Barclay de Tolly, MICHAEL, PRINCE

Barclay de Tolly, MICHAEL, PRINCE, a famous Russian general, was born in 1761 in Livonia. He was descended from the same Scottish family to which Barclay the poet and the Quaker apologist both belonged, and two of the branches of which had settled in Mecklenburg and Livonia. Entering a Russian regiment of cuirassiers as a sergeant, he fought with great bravery in the Turkish war of 1788-89, in the campaign against Sweden in 1790, and in those against Poland in 1792 and 1794, and rose rapidly in rank. He commanded Benningsen's advanced-guard at Pultusk in 1806; and lost an arm at the battle of Eylau. Scarce recovered from his wound, he took part in the war in Finland, defeated the Swedes, crossed the Gulf of Bothnia on the ice at the head of 6000 men, and quickly forced the enemy to sue for peace. Spite of his unpopularity as a German with the Russian national party, he was appointed minister of war by the Emperor Alexander in 1810—an office which he held till 1813. In 1812 he was made commander-in-chief of the army of the west. Here, though face to face with the greatest general and one of the finest armies of modern times, he showed himself such a consummate tactician that his defeats never became disasters. The plan of defence during the campaign is generally ascribed to his insight and wisdom. His advice was to avoid battles and retreat into the interior before the French, leaving the country behind them a desert, and thus the Russian army would ever become stronger as the French grew weaker. He had offered the same advice after Eylau in 1807, but Bagration, the impetuous leader of the second army, was eager to assume an offensive attitude, and the army, weary of constant retreat, supported him against his more cautious colleague. Accordingly, Barclay de Tolly was forced to give battle at Smolensk, and in consequence of his defeat had to yield the supreme command to Kutusov until the death of the latter gave it to him again. At Moskwa he commanded the right wing; at Bautzen he commanded the entire army. He afterwards commanded the Russian army in Bohemia, and took part in the battles of Dresden, Kulm, and Leipzig. He was commander-in-chief of the Russian army in France, and in consequence of this was made a prince and a field-marshal. He died 14th May 1818, at Insterburg, on his way to the Bohemian baths. Two or three years before his death, the estate of Tolly or Towie-Barclay, in Aberdeenshire, the old inheritance of his family, was for sale, but he refused to buy it on the ground that his family had been so long expatriated that Scotland was now to them a strange country. Statues of him were erected at St Petersburg in 1837, and at Dorpat in 1846.