Chapter 47 The Old Marshal's Manor Inspection
Chapter 47 047 The Old Marshal's Manor Inspection
Marshal Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov had a very fixed daily routine. Due to his old age, he might not sleep well at night, but the next morning, as long as the rooster crowed, he would usually get up on time.
But on this morning, September 1798, 9, he got up a little late and needed his faithful servant to shake him up, which happened occasionally on a few days a year.
"Ah, Prosha, you're not bad today. You just shook me up. If you don't come on time again, I won't whip you, but you'll have to eat less meat for lunch!"
"Master, what you said is true. You don't eat breakfast, and the lunch is just some bread. You will give me the bacon in the end, right?"
"Ah, old fellow, that's true. Have you received any letter?"
"Yes, Master Andrei from my hometown wrote to me. I asked Mr. Antin to read it to him. He said that he got a job in the Moscow Regiment, but it was the Grenadiers, not the Musketeers, and he was complaining about that!"
"I told him to have some morning snacks and keep an eye on the vacancies in the grenadiers and hussars. He's going to go to the musketeers, and when they're deployed, something's bound to go wrong!"
"Yes, sir, here are some letters. Look carefully. The first one is from the Emperor, and the rest are from the masters and sons you have been with in Petersburg."
Although this old servant could not read, he would ask Suvorov's adjutant and secretary Colonel John Antin, who was demoted together with him, to sort out the letters. Except for family letters, which he would open directly, he would not read other general correspondence.
The old marshal read the Tsar's letter and agreed with his nine suggestions, saying that they were very important for Russia's military construction. At the same time, he explained Arkady's position in the court in the letter and arranged for him to serve as an attendant to Crown Prince Alexander.
For a child, this was considered the standard configuration for a newcomer to the palace, and the old marshal was quite satisfied with it.
There is no need to worry about things at home. The Tsar has also promised that he will approve similar requests from a group of nobles next, and there is no problem with his will.
"The Emperor is still so impatient. He made such a change, but he did not agree to the reform of the regimental commander system. In the future, Russian soldiers will complain that they were handed over to the Germans by the Emperor! Look at the following letters, Proshka, whose seals are on them."
"This one is from Prince Bagration. I remember him in Warsaw. He was such a fine fellow."
"He is a good guy. The emperor wants him to lead the troops to war. This is to say goodbye to me. If you ask me, he is already over 30 years old and doesn't even have a wife."
"Master, now that you have a young lady and a young master, it's not too early."
"Stop talking. I'll read the following letters myself. Go and bring the morning tea to the table."
"Sir, you are just wearing pajamas and a nightcap, and then having a cup of morning tea? They say that you and Prince Bolkonsky are 'brothers', and sometimes they are a bit like each other in this respect."
"You have to let me take a shower first."
His lifestyle also included learning Turkish and Karelian, because many of the serfs in his family were Karelian, and he even wanted to chat with the servants in the manor, and this could not be changed.
At tea time, Suvorov was still wearing loose clothes. He was reading a letter from his son, which reported what he had done in St. Petersburg, including his recent replacement of Captain Solovyov as a painting model for Grand Duchess Elena. These were all trivial things in life.
But the letter also stated that the captain was coming to Novgorod, and it was said that this was an order issued by the emperor through the legion.
Before he had read the remaining letters, he heard a commotion at the gate of the manor. It sounded like the drumbeats of the Petersburg Guards. The old marshal was very clear about this.
When he commanded the troops, he seldom used the Guards. Instead, he recruited experienced musketeers and cavalry regiments from various places. Now a team of Guards and grenadiers drove to his doorstep. No one knew what new tricks the emperor was playing this time.
"Master, do you want me to go take a look?"
"You don't have to go. Mr. Antin should go. He has dealt with the Guards before and is very familiar with this area."
The reason for this is that the unfortunate Mr. Antin was ordered to retire, and he would rather be the butler for his old boss than go back home to live.
Speaking of which, the people around the old marshal are still loyal, but his temper is sometimes bad.
The conflict with his wife was because his wife cheated on him, but his son did not live with him, and his style was the same as his. Considering that the current emperor had the same highly consistent behavior habits as Peter III more than 30 years ago, he should still be his biological son; but the matter of his son-in-law made him very angry. This son-in-law was very good at business, and he sent someone to help the old marshal's friend manage the estate. His poor estate doubled in value through management and allocation. However, the embezzlement of more than 10,000 rubles in other places made the old man very dissatisfied, so much so that he recently lost his temper and cut off contact with his son-in-law.
Now Mr. Antin came to the door. He looked at the neatly-arranged soldiers, five companies in total. Except for one company wearing grenadiers' uniforms, the other four companies were guards chasseurs.
"Hello, is this Mr. Antin? I am Captain Solovyov. I have come here on the orders of the Emperor to give a report performance to Field Marshal Alexander Vasilyevich, the owner of the Konchanskoye Manor."
In fact, this was Soloviev's idea. Anyway, he took advantage of Paul's tendency to be creative from time to time and colluded with Major von Bystrom, the commander of the Guards Jager Battalion. Since we were not allowed to go to the front, we could take advantage of the Jager exercise mentioned in the communication between the old marshal and the Tsar to organize a march to Novgorod, which would also be a good opportunity to train the soldiers.
On the way there and back, when we arrived in Kangchanskoye, the old marshal must have provided us with meals.
"Go into the courtyard and wait for a moment. I need to report to His Excellency the Marshal."
These hunters came here after several days of marching. They stayed in villages all the time and paid the villagers according to the prices. Their journey was very smooth. There were even some bread crumbs stuffed into their dry food bags by the villagers - after all, it was more convenient to carry than a whole loaf of black bread.
This caught the old marshal off guard. He had estimated the normal marching time. Based on the marching speed of the Russian chasseurs, they should arrive at least one day after his son's letter. The departure date for the march had been determined before the last communication with the Tsar.
It has to be said that the Russian soldiers were very powerful when well organized. Even with their baggage wagons and military bands, their marching speed exceeded expectations.
This time, the 69-year-old marshal was "sucked" by two young men who had no martial ethics. He hurriedly changed his clothes, but not the uniform of an army marshal. Instead, he was dressed like an old country gentleman, with a first-class Order of Santa Anna hanging around his neck, and came out to greet the five companies of hunting soldiers who filled his front yard.
They also brought a military band, and when the old marshal came up to him, Major von Bystrom, holding a saber, accompanied him in the review. The old marshal was very satisfied to see that except for the mud on the officers and soldiers' leather boots, the soldiers were well-dressed.
As for his greetings to the soldiers, they responded with: "Comrade Marshal, I wish you good health."
Although "comrade" or "comrade-in-arms" sounds like a Prussian term, it is also a tradition of the Russian army. After the flag changed, it should be said that there is not much difference in modern times.
As for the parade that will be performed next, even though the old marshal has lived for a long time, this is the first time he has seen such a thing.
There are several old soldiers in his manor, as well as Sergeant Ivan Sergeyev, who retains his military status and has been serving by his side. This old soldier has also served him for fifteen years.
Asking them to stand behind the marshal and Mr. Antin to be reviewed was also a tribute to the old soldiers. Paul didn't know where the little captain who always stood guard at the door of the Winter Palace got this trick from. Based on the principle that since you all want to go, it will be approved, it was decided that each corps should visit the retired generals, officers and veterans stationed there according to the needs of duty. The number of people sent can be determined by themselves, but in principle, it is not allowed to exceed one battalion.
Given Marshal Suvorov's status, these five companies seemed to have no problems, and the military band was still playing new music.
After Langgeron was tricked, the old marshal was no exception. Although this piece of music was relatively new and could be considered the traditional Russian army march drum beat, and the songs played one after another, although a bit "avant-garde", he did not hear anything unusual. After all, he did not know what Russia would become in the future. He just felt that although the emperor liked to mess around, sometimes it was not bad to delegate power to young people to play with.
