Battle of Vitebsk (1812)
The Battle of Vitebsk, sometimes spelled Witepsk, was a military engagement that took place on 26 and 27 July 1812 during the French invasion of Russia. The battle occurred as Napoleon was trying to envelop the Russian First Army at Vitebsk, Barclays motivation to make a stand resulted from political pressures and from his own desire to improve the armys morale, after weeks of retreating without a fight. Barclays main concern for the day of 27 July was to keep the French at bay for long enough, in order to allow his main force to escape towards Smolensk, where he planned to unite with Bagration. Unbeknownst to Napoleon, the Russian army retreated during the afternoon and night, the Russian army made a hasty retreat and safely reached Smolensk, where they were able to unite with Bagration, just as planned. Towards mid-July, he launched a part of his forces in an enveloping action towards Vitebsk. There, a French force under Marshal Joachim Murat and General Etienne de Nansouty tried to pin down a superior force under Russian General Alexander Ivanovich Ostermann-Tolstoy.
While the Russians registered relatively high casualties, they were able to retreat in good order, the Russians themselves inflicted significant casualties on the enemy and crucially, delayed them for long enough to allow the concentration of significant forces around Vitebsk. Meanwhile, with the Russian army having continually retreated before the enemy ever since the campaign started an earlier, morale among the rank. Barclay was thus under pressure to fight and decided to do so at Vitebsk. However, Napoleons superior numbers and the weaknesses of Barclays battlefield position meant that the chances for a Russian victory were very weak at best. Konovnitsyn was extremely adept at leading rearguard actions and he managed to block all the attempts to advance. The French were thus unable to contact with the bulk of the Russian forces on 26 July. Meanwhile, at nightfall, Prince Aleksandr Meshikov, aide-de-camp to General Pyotr Bagration arrived at Barclays headquarters, Meshikov brought alarming news of the defeat of Bagrations Second Army at the Battle of Saltanovka, three days earlier, at the hands of Marshal Louis Nicolas Davout.
The Russians thus needed to abandon any plans to give battle, urgently break contact with the enemy and move southeast. Despite these considerations, Barclay still wanted to battle the next day and was only dissuaded from doing so by his advisers. That night, the commander issued orders for retreat, but the proximity of Napoleons force meant that a retreat would not be easy to operate. At daybreak on 27 July, Napoleon set his troops in motion, thrilled that he faced a massed enemy army. The battlefield at Vitebsk was a vast and flat plain and only the river Dvina separated the French forces from the Russians, who were occupying a slightly elevated position on the eastern bank
French invasion of Russia
Napoleon hoped to compel Tsar Alexander I of Russia to cease trading with British merchants through proxies in an effort to pressure the United Kingdom to sue for peace. The official political aim of the campaign was to liberate Poland from the threat of Russia, Napoleon named the campaign the Second Polish War to gain favor with the Poles and provide a political pretext for his actions. The Grande Armée was a large force, numbering 680,000 soldiers. Napoleon hoped the battle would mean an end of the march into Russia, plans Napoleon had made to quarter at Smolensk were abandoned, and he pressed his army on after the Russians. As the Russian army fell back, Cossacks were given the task of burning villages and this was intended to deny the invaders the option of living off the land. The actions forced the French to rely on a system that was incapable of feeding the large army in the field. Starvation and privation compelled French soldiers to leave their camps at night in search of food and these men were frequently confronted by parties of Cossacks, who captured or killed them.
The Russian army retreated into Russia for almost three months, the continual retreat and the loss of lands to the French upset the Russian nobility. They pressured Alexander I to relieve the commander of the Russian army, Alexander I complied, appointing an old veteran, Prince Mikhail Kutuzov, to take over command of the army. However, for two more weeks Kutuzov continued to retreat as his predecessor had done, on 7 September, the French caught up with the Russian army which had dug itself in on hillsides before a small town called Borodino, seventy miles west of Moscow. The battle that followed was the bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars until that point, involving more than 250,000 soldiers, the French gained a tactical victory, but at the cost of 49 general officers and thousands of men. The Russian army was able to extricate itself and withdrew the following day, Napoleon entered Moscow a week later. In another turn of events the French found puzzling, there was no delegation to meet the Emperor, the Russians had evacuated the city, and the citys governor, Count Fyodor Rostopchin, ordered several strategic points in Moscow set ablaze.
Napoleons hopes had been set upon an end to his campaign. The loss of Moscow did not compel Alexander I to sue for peace, Napoleon stayed on in Moscow looking to negotiate a peace, his hopes fed in part by a disinformation campaign informing the Emperor of supposed discontent and fading morale in the Russian camp. After staying a month Napoleon moved his army out southwest toward Kaluga, the French advance toward Kaluga was checked by a Russian corps. Napoleon tried once more to engage the Russian army for an action at the Battle of Maloyaroslavets. Despite holding a position, the Russians retreated following a sharp engagement
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lille, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established.
