The Burning of Moscow

by Alexander Mikaberidze

  The Petrovskii Palace, as depicted by Christian von Martens in early October 1812. (Courtesy of Baden-Württemberg Landesarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart J 52 Bü 4)

  ‘Guarding a wine cellar.’ Christian von Martens, who drew this sketch on 24 September 1812, was one of the many Allied soldiers who enjoyed the vast supplies of alcohol stored in Moscow’s cellars. (Courtesy of Baden-Württemberg Landesarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart J 52 Bü 4)

  Christian von Martens’s sketch of the military review held by Ney’s 3rd Corps in the Kremlin on 18 October 1812. ‘The review was as imposing as circumstances would admit of’, commented one French officer. (Courtesy of Baden-Württemberg Landesarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart J 52 Bü 4)

  ‘The Burning of Moscow’ – a German engraving by Küpfer after Johan Lorenz Rugendas, early nineteenth century. (By courtesy of Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection)

  ‘Napoleon’s Troops entering Moscow’ – German print by Friedrich Campe, early nineteenth century. (By courtesy of Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection)

  A nineteenth-century Russian print depicting Archpriest Mikhail Gratinskii of the Chevalier Guard Regiment holding a shared service for Russian parishioners and Allied troops at the Church of St Euplius on 27 September 1812.

  Panoramic view of Moscow, looking west from the Kremlin; a French print by Dubois after Henri Courvoisier-Voisin, 1812. (By courtesy of Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection)

  French troops entering Moscow: French print by Jean, 1812. (By courtesy of Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection)

  A nineteenth-century print depicting the Grande Armée entering Moscow on 14 September 1812.

  ‘The French in Moscow’ – D. Kardovskii, 1913.

  ‘The Council of War at Fili’ – A. Kivshenko, 1880. This is a rare version of Kivshenko’s famous painting of the council at Fili. Shown (left to right) are: M. Kutuzov, P. Konovnitsyn, N. Rayevskii, A. Osterman-Tolstoy, M. Barclay de Tolly, F. Uvarov, D. Dokhturov, A. Yermolov, K. Toll and L. Bennigsen. The figure seated at the desk is probably P. Kaisarov.

  Kutuzov and his generals on the Poklonnaya Gora before the Council of War at Fili, painted by A. Kivshenko, 1893.

  An early nineteenth-century French print showing the Grande Armée occupying Moscow as the fire burns in the suburbs.

  The ruins of Moscow on 24 September 1812, depicted by Faber du Faur. Note the melted copper roof in the middle and the body near the soldiers.

  ‘Napoleon on the Poklonnaya Gora on 14 September 1812’ – A. Nikolayev’s illustration for Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

  ‘An episode of 1812. French prisoners of war’ – I. Pryanishkov, 1873.

  ‘View of the Kremlin during the Moscow Fire’ – Christian J. Oldendorp, coloured engraving by Schmidt, early nineteenth century.

  ‘Russian peasant Vavila the Frost hunting hares’ – Russian caricature, 1812.

  ‘The Russian Spirit of Intrepidity’ – Russian print, 1812. The caption reads: ‘Exemplary spirit of resolution of twenty Russian peasants whom Napoleon had mercilessly condemned to be executed for their devotion to their Faith, Sovereign and Fatherland.’

  This French print of 1816 shows the Moscow Fire as seen looking west from the Kremlin.

  The meeting between Alexander Lauriston and Mikhail Kutuzov, and the Russian’s rejection of Napoleon’s peace offer, fancifully depicted in an early nineteenth-century print.

  The Russian army abandoning Moscow on 14 September, by A. Sokolov and A. Semenov, 1958.

  ‘Napoleon and Lauriston. Peace at any price’, by V. Vereschagin, 1899.

  The executions of suspected Russian incendiaries, depicted by V. Vereschagin, 1898.

  A German print of 1847 showing Napoleon leaving the devastated Moscow. (By courtesy of Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection)

  Emperor Alexander of Russia, by G. Dawe.

  General Mikhail Barclay de Tolly, early nineteenth-century print.

  General Levin Bennigsen, early nineteenth-century print.

  Grand Equerry and General Armand de Caulaincourt, by F. Gerard, engraving by G. Kruell.

  Marshal Louis Nicolas Davout, lithograph by Delpech, 1830s.

  Eugene de Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, by H. Scheffer, engraving by C. Powell.

  General Mikhail Kutuzov, by F. Vendramini, 1813.

  General Jacques Alexandre Law, Marquis der Lauriston, early nineteenth-century print.

  General Mikhail Miloradovich, by G. Dawe.

  Marshal Edouard-Adolphe-Casimir-Joseph Mortier, Duke of Treviso, by Marie-Nicolas Ponce-Camus, engraving by E. Heinemann.

  Marshal Joachim Murat, King of Naples, by F. Gerard, engraved by H. Wolf.

  Marshal Michel Ney, Duke of Echingen and Prince de la Moskowa, by F. Gerard, engraved by E. Tietze.

  Cossack Ataman Matvei Platov, by G. Dawe.

  Governor Count Fedor Rostopchin of Moscow, by O. Kiprenskii, 1809.

  Chapter 5

  ‘And Moscow, Mighty City, Blaze!’1

  The Grande Armée longed for rest after a prolonged campaign and hoped to enjoy some comforts, and obtain peace by means of its possession of Moscow – failing that, good winter billets in case the war should be prolonged. Those troops that entered the city occupied quarters at their own discretion. Colonel Hubert-François Biot, aide-de-camp to General Claude Pierre Pajol of the 2nd Reserve Cavalry Corps, remembered General Durosnel informing him that ‘in the absence of the municipal authorities that have left the city, we have to act without consulting the hosts. We can no longer think of regular cantonment and everyone should find lodgings as he sees fit.’2 The Imperial Guard took up quarters inside the Kremlin, with major outposts deployed at squares around it. Intendant-Général Daru, accompanied by Mathieu Dumas, lodged at the Mukhanovs’ house located on the corner of the Place du Gouvernement. ‘It was a large house built of hewn stone, of a rather bad architecture but conveniently arranged and well decorated,’ Dumas recalled. ‘I found two servants in the kitchen on the ground floor and they led me to the apartment. Everything was in good order as if the master of the house was expected to arrive any time now.’3 An artillery company commander recalled that after his men had settled in near the Kremlin, he was accosted by a man who said he was French and offered the hospitality of his house. The stranger’s wife also proved to be French and she treated Pion des Loches and his comrades to vermicelli soup, a large rib-piece of beef, some macaroni and a few bottles of excellent Bordeau wine. ‘In my life, perhaps, I have never had a better meal,’ Pion des Loches later reminisced. The hostess ‘entertained us with the riches and luxury of Moscow, and the pleasures which awaited us in winter. “There are so many palaces here,” she said, “that you can have one each.”’4 Indeed, both officers and the rank-and-file were only too eager to enjoy the palatial homes of wealthy Muscovites. Senior officers were often greeted at the gates of palaces by servants in livery, offering hospitality in the hopes of sparing themselves and their master’s property a worse fate.

  In the northwest Viceroy Eugène’s corps initially took up positions near the village of Chernaya Gryaz’ but some of Eugène’s troops did enter the city on 14 September and established outposts near the Armenian Church of the Dormition of the Theotokos in Presnya, protecting the routes to Tver and Zvenigorod.5 But most of the corps entered Moscow on the 15th. Labaume wrote

  At daybreak our corps marched upon Moscow. On approaching the city we noticed that it was not surrounded by walls, and that a simple parapet of earth alone marked its boundary. So far there had been nothing to show that the capital was inhabited, and the suburb by which we arrived was so deserted that not only was there no Muscovite to be seen, but not even a French soldier. Not a sound was heard in the midst of this awful solitude. A vague apprehension oppressed every mind …6

  Albrecht Adam, an artist who had been assigned to the staff of the 4th Corps, also commented on the ‘deserted and desolate streets, and an eerie silence that hung heavily over the city, broken only by the thud of horses�
� hooves while the drums and trumpets echoed in the deserted streets. Officers and soldiers looked at each other in bewilderment, shaking their heads. What a stark contrast to the pompous reception accorded to the same army in the capitals of Germany, Italy and Spain!’7 Viceroy Eugène himself was appalled by the fires that he believed the Russians intentionally set in ‘twenty places’ – ‘one cannot act more barbarian’, he confided to his wife.8

