Who commands the Russian army at the Battle of Austerlitz in War and Peace?

Who commands the Russian army at the Battle of Austerlitz in War and Peace? Mikhail Kutuzov commands it. In Tolstoy’s novel, Kutuzov is the experienced Russian commander responsible for the allied Russian force facing Napoleon in the 1805 campaign.

The real Battle of Austerlitz took place on December 2, 1805, in what is now the Czech Republic. Russia and Austria fought Napoleon’s French army, but the allied command was complicated by the presence of Emperor Alexander I and Austrian officers. Kutuzov nominally held the senior military command, while the allied plan was heavily shaped by Franz von Weyrother and the political pressure of the emperors.

Readers sometimes confuse Kutuzov with Prince Bagration, who commands forces on the allied right, or with Alexander Suvorov, the famous Russian general who had died before Austerlitz. Kutuzov later becomes even more central to the novel’s historical narrative during Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia.