Alexander Suvorov: Encyclopedia II - Alexander Suvorov - Assessment

Alexander Suvorov - Assessment

The Russians long cherished the memory of Suvorov. A great captain, viewed from the standpoint of any age of military history, he functions specially as the great captain of the Russian nation, for the character of his leadership responded to the character of the Russian soldier. In an age when war had become an act of diplomacy he restored its true significance as an act of force. He had a great simplicity of manner, and while on a campaign lived as a private soldier, sleeping on straw and contenting himself with the humblest fare. But he had himself passed through all the gradations of military service.

His gibes procured him many enemies. He had all the contempt of a man of ability and action for ignorant favourites and ornamental carpet-knights. But his drolleries served sometimes to hide, more often to express, a soldierly genius, the effect of which the Russian army did not soon outgrow. If the tactics of the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 - 1905 reflected too literally some of the maxims of Suvorov’s Turkish wars, the spirit of self-sacrifice, resolution and indifference to losses there shown formed a precious legacy from those wars. Mikhail Ivanovich Dragomirov declared that he based his teaching on Suvorov's practice, which he held representative of the fundamental truths of war and of the military qualities of the Russian nation.

The magnificent Suvorov museum of military history was opened in 1904. Apart from St Petersburg, other Suvorov monuments have been erected in Ochakov (1907), Sevastopol, Izmail, Tulchin, Kobrin, Ladoga, Kherson, Timanovka, Simferopol, Kaliningrad, Konchanskoe, Rymnik, and in the Swiss Alps. On July 29, 1942 The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR established the Order of Suvorov. It was awarded for successful offensive actions against superior enemy forces.

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