Desertion from the Russian Occupation Corps in France between 1815 and 1818

Abstract

The author examines the issue of desertion from the Russian occupation corps in France between 1815 and 1818 and the means to prevent it used by the corps’ commander Count Mikhail Vorontsov. The subject is little-studied in modern historiography both in Russia and abroad, though some attempts have been made to calculate the number of deserters from the Russian army during all the period of its stay in France. The author pays special attention to the number of deserters mentioned in some studies. The main source of the article is a complex of official documents kept in the Russian federal archives. Due to the fact that the corps did not take part in any military operations during the period in question, its documents were regularly completed, which now make it possible to analyse every case of desertion in detail. The previously unpublished reports to the court martial about military crimes are especially valuable in this collection of sources. Referring to them, the author studies the means to suppress repeated desertion and determines its scale. According to the author, the level of desertion was relatively low in the corps due to a very rigid system of punishments applied to the deserters.

Keywords

• Наполеоновские войны
• оккупация Франции
• российский оккупационный корпус
• М. С. Воронцов
• дезертирство
• полевой аудиториат
• система наказаний
• противоречия внутри российской армии.