The Burning of Moscow Read online

  Accompanied by a trumpeter, Akinfov approached the enemy outposts and a signal to parley was sounded. Akinfov was greeted by a colonel of the 1st Chasseurs à Cheval, who first took him to General Sebastiani, commander of the 2nd Cavalry Corps. Sebastiani initially offered to deliver the message to Murat but Akinfov insisted on doing it himself. ‘After passing by five cavalry regiments deployed in chess formation in front of infantry columns,’ Akinfov found himself in front of the ‘splendidly dressed Murat, who was surrounded by a magnificent suite’. Greeting the Russian officer, Murat raised his richly feathered hat and, after ordering his suite to leave them alone, he asked Akinfov, ‘Monsieur capitaine, what do you have for me?’ Akinfov handed him a note and explained the purpose of his mission. Quickly glancing at the letter, Murat replied, ‘There is no point in entrusting your wounded and sick to the compassion of the French troops. The French do not consider the prisoners as their enemies.’ As for Miloradovich’s request for a truce, Murat told Akinfov that he could not act without Napoleon’s orders, and instructed one of his aides-de-camp to escort him to Napoleon. But just as Akinfov was riding away, Murat changed his mind and called him back, declaring that he had decided to grant Miloradovich’s request and would not rush his forces to Moscow on the condition that he would be able to occupy the city that same day. Akinfov agreed and Murat immediately issued orders to halt his forward outposts and cease fire. Napoleon’s aide-de-camp Gaspard Gourgaud, who happened to be with Murat at this moment, rushed back to the emperor to deliver the news. He was subjected to ‘a host of questions regarding the situation in Moscow. His answers were accurate but also conveyed a sense of excitement or rather intoxication that each of us felt at the time of entering the old capital of Russia … Indeed, Moscow was a peace! It would be a glorious peace!’11 Napoleon confirmed Murat’s decision and sent Gourgaud back to tell him so.

  Meanwhile, at the advanced guard Murat continued his conversation with Akinfov. He spoke highly of Miloradovich as the two had fought against each other on several previous occasions. The King of Naples was evidently unaware of the Russian abandonment of the city and his decision to accept the Russian proposal was done to spare the city unnecessary bloodshed and destruction. Had he known about the Russian efforts to evacuate the entire city, he might have acted more vigorously to disrupt the process. But instead Murat enjoyed the prospect of the French occupation of Moscow and urged the Russian officer to convince the city residents to remain calm and that no harm would be caused to them; the French authorities would ensure their safety. At one point, however, some suspicion over the Russian designs must have crossed Murat’s mind as he suddenly asked whether Moscow was abandoned – but Akinfov gave an evasive response. Murat then quickly returned to his musings, wondering aloud why ‘peace has not been discussed as of yet’; he then used a strong expletive, which Akinfov did not dare to repeat on paper – and expressed his hope that the war would be over soon.12 While Murat was conversing with Akinfov, his orders reached General Sebastiani, who appeared at the Russian outposts. Carl von Clausewitz, the famous military theorist, who was with the Russian advanced guard at that moment, noted that Miloradovich had wanted to meet Murat in person and ‘was not pleased by Sebastiani’s appearance but nevertheless acceded to meeting [him] and a pretty long conference ensued, to which we of the suite were not admitted’. The two generals, who had briefly met in Bucharest several years earlier, rode together a good portion of the way towards Moscow. Discussing the situation, Miloradovich spoke of the need to spare the city as far as possible, to which Sebastiani ‘replied with the utmost eagerness, “Monsieur, the emperor will move his Guard at the head of his army and no disorders would be possible in the city.” … Sebastiani had promised that the head of his advanced guard should not enter the city sooner than two hours after our departure.’13

  As his conversation with Murat ended, Akinfov returned to Moscow, escorted by the same colonel of the 1st Chasseurs à Cheval. ‘To gain a bit more time,’ he tells us in his memoir, ‘I asked the colonel for permission to take a look at the two Polish hussar regiments that we passed by. The colonel agreed to accompany me along the front of these two regiments. But he noticed that I rode slowly and we were losing time and asked me increase my speed. I had to comply …’ In the meantime, Miloradovich left the outposts to supervise the withdrawal of his forces. Approaching the Kremlin, he was startled to see the chef of Moscow’s garrison regiment Lieutenant General Vasilii Brozin leading the two garrison battalions out of the Kremlin with their band playing. There was a violent outcry among the retreating soldiery, who indignantly shouted that he was rejoicing amidst a national tragedy. Infuriated, Miloradovich shouted at Brozin, ‘What scoundrel instructed you to march with band playing?’ Brozin replied, with an annoying naiveté, that the military regulations of Peter the Great stipulated that upon surrendering a fortress, its garrison, if allowed to depart freely, must come out with band playing. ‘But where in the regulations does it say anything about the surrender of [the capital city of] Moscow?’ yelled Miloradovich. ‘Order the music to stop at once!’