  Eugène’s troops occupied the Presnenskaya, Sushevskaya and Meschanskaya districts in the north of Moscow,9 and the Viceroy himself took up his quarters in the palace of Prince Mamonov.10 ‘This quarter’, recalled one of his staff officers, ‘was one of the finest in the city, formed entirely of splendid edifices and of houses which, although built of wood, appeared to us to be of an astonishing wealth and grandeur. The magistrates having abandoned their post, everyone was at liberty to establish himself in one of their palaces, so that the obscurest officer found himself lodged in the midst of vast and richly decorated apartments, of which he might look upon himself as the owner, seeing that the only person to be found in the place was an obsequious porter, who, with trembling hand, delivered to him all the keys of the house.’11 Cesare de Laugier, serving in Viceroy Eugène’s Italian Corps, recalled that he and his comrades had been ‘lodged in military fashion. The Viceroy gave the regiments the order and the officers who were to implement it indicated the lodgings in charcoal, in capital letters, on each dwelling’s front door. Thus, new names for each street and square were designated, each being known as ‘such or such company’s street,’ or ‘such and such a battalion’s quarter …’12 Next to the 4th Corps was Marshal Davout’s 1st Corps, which took control of the western suburbs of Moscow, including the Khamovnicheskaya, Arbatskaya, Novinskaya and Presnenskaya districts. Michel Ney’s 3rd Corps crossed the city to take up positions in the eastern Taganskaya district. While Sebastiani remained in the eastern part of Moscow, Grouchy’s 3rd Cavalry Corps moved up to the Sushevskaya district in the northwest. The retired Russian Major General Molosov was returning home along Malaya Dmitrievka street when he was accosted by two dragoons (probably from La Houssaye’s 6th Heavy Cavalry Division), who tried to rob him of his horse. Later in the day, looking out of the windows of his house, he could see ‘enemy squadrons marching by platoons in good order. None of them had sabres unsheathed and some were even singing songs.’13

  Meanwhile, Poniatowski’s 5th Corps made a triumphant entry into the city. The Poles initially held the Yakimanskaya district in the south but were then redeployed to the northeastern districts; General Claparede’s Polish division was moved to the Pokrovskaya barrier and occupied the nearby Pokrovskii (Intercession) Monastery. One wonders what these Poles felt as they entered the former capital of the empire that had destroyed their homeland just seventeen years earlier. They certainly understood the significance of this occasion and at least one of them thought of their ancestors who had captured and held Moscow in 1610–1612. ‘As I came to the [Moskvoretskii] bridge near the Kremlin,’ recalled Josef Zalusky of the 1st Guard Lancers, ‘I stopped there, thinking about the executions of my compatriots, companions of [False] Dmitri, about the anniversary of 1612 and the massacres of Praga [in 1794].’14 Returning to his quarters, Zalusky discovered that Dominique Radziwill, the scion of the fabulously rich and influential Polish noble family, and soon to be a major in his regiment, had recovered his ancestor’s sword from the Kremlin. The Polish officers examined it ‘with emotion’, but the sight of the ‘rows of Polish culverins and cannon, stamped with the coats of arms of the Polish kingdom and of various Polish families’ lined up inside the Kremlin left a far greater impression on them.15

  Leading the advanced guard to the Pokrovskaya and Spasskaya barriers, Marshal Murat – wearing a typically extravagant uniform of ‘crimson pantaloons, sky-blue stockings and green short tunic’16 – noticed the magnificent estate of manufacturer Ivan Batashov on the Vshivaya Gora; entering the house, he informed its manager, Maxim Sakov, that he had decided to lodge at the estate. After deploying his forces, Murat returned ‘around 7 o’clock in the evening accompanied by some thirty generals and numerous officials’. Sakov had the servants prepare dinner but could not get ‘any white bread or bread rolls since the bakeries throughout Moscow had been destroyed and abandoned’. So Sakov had to serve dark rye bread, though he managed to get a quarter of polar cod (saika) for Murat. ‘The generals were initially furious at this scant offering and grumbled that only swine would eat such bread, but as they were very hungry, they still devoured it.’ After dinner Murat toured the estate, which he found to his liking; he inquired about the estate and its owner, and then settled down for the night. Sakov recalled that ‘Every general demanded a soft bed and separate accommodation. Although there were sufficient bedrooms, we did not have enough beds since no one wanted to sleep on a peasant’s bedding and so they all used threats to get what they wanted. They dragged us back and forth like a cat by its tail throughout the night. Candles in chandeliers and lanterns were kept burning through the night – it was dangerous to leave them alight but we did not dare to extinguish them.’17