It was unexpected that he was so receptive. Solovyov was worried that the old marshal would not be used to it, so he cut the lyrics and asked the conductor of the court orchestra to go through the music and instrumentation before he played it. The opening song was "The Triumph of the Victors" by Tsarist Russia, and the songs he chose later were also more cheerful. He did not dare to play any songs with a tragic atmosphere!
The old marshal was very satisfied, and then asked the officers to wait for a while as they still had to eat lunch.
At the same time, all the serfs in the manor had to start preparing twice as much food as usual. After all, the population of his village, including men, women, young and old, was as many as the five companies of soldiers.
As for the meal, the leading officers were also very puzzled. Normally, in the home of a meritorious old marshal of Alexander Vasilyevich's level, the old marshal should sit in the main seat, but he sat in the first seat on the right, leaving the main seat empty in his home.
And we often prepare tableware for twenty people, regardless of whether the guests can fill the table or not, and if there are fewer, we can order more.
Fortunately, although there were quite a few officers, they just lengthened the table in his house a little bit.
"My lunch may be a little more modest than others, but it's enough to fill your stomach. Officers also need to eat. A hungry bear can't sleep well in the winter if it stays in a cave."
By the way, he signaled the servants to put bread and two large barrels in front of the company commanders.
"There is plenty of kvass and tea brewed in the manor. If you are not used to this kind of tea, I have bees here and you can make some honey to drink."
Although the food is not very good, there are quite a lot of drink options, and in the evening, they also serve some champagne and Hungarian wine.
However, the old marshal always had a weak stomach, so he was very moderate when eating, but he also encouraged these young officers to eat more. After all, they were young and had no health problems.
His diet was managed personally by his loyal old servant Proshka, who would remind the marshal himself if the limit was reached.
In the afternoon, accompanied by his servants, the old marshal once again watched the soldiers' tactical formation performance in the manor. Although these soldiers were all hunters, after 1789, the boundaries between the light infantry's skirmish tactics and the line infantry's tactics were sometimes blurred during battles. Sending such a force was also to make him understand some of the changes that have taken place in the Russian army.
"That's great. You all did a great job. You are our clever foxhounds!"
Then he took a look at the equipment of these soldiers and learned that the paramedics he had mentioned in the past had begun to be deployed in these companies, including the Guards, which made him very satisfied.
"You are here to report your performance. I can't let you let the Hussars pass through the middle of the formation like you do during daily training!"
This is a reserved subject in Suvorov's military training, and can still be seen in Bagration's Jager Regiment. Not every regiment can implement this training method of "more bloodshed in peacetime and less bloodshed in wartime".
He has a level of closeness with his soldiers that many military officers cannot match.
As for the next two days of subject exercises, Suvorov also knew what they were going to do.
He himself did not eat anything at dinner, but he prepared jam for the officers and soldiers.
Solovyov saw what the old marshal had in the evening: a small amount of Hungarian liqueur and a few slices of lemon with jam. This was the diet of the Russian marshal.
Today, because there were so many young officers coming, he made an exception and provided some vodka with coriander. He used to prefer this because of his age, but now his health is not as good as before, so he changed to sweet wine.
"Misha, why don't you drink?"
"Your Excellency Marshal, I do not drink strong liquor, but sweet wine is not drunk with a spoon."
"Aha, that's it. You should also have some sweet wine, like I did, with blueberry jam and lemon. If you don't like it, add sugar!"
Major von Bystrom had long known that this guy wrote to the marshal every week for advice, and no one else had this opportunity.
It was when they arrived at the marshal's estate that Suvorov made an exception and taught them some experience in infantry combat, hoping that they could make good use of the knowledge they learned.
Generally speaking, he only talked about these things with his entourage and subordinate officers. It can be said that he was suffocated by being idle at home.
Suvorov's daily routine was based on the notes kept by Sergeant Ivan Sergeyev, who had served as Suvorov's orderly for sixteen years and then as an orderly for Suvorov's son Arkady for eleven years.
(End of this chapter)