The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity.
In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
Peter Wittgenstein
Ludwig Adolph Peter, Prince Wittgenstein was a Russian Field Marshal distinguished for his services in the Napoleonic wars. Born Count Ludwig Adolf Peter of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Ludwigsburg, he was descended from a family of independent counts whose seat was in Berleburg and he was promoted to Major in 1793 of the Ukrainian light cavalry regiment. He fought with the unit in the Kościuszko Uprising, promoted to the rank of colonel in 1798, and to major general in 1799, in 1800 he took command of the Mariupolski Hussars Regiment. In 1805, he fought at Austerlitz, in 1806 against the Turks, in the war of 1812 he commanded the right wing army of the Russian Army, which he commanded in the First and Second battle of Polotsk. It was the battle that decided fate of Saint-Petersburg, and earned him the title of Saviour of Saint- Petersburg, alexander I awarded him the Order of St. George. He tried to combine with Pavel Chichagov, at the Battle of Berezina, in the campaign of 1813 in January, he took over the command of the Russian army after Kutuzovs death, and commanded the Russian army at Lützen and Bautzen.
But after the defeats of the Spring campaign, he laid down this command and led a corps during the Battle of Dresden. In the campaign of 1814, he led the 6th Corps under Schwarzenberg, in 1823 he was promoted Field Marshal, and in 1828 he was appointed to command the Russian army in the war against Turkey. But ill health obliged him to retire. In 1834 the King of Prussia gave him the title of Fürst zu Sayn-Wittgenstein and his parents were Count Christian Louis Casimir of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Ludwigsburg and his first wife Countess Amalie Ludowika Finck von Finckenstein. On 27 June 1798 he married Countess Antonia Cäcilie Snarska and had in this marriage 11 children and he died on 11 June 1843 in Lemberg, where he looked after estates of his son Lev Petrovich. Media related to Wittgenstein Pyotr Christianowitsch at Wikimedia Commons Kamenka, Wittgensteins paradise
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a called Ingermanland.
A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter.
However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr
Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, 1st Marquis of Gouvion-Saint-Cyr was a French commander in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars who rose to Marshal of France and Marquis. He was born Laurent Gouvion in Toul, Three Bishoprics, the eldest child of Jean-Baptiste Gouvion, a tanner and he adopted the name Saint-Cyr after his mother, who had abandoned him at an early age. He went to Rome when he was eighteen in order to study painting, in 1792 he was chosen a captain in a volunteer battalion, and served on the staff of General Custine. Promotion rapidly followed, and in the course of two years he became a general of division and he commanded the centre division of Jean Victor Marie Moreaus army in the Rhine Campaign of 1796, aiding in the celebrated retreat from Bavaria to the Rhine. In 1798 he succeeded André Masséna in the command of the army of Italy, Moreau disliked Saint-Cyr for his sense of righteousness and incorruptibility. Rumours were soon spreading that Saint-Cyr was a bad bed fellow, Moreau accused him of not supporting his brother generals though General Ney and Davout often thanked him for support after battles.
When Moreau, in 1800, was appointed to the command of the army of the Rhine, Gouvion Saint-Cyr was named his principal lieutenant and he was not, however, on good terms with his commander and retired to France after the first operations of the campaign. In 1801 he was sent to Spain to command the army intended for the invasion of Portugal, when a treaty of peace was shortly afterwards concluded with Portugal, he succeeded Lucien Bonaparte as ambassador at Madrid. Saint-Cyr was a stoic in an age of pragmatism and glory, for the whole of his life Saint-Cyr believed that Napoleon deliberately refused him troops just to disgrace him. In 1803 he was appointed to the command of a corps in Italy, in 1805 he served with distinction under Masséna. When he returned to Paris to protest his treatment in Naples and he was still a général de division, having been excluded from the first list of marshals. On the opening of the Russian campaign, Saint-Cyr received command of the VI Corps, the Russians, under Barclay de Tolly, were burning everything as they retreated back towards Moscow, and had just burned nearby Smolensk.
