Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration<!--see talk page--> (10 July 1765 – 24 September 1812) was a Russian general and prince of Georgian origin, prominent during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Bagration, a member of the Bagrationi dynasty, was born in Kizlyar. His father, Ivan (Ivane), served as an officer in the Imperial Russian Army, in which Bagration also enlisted in 1782. Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration began his military career serving in the Russo-Circassian War of 1763–1864. He later participated in a war against the Ottomans and the capture of Ochakov in 1788. Later, he helped suppress the Kościuszko Uprising of 1794 in Poland and capture Warsaw. During Russia's Italian and Swiss campaigns of 1799 against the French, he served with distinction under Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov.
In 1805, Russia joined the coalition against Napoleon. After the collapse of the Austrians at Ulm in October 1805, Bagration won praise for his successful defense in the Battle of Schöngrabern (November 1805) that allowed Russian forces to withdraw and unite with the main Russian army of Mikhail Kutuzov. In December 1805, the combined Russo-Austrian army suffered defeat at the Battle of Austerlitz, where Bagration commanded the allied right wing against the French under Jean Lannes. He commanded Russian troops in the Finnish War (1808–1809) against Sweden and in another war against the Turks (1806–1812) on the Danube.
During the French invasion of Russia in 1812, Bagration commanded one of two large Russian armies (Barclay de Tolly commanded the other) fighting a series of rear-guard actions. The Russians failed to stop the French advance at the Battle of Smolensk in August 1812. Barclay had proposed a scorched-earth retreat that the emperor Alexander I of Russia had approved, although Bagration preferred to confront the French in a major battle. Kutuzov succeeded Barclay as commander-in-chief but continued his policy until the Battle of Borodino () near Moscow. Bagration commanded the left wing around what became known as the Bagration flèches at Borodino, where he was mortally wounded; he died two weeks later. Originally buried at a local church, in 1839 he was reburied on the battlefield of Borodino.
Life
Bagration was born in 1765 to a prince of the Mukhrani branch of the Bagrationi dynasty, Colonel Prince Ivane Bagrationi, who was the eldest son of Prince Alexander, an illegitimate son of King Jesse of Kartli, which is now central Georgia. He studied Russian and German and was taught Persian, Turkish, Armenian, and Georgian by his father. However, unlike many other Russian aristocrats, he did not know French.
Pyotr joined the Imperial Russian Army in 1782, enlisting as a sergeant in the Kavsansk Rifles of the Astrakhan Infantry Regiment. His younger brother Roman joined the Chuguev Cossack regiment as a uryadnik (a Cossack NCO) at the age of thirteen in 1791. Both would go on to become generals of the Imperial Russian Army.
Bagration served for some years in the Russian-Circassian War. He participated in the Siege of Ochakov (1788). In 1792, he was commissioned as a captain and transferred to the Kiev Cavalry Regiment that year as a second Major, transferring as a full first Major to the Sofiiskii Carabineers on 15 May 1794. He served in the military campaign to suppress the Polish Kościuszko Uprising of 1794.
He received successive promotions to lieutenant-colonel (26 October 1794), to colonel (1798) and to major-general (1799). His merits were recognized by Suvorov, whom he accompanied in the Italian and Swiss campaigns of 1799, capturing the towns of Brescia and Bergamo (21 and 24 Apr) and having fought along the Adda River (on 26 Apr), near the Trebbia River (on 17–19 Jun), at the town of Novi (15 Aug), at the Gotthard Pass (24 Sep), in the Klön Valley (30 Sep to 1 Oct), near Glarus (1 Oct) and at Schwanden (5 Oct). From 1798 to 1799, he commanded the 6th Jaegers; from 1801 to 1802, he commanded the Jaegers of the Imperial Guard; then from 1802 to 1805, he served as GOC Jaeger Brigade.
He was the alleged lover of Emperor Paul's daughter Catherine. In 1800 Paul recognized the title of "Prince (Knyaz) Bagration" for Pyotr in Russia, and unexpectedly married him off to Countess Catherine Pavlovna Skavronskaya, the favourite niece of Grigory Potemkin and one of the Empress Maria's ladies-in-waiting. Bagration and Catherine had been casually involved, but the marriage was a failure. The young and lovely Catherine soon preferred travelling and, in 1805, fled to Vienna, where her salon and running affair with Prince Clemens von Metternich—who called her "the Naked Angel"—permitted her to serve as an important agent of Russian intelligence and diplomacy. Bagration was obliged by the emperor to claim their daughter, Marie-Clementine, as his own and to subsidize thousands of rubles of Catherine's debts. He had a reputation as a heavy gambler, as well, and was forced to sell estates to cover losses that rose as high as 80,000 roubles.
