Indian March of Paul
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Indian March of Paul, (Russian: Индийский поход Павла) is the Westerner name for the Cossack cavalry deployment that was the first stage of a planned allied Russo-French expedition against the British forces in India. The whole operation was scuttled following the assassination of Emperor Paul I of Russia in mid-March of 1801.
According to documents from the Russian archives, the top-secret plans of the campaign included the following deployments:
In January 1801 the Don Cossack ataman Vasily Orlov received orders for his cavalry force to march toward India. The route of advance schedule was to reach the city of Orenburg in southern Russia in a month, and from there to move via Bukhara and Khiva to the Indus River. Soon after receiving these orders the 30,000-men strong Cossack force started for the Kazakh steppes.
Besides the Cossacks, the general plan included the joint operations of two infantry corps, one French (with artillery support) and one Russian. Each infantry corps had 35,000 men, the total force thus containing 100,000 men plus artillery.
Emperor Paul I of Russia insisted that the command of the French corps be entrusted to General André Masséna. The route of advance schedule for the French corps started in May 1801 via river Danube and the Black Sea through southern Russia via Taganrog, Tsaritsyn, and Astrakhan.
At the Volga estuary the French were supposed to be joined by the Russian corps. Then the joint Russo-French corps was to cross the Caspian Sea and land at the Iranian port of Astrabad.
The whole trip from France to Astrabad was calculated to take 80 days. Further advance would take another 50 days via Herat and Kandahar before reaching the main areas of India in September of the same year.
The Indian March was designed to look very much like Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, with engineers, painters and scientists taking part. Also meticulously devised (one can see in it Paul's passion for details) was the public relations side of the Indian expedition. For example, the instructions for trade with the local peoples included the recommendation to sell the cloths "of the colorings most liked by the Asians". The expeditionary force was to have in stock a reserve of fireworks for festive illuminations.
In order to arrange his forces, Paul had ended the Persian Expedition of 1796, arranged by Catherine the Great. This move was detested by the Russian nobility, and Paul's move into India was considered ill-planned by all. A coup developed as a result[citation needed], and Paul was assassinated. The Indian March ended.
[edit] See also
- Alexander Bekovich-Cherkassky - for the Indian March of Peter I
- Valerian Zubov - for the Indian March of Catherine II
[edit] References
Compilation-translation from Russian for educational and research purposes by G.N.Boiko-Slastion from 'Mgnoveniye slavy nastayot' ('The Moment of Glory Has Come') by N.Eidelman,- Leningrad,"Lenizdat" (publishing house), 1989. ISBN 5-289-00264-2
