Alexander Suvorov - Assessment

Assessment

Russians have long cherished the memory of Suvorov as a great captain of the Russian nation, and for the character of his leadership. 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.

According to D.S. Mirsky, Suvorov "gave much attention to the form of his correspondence, and especially of his orders of the day. These latter are highly original, deliberately aiming at unexpected and striking effects. Their style is a succession of nervous staccato sentences, which produce the effect of blow and flashes. Suvorov's official reports often assume a memorable and striking form. His writings are as different from the common run of classical prose as his tactics were from those of Frederick or Marlborough".

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 Suvorov Museum was opened in Saint Petersburg to commemorate the centenary of the general's death, in 1900. Apart from St. Petersburg, other Suvorov monuments have been erected in Focşani, Ochakov (1907), Sevastopol, Izmail, Tulchin, Kobrin, Novaya Ladoga, Kherson, Timanovka, Simferopol, Kaliningrad, Konchanskoye, Rymnik, Elm, Switzerland 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. The town of Suvorovo in Varna Province, Bulgaria, was named after Suvorov, as was the Russian ship which discovered Suwarrow Island in the Pacific. Additionally he is depicted on the one-ruble note of Transnistria.

His prowess, military wisdom, and daring are held in high regard to this day. Another of his many utterances, "Achieve victory not by numbers, but by knowing how." is well known in the Russian military.Traditionally it is known that he managed 93 battles and was never been beated or lost. A bust of the Generalissimus is prominently displayed in the office of the Russian Minister of Defense.