In the wars of 1805, Bagration's achievements appeared even more brilliant. When Napoleon ordered Murat to break an armistice he had just signed with Bagration, the general was able to successfully resist the repeated attacks of forces five times his own numbers under Murat and Lannes at Schöngrabern (16 November) near Hollabrunn. Though Bagration lost half of the men under his command, their stand protected the retreat of the main army under Kutuzov to Olmütz. When Kutuzov was overruled and forced into battle at Austerlitz (2 December), Bagration commanded the advance guard of the Prince Liechtenstein's column and defended the allied right against Lannes while the left attacked Napoleon's deliberately undefended right flank. He was promoted to lieutenant-general in 1805, and in 1807 fought bravely and obstinately at the battles of Eylau (7 February), Heilsberg (11 June), and Friedland (14 June).
He was successful as commander of both Russia's Finnish Campaign in 1808 and Turkish Campaign in 1809. In the former, he captured the Åland Islands by a daring march across the frozen Gulf of Finland. His rapid transfer to the distant Moldavian front against the Ottoman Empire has been seen as a reprimand for an alleged affair with the tsarevna Catherine, who was married off shortly thereafter. While there, he led the Russian army at Rassowa and Tataritza and was promoted to full general of infantry.
In 1812, Bagration commanded the Second Western Army. A few days before Napoleon's invasion on 24 June, he suggested to Alexander I a pre-emptive strike into the Duchy of Warsaw. Defeated at Mogilev (23 July), Bagration led his forces to join the 1st Army at Smolensk under Barclay de Tolly, to whom he ceded overall command of both armies on 2 August. Bagration led the left wing at the Battle of Borodino (7 September) where he constructed many flèches which, due to a shortage of engineer officers, were poorly built. During the battle, he received a mortal wound and later died from gangrene on 24 September, in the village of Simi, where his aunt resided.
It is said that, while wounded, Bagration kept giving orders to the troops without knowing that the Russian army was abandoning Moscow. When he finally heard the truth, Bagration was so shocked that he rapidly stood up, totally forgetting about his grave wound. Such an act was too much for his severely wounded body, and it quickly cost Bagration his life.
Napoleonic Wars
Battles of Hollabrunn and Austerlitz
In the course of the War of the Third Coalition, Napoleon's defeat of General Mack's Austrian army at Ulm on 19 October 1805 led Kutuzov to consider withdrawing and uniting his forces with reinforcements arriving at Brünn. Kutuzov ordered Bagration to guard Vienna with just a single regiment to stall a possible French assault. The French marshals Murat and Lannes made a false armistice claim to position themselves near the Danube at Vienna. When the guards were distracted, they rushed over the bridge to secure the town. Kutuzov was in a hurry to unite his army with the Russian troops commanded by Buxhoeveden, so he needed a diversion to delay the French advance. Bagration then took command of the Russian army's rearguard to do so. His combined Russo-Austrian force numbered less than 7,500 men facing a foe more than five times the size. Bagration took up a position 6 km north of Hollabrunn, on the hill north above the small town of Schöngrabern, and formed a huge line to trick the French into believing the entire Russian army stood before them. In fact, Marshal Murat hesitated to attack and later even agreed to an offer from Bagration to negotiate an armistice, halting the entire French advance without informing Napoleon. This delay gave Kutuzov enough time to save his army. When word reached Napoleon, he was enraged at Murat's obstinate behaviour and ordered him to resume the attack immediately, ending the armistice on 16 November. The vanguard of Lannes's and Murat's 45,000 men attacked Bagration's position repeatedly but were repelled each time, unable to take the hill for some six hours. General Bagration personally led some of the counter-attacks, which drove the French back. Even though his force suffered heavy casualties and destruction seemed inevitable, Bagration managed to manoeuver his remaining troops out of the area and unite with the rest of the Coalition army at Brunn on 18 November 1805. His actions prevented the Russian army from being cut off and destroyed.
thumb|Initial deployments at Austerlitz
thumb|A [[lubok depicting Bagration and Alexander Suvorov]]
Just two weeks later, on 2 December 1805, the opposing armies would meet at Austerlitz. This time Bagration assumed command over the Coalition army's 13,000-man-strong right wing, opposing Lannes' equally strong French left wing. When the coalition army started to rout, Bagration too ordered his men to retreat after not achieving any progress against Marshal Lannes, who had the support of elements of Marshal Murat's forces, even though his men fought bravely and fiercely. The battle was lost at that point. While Bagration saw no other option but to commence a strategic withdrawal, Marshal Murat refused Lannes' suggestion to pursue him further so that his corps wouldn't suffer further losses.