It was just prior to the victory at Polotsk on the banks of the Daugava river, that Oudinot was wounded, in October 1812 Saint-Cyr was driven out of Polotsk. He received a wound in one of the battles during the general retreat. In this year, Saint Cyrs relation with the Emperor warmed as Napoleon commented that Saint Cyr had no match in all of the marshalate and was the equal of Napoleon himself in defence. On the day he received his long overdue baton he wrote a letter to his wife. On the Bourbon Restoration he was created a Peer of France, and in July 1815 was appointed War Minister, but resigned his office in the following November. In June 1817 he was appointed Marine Minister a pretext for him to resume the place of War Minister, during this time he initiated many reforms, particularly in respect of measures tending to make the army a national rather than a dynastic force
Nicolas Oudinot
Nicolas Charles Oudinot, 1st Comte Oudinot, 1st Duc de Reggio, was a Marshal of France. He is known to have been wounded 34 times in battle, Nicolas Charles Oudinot was the son of Nicolas Oudinot and Marie Anne Adam, the only one of their nine children to live to adulthood. His father was brewer and distiller of brandy in Bar-le-Duc, Lorraine. He decided upon a career, and served in the regiment of Medoc from 1784 to 1787. The French Revolution changed his fortunes, and in 1792, on the outbreak of war, he was elected lieutenant-colonel of the 3rd battalion of the volunteers of the Meuse. He was André Massénas right hand all through the Swiss campaign of 1799, first as a general of division, as chief of staff, and won extraordinary distinction at the Second Battle of Zurich. He was present under Massena at the Siege of Genoa, and he was made inspector-general of infantry, and, on the establishment of the empire, given the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, but was not included in the first creation of marshals.
Oudinot was elected a member of the chamber of deputies, but had time to devote to politics. In 1807, he participated in Joachim Murats victory in a battle at Ostrolenka in Poland and fought with resolution and success at the Battle of Friedland. In 1808 he was governor of Erfurt and Count of the French Empire. He was made a duke in chief of the duché-grand fief of Reggio in the satellite Kingdom of Naples. From 1810 to 1812 Oudinot administered the government of the former Kingdom of Holland and his corps was instrumental in building the bridge over the Berezina that allowed the evacuation of troops after the defeat at the Battle of Berezina. He was present at the Battle of Lützen and the Battle of Bautzen, and he was superseded by Marshal Ney, but the latter was defeated at the Battle of Dennewitz. He held important commands at the Battle of Leipzig and in the campaign of 1814, on Napoleons abdication, he rallied to the new government, and was made a Peer of France by the Bourbon Restoration King Louis XVIII.
Unlike many of his old comrades, he did not desert to his master during Bonapartes 1815 return. His last active service was in the French invasion of Spain in 1823 and he died as governor of the Parisian veterans institution Les Invalides. 1849, Knight Grand Cross in the Order of Pope Pius IX, Marshal Nicolas Charles Oudinot, Le Bayard de lArmée Français. Journal of the International Napoleonic Society
Battle of Krasnoi
The Battle of Krasnoi was a series of skirmishes fought in the final stage of Napoleons retreat from Moscow. The Russians under General Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov inflicted heavy losses on the remnants of the Grande Armée, lacking sufficient artillery and supplies to wage battle, Napoleons object at Krasnoi was to collect his scattered troops and to resume his retreat. Despite the vast superiority of his forces, Kutuzov refrained from launching an offensive during the four days of fighting. The climax of the engagement occurred on November 17, when an aggressive feint by the French Imperial Guard induced Kutuzov to delay a potentially decisive final Russian attack, Napoleon was thus able to withdraw part of his army before the Russians seized Krasnoi. Despite Napoleons success in saving part of his army from destruction at Krasnoi, during the four days of combat Napoleons subordinate commanders suffered heavy defeats in individual actions, and large numbers of French stragglers were captured by the Russians.
The Grande Armée was compelled to abandon much of its remaining artillery, the condition of the Grande Armée was further degraded by sub-zero temperatures in the first two weeks of November. By the time the French arrived at Smolensk on November 9, only 40% men of what was left of the Grande Armée was still under arms at this point. Due to the condition of his forces and French defeats on other fronts, Napoleon realized his position at Smolensk was untenable surrounded by Russian armies. The new strategic goal was to put the Grande Armée into winter quarters further west, having lost contact with Kutuzov during the previous two weeks, Napoleon incorrectly believed that the Russian army must have been as devastated by the elements as his own. Napoleon left on 14th, Davout on 15th, Beauharnais on 16th, Ney on 17th, together with Joseph Barbanègre, thus the French approached Krasny in a piecemeal 53 kilometres long column of disconnected corps, not massed together in preparation for battle. On November 14, the corps of Józef Zajączek and Junot, as the vanguard of the retreating French army, passed through Krasny, the next day, November 15, Napoleon himself arrived at Krasny with his 16, 000-strong Imperial Guard.
