The Burning of Moscow Read online

  The appearance of the Allied advanced guard at the Rogozhskaya and Pokrovskaya barriers greatly alarmed Miloradovich, who became concerned for the safety of the main army and believed that the Allies had acted contrary to the truce that he had concluded with Murat. He was ‘much surprised, having hardly taken up his position behind the city, to see two regiments of the enemy’s light cavalry deploy before us,’ Clausewitz wrote. Miloradovich immediately requested a meeting with the King of Naples, who, however, declined to appear; the Russian rearguard commander was obliged again to content himself with General Sebastiani, to whom he ‘made the liveliest remonstrance against the too great rapidity of the pursuit’.83 Young Ensign Alexander Sherbinin witnessed this meeting. ‘The King of Naples and I have concluded a truce till 7 o’clock in the morning,’ Miloradovich told Sebastiani. ‘And yet, here you are, trying to block my movement.’ The French general calmly replied that he had received no information on such an arrangement from Murat and, as Clausewitz observed, he could have also noted that the Russians ‘had taken a much longer time to move out than the French had anticipated’. Nevertheless, this meeting led to both parties agreeing not to fight, and Sebastiani pledged to let the Russian stragglers and transports pass through. At one moment he even pointed towards a long line of transports moving on the road and teasingly told Miloradovich, ‘You should admit that we are very kind people – all of this could have been ours.’ ‘You are mistaken,’ Miloradovich countered. ‘It would have been yours only over my dead body, while one hundred thousand Russians who stand behind me would have quickly avenged my death.’84

  After the meeting ended, the Russian rearguard slowly continued its retreat and was about 3 miles away from the city when Miloradovich received the alarming news that two Russian dragoon squadrons85 were cut off by French cavalry. In an act of remarkable daring and valour, Miloradovich, without guards or a trumpeter to call for a flag of truce, galloped through the Allied outposts and once more greeted Sebastiani, who was doubtless startled by his appearance; then, notwithstanding the fact that he was surrounded by Allied troops, Miloradovich commanded the trapped Russian dragoons to march forward and led them through the Allied troops.86 By nightfall the Russian rearguard had taken up positions a few miles from Moscow, from where they could see ‘how the city gradually emptied itself through the gates on either side on an endless stream of light transports, without being interrupted by the French for several hours. The Cossacks seemed rather to be yet in possession of these portions of the city while the French advanced guard occupied itself solely with the Russian rearguard. We also saw wreaths of smoke rising from several places in the furthest suburb, which were the result of the confusion that prevailed there.’87 Murat, meanwhile, deployed his forces on the eastern outskirts of the city, covering the Pokrovskaya, Rogozhskaya, Prolomnaya and Semenovskaya barriers, and establishing a chain of outposts from the Ryazan road to the St Petersburg road.

  Napoleon, back at the Dorogomilovskaya barrier, remained anxious about the whole situation. The eerie abandonment of the city had certainly affected him. It was not merely that Russian army but ‘the population, the whole of Russia, that retired at our approach,’ Ségur commented. ‘And together with that population, the emperor saw gliding from his grasp one of the most powerful means of conquest.’88 Napoleon certainly could enter Moscow but, with no municipal delegation offering him the city’s keys, it would look as though he were entering furtively under the cover of darkness instead of in a blaze of triumph. Besides, Durosnel’s report spoke about the spread of disorder and the numerous Russian soldier-stragglers still present in the city, which made it unsafe for the emperor to enter it. Instead Napoleon decided to inspect his divisions and make arrangements for securing Moscow. He briefly passed the barrier and went to the other side of the Moscow river before returning. Around 6pm Antoine-Augustin-Flavien Pion des Loches, a major in the Guard foot artillery, saw him ‘watching us cross the [Dorogomilovskaya] bridge. He was surrounded by generals but nowhere near him did I see a single Russian.’89 Muralt’s Bavarian chevau-légers had also moved across the bridge, where they saw ‘the emperor, wearing his chasseur uniform, with the usual four chasseurs posted in a square around him, strolling to and fro with hands clasped behind his back and talking to the prince of Neuchatel’.90 Aart Kool, the Dutch engineer in Davout’s 1st Corps, also recalled seeing Napoleon ‘walking back and forth, restlessly, for over two hours. The Polish generals and officers, who had been sent to the city, came back empty-handed.’91

  Dressed in their parade uniforms, the Italians, Germans and Poles were eager to enter Moscow, but had to wait till the morrow. ‘Everyone was excited by the proximity of the city and by hopes of peace but also annoyed over the slight inflicted on us by the Guard, whom we regarded as mere parade ground troops,’ derisively commented Lieutenant Carl Anton Wilhelm Wedel. At least they ‘were near enough to admire the city’s immense extent – its domes of a thousand colours and the endless variety of its numerous edifices. We had looked forward to this day as one of our happiest for we had expected it to mark the end of our labours, and that the victory [at Borodino] and the capture of Moscow would finish the war.’92 To their great disappointment, Napoleon ordered the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th Corps to stop on the outskirts of the city: ‘[we] were expressly forbidden to enter Moscow,’ remembered a colonel of the 4th Regiment of the 3rd Corps.93 But many disobeyed the order since they were ‘too young, too foolhardy and too hungry’.94

  At around 3pm, the Young Guard under Marshal Mortier was instructed to enter Moscow.95 ‘The order “Garde-à-vous!” was now given, preceded by a roll of drums from the Guard, the signal for entering the town. We made our entrance marching in close columns, the bands playing in front.’96 Inside the city the Guardsmen were surprised not to ‘see a living soul’ in the streets and homes. Some were upset that there was no one to see the Imperial Guard in all its splendour and ‘listen to our band playing “La victoire est a nous”.’97 They could not understand this total silence and imagined that the inhabitants, not daring to show themselves, were peeping at them from behind their shutters. ‘I realized that the city had been abandoned,’ remembered one of them, ‘and I still laugh at the sententious tone of Captain Lefrançois as he proclaimed, “No one abandons a great city, these canailles seem to be hiding. We will find them all right, we will see them at our feet.”’98 But the early signs were not encouraging. Sergeant Scheltens saw ‘huge flocks of black birds, crows and ravens, swarming around the churches and palaces, lending the whole scene a most sinister aspect’. The first thing that struck Louis Joseph Vionnet de Maringone on entering Moscow was ‘the sadness that I witnessed painted on the faces of those individuals who had stayed behind. I observed many of them weeping bitterly.’99 ‘The solitude and the silence which greeted us [in the city] calmed down in a disagreeable way the frenzy of happiness which had made our blood race a few moments before, and caused it to be replaced by a vague sense of anxiety,’ recalled Fantin des Odoards.100

  This anxiety was certainly exacerbated by occasional attacks by the few remaining Muscovites. ‘As we were crossing the [Dorogomilovskii] bridge leading from the suburbs to the city itself,’ wrote Sergeant Bourgogne, ‘a man crept out from under the bridge … He was muffled up in a sheepskin cape, long grey hair fell down on to his shoulders, and a thick white beard came down to his waist. He brandished a three-pronged pitchfork and looked like Neptune rising from the sea.’ Seeing a drum major in his smart uniform and lace, the man seems to have mistaken him for a general and charged at him with his pitchfork. The drum major dodged the blow and gave the old man a hefty kick, sending him into the river. Moments later, more Russians appeared, some of whom tried opening fire at the Young Guard but, since they did not wound anyone and most had ‘only wooden flintlocks to their muskets’, Bourgogne and his comrades simply contented themselves with taking their weapons from them and breaking them.101 Lieutenant Heinrich von Brandt remembered encountering a

  giga
ntic Russian who, as we were filing by, dashed out of one house and made for another over the road. As he crossed the street he knocked into some of our soldiers and an officer, who drew his sword. The man, who seemed rather wild, opened his coat and shouted, ‘Plunge your steel into this Russian bosom!’ As we had been ordered to treat the inhabitants with courtesy, we let him be and he disappeared into the house, slamming the door shut behind him. ‘If they are all like that,’ a sergeant said, ‘our troubles have only just begun.’102

  The Young Guard103 reached the Kremlin at around 5pm and, ‘turning sharp to the left, [we] entered a larger and finer street than the one we had left, leading to the Place du Gouvernement’, where Governor Rostopchin’s mansion was located.104 Mortier chose his lodgings with an apothecary, who ‘spoke French and seemed to be very learned’, and whose house was on the corner of the street in front of the governor’s palace.105 Meanwhile, the Young Guard settled down in and around the Place du Gouvernement and the Kremlin, where, as Pion des Loches observed, ‘the regiments that preceded [my artillery company] formed themselves as for battle in one of the public places’.106 Vionnet de Maringone of the Fusilier-Grenadiers busied himself ‘placing guards and sentries at all the public houses, stores of food, the Stock Exchange, the Bank and at the orphanage that had the appearance of a palace and contained considerable supplies’. The rest of the division was deployed inside the Kremlin and on the Kuznetskii bridge over the Neglinnaya river (north of the Kremlin), which the French called ‘le Pont des Maréchaux’.107

  As night descended on Moscow, Napoleon made preliminary arrangements for the occupation of the city. Marshal Mortier became the governor of the Moscow province, General Antoine Durosnel the military commandant, and Jean-Baptiste Barthelemy de Lesseps, formerly the French Consul General at St Petersburg, the intendant.108 According to Ségur, when Napoleon appointed Mortier as the governor he told him, ‘Above all, no pillage! For this you shall be answerable to me with your life. Defend Moscow against all, whether friend or foe.’ A special proclamation was issued to the residents of Moscow requiring them to register with the French authorities and provide information on the available financial, military and supply resources.109 At last, at around 7pm, Napoleon – ‘shrugging his shoulders and exclaiming with that scornful air with which he crushed everything that opposed his wishes, “Ah! The Russians know not yet the effect the capture of their capital will produce on them!”’110 – passed through the Dorogomilovskaya barrier and took up temporary residence in an abandoned building, which Caulaincourt described as ‘a wretched tavern, built of wood, at the entrance to the suburb’, although Bausset found it ‘a fine wooden house’.111 Whatever building it was, Napoleon’s first valet Louis Constant Wairy found it ‘so dirty and miserable that the next morning we found in [Napoleon’s] bed and clothing a sort of vermin [lice] that is very common in Russia’.

  ‘It was a gloomy night,’ Ségur recalled. The building had a malodorous smell which caused Napoleon, who had a very acute sense of smell, to call out to his valet every minute to ‘burn some vinegar; I cannot endure this frightful odour; it is torturing me and I cannot sleep’. So Constant spent the night burning vinegar and aloe wood, but Napoleon still could not sleep.112 But he had more pressing concerns than the disagreeable odour of his temporary shelter. Eighty-two days had passed since the Grande Armée crossed the Niemen and in that time it had marched over 800 miles deep into Russia and lost two-thirds of its manpower without any prospect of victory or peace in the near future. At least Napoleon could now claim Moscow, and he hoped that the city’s occupation would erase all the previous disappointments and provide the impetus to force Alexander to sue for peace. Alas, even this wish proved to be fleeting, for, as Caulaincourt noted, ‘at about eleven o’clock in the evening news came that the city’s [main] Market was on fire’ and the blaze quickly spread through the city’s wooden buildings. The Moscow fire had begun.

  Emperor Alexander learned about the abandonment of the former Russian capital from letters written by Rostopchin and Kutuzov between 13 and 16 September. He was thunderstruck by the news. Kutuzov’s first report on the outcome of Borodino had claimed a victory over Napoleon and contained many self-congratulatory lines, including one that described the Cossacks having been sent ‘in pursuit of the enemy’ and driving the enemy rearguard ‘eleven verstas from the village of Borodino’. The news of this victory was rapturously celebrated throughout St Petersburg, where church bells pealed forth and trumpets blared. It seemed the war would be over soon and, taken in by Kutuzov’s embellished dispatch, Alexander hurriedly arranged celebrations for a major victory. Just days later he learned the bitter truth. On 10 September Kutuzov wrote a short message informing the emperor that, due to heavy losses, he was compelled to withdraw the army eastwards.113 Thereafter the shrewd commander-in-chief lapsed into a silence that he did not break until after the fall of Moscow. It was Rostopchin’s aggrieved letter that made the situation clear. Complaining that Kutuzov’s silence ‘aggravates my astonishment’, Alexander immediately dispatched one of his aides-de-camp to the main Russian army to ascertain ‘the reasons that impelled [Kutuzov] to such an unfortunate resolution’.114 Learning a lesson from the Borodino celebration fiasco, the emperor chose to keep the Petersburgers in the dark as to the full extent of the disaster unfolding in Moscow. Yet, the government’s decision to evacuate some imperial institutions, including the Hermitage Palace and the voluminous state archives, only contributed to the growing anxiety in the capital.115 Joseph de Maistre, the Sardinian envoy in Russia, was convinced that Russia’s official capital would soon fall, proclaiming ‘There is no more Russia! Behind us there is nothing left but Spitsbergen [island in the Arctic Ocean].’ Many members of the court and nobility chose to pack their prize belongings into trunks and transport them to remote eastern regions for safekeeping. Their actions further increased the public nervousness in the capital. ‘Everyone lived, as the saying has it, on axle-grease,’ recalled Vasily Marchenko, a senior official in His Majesty’s Personal Chancellery. ‘Whoever could do so kept at least two horses in reserve, while others had hidden boats ready to leave via the canals, which were especially dyked up for their use.’116

  The Cathedral Square inside the Kremlin, by F. Alekseyev, 1800–1802. The square’s name relates to the great cathedrals that stand here – Blagoveshchenskii Sobor (the Cathedral of the Annunciation), Uspenski Sobor (the Cathedral of the Assumption) and Arkhangelskii Sobor (the Cathedral of the Archangel) – as well as the Church of the Twelve Apostles and the Church of the Deposition of the Robe. The Ivan the Great Bell-Tower, the Assumption Belfry and the Filaret Annexe dominate the centre of the painting.

  The view from the Troitskaya (Trinity) Tower and Gates of the Kremlin. Note the earthworks and the dry bed of the Neglinnaya River.

  View of the Cathedral of St Basil the Blessed from Moskvoretskaya Street, by F. Alekseyev, 1800–1802. The viewer standing in the middle of the street would have the Moscow River and the Moskvoretskii Bridge behind him, the Kremlin to the left and the Merchant’s Court to the right.

  View of Moscow from the southeast, on the Moscow river, by F. Alekseyev, 1800–1802. The Kremlin towers can be discerned in the distance, while the imposing building on the right is the Foundlings Home.

  Inside the Kremlin complex, by F. Alekseyev, 1800–1802. The Terem Palace can be seen on the left, while the Church of the Saviour in the Woods is in the centre.

  The Red Square and the St Basil Cathedral in the early nineteenth century, by F. Alekseyev, 1800–1802. Note the trade stalls in front of the cathedral, the Spasskaya (Saviour) Tower and Gates on the right and the trade stalls of the Merchant’s Court on the left. The large round platform in the middle of the square is Lobnoe Mesto, where state decrees were announced.

  General Domenico Pino’s 15th Division on the march, 16 July 1812, by Albrecht Adam.

  The Grande Armée’s units bivouacked in the vicinity of Moscow, 20 September 1812, by Albrecht Adam.
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  The devastated environs of Moscow on 20 September 1812, by Albrecht Adam.

  In the suburbs of Moscow, 20 September 1812, by Albrecht Adam.

  Allied troops resting in Moscow, 22 September 1812, by Albrecht Adam.

  Napoleon amidst the burned ruins of Moscow, 22 September 1812, by Albrecht Adam.

  Christian von Martens’s drawing of the Moscow Fire, as seen from the bastions of the Kremlin, 18 September 1812. (Courtesy of Baden-Württemberg Landesarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart J 52 Bü 4)

  ‘In Moscow’ – drawn by Christian von Martens, 18 September 1812. (Courtesy of Baden-Württemberg Landesarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart J 52 Bü 4)

  Moscow burning, as drawn by Christian von Martens, 19 September 1812. (Courtesy of Baden-Württemberg Landesarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart J 52 Bü 4)

  Another view of Moscow burning, as seen from one of the city barriers, drawn by Christian von Martens, 19 September 1812. (Courtesy of Baden-Württemberg Landesarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart J 52 Bü 4)