  Returning from the French outposts, Akinfov informed Miloradovich of Murat’s acceptance of the armistice. ‘It seems the French are too eager to occupy Moscow,’ the general commented. He then dispatched a messenger to inform Kutuzov of the armistice.

  The Russian army was still withdrawing through the streets of Moscow. Barclay de Tolly had placed his staff officers at intervals to enforce order and facilitate the movement; knowing the especial weakness of the Russian soldiers, he issued strict orders that anyone found in a beer-shop or intoxicated was to be summarily punished. He spent the entire day directing the march (he would remain on horseback for eighteen hours) and complaining bitterly about the inefficiency of his officers, who did little or nothing to facilitate the withdrawal. Knowing that the streets of Moscow were still packed with carriages, transports and thousands of people, Miloradovich realized that he would not be able to get all of his men and equipment out of the city in time. So he instructed Akinfov to go back to Murat with a revised offer of extending the ceasefire until 7am the following morning – otherwise Miloradovich again threatened to fight ‘to the last extremity’.

  Shortly after noon the French advanced guard climbed the Poklonnaya Gora, from where it had a magnificent view of the city. At one o’clock in the afternoon, remembered Adrien-Jean-Baptiste François Bourgogne, ‘after passing through the woods, we saw a hill some way off, and half an hour afterwards part of the army reached the highest point, signalling to us who were behind, and shouting “Moscow! Moscow!”’14 ‘The weather was warm and clear that day,’ recalled a Russian contemporary. ‘Not a cloud could be seen in the sky, although it was a bit windy in the morning.’15 Standing on the Poklonnaya Gora, the men of the Grande Armée could therefore fully enjoy ‘a magnificent spectacle that surpassed by far everything that our imagination had been able to conjure in terms of Asiatic splendour’. The worn-out men were bewitched by ‘an incredible quantity of bell towers and domes painted in bright colours, topped with gilded crosses and linked to each other with chains which were also gilded’.16 They greeted the emperor ‘with loud cheers clearly expressing their feelings of joy’.17 Upon reaching the Poklonnaya Gora, Napoleon and the rest of the Grande Armée paused to enjoy the panoramic view of Moscow.18 ‘There, at last, is that famous city!’ Napoleon exclaimed. ‘It is about time!’

  The sight of Moscow and the news of the armistice ‘intoxicated all with the enthusiasm of glory’, recalled Ségur, and Napoleon’s marshals, who had shunned him after the bloodbath at Borodino, ‘forgot their grievances, pressed around the emperor, paying homage to his good fortune, and already tempted to attribute to his genius the little pains he had taken on the 7th to complete his victory’. Very few travellers had ventured as far east as Moscow and no other European army, except for the Poles in the 1600s, had ever managed to penetrate so deeply into Russia. So the soldiers found everything very strange and exotic. Napo
leon himself is said to have gazed long and eagerly upon Moscow, the summit of his ambitions, now lying defenceless before his eyes. ‘It was two o’clock,’ Phillippe Ségur commented. ‘The sun caused this great city to glisten with a thousand colours. Struck with astonishment at the sight, the [Allied troops] paused, exclaiming, “Moscow! Moscow!” Everyone quickened his pace; the troops hurried on in disorder; and the whole army, clapping their hands, repeated with delight, “Moscow! Moscow!” just as sailors shout “Land! Land!” at the conclusion of a long and toilsome voyage.’

  There was ‘universal enthusiasm’, observed Lieutenant Serraris in his journal, noting that looking at this ‘gilded city’ some Allied soldiers stood still in contemplation. This moment reminded Cesare de Laugier and Fantin des Odoards of the poet Tasso’s famous description of the crusaders roaring at the sight of Jerusalem:19

  But when the gliding sun was mounted high,

  Jerusalem, behold, appeared in sight,

  Jerusalem they view, they see, they spy,

  Jerusalem with merry noise they greet,

  With joyful shouts, and acclamations sweet.20

  To the young Private Jakob Walter of General Hugfel’s 25th Division ‘this holy city was like the description of the city of Jerusalem, over which our Saviour wept; it even resembled the horror and wasting according to the Gospel’.21 The sunlight shimmering on numerous domes, spires and palaces was captivating indeed. ‘Many capitals I have seen – Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Vienna and Madrid – had only produced an ordinary impression on me,’ noted Bourgogne. ‘But this was quite different and the effect was to me, in fact, to everyone, magical.’22 Indeed, Colonel Griois of the 3rd Cavalry Corps found it ‘in no way resembling any cities I had seen in Europe’.23 Captain Eugène Labaume of Viceroy Eugène’s 4th Corps ‘perceived a thousand elegant and gilded spires, which, glittering in the rays of the sun, seemed at a distance like so many globes of fire … Transported with delight at this beautiful spectacle … we could not suppress our joy but, with a simultaneous movement, we all exclaimed “Moscow! Moscow!” At the sound of this long-wished-for name, the soldiers rushed up the hill in crowds … [to see] one of those celebrated cities of Asia, which we had thought existed only in the creative imagination of the Arabian poets.’24 For Fantin des Odoards the sight of Moscow conjured up the fantastical world of the One Thousand and One Nights.25 Ségur believed that

  this glorious day … would furnish the grandest, the most brilliant recollection of our whole lives. We felt that at this moment all our actions would engage the attention of the astonished universe; and that every one of our movements, however trivial, would be recorded by history. On this immense and imposing theatre we marched, accompanied, as it were, by the acclamations of all nations: proud of exalting our grateful age above all other ages, we already beheld it great from our greatness, and completely irradiated by our glory … At that moment, dangers, sufferings were all forgotten. Was it possible to purchase too dearly the proud felicity of being able to say, during the rest of life, ‘I belonged to the army of Moscow!’

  Among those who felt the magic of this moment was the Polish Count Roman Soltyk, who served on Napoleon’s staff and whose ancestors had fought in Moscow some two hundred years earlier. ‘Who can understand the feeling that I experienced deep in my heart at the sight of this ancient capital of the tsars?’ he wondered. ‘This sight had awoken so many great historical memories. It was here that in the early seventeenth century the triumphant Poles erected their banner and the Muscovites had to kneel in front it, acknowledging the son of our king as their sovereign. And now the descendant of those Poles has come once more amidst Napoleon’s columns erecting their triumphant eagles over the city. All these victories of my compatriots, both ancient and present, merged into one in my imagination …’26 But there were also many others who savoured more practical prospects. At the sight of Moscow ‘troubles, dangers, fatigues, privations were all forgotten, and the pleasure of entering Moscow absorbed all our minds. To take up good quarters for the winter, and to make conquests of another nature – such is the French soldier’s character: from war to love, and from love to war!’27 Another French officer wondered what ‘pleasures and delights’ awaited them in Moscow.28

  Atop the Poklonnaya Gora, Napoleon dismounted, drew his short spyglass from its holder and quickly examined the immense city that lay in front of him. He then asked Caulaincourt to bring him a larger telescope, which he rested on the shoulder of Anatole de Montesquiou. As he studied the city, he exclaimed several times, ‘Barbarians! They are leaving all of this to us! It is not possible. Caulaincourt, what do you think of it? Tell me, can you believe it?’ ‘Your Majesty knows better than anyone what I think of it,’ tersely replied the grand equerry, who had been against this war from the very beginning and had lost his brother in battle just a week ago.29 To better understand the city, Napoleon asked for François Lelorgne d’Ideville, the brilliant polyglot who had served for years with the French embassy in Russia, to identify principal buildings and locations.30 He was eager to see if the city gates would at length open and emit the deputation tamely bearing the city’s keys and placing the wealth of the city at his disposal. ‘It is customary, at the approach of a victorious general, for the civil authorities to present themselves at the gates of the city with the keys, in the interests of safeguarding the inhabitants and their property,’ a French officer explained. ‘The conqueror can then make known his intentions concerning the governance of the city.’31 But as time went on, Moscow remained silent and inanimate and the anxiety of the emperor and the impatience of the soldiers increased. Throughout the afternoon Napoleon dispatched a number of emissaries to explore the city’s suburbs. One of them, Anatole de Montesquiou, was sent to investigate a large building that Lelorgne d’Ideville could not identify. Galloping to the Dorogomilovskaya barrier, he entered the suburb, which he found completely empty. Approaching the building he had been ordered to identity, he found its entrance open and the building abandoned. A quick inspection of its tall, thick walls and bare, cell-like chambers led him to believe that it had been a penal house, now emptied of its inmates. As he came out, he encountered two tall Russians, who scowled at him and, ignoring Montesquiou’s attempts to address them in French, German and Polish, shouted back ‘Frantsuzy kaput!’ [The French are done for.]32

  By early afternoon all the officers who had ventured within the walls of the city returned with the depressing news that the city was being abandoned completely. Losing patience, Napoleon ordered Murat to proceed towards Moscow. The leading elements of Murat’s advanced guard entered the Dorogomilovskaya suburbs around 3pm, with Sebastiani’s cavalry leading the way. The 10th Polish Hussar Regiment was first into the city, followed by the 1st Combined Prussian Lancer Regiment, the 3rd Württemberg Jager zu Pferd and the remaining troops of the 2nd Light Cavalry Division with the horse artillery. Behind them came the 2nd and 4th Cuirassier Divisions and the 4th Cavalry Corps.33

  As the Allied advanced guard quietly followed the Cossacks of the Russian rearguard into the Dorogomilovskaya suburb,34 the two sides came closer together and eventually intermingled and seemed to become part of the same host. The Allied troops occasionally halted to let Russian transports or stragglers pass, and officers and soldiers on both sides looked with curiosity at men whom they had frequently met on the field of battle. Captain Leopold Gluchowski, a staff officer in the 5th Corps, was in a leading group of Allied soldiers who found themselves amidst the Russians, who, upon noticing a foreign officer, shouted ‘Peace! Peace!’35 Yet, amidst this impromptu fraternization, Anatole de Montesquiou noticed ‘a strange thing’: ‘The dogs of both armies were the least amicable, suspiciously looking at and staying away from each other while continually growling, which alerted us to their continued animosity.’36

  The larger-than-life figure of Murat was at the centre of it all. Lieutenant Albert von Muralt of the Bavarian chevau-légers, whom Viceroy Eugène dispatched to Murat for more news, found th
e King of Naples ‘surrounded by a brilliant and numerous suite and by Cossacks and generals who were flattering him on his bravery’. As expected, Murat was dressed flamboyantly in ‘a short coat of dark-red sammet with slashed arms. A short straight sword hung from a richly embroidered belt. His boots were of red morocco leather, and on his head he wore a big three-cornered hat, embroidered with gold borders and with a long plume which he had put on back to front. His long brown hair hung down in curls on to his shoulders.’37 A Russian officer watched as Murat, with Cossacks all around him, halted his horse and asked if anyone spoke French. As a young officer rode forwards, Murat inquired who commanded these Russian troops. The officer pointed to Colonel Yefremov, a stern-looking man in Cossack uniform. ‘Ask him,’ Murat continued, ‘if he knows who I am.’ The young man carried out this request and informed Murat that the colonel ‘knows Your Majesty well and has always seen you in the heat of the battle’. The King of Naples liked the Cossack’s answer and approached him. He noticed the sumptuous felt coat on Yefremov’s shoulders and commented that it must be quite useful on bivouacs. Without speaking, Yefremov simply took off the coat and gave it to Murat, who was surprised by the Russian’s generosity and wanted to respond in kind; unable to find anything suitable on himself, he asked his aides-de-camp for their watches and presented them to the Cossack officer and his companions.38

  Akinfov, returning with Miloradovich’s new offer to the French outposts, found Murat already near the Dorogomilovskaya barrier as he ‘rode in the wake of his cavalry chain that had become mixed with our Cossacks’. Murat greeted Akinfov cheerfully and accepted the new offer but on condition that ‘everything that belonged to the army would be left behind’. Remarkably, Murat then inquired if Akinfov had informed the residents of Moscow to stay calm in the face of the impending occupation. ‘Even though I did not even give it a thought and there was no one in Moscow I could talk to about this,’ the Russian officer commented in his memoir, ‘I assured Murat that I had carried out his request.’