About the book: 2011 / “Unfortunate Leader” A.S. Pushkin called the brilliant Russian commander Field Marshal Prince Mikhail Bogdanovich Barclay de Tolly . The role of this man in the history of the Patriotic War of 1812 and the subsequent Foreign Campaign of the Russian Army cannot be overestimated: he withdrew the troops from the crushing blow of Napoleon, implementing an unpopular, but the only possible plan for waging war. And two years later it was Barclay de Tolly who led the Allied armies to Paris. Our book is dedicated to the fate and military path of this man, largely misunderstood and underestimated by his contemporaries..