Statistics of the Swiss campaign
The number of the Russian troops of Suvorov’s army in the Swiss campaign is estimated at 21,000 men. The Austrian forces under command of Offenbach and Strauch are estimated at 7,000 men.
The strength of the French is difficult to estimate. Although the total number of the French troops at the beginning of the campaign was about 80,000 men, not all of them came into contact with the troops of Suvorov. The French also suffered heavy losses in battles with the Russian corps under command of Rimsky-Korsakov. Presumably the army of Suvorov was opposed by 35,000 of the French troops.
According to the results of the campaign, the Russian army lost 5100 people, of which:
- 1,600 killed in action,
- approx. 1,000 wounded,
- approx. 2,500 captives.
Suvorov reported that the French lost at least four times more. It is, likely, to be an overestimation. If the French had lost near 20,000 men, they would have been in a very difficult situation. There is, however, very little doubt that French losses greatly exceeded the losses of the Russians troops (even combined if the losses suffered by the Austrian troops).
It is worth noting that the nature of the conflict in 1799 did not resemble the atrocities of 1812 and the following years. The frenzy of the soldiers in 1799 has not reached that point yet. Both sides made efforts to preserve the lives of the war prisoners as evidenced by multiple sources. For instance, Andrei Glebov, the to-be commander of the 6th Jaeger Regiment, received a head wound in the battle of Schwanden on the last day of fighting in the Swiss campaign and was left dying by the retreating Russian rearguard. However, two years later in 1801, he returned to Russia and live up to 1846. During this war, the wounded of either side were not finished off and the military medical staff treated wounds of soldiers from both sides.
It is worth mentioning that for his deeds in the Swiss campaign Alexander Suvorov was granted the title of generalissimo, which put him practically on a par with the European monarchs. There are very few military leaders in the history who had been granted this supreme title (less than a hundred in the world history and only five in Russia, while only two of them received this title for the military merits in combat).