Alexander Pavlovich Romanov was born in St. Petersburg on December 23, 1777, the son of Grand Duke Paul Petrovich and Maria Fedorovna. He received the standard royal education of the time, being greatly influenced by his Swiss tutor and Nikolai Saltykov, his military governor from whom he learned how to be a traditional Russian aristocrat. From his father he learned to love mankind but hold man in contempt.
When Alexander was seventeen he married the 14-year-old Princess Louise of Baden. It was a political match and he had not been consulted beforehand. When he was nineteen, his grandmother, Tsarina Catherine the Great, suffered a stroke and died. Alexander’s father, Paul, became Tsar but on March 11, 1801 he was assassinated. Alexander was now Tsar.
Tsar of Russia
Tsar Alexander I immediately set about attempting to bring about internal reforms. He retained many of the old ministers who had served his father but soon surrounded himself with his own young and idealistic friends. Unfortunately, the reforms they wanted to put in place were idealistic dreams that were impossible for the time. The lower classes of Russia were not ripe for liberty being too mired in the feudal serf system.
Allied Against Napoleon
Finding that his reforms at home were failing, Alexander turned his attention to the worldstage in an attempt to expand his powers. Allied with Great Britain, Austria, Naples, Sweden and a number of German states, Alexander sat in on plans to attack Napoleonic France and restore the 1789 borders. Napoleon responded by sending the bulk of his Grand Army into Bavaria where the Bavarian army was surrounded and defeated at the Battle of Ulm.
The Russo-Austria armies met Napoleon’s army on a field of the French emperor’s own choosing at Austerlitz on December 2, 1805. The result was Napoleon’s most brilliant tactical victory and catastrophic defeat for the allies and the disintegration of the Third Coalition.
In 1806 Napoleon conducted a lightning campaign against Prussia and after victories at Jena and Auerstadt knocked Prussia out of the war. The French then marched into Poland to confront the Russian army but the Russians withdrew across the Vistula and poor road conditions and cold weather forced the French to halt and reorganize. Late in January of the next year the Russians attacked the French and scored two indecisive victories. The Russians escaped but Napoleon caught up with them again at Freidland in June and scored an overwhelming victory.
Alexander met with Napoleon on a barge on the Nieman River at Tilsit where he was dazzled by the French emperor’s genius and generosity. Napoleon agreed not to intervene in Russian expansion plans in Finland and agreed to divide Europe into spheres of influence in exchange for Alexander’s participation in the Continental System against British trade. Alexander took advantage of Napoleon’s promise of a free hand in Finland and declared war on Sweden in 1808. By March of the next year he had wrested the province of Finland away from Sweden and absorbed the Finnish army into his own.
Invasion of Russia
Over the next few years, relations between France and Russia grew more strained as neither made great efforts to uphold their part of the Erfurt agreement. The situation came to a head in June 1812 when Napoleon invaded Russia. Resistance from the Russian armies was sporadic and it was not until September that General Kutuzov turned to fight the French at Borodino. The battle was indecisive and by mid-September the French occupied Moscow. Napoleon waited for Alexander to sue for peace. The Tsar refused. Defeated, the French army began its long retreat back across the frozen wastes of Russia.
Having driven the French from Russia, Alexander now began a campaign to destroy Napoleon. His campaigns in Germany and France in 1813 and 1814 resembled a crusade and when Napoleon finally abdicated he pressed for the complete destruction of the Napoleonic order.
The 48-year-old Tsar fell sick while in Taganrog in 1825 and died, his wife passed away almost a year later. With no surviving legitimate children, the succession passed to Alexander’s brother Nikolai. Rumor at the time said that Alexander was not dead but had fled the country to live as a hermit monk in Siberia. Whether that was true or not is debatable but when the Soviet government opened his tomb many years later it was found to be empty.
BibliographyStephen Pope – Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars – Facts on File –1999
Richard Warner – Napoleon’s Enemies – Osprey Publishing – 1977
Enzo Orlandi, ed. – The Life and Times of Napoleon – Curtis Books - 1967
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