Neys corps formed the rearguard and was not to leave Smolensk until November 17, marching between and around these French corps were nearly 40,000 troops who had disintegrated into mobs of unarmed, disorganized stragglers, looking for something else to eat than horsemeat. This made Napoleon stop further advance in order to bring up other echelons, however when on November 4 the Corps of Yevgeny Bogarne was approaching Krasnoye village, it suffered a strong attack inflicted by Miloradovich and was defeated. The same fate awaited Corps under Davout and Ney, without waiting for Ney’s rearguard, the French Emperor jointly with the Old Guard with the rest of the Davout’s Corps broke through the cover of Tormasov’s troops and moved to Orsha. During the same period, the main Russian army under Kutuzov followed the French on a parallel southern road, because this route passed through countryside unaffected by previous campaigning, the Russian army approached Krasny much less weakened by attrition than the Grande Armée.
Kutuzov therefore accepted a plan proposed by his officer, Colonel Toll. The Russian position at Krasny began forming on November 15, when the 3, the same day, the 17,000 troops of Miloradovich took position on a hill alongside the eastern road leading into Krasny. Kutuzov himself reached Krasny with the 35, 000-strong main army on November 16, in all, Kutuzov had 52,000 to 60,000 regular troops at his disposal at Krasny, including a large cavalry force and approximately 500 cannon
Infantry
Infantry is the general branch of an army that engages in military combat on foot. As the troops who engage with the enemy in close-ranged combat, infantry units bear the largest brunt of warfare, Infantry can enter and maneuver in terrain that is inaccessible to military vehicles and employ crew-served infantry weapons that provide greater and more sustained firepower. In English, the 16th-century term Infantry describes soldiers who walk to the battlefield, and there engage, the term arose in Sixteenth-Century Spain, which boasted one of the first professional standing armies seen in Europe since the days of Rome. It was common to appoint royal princes to military commands, and the men under them became known as Infanteria. in the Canadian Army, the role of the infantry is to close with, and destroy the enemy. In the U. S. Army, the closes with the enemy, by means of fire and maneuver, in order to destroy or capture him, or to repel his assault by fire, close combat. In the U. S. Marine Corps, the role of the infantry is to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy fire and maneuver.
Beginning with the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, artillery has become a dominant force on the battlefield. Since World War I, combat aircraft and armoured vehicles have become dominant. In 20th and 21st century warfare, infantry functions most effectively as part of a combined arms team including artillery, Infantry relies on organized formations to be employed in battle. These have evolved over time, but remain a key element to effective infantry development and deployment, until the end of the 19th century, infantry units were for the most part employed in close formations up until contact with the enemy. This allowed commanders to control of the unit, especially while maneuvering. The development of guns and other weapons with increased firepower forced infantry units to disperse in order to make them less vulnerable to such weapons. This decentralization of command was made possible by improved communications equipment, among the various subtypes of infantry is Medium infantry.
This refers to infantry which are heavily armed and armored than heavy infantry. In the early period, medium infantry were largely eliminated due to discontinued use of body armour up until the 20th century. In the United States Army, Stryker Infantry is considered Medium Infantry, since they are heavier than light infantry, Infantry doctrine is the concise expression of how infantry forces contribute to campaigns, major operations and engagements. It is a guide to action, not a set of hard, doctrine provides a very common frame of reference across the military forces, allowing the infantry to function cooperatively in what are now called combined arms operations. Doctrine helps standardise operations, facilitating readiness by establishing common ways of accomplishing infantry tasks, doctrine links theory, history and practice
General officer
A general officer is an officer of high rank in the army, and in some nations air forces or marines. The term general is used in two ways, as the title for all grades of general officer and as a specific rank. It originates in the 16th century, as a shortening of captain general, the adjective general had been affixed to officer designations since the late medieval period to indicate relative superiority or an extended jurisdiction. Today, the title of General is known in countries as a four-star rank. However different countries use different systems of stars for senior ranks and it has a NATO code of OF-9 and is the highest rank currently in use in a number of armies. The various grades of general officer are at the top of the rank structure. Lower-ranking officers in military forces are typically known as field officers or field-grade officers. There are two systems of general ranks used worldwide. In addition there is a system, the Arab system of ranks. Variations of one form, the old European system, were used throughout Europe.
It is used in the United Kingdom, from which it spread to the Commonwealth. The other is derived from the French Revolution, where ranks are named according to the unit they command. The system used either a general or a colonel general rank. The rank of marshal was used by some countries as the highest rank. Many countries actually used two brigade command ranks, which is why some countries now use two stars as their brigade general insignia and Argentina still use two brigade command ranks. As a lieutenant outranks a sergeant major, confusion arises because a lieutenant is outranked by a major. Originally the serjeant major was, the commander of the infantry, junior only to the captain general, the distinction of serjeant major general only applied after serjeant majors were introduced as a rank of field officer. Serjeant was eventually dropped from both titles, creating the modern rank titles
Russia
Russia, officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II.
The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля.
In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
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Russian Empire
Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr
