All outstanding generals and military leaders sought to use surprise as a means of achieving the fastest and most complete success in battle and operation. In different periods of the development of the art of war, the forms, methods and methods of achieving surprise were different. A. V. Suvorov achieved an especially high skill in their application. Among the great generals of military history, it is difficult to find a second such creator of victories. All his military ventures, both tactical and strategic, are imbued with the idea of surprise, all his military teachings left to his contemporaries and descendants are saturated.
To varying degrees, the factor of surprise is present in all battles, battles and military campaigns conducted by Suvorov. The essence of surprise lies primarily in innovation, in the unexpected for the enemy the use of new tactical means of struggle or unusual methods and techniques of warfare, the absence of a template in them. A. V. Suvorov went down in military history precisely as an innovative commander, a bearer of advanced Russian military thought, many of the principles of military art of which were ahead of their time and were incomprehensible to his opponents. To beat the enemy with what he does not have, "surprise-win" - this is one of Suvorov's mottos.
The new original methods and techniques of conducting combat operations of the commander sharply differed from the adopted tactical and strategic systems of that time, used by almost all other armies. He denied the foundations of the generally accepted contemporary military theory and "subverted the theory of his age" with practice. The principle of surprise organically followed and was inextricably linked with the main principles of conducting military operations outlined by Suvorov in "Science to Win": the eye, speed and onslaught. The Russian commander saw the special merit of these three principles precisely in the fact that they ensured the achievement of surprise and the effective use of the resulting advantages over the enemy. "… Complete surprise, - wrote Suvorov, - which we apply everywhere, will consist in the speed of estimates of the value of time, onslaught." And further: "… in hostilities one should quickly figure out - and immediately execute, so that the enemy does not give time to come to his senses."
The great commander understood well that the factor of surprise is a temporarily acting factor. Its action lasts until the moment when the enemy is stunned by a surprise attack or unexpected, unusual for him techniques and methods of armed struggle. But as soon as he overcomes the confusion, is able to eliminate the inequality caused by them in the conditions of the struggle, the factor of surprise will exhaust itself. Therefore, Suvorov demanded the immediate implementation of the advantages achieved by surprise. “Time is the most precious thing,” he said.
To stun the enemy with swiftness and surprise is the credo of Suvorov's military leadership. "One minute decides the outcome of the battle, one hour - the success of the campaign …" The commander strictly adhered to this rule in all wars and battles. With sudden actions, he always seized the initiative and did not release it until the end of the battle, and in order to prolong the effect of the factor of surprise, he tried to follow one surprise to apply another. The arsenal of his techniques was inexhaustible. It is hardly possible to find two battles he fought that would repeat one another.
Suvorov had to direct the hostilities in a variety of conditions. And he always knew how to benefit from their features. His decisions were often the most unexpected, always daring, proceeding from the principle that in war one must do what the enemy considers impossible. The speed and decisiveness of actions, combined with surprise, made up for the shortage of Suvorov's troops and allowed him to achieve victory over the superior forces of the enemy in almost all battles. "Swiftness and surprise replace numbers." Suvorov gave amazing and unique examples confirming this thesis. Out of 63 battles and battles he fought, in 60 he defeated an enemy that sometimes surpassed his strength by 3-4 times or more. Moreover, Suvorov won the most brilliant victories over one of the strongest Turkish armies at that time and the best French armies in Europe.
Even more surprising was the fact that they achieved victories with little bloodshed with significant enemy losses. So, in the battle of Rymnik in 1789, he defeated the 100,000th Turkish army, which was four times outnumbered by the Russian troops. Even more surprising is the victory at Ishmael. One of the strongest fortresses of that time, which had a garrison of 35,000 and was considered impregnable, Suvorov took by storm with an army of 31,000, destroying 26,000 in battle and capturing 9,000 enemy soldiers and officers. Suvorov's army lost 4 thousand people killed and 6 thousand wounded.
Ill-wishers and envious people, who did not understand the unusualness of Suvorov's combat techniques, unable to appreciate the role of speed and surprise in them, considered his victories over the Turkish army just luck, and when the Russian commander in 1799 led the allied forces in Italy, they had little faith that he could take over and win equally brilliant victories over the French, who have already passed triumphantly in many European countries. However, they could not oppose anything to Suvorov's tactics. So, in the battle at Trebbia, he defeated the 33-thousandth army of MacDonald, having 22 thousand people; lost 6 thousand, the French - 18 thousand soldiers. In the battle of Novi, his army, storming the fortified positions of the enemy, lost 8 thousand people, and the French - 13 thousand.
These are the results and the price of Suvorov's victories. They, of course, consisted of many factors, but surprise played a primary role in them. It was not the result of just an instant improvisation of the commander, but was consciously prepared in advance on the basis of foreseeing the upcoming battle. Only knowledge of the situation, military art and psychology of the enemy, his weaknesses, continuity of reconnaissance, as well as well-trained, well-trained troops with high morale, high combat capability, can achieve the effect of surprise.
Suvorov perfectly understood all this and, above all, with his system of training and educating the troops, he trained Russian "miracle heroes" capable of quickly carrying out any of his plans, any maneuvers, and undertaking any feat. Fostering courage and bravery, self-confidence in his soldiers, Suvorov was guided by the principle that "nature rarely gives birth to brave men, they are created in great numbers by work and training." The army prepared by Suvorov was a reliable guarantor of the successful implementation of the commander's brilliant plans. Suvorov was also an innovator in management issues. In order to skillfully use the situation and stun the enemy with surprise, he not only provided his subordinates with the right to broad initiative, but demanded it. However, as early as 1770, he strictly conditioned this right of "private initiative" with the requirement: to use it "with reason, art and under response." The innovative commander ensured the possibility of using the initiative by private commanders by abandoning the foundations of linear tactics - to observe the elbow connection between individual parts of the army in battle.
The basis of Suvorov's surprise actions was a quick and correct assessment of the situation and the courage of the decisions made (such as, for example, attacking superior enemy forces with small forces); a swift and secretive march to the battlefield; the use of new battle formations unexpected for the enemy; the unusual use of combat arms; the direction of attacks unexpected for the enemy, including from the rear, the stunning swiftness of the offensive and attack, the use of a bayonet strike, unusual and inaccessible to other armies; a bold and unexpected maneuver on the battlefield; sudden counterattacks; the use of night attacks; skillful use of terrain, weather, psychology and enemy mistakes.
In each battle, Suvorov strove to use almost a whole set of techniques that ensure the achievement of surprise, skillfully combining them depending on the current situation and instantly reacting to any changes in it, any oversight of the enemy, did not miss a single case that made it possible to snatch victory. Suvorov's ability to instantly grasp all the subtleties of the situation, anticipate the intentions and possible actions of the enemy, notice his weaknesses and mistakes, catch his psychology amazed his contemporaries and instilled in the troops confidence in the correctness of his decisions, no matter how risky they seemed. This opened up wide opportunities for Suvorov to act suddenly.
Take, for example, his decision to storm Ishmael. During the year, the Russian army unsuccessfully besieged this fortress and twice retreated from its walls. The military council, which met shortly before the arrival of Suvorov, recognized the impossibility of taking active steps against Ishmael. Suvorov made a completely different decision when he assumed command of the army. It was so unusual and unexpected that the commander himself admitted: you can decide on this only once in your life. Suvorov chose the assault. This was contrary to the rules of the "classical" art of serf warfare of that time, which boiled down to a methodical engineering attack on the fortress. Even more unexpected was the decision of Suvorov for the enemy, who had already been convinced by experience of the inaccessibility of the Izmail walls.
Suvorov attached great importance in achieving surprise to the speed and secrecy of the march to the battlefield. In order to ensure himself the opportunity to "fall" on the enemy "like snow on his head", Suvorov developed and outlined in "Science to Win" his rules of the march, and by persistent training of troops he achieved amazing results in this. The normal transition of troops under the command of Suvorov ranged from 28 to 35 versts per day, that is, it was 3-4 times more than the generally accepted rate of such transitions in the West at that time, and even 2 times - the increased "Friedrich's" rate. But this was not the limit. During a forced march, Suvorov's troops traveled up to 50 miles. In anticipation of the enemy, Suvorov built the marching order closer to the battle order, so as not to waste time on rebuilding, to ensure the surprise of the attack and to seize the initiative in battle. Usually these were platoon columns or squares (Suvorov used battle formations, depending on the nature of the enemy). Most of the marches were carried out in secret, at night, regardless of any weather.
Particularly characterized by sudden actions achieved as a result of rapid marches, the campaign of 1789. The appearance of the Russians on the battlefield during the battles of Focsani and Rymnik was completely unexpected for the Turks. In the first battle, the 5,000-strong Suvorov detachment, which left Byrlad on July 17 to help the allies - the Austrians, overcame very bad roads with a crossing over the river. Seret in 28 hours 50 km. Quickly understanding the situation, the next day Suvorov proposed a bold offensive plan. In order to hide the appearance of Russian troops on the battlefield from the Turks until the decisive moment, the Austrians were placed in the vanguard of the column. In September of the same year, again responding to the Austrians' request for help, Suvorov's 7,000th division made, in even more difficult conditions, a 100-kilometer march from Byrlad to Rymnik in more than two days. Even the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, Potemkin, did not believe in the possibility that Suvorov would be able to arrive in time to help the Austrians, about which he wrote to Catherine II on September 10. Meanwhile, Suvorov was already in the Austrian camp in the morning of that day.
The speed of the marches was of paramount importance in other military campaigns as well. In the Italian campaign of 1799, an 80-kilometer transition into the scorching heat of a 22,000-strong Russian army from Alexandria to the river. Trebbia, completed in 36 hours, allowed Suvorov to forestall the connection of the two French armies and defeat them one by one.
In every battle, Suvorov stunned the enemy with his unusual and novel tactics. Even on the experience of the Seven Years' War of 1756-1763, recognizing the unsuitability of linear tactics for decisive and sudden actions, he subsequently boldly discarded its templates, primarily the outdated forms of battle formations that limited the maneuver of troops on the battlefield.
In May 1773, in the battles for Turtukai, when the Turks discovered Suvorov's detachment during a night raid, secretly preparing to cross the Danube, so as not to lose the surprise factor, he decided to attack the enemy that same night. His calculation, based on the fact that the Turks do not expect such a quick attack by the Russians, was fully justified. In the battle near Turtukai, he first attacked with platoon columns, acting in conjunction with the loose formation of rangers, and, contrary to the general rule, he categorically forbade stopping before throwing into the attack to wait for the laggards.
Suvorov no less successfully used night attacks in other battles and battles. Contrary to the opinion of Western European authorities, the Russian commander believed that night battles and marches, with their skillful organization, were the best way to achieve surprise and quick success. Night battles, available to Suvorov with his "miracle heroes", were beyond the power of most other commanders of that time, and therefore were an unusual phenomenon and stunned the enemy. They were especially unacceptable for mercenary armies.
The battles at Focsani and Rymnik were full of tactical surprises. Alexander Vasilievich used new battle formations here. In the conditions of very rough terrain and with the Turks having a large cavalry, the Russian troops advanced in two lines of infantry squares, behind which the cavalry lined up in one or two lines, ready for surprise attacks. Suvorov also retreated from the fundamental provisions of linear tactics - a close elbow connection between separate units of the army. Having defeated the Turkish troops in the field, he attacked their fortified camps on the move. In the battle of Rymnik, the main fortified positions - trenches, reinforced with serifs, were also attacked by cavalry contrary to the rules, which led the enemy, who had not yet had time to gain a foothold, into complete confusion.
During the defense of Girsovo in 1773 and Kinburn in 1787, Suvorov used pre-prepared counterattacks to defeat the superior enemy forces. In Girisovo, with the help of the deliberately retreating Cossacks, he lured the advancing Turkish troops under fire, which had been silent before, from the fortress batteries, and at the moment of the Turks' confusion he suddenly attacked the enemy. At Kinburn, he did not interfere with the landing of the Turkish landing from the sea. When the Turks approached the walls of the fortress, the Russian troops, secretly concentrated for a counterattack, unexpectedly fell on them.
The Italian and Swiss campaigns were the crown of A. V. Suvorov. In them, he established himself not only as an unsurpassed tactician, but also as an outstanding strategist, a great and inexhaustible master of innovations in the use of not only tactical, but also strategic surprise.
The general plan and the principles of military operations in Northern Italy outlined by Suvorov were unexpected for the French. Instead of passive, slow methodological actions, which were mainly reduced to the struggle for separate fortresses (their siege) and led to the dispersion of forces, Suvorov immediately demanded an offensive in order to attack the enemy and "beat everywhere", not to waste time on sieges and not to divide forces. At the same time, he recalled his main rule that ensures surprise: "Quickness in campaigns, swiftness."
The very beginning of active offensive operations in the spring thaw, during the flooding of rivers, by its unusualness turned out to be unexpected for the French. Departing from the generally accepted rule of waiting for good weather, Suvorov demanded that his subordinates not be afraid that the infantry would get their feet wet. He was not embarrassed by the need to force several rivers on the way. According to him, not only the Adda and Po rivers, but all other rivers in the world are passable.
Starting the Italian campaign, Suvorov did not hesitate to take advantage of the enemy's miscalculation - the scattering of his forces, in addition, he took into account some of the individual characteristics of the commander of the French army, General Scherer - his pedantry and slowness. Unusual and unexpected for the enemy was the very nature of the offensive launched by Suvorov on April 8, 1799 to the river. Adda. He abandoned the usually accepted gathering of all army forces for an offensive in one point (the starting area) and was the first in his time to use the concentration of the forces of the advancing troops during the operation. Having thus gained time, he deprived the enemy of the opportunity to take countermeasures and managed to cross the river. Adda to concentrate 55-60% of the composition of the advancing troops. In the battle on Adda on April 15-17, where the enemy tried to stop the rapid advance of Suvorov's troops, the French lost 3 thousand people killed and 2 thousand prisoners, with the total losses of the allies, slightly exceeding a thousand people. The speed of action, multiplied by surprise, ensured success. Having completed a 36-kilometer march in a day, and misleading the enemy with a skillful maneuver about his intentions, Suvorov brilliantly realized the victory at Adda and on April 18 entered Milan with troops.
Worried about defeat, Paris replaced Scherer with the talented General Moreau and sent a second French army, led by MacDonald, against Suvorov from Naples. But even in a changed, more complex situation, when Suvorov's troops found themselves between two enemy armies operating along external lines of operations, the great commander used speed and surprise, found new tactical solutions that were unexpected for his opponents and defeated both of their armies in turn.
In the battle on the rivers Tydone and Trebbia, he attacked the enemy, who was making a counter march, and immediately seized the initiative. Suvorov foresaw a similar option and identified in advance a strong vanguard (Ott's division), was with him and personally led the ensuing battle. The oncoming battle brilliantly conducted by Suvorov was a new phenomenon at that time and, as you know, was not repeated by any of his contemporaries, including Napoleon.
Equally unusual for the French was the nature of the offensive of the main forces of the Russian-Austrian troops - in three columns (divisions) without an elbow connection, each of which was indicated an independent direction and tasked to a depth of 20 km. Thus, Suvorov raised the art of maneuvering troops on the battlefield to a height unattainable for that time. He was able to concentrate on a 3-kilometer sector against the open left flank of the enemy, where the main attack was delivered, 24 thousand people, leaving no more than 6 thousand on the rest of the 6-kilometer front. Such a decisive concentration of forces was as unusual as other tactical decisions commander. Suvorov acted in a completely different way and again unexpectedly for the enemy against the second French army. When, replenished with fresh forces and reorganized by the new commander Joubert, in July 1799, she began to move in four columns through the mountains from the Genoa region, the Russian commander could break one of her columns, which entered the open area. However, Suvorov did not do this so that the French would not retreat to Genoa with the rest of their forces and thus retain their combat capability. On the contrary, he ordered his vanguard to retreat, luring the enemy out of the mountains. This created a more favorable position for the Russian army to defeat all of Joubert's forces at once. When Joubert understood Suvorov's maneuver and went on the defensive near Novi, the Russian-Austrian troops, not allowing him to gain a foothold in advantageous fortified positions, went on the offensive and on August 4 defeated the French army. By the time of the battle, Suvorov managed to concentrate 50 thousand people against 35 thousand French troops. Demonstrating his intention to deliver the main blow to the left flank of the French and forcing them to transfer the main forces there, including the reserve, the Russian commander, in the midst of the battle, sent his main forces against the right flank of the enemy, again confronting him with surprise. Unusual for that time, the deep formation of troops (up to 10 km) allowed Suvorov to build up the force of the strike, and at the decisive moment to use almost all the troops at once. The Battle of Novi went down in history as a brilliant example of deceiving the enemy by skillful maneuver and skillful use of the surprise factor.
At the heart of the entire Swiss campaign A. V. Suvorov in 1799 lay the demand: "Fast, not weakened and non-stop striking the enemy blow after blow, leading him to confusion …". Suvorov sought to stun the enemy with an unexpected appearance in Switzerland, thanks to a rapid march in the autumn through the Alps. However, the forced 5-day delay in Taverno, due to the betrayal of the Austrian command, prevented him from achieving complete surprise. And yet, brilliantly using tactical surprise, skillfully combining frontal attacks with detours along the mountain paths of the flanks and blows from the rear unexpected for the French, the Russian army defeated the enemy troops standing in its way in the Alps, thereby refuting the views prevailing in military theory about limited actions on high-altitude theaters of war.
Until the end of his days, Suvorov remained faithful to the principles of warfare, among which surprise was so important. For all the years of his military leadership, the most varied experienced opponents in none of the battles were able to unravel his "surprises" and "coincidences" in time and oppose anything to them in order to avoid defeat. Napoleon Bonaparte, who was already glorified at that time, noticed the secret of Suvorov's successive victories better than others. He saw him in the singularity and unexpectedness of Suvorov's actions, in his distinctive military art. With caution and interest following the unchanging successes of the great Russian commander, Napoleon in his advice to the Directory pointed out that no one could stop Suvorov on the path of victories until they understand and comprehend his special art of fighting, and oppose the Russian commander with his own rules. Napoleon himself, took over some of the tactical techniques from Suvorov, and first of all his speed and surprise in attacks.
More than two centuries separate us from the military events associated with the military leadership activities of Suvorov. However, the experience of the genius Russian commander, who is our national pride, as well as many of his thoughts on the role of surprise and how to achieve it in hostilities, have not lost their significance to this day. During the Great Patriotic War, the Order of Suvorov was established by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR as the embodiment of the highest military valor and glory. They were awarded to commanders for outstanding successes in command and control of troops, excellent organization of combat operations, and decisiveness and perseverance shown at the same time in their conduct. During the war years, 7111 people, 1528 units and formations were awarded the Order of Suvorov.