Battle of Eylau
General Bagration demonstrated his skills as a military commander, particularly during the brutal Battle of Eylau, which took place in East Prussia on 7 and 8 February 1807 during the War of the Fourth Coalition. After destroying the Prussian army at Jena-Auerstedt (October 1806), Napoleon was pursuing Russian forces under Marshal Kamensky. In a series of inconclusive clashes, the French did not reach their ultimate goal of destroying the enemy, while the Russians successfully continued retreating. However, on 7 January 1807, General Levin August, Count von Bennigsen assumed overall command of the Russian forces and carried out a successful surprise attack on the French left-wing against Marshal Ney and further against Marshal Bernadotte. Bernadotte managed to evade destruction by winning the Battle of Mohrungen (25 January 1807) and by retreating. Napoleon saw an opportunity to envelop Bennigsen's unprotected left wing by instructing Bernadotte to keep retreating and allowing his army to cut off the Russians from their own retreat. By a stroke of luck, a group of Cossacks intercepted a French messenger carrying Napoleon's orders to Bernadotte and quickly reported to General Bagration. Bagration then informed Bennigsen, who immediately halted his offensive and retreated. The French pursued, and after several engagements, finally confronted the entire Russian army at Eylau on 7 February 1807. Bagration occupied high ground a mile in front of the town, facing Marshal Soult's IV Corps and Marshal Murat's cavalry. The combined French forces assaulted the plateau, but Bagration's heavily outnumbered troops repulsed them. The general demanded bitter resistance from his men to gain time for Bennigsen's heavy artillery to pass through Eylau and join the main Russian force. During the afternoon, the French were reinforced by Marshal Augereau's corps and the Imperial Guard, making up about 45,000 soldiers in all. Under pressure from greatly superior numbers, Bagration finally conducted an orderly retreat to join the main Russian army. Russian forces under General Barclay de Tolly covered the retreat. Despite a clear numerical advantage, the French were not able to achieve a greater victory than eventually driving Bagration's small force off the plateau. Bagration's delaying action and skilful withdrawal enabled the Russian army to escape destruction and consolidate for a decisive battle.
In 1946, Soviet authorities renamed the town of Preußisch Eylau Bagrationovsk in honour of Pyotr Bagration and of his remarkable skills as a tactician.
Finnish War
Initial assault
thumb|Outbreak of the Finnish War in February 1808
During the Finnish War from 1808 to 1809, Bagration commanded the 21st division of the Russian forces under Buxhoeveden. Not wanting to wait until Sweden had concentrated a large army in Finland, the Russian Empire took initiative and decided to take action. On the night of 9 (N.S. 21) September 1808, Russian troops crossed the border to Finland and launched an offensive. Bagration's 21st division was forming the Russian centre and moving ahead to quickly seize Hämeenlinna, Tampere and Pori. Under the pressure of the swift advance, the Swedish forces began a hasty retreat to the depths of Finland and were pursued relentlessly. Bagration's men had to endure the worst weather conditions, severe frost, snowstorms and forest debris. Also, the retreating Swedes were constructing obstacles and destroyed any possible food source as well as roads. Nevertheless, Bagration's division overcame those obstacles and took all objectives, Hämeenlinna on 22 February (6 March), Tampere on 1 March (13) and Pori on 6 (18) March 1808. Bagration managed to advance over a distance of 200 km and capture three cities in just eight days and securing the way to the Gulf of Bothnia. His manoeuvre split the Swedish forces in two, a northern and southern group, providing the Russians with the possibility to strike each group one after another. Bagration correctly assessed the situation that the main Swedish force was in the north and intended to turn his division for an attack. But the commander in chief Buxhoveden foiled that plan by miscalculating the situation and assaulting the southern Swedish group, which had itself fortified in numerous fortifications, with his superior force, including the 21st division of Bagration. This allowed the main Swedish force to retreat unharmed to Oulu. Despite that Bagration himself still achieved success by capturing the strategically important Turku province. In September 1808, Bagration became ill and was forced to leave the theatre of operation. He was keenly interested in the events and hastily returned as soon as he became fit for service again. Upon arrival, he was appointed commander of the Russian forces defending the west coast of Finland.
Swedish assault on Turku
In September 1808, the Swedish command decided to land troops on Turku to distract attention from the northern Russian Front that threatened the Swedish main army and to secure the southern part of the west coast of Finland. A 2,500 men strong advance guard arrived in Åland and from there departed for the Turku coast. Bagration made a timely response and quickly threw the Swedes back to the sea. The Swedish leadership decided to take Turku at all cost to be able to create a bridgehead for reinforcements. King Gustav IV arrived at the Åland Islands to personally supervise the operation. On 14 (26) September a Swedish vanguard of 5,000 men was landing on Turku. Bagration was carefully monitoring the enemy's activities and allowed the Swedish troops to set foot on shore before he commenced a full assault which destroyed the entire enemy force, leaving only a few who could escape with boats. By the end of 1808, suffering heavy casualties, the Swedish troops were in full retreat and the area of Finland completely cleared of them. Despite those setbacks, the Kingdom of Sweden was not ready to give up the fight. Afterwards Bagration wrote the following instruction to Davydov: