On top of that, Barclay de Tolly had to deal with the military advisors who surrounded Alexander I; each tended to give his advice at the risk of sowing even more confusion, which provoked the ironic assessment made by Napoleon to Balashov: “While Phül proposes, Armfeld contradicts, Bennigsen examines, and Barclay, on whom the execution rests, does not know what to conclude.”17 Finally, based on a system of conscription that enrolled adolescents who had been torn from their families and rural communities to be placed for 25 years under the authority of officers who were often contemptuous and cruel and subjected them to absurd levels of iron discipline, the Russian army partook of a feudal and coercive regime18 that was a priori unpropitious for a sense of sacrifice. However, despite the difficulties and trials the cohesion of the Russian army remained strong, and there were few cases of desertion, with no comparison to the situation in the Grande Armée. It is precisely in the archaic nature of the Russian army, which bore so many elements of weakness, that we must seek the key to this cohesion: for a peasant drafted for 25 years, year after year, the regiment took the place of the family and became a total community, a collective reference with which he identified and without which he could not imagine living—hence his ardor to defend it against all fate’s blows.19
So, in the night of June 23–24, Napoleon crossed the Niemen, and with his advance guard he headed toward Vilnius where he could threaten both Moscow and St. Petersburg. The 80 miles that separate Kaunas from Vilnius were covered in three days, and on June 28 Napoleon was ready to enter the city. But meanwhile Barclay had ordered his troops to evacuate Vilnius, (after having blown up bridges and warehouses); reaching the fortified camp of Drissa, he ordered Bagration’s army to withdraw to Minsk. On June 27, at three o’clock in the morning, Alexander and his staff left Vilnius, abandoning the city to the Grande Armée, which entered it the next day. A majority of the population were Poles who welcomed enthusiastically this army that they thought had come to liberate them.20 And, in fact, from Napoleon’s establishment in the city, where he would remain almost 18 days, he hurried to make his mark by installing a provisional government of Lithuania, dividing the region into departments, and setting up a military administration that lasted until December 1812.21 But according to Napoleon’s Grand Equerry, Armand de Caulaincourt, the French emperor was not satisfied:
He was astonished that they could have given up Vilna22 without a fight and that they took their decision in enough time to escape. The lost hope of a grand battle before Vilna was for him a real disappointment. He would take vengeance by shouting about the cowardice of his adversaries, who were playing his game by dishonoring themselves in the eyes of the brave Poles; who had yielded the country and Polish fortunes to him without having done the honor of fighting for them.23
Moreover, this first “conquest” by Napoleon was already proving costly: while the troops were bivouacked close to the city, a violent snow- and hailstorm that beat for several hours over the region caused the deaths of hundreds of soldiers and of 8,000 horses. Bread was lacking and cases of dysentery increasing, and already the number of marauders was estimated at 30,000.24
Meanwhile, on the Russian side, the fall of Vilnius angered several generals, including Bagration, who would have preferred to give battle to prevent it. But this disapproval did not change Barclay’s determination to avoid a frontal confrontation. The following weeks saw the same tactic: at the head of the first army, Barclay took the route to Drissa where he arrived on July 21, but in the opinion of several experts, including the Prussian colonel Von Clausewitz,25 Colonel Michaud (an officer from Nice who had passed into the tsar’s service), and in the opinion of Barclay and Bennigsen, the Drissa camp was insufficiently protected. As Bennigsen put it:
More than 2,000 men had worked for six months on these defensive works and they were called a second Gibraltar. You can imagine my surprise when I found it the worst, most disadvantageous position I ever saw chosen to receive a battle that might decide the outcome of the campaign—and perhaps of the State!26
And so Barclay de Tolly decided to abandon Drissa and head to Vitebsk where he hoped to achieve the junction with Bagration’s troops.