  A few fires were already burning as the Russians evacuated the city. Shortly after midday Bestuzhev-Riumin, venturing outside the Senate Building, complained about the ‘appalling stench’ caused by a fire that had been ignited by some unidentified ‘prince’ in the chandlers’ row in Kitai-gorod, which had consumed a few paint and wax shops.18 Napoleon’s secretary Agathon-Jean-François Fain noted that ‘a few fires broke out from the very first moments of our entry into the city’19 – Muralt and his comrades could indeed see ‘several billowing columns of smoke’ rising above the buildings in the northern parts of Moscow.20 It was 8pm when Bestuzhev-Riumin, still in the Senate building inside the Kremlin, saw flames rising in Kitai-gorod.21 At the same time Peter Chudimov, the archivist of the Mining Department, also saw a ‘building across the Moscow river’ on fire.22

  Eyewitnesses suggest that the fires began in the trade rows of Kitai-gorod, in or around the Merchant Court (often referred to in French memoirs as the Bourse or Grand Bazaar) and in the Solyanka (or salted-fish market). But the precise timing of the outbreaks varies from early afternoon to late evening. Maxim Sakov recalled seeing fires in the Skobyanye and Moskatelnye trade rows and the Novyi Merchant Court (located across from the Nikolskii and Spasskii gates of the Kremlin) at around 9pm, while an hour later Maxim Nevzorov, director of typography at the University of Moscow, saw fires burning ‘in the Solyanka, near the Church of the Nativity, but fires then appeared in various places as well’.23 At about the same time Pion des Loches and his officers, still ‘in an ecstasy of joy’ after hearing stories of Moscow’s wealth, saw their French host, ‘who had left us for an instant, returning completely terrified. He cried as he trembled, “Ah gentlemen, what a misfortune! The Bourse is burning!” – “What is the Bourse?” – “A building larger than the Palais Royal [in Paris], full of goldsmiths; work and jewellery, the richest productions of the world. The loss this night will be incalculable.”’24 Meanwhile, back at the Kremlin, Major Vionnet de Maringone of the Young Guard’s Fusiliers-Grenadiers visited the posts that he had placed in the neighbouring streets. It was around midnight when, arriving at one near the Merchant Court, he saw ‘thick smoke but no fire’ coming out of the building. His men told him that they had seen smoke earlier as well but thought nothing of it, assuming a few remaining Russians were warming themselves by the fire; all the entrances were firmly shut and there was no evidence that the Allied troops had got into the building to cause a fire. Just as he was conversing with his men, however, Vionnet de Maringone saw flames over the building; rushing back to his camp, he rallied about a hundred men. By the time they returnmed the building was ablaze. Though there was no wind, his men struggled to contain the fire because they could not break down the doors and they lacked equipment and pumps, all of which had been removed by the retreating Russians. Marshal Mortier, finding it hard to believe that the Russians ha
d deliberately set the building on fire, came in person to inspect it and to confirm that no Allied troops had broken into it. It took Vionnet de Maringone and his men some four hours of back-breaking labour to contain the fire but the Merchant Court was saved. Doubtless pleased with his accomplishment but ‘extremely tired and barely standing on my feet’, Vionnet de Maringone returned to his campsite hoping for some rest. At dawn, however, he was woken up by the news that fire had broken out in another part of the Merchant Court. ‘I went in haste to the scene,’ he recalled. ‘My men made extraordinary efforts to contain the fire, which they did at around noon [on 15 September]. Everyone hoped that this would be the end of our troubles since we were dead tired. Alas, we soon became witnesses to a spectacle more horrible than anything we could imagine.’25