov and others try to caution him, saying that we need to have due intelligence, right, reconnaissance done.

For example, the Poutuzov remembers, for example, from the Ismail experience that back in 1790, they misjudged the death of the moat that surrounded the fortress and that that caused significant. problems for the Russian troops as they were trying to storm the fortress. And so he cautions Prasurowski that we need to do proper reconnaissance, but that takes time. And Przorovki doesn't want that. And so he insists on storming the fortress right away. And what follows is really a tragic story of military mismanagement, of cover-up, and in some ways, callous disregard for the human lives that becomes kind of part of the Russian against military culture.

Because, as we'll see in probably in a second, despite one of the costliest assaults in this entire era, Prozharovky doesn't lose the job. He still keeps the command. In fact, his replacement later on does exactly the same thing with even worse results and still keeps the job. And so there is this kind of culture that is emerging that has absolute disregard for the costs of the war if the results are delivered. And the picture that you paint of the assault itself is just shambolic.

There's no clear, there's three columns, basically. There's no real coordination, no successful coordination, at least. Between them, the timing is off. And what would have been a sort of high stakes, low probability, highly risky situation, kind of under the best of circumstances, just rapidly descends into disaster. Just say a bit, if you would, about what it looked like as the sun came up, because they pick off in the night. What does it look like when the sun comes up the morning of the attempt? Yes.

And so we are essentially early May on May 2nd. And as the sun rises, you would have seen one of the most hard-garde drenching, probably, sites of this entire war. Because Phil Marsha Prasarovsky orders this assault without you deletka. religion is done. So as you pointed out, there are three columns that are assaulting the fortress, and yet the soldiers are told that they need about 15 foot deep, well, 15 foot tall letters, but ultimately when they actually go and onto the assault and carry these long letters, and they climb down into the mode. They discover that the moat is actually far deeper than what they were told about. And so imagine being stuck in the moat.

and being shot inside this deep trench by the enemy without you being able to climb either forward since your letter is too short or being able to climb back and retreat because your commanders are telling you you have to keep moving. And so the assault itself begins at 3 a.m., so well before the sunrise, because the Russians wanted to take advantage of the darkness. But here, as you mentioned, there is a problem of coordination, Moving in the dark, Russians failed to coordinate their movements. The leftmost column, which was led by General Wiesemski, and was actually intended to be a diversion,

made a mistake. In this darkness, they actually made a wrong turn. And instead of making a diversion and pretended to attack, they actually found themselves already in the moat and engaged in the insult. And then once this fighting began on the left flank, columns then moved forward into the assault, only to discover that the soldiers are stuck in the mode with the letters that were too short. And interestingly, many of the units, in fact, because these letters were so haphazardly made, that many of them got broken on the way to the mode. So even by the time they got, there is not enough even letters to climb out. And then I think

there is what we can call the problem of what I call lethal bureaucracy. And what I mean by this is when they sold began, the soldiers were not told to leave off their heavy knapsacks. Usually, right, do you want soldiers move light, especially if they're about to climb a ladder and up into the bastion. But in this case, this kind of absurd and lethal corporalism of the Russian military regulations made that the office were fearful of ordering the gear to be left behind because they didn't get a clear order from the field marshal himself. And so with the element of surprise gun and the attackers kind of hindered by their own gear, poor preparation, lack of letters and shortness of letters of the ones that they had, you have a calamity of a scale that really boggles the imagination.

The Ottom, the Turks waited the Russian leading troops to get close and then opened almost point-blank fire with canister and muskets. Many of these Russian soldiers were caught in this deep moat and were mercilessly murdered by the Turks. In fact, by the time sun rises, the Turks are throwing these hand grenades down in the moat because they know that they can't miss. And the Russians refuse to, the soldiers themselves are stuck. They can't move forward. No, can they fall back because the orders have not been given to retreat. And Prozorovsky, once the sun rises and he says, he says, sees this out of brutality, kind of the sheer carnage, he has almost the psychological background

because he doesn't know what to do. And there is a wonderful eyewitness to all of this. The future Phil Marshall himself, Ivan Paskiewicz, who will become a rather famous figure in the Russian military, after the Polyonic Wars. Well, Paskiewicz is a staff officer here. and he writes, I mean, he's furious about the experience he sees up firsthand. He's actually in the moat. He's wounded. He crawls in this ditch. He hears soldiers shouting, moaning, dying in this mud and being kind of killed by the enemy.

And so when he manages to get out and he goes and kind of tells reports back on all of these experiences to Prozoroski, He realizes that this field marshal and these immediate officers around them don't know what to do because they don't want to acknowledge that they have lost the battle. And yet they also realize that they can't commit more troops because they're going to be killed. And it is only by about 9.30 in the morning. So, son just barely is rising. That the order finally is called off. The retreat is as costly as the assault itself because as the Russians are trying to,

to regroup on the way back because they want to show a good kind of orally retreat. They have become perfect targets for the Ottoman artillery fire, this compact regimental units. And the total loss is well over 5,000 men who are lost in about less than six hours of fighting. And that's the third of the force that was committed to this assault. And in fact, this number is in undercount because, We know from the Ottoman side that the commander of the Brehler has sent 8,000 years to Constantinople as a way of, as a symbol of the Ottoman victory of the Russians. And that official number, the 5,000 number, about half of that is killed, right?

And half of that is wounded roughly. And it struck me looking at that, that half figure, the two and a half thousand, is almost exactly the number of Americans killed in Afghanistan over some 20 years of warfare. And this is the time 1809 when, I mean, I don't know the figure off the top of my head, but global population is, what, 10% of what it is today? Something like that. So it's a stunning number. It's a stunning figure. And I think what makes this even more, I think, poignant is that just a year later in 1810,

Prozorovsky's immediate successor, a young kind of impetious commander by the name of Nikolai Kaminsky, wants to repeat the same approach of taking the foreseen. on the fly. He targets the another great Ottoman fortress of Russo, also on the Daniel River. And here, the absolute numbers in kind of casualty, terms of casualties are even higher. Russians lose well over 8,000 men in just a few hours of fighting, and that includes about over 3,000 killed. So if you count these two sieges alone, right, so Brilene in 1809 and Rousse in 1810, collectively, Russians lost 20,000 men in. failed attempts to cease two fortresses. And that is the rate of casualties are simply unsustainable.

I want to ask a general question about what this says about Russian military culture in a second, but I don't want to leave Briola before reflecting on this amazing moment that you illustrate in the chapter of, you know, Prozorovsky coming to the realization that this operation is lost in breaking down into tears and Katoosov remarking to his face, I lost the person. I lost the petal of Austerlitz that decided the fate of Europe, and still I did not cry. I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, I, that's, I, I don't know what, I don't know what you want to say in response to that, but I didn't want this episode to pass without, I mean, I can, I, I, I was just stunning. Yeah. Well, you skipped on the, kind of the first part of that of, of, of

speech there, because he tells him, get, get grip with it, right? Can I. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You, you We were still in charge of the army. We still have a war to fight. You've got to come to senses. But I like that against the context that Kutuzov has, because he realizes what's going on, as almost as soon as the battle begins, he knows, well, I think the strategy of him on the human level

is that he knows that Austerlitz that the battle will be lost, and that discusses in the book where the day before he tries his best to avoid the battle, and he tells everyone, if we fight this battle, we're going to lose, and then kind of goes on and walk. watches the battle to be the Russian army being dismantled there. And then in 1809, he tells Prozoroski that this is not the wisest action to pursue of storming the fortress, and then he's being overruled and, again, watches the Russian army being dismantled by the Ottoman Turks. But he is, I think he has an ability to contextualize these individual experiences,

and he understands that Briela is a sad back. But it's a setback in a wider context of a war that Russia needs to win and go over the ornaments. And fortunately, maybe to his career or his life, it ultimately is Kutuzov, who will be turning the tide of war and compensating for the setbacks at Russe and Brea by achieving a brilliant victory at Slobozzea in 1811. But Kutuzov, though, he proves to be the exception, or at least among some exceptions, to the rule that you seem to be illustrating, which is of a military culture characterized by lack of initiative and creativity, lack of adaptation and learning, poor communication amongst the officer corps about what works and what doesn't, failures of accountability. You know, how much of this set of characteristics and maybe you want to edit it, how much can

we generalize from this. I mean, this is 200 years ago, but at the same time, I look at Russian military performance in the present. And, oh, and sorry, totally inhumane attitudes to work and loss of its own soldiers' lives, not even to speak of the lives of everyone else, but its own personnel, total lack of care. It strikes me as somewhat familiar. Oh, yeah, and that's, I think, one of the reasons I wanted to kind of point out in the conclusion, the complete disregard to the human costs of the battles or of the war. This reminds me of Nikolai Kamensky, the men that I just mentioned in leading that disastrous assault that cost 8,000 casualties at Russo.

And then after the battle, he actually issues the proclamation blaming the soldiers for not doing their best. And he says, soldiers, you are responsible for what he said back. And Prasoroski does the same thing, kind of shifting the blame on the soldiers saying that, well, you didn't fight hard enough. If we, if you had, we would have won. And now, unlike the, let's say, modern Russian military, they don't have the, you know, the penal battalions that are being sent into the breaches. But I think in both cases and in the parallel, there is no repercussions, so to speak, for the officers who have made these disastrous decisions.

Neither Prozorovsky, no commonsky are removed. The Prozoroski simply dies of all age shortly after the siege, and Kamensky gets sick and passes away, again, of quote-unquote natural causes, right? But there is no repercussions as such, because Alexander, the ultimate arbiter of it all, just like maybe Putin today, is willing to tolerate this high cost of the war as long as the ultimate objective is delivered. And it will be done in 10, 1811 by Kutuzov, but in many ways Kutuzov wins the war in direct opposition to what Alexander wants him to do. And this is where I think there is an interesting dynamic. Because if in previous years Alexander expected the generals and senior generals to follow his dictats and tell them, I need fast results and they try to deliver through disastrous assaults like this, Kutuzov has enough experience and more crucially has enough social capital. And this is where I think we get in the broader discussions where Kutuzza is the well-connected man.

He has powerful people at the court protecting him. That he can, in 1810, 1811, he can, I wouldn't say necessarily entirely ignore Alexander's demands, but he plays a slow game. He pursues his own strategy which ultimately wins the war. If he had listened to Alexander in 1811, the results would have been the same as in 18 or 9 or 1810. And so this is where individuals willing to learn from their previous experiences, willing to adjust and then more crucially kind of introduce this necessary changes in the army can make difference. And one of the interesting parallels that we can draw is the role of the logistics. The logistics today in the Russian army and logistics in the Russian army back in the Danubean Russo-O-O-Ottoman period were abysmal and suffering from crucial, countless, actually, problems, not the list of them being the corruption.

So as we have followed the news from Russia and the rest of some of the senior officers in the Russian army for embezzlement and mismanagement of the funds, well, Kutuzov had to actually confront the same challenges in the Dunyman, principal. let's just say, you know, 16, 1812. And so there is interesting parallels that can be drawn there. Yeah, all good points. I don't want to close without noting, though, that for as much as I agree with everything you just said, and, you know, I've got no love for the Russians. It's sort of easy for us to sit here and point out everything that's wrong with them because no one really likes them right now. But some of the things that you just identified, no military is really immune from. And we have a lot of American military officers listen to the show. The one on the list that really concerns me is

lack of proper feedback loops that generate real accountability. For what matters, that is to say, for ultimately what matters to a military professional, which is winning and losing. And that one, it seems to me, we can't be entirely complacent about in the American context. You're absolutely right. In fact, in the concluding part of the chapter, I try to encourage the next generation of historians to do, maybe for the Russian or the Austrian or the ornament or the French armies would,

Hugh Davis, a British historian, has done for the British Army, and that is to study the networks of knowledge and information sharing and see how these armies learned from the setbacks, how they analyze the challenges that they have confronted and whether successfully or not, because that is institutional adjustments that all militaries will face it throughout their existence. And I think this is where the lessons of the past, especially in culture, what what kind of culture, military culture, is need to be created in order to allow for that change, acceptance of the change,

willingness to listen to critical views that is so crucial in modern day for any military. Alexander Micaharizzi, Boyd Professor of History at Louisiana State University Shreveport. The book that this chapter appears in is called An Unavoidable Evil, Seage Warfare and the Age of Napoleon. Folks should also check out your biography of Kutuzov, your book on the Napoleonic Wars more broadly.

It's always a pleasure to have you on. Thank you so much for coming back. Thank you so much, Aaron. It was a pleasure. This is a nebulous media production. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.