Meanwhile, following suggestions coming from Arakcheev, Balashov, and Shishkov, as well as his sister Catherine’s insistent advice, Alexander decided to leave the theater of operations. For those close to him, the tsar’s power was by nature sacred and should not be exposed to the misfortunes of battle. So, while keeping the title of commander in chief of the Russian armies, Alexander handed over to Barclay the responsibility for his army. Leaving it, he solemnly told him: “Good-bye, general, good-bye again. I entrust you my army: do not forget that I have no other. May this thought never forsake you.”27 Then he left for Moscow in order to raise new recruits. And in a week, no fewer than 80,000 new men joined up.
Napoleon had grasped the meaning of the Russian maneuver and wanted to prevent the junction of the troops so he tried to beat Barclay to Vitebsk in order to overwhelm him and then trap him. On July 25–26 he reached the Russian rearguard at Ostrovno, near Vitebsk, and hoped to have the much-anticipated decisive battle. But Barclay de Tolly, who had not yet managed to join Bagration’s army, chose to withdraw in the direction of Smolensk in order to effect the junction of the armies farther east. On July 28, the Grand Armée entered a deserted Vitebsk without having obtained the decisive victory—postponed again.
On August 2 the armies of Barclay and Bagration finally effected their union under the walls of Smolensk and decided to go onto the offensive. Four days later, Barclay de Tolly engaged in a first cavalry assault that opposed the French general Murat’s troops to those of Count Osterman: the battle turned to the advantage of the Russians, but the two Russian armies chose to fall back toward Smolensk on the Dnieper. This gave rise to an irritated letter from Bagration to Arakcheev, written during the retreat march:
It is really not my fault. They started to stretch me like catgut along the whole line. The enemy entered without having fired a shot and we began to withdraw, I know not what we are supposed to have done wrong. You will not persuade anyone either in Russia or in the army that we were not betrayed; I cannot defend all of Russia alone. The first army should retire immediately and march to Vilna at all costs, but that is just what is feared. I am surrounded by the enemy and I could not tell you in advance where I will then find myself. What God wants to happen will happen, but I will not sleep unless my strength betrays me, for I have not felt well for several days. I pray you insistently to advance on the enemy, otherwise things will end badly, as much on the enemy’s side as on ours: one does not joke with national feelings and the Russians are not made to flee. We have become worse than the Prussians. I will find a breach to escape, naturally with losses. But shame on you. You have a fortified camp behind you, open flanks, weak enemy corps in front of you—it is your duty to attack. My rearguard fights every day and I cannot withdraw to either Minsk or on the Wyeyka River because of the bad roads and the swamps. I have not a moment of respite, I am not thinking of myself. As God is my witness, I ask only to do what I can.28
On August 16–17, while the Grande Armée was approaching Smolensk, combat began in the suburbs. Violent and fierce, it caused 12,000 killed or wounded on the Russian side and 10,000 among the assailants and was ended by an order to retreat given by Barclay de Tolly. Judging the balance of forces to be to his disadvantage (80,000 Russians to 120,000 invaders), Barclay de Tolly gave this order after having burned the warehouses and bridges over the Dnieper. But this new retreat provoked the open anger of other generals. In a rage Bagration wrote to Ermolov: “I am ashamed to wear the uniform. What an imbecile. Minister Barclay is running away. I admit that this disgusts me so much I’ll go crazy.”29 In a letter to Rostopchin, he let his hatred burst forth with oaths against “this bastard, this riffraff, this damned Barclay.”30
The Russian retreat allowed Napoleon to enter a deserted and devastated Smolensk: of the 2,250 houses in the town, only 35
0 remained standing. But the taking of the town did not mark a decisive victory. In addition, the Grande Armée was confronted with increasing difficulties: badly fed men were weak; the heat beating down on the area provoked epidemics and a rise in mortality. At this date Napoleon was hesitating between two strategies:31 either to pause long enough to help the Grande Armée get back on its feet or else to continue the offensive to Moscow, 300 miles away, to seek the decisive victory there. For him, it was inconceivable that the Russian armies would abandon their holy capital without a battle. In addition, because Moscow as the economic capital of the country was a great river junction, and rivers were the only means of transport in Russia, it appeared crucial to hold Moscow in order to hold the tsar. If deprived of its provision of raw materials, St. Petersburg, which was well defended on a military level, would be gradually asphyxiated and Alexander would be forced to negotiate. For the historian Andrey Ratchinski, the choice of Moscow is also explained by more symbolic objectives: in his conquest of the world, Napoleon aimed to consecrate his work by having himself crowned emperor in the Kremlin after conquering Moscow, “the third Rome.” This assertion is interesting because it illustrates the ideological and symbolic dimension of Napoleon’s plan, showing how much the war of 1812 was a war of ideas, as much as of men. But the sources cited by this historian are allusive and sparse, leaving room for doubt. Whatever the truth of this hypothesis, after having granted his army a week’s rest, Napoleon started off for the sacred city.
Meanwhile, the Russian army was undergoing an acute crisis: French proclamations that were disseminated in the provinces of Vitebsk and then Smolensk promised freedom to the peasants and had provoked violent disturbances. Nobles had been assassinated and their property looted, which made the centers of power fear a new “Pugachevs-china,”32 drastic social destabilization.33 Moreover, on the specifically military level, Barclay de Tolly’s strategy was being increasingly contested. Within the general staff rumors flew about “foreigners” guilty of treason, while troop morale was declining during this interminable withdrawal that had already given the enemy a portion of imperial territory.
•••
Because Barclay de Tolly was the target of increasingly sharp criticism, the emperor began to doubt his choice (Alexander did not forget that despite his qualities as a man and soldier, Barclay had not managed to federate the Russian army around himself), and so the emperor made a crucial decision. He decided to convene an “Extraordinary Committee” composed of Count Saltykov (the president of the Council of State), Prince Lopukhin, Count Kochubey, Arakcheev, and Balashov, in order to remove Barclay de Tolly from his role as commander in chief and to find a successor for him. In a letter to Catherine written in St. Petersburg in August 1812, Alexander explains why the committee’s choice settled on General Kutuzov:
Here I find spirits lower than in Moscow and in the inner part of the country and a great ferocity against the Minister of War which, I much admit, is due to the irresolution of his conduct and the disorder with which he looks after his duties. The tiff between him and Bagration has aggravated it to such an extent that I was forced, after explaining things to a small special committee I named for this purpose, to nominate a commander-in-chief for all the armies. After serious deliberation, we decided on Kutusoff as being the oldest and thereby giving Bennigsen the possibility of serving under him, for they are linked by friendship, too. In general, Kutusoff is in great favor among the public, here and in Moscow.34
This decision was not easy to take: Alexander appreciated Barclay’s personal qualities, his courage, simplicity, and uprightness. And he detested Kutuzov. Apart from the fact that the sight of the old general reminded him of the fiasco of Austerlitz, he had only contempt for Kutuzov’s dissolute character and manners. Aged 67, blind in one eye, obese, and almost impotent, Kutuzov was known for his laziness, his obsequiousness, his taste for luxury—even on campaign, he ate his meals off silver service—and his sexual appetite. A rumor claimed that two very young girls disguised as Cossacks accompanied him throughout operations. Far from the heroic and mythic picture of him that Tolstoy gave in War and Peace, Kutuzov aroused the disapproval, if not revulsion, of many contemporaries. Langeron has left a severe description:
One could not be wittier than Kutuzov but one could not have a less forceful character, one could not be smarter and more cunning, and one could possess no fewer real talents and more immorality. A prodigious memory, well educated, rare amiability, friendly and interesting conversation, a good nature (a bit superficial in truth, but agreeable to all who wanted to be duped by it)—these are the charms of Kutuzov. Great violence and the crudeness of a peasant when he got carried away or when he did not have to fear the person he was addressing; a baseness toward individuals whom he thought in favor, carried to the most groveling level, insurmountable idleness, apathy that extended to everything; a formidable egotism, villainous and disgusting libertinage, no delicacy about the means of making or getting money—these are the drawbacks of the same man.35
But the old soldier, who had just been unanimously elected head of the militias of St. Petersburg and Moscow, enjoyed within both army and public opinion great popularity due to his glorious military deeds. Charismatic, experienced, and courageous, Kutuzov was able to cement the army better than the unfortunate Barclay had done. Moreover, because he was Russian, he appeared better able to incarnate the patriotic war that would now unfold, no longer in the Lithuanian provinces, but in the heart of Russian territory. However—and this is not the least paradox of the situation—Kutuzov’s nomination as head of the general staff brought only minor changes to a strategy that remained essentially unchanged.
•••
Kutuzov was named commander in chief in order to retake the offensive and inflict on the enemy the defeat that would force it to withdraw and in order to galvanize both troops and the civilian population. This change in perspective was quickly translated into action. On September 7, when Russian troops had for two days been very close to the village of Borodino situated 90 miles from Moscow, a battle began. Proving particularly murderous—42,000 wounded and dead (including Bagration) out of 112,000 soldiers on the Russian side and 28,000 missing out of 130,000 combatants in the Grande Armée—the Battle of Borodino left Napoleon’s troops (led by Generals Ney, Davout, Grouchy, and Poniatowsky) as masters of the battlefield. But this unconvincing victory did not modify the balance of forces, and as a follow-up to this assault, Napoleon aspired to finally deliver a decisive battle in Moscow. However, on September 13, 1812, in the village of Fili, the Russian general staff held a war council, and after having consulted the participants, Kutuzov took the decision to cede Moscow without fighting. In the night troops evacuated the city, followed by hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, who, overtaken by panic, fled in barouches, carriages, by harness, or on foot. Of a population of almost 300,000 residents, only 6,200 civilians (2.3 percent of the population)36 and 20,000 wounded soldiers who had been abandoned to their fate remained in the city when the French entered. The next afternoon, September 14, it was into a dead city that Napoleon made his entrance; the officers of the Grande Armée felt incredulity and fright at the sight of such a strange and incomprehensible spectacle:
In good order, without saying a word, we walk along the long lonely streets, with house shutters closed, the roll of drums resonating in deaf echoes. In vain we try to show on our faces a serenity that is quite far from our hearts. It seems to us that something quite extraordinary is going to happen. Moscow appears to us like an immense cadaver; it is the kingdom of silence, a fairy city where the buildings and houses have been built for the enchantment of us alone! And now I think of the impression produced on a traveler made pensive by the ruins of Pompeii or Herculaneum. But here the impression is still more sepulchral.37
While the 130,000 men who entered Moscow—the rest of the troops (already very diminished in number) were straggling along hundreds of miles—aspired only to be fed and to be allowed to s
leep, suddenly a gigantic fire burst out in several points of the city on the night of September 15–16. The majority of houses, churches, and storerooms were made of wood, and because the water pumps had been evacuated from the city by the governor-general, Count Rostopchin, the fire quickly spread and would last three days.
Count Rostopchin always denied in his memoirs having been the source of the fire. But on September 13 he had declared to Prince Eugen of Württemberg: “If I am asked, I will not hesitate to say ‘Burn the capital rather than deliver it to the enemy!’ That is the opinion of Count Rostopchin. But the governor of the city has the mission to watch over its safety and he could not give this advice.”38 There is little doubt about his responsibility for the fire. Moreover, in her later memoirs Natalia Rostopchin, the count’s daughter and sister of the Countess of Ségur, would attest that, in the night of September 13–14, during a secret meeting that took place at her father’s domicile, the chief of police, Balashov, and several of his assistants received from the governor-general, her father, precise instructions about which buildings were to be burned.
The capture of the sacred city, followed by its burning (which was soon attributed by Russian propaganda to the “barbarian invaders”), gave rise to confusion and anger everywhere, particularly since the fall of Moscow, like that of Smolensk before it, was accompanied by sacrilegious acts—the Grande Armée housed its horses in the churches—and by violence against the civilian population. For many Russians the abandonment of Moscow was a culpable action—for some, even a sin for which the tsar would be accountable before God; but if such criticism arose among the elites, more generally the tragedy helped to cement the Russians, transforming the conflict into a patriotic war that provided a foundation for Russian nationalism. A veritable political and social cohesion suddenly emerged; for some perspicacious witnesses, the fall of Moscow marked an irreversible turning point in the war. On September 25 Count Paul Stroganov wrote to his wife:
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