The Burning of Moscow

by Alexander Mikaberidze

  Napoleon initially rebuffed his officers’ pleas for him to leave. As the violent wind blew sparks and blazing fragments all around the arsenal and the artillery caissons, the threat of a potential explosion ‘did not shake the emperor’s resolution, for his soul never knew the feeling of fear’, noted one of his secretaries. ‘He did not think it necessary as yet to leave the Kremlin, the danger which he ran there, deciding him, on the contrary, to remain.’136 Amidst the shouts and commotion, he instead insisted on climbing the tower of Ivan the Great – which reminded some of his companions of a minaret137 – to gain a better view of the situation. Accompanied by senior officers and generals, he climbed up the spiral staircase to the top of the tower, where ‘the impetuosity and violence of the wind, and the rarefaction of the air, brought on by the heat of the flames, caused a dreadful hurricane,’ recalled Gourgaud, noting that he and Berthier were on the point of being blown away. The rest of the group ‘remained standing slightly below on the staircase and peering through the small windows in the walls of the tower’.138 Gazing in astonishment through a slit in the stone wall at the hellish panorama of the city engulfed by fire, Napoleon exclaimed, ‘The barbarians, the savages, to burn their city like this! What could their enemies do that was worse than this? They will earn the curses of posterity.’139

  As he descended to the ground, the emperor’s vacillation on what to do next was brought to an end by shouts from the most northerly wing of the palace, announcing that part of the walls had just fallen in. ‘About four o’clock in the afternoon,’ noted Denniée, ‘it was announced that the fire was about to break into the arsenal and that only one safe route out of the Kremlin remained.’140 There were even rumours that the Kremlin had been mined and the fuse set, so that an explosion was expected at any moment. In fact, several suspected arsonists had been apprehended within the Kremlin. Ségur claimed that a Russian policeman was found inside the Kremlin and Napoleon caused him to be interrogated in his presence. Upon hearing the Russian’s testimony that he and others had been ordered to burn the city, Napoleon realized that ‘everything was devoted to destruction, the ancient and sacred Kremlin itself not excepted … The gestures of the emperor betokened disdain and vexation: the wretch was hurried into the first court, where the enraged grenadiers dispatched him with their bayonets.’141 Yet Perovskii, who witnessed the incident, left a rather different account. ‘I saw several soldiers leading a police officer … He was taken up to the palace and one of the staff-officers began interrogating him through an interpreter. “Why is Moscow burning? Who gave the order to burn the city? Why were the fire engines removed? Why had he stayed in Moscow?” And many other similar questions, to which the police officer responded in a trembling voice that he knew nothing and that he had stayed in Moscow because he could not depart in time.’ Perovskii tried to intervene, arguing that this man was a minor police official and could not have known about the plans or intentions of the governor of Moscow. ‘“He serves in the police and therefore is certainly aware of everything” was the response I received. The unfortunate man was taken away and imprisoned underneath the court where I stood. “What is going to happen to him?” I inquired of the officer who interrogated him. “He will be punished as he deserves: either hanged or shot with others, who have been already detained for the same crime.”’142 Meanwhile, Peyrusse’s letter, written on 21 September, speaks of at least three suspicious individuals arrested in the Kremlin: one seemed to have tried igniting a timber yard near the palace, another was caught ‘sneaking into the attic with a sausage and a lighter’, and the third was apprehended as he was setting fire to the bridge south of the Kremlin.143

  Despite the raging fires, Caulaincourt informs us, military considerations weighed heavily on Napoleon’s mind. He became concerned that the Russians might exploit the confusion reigning among the Allied troops inside Moscow and strike a blow at them. Gourgaud and Meneval agree with this assessment, noting that Berthier persuaded Napoleon to leave the palace by observing that ‘if the enemy should attack the army corps that are stationed outside Moscow, Your Majesty has no means of communicating with them’.144 But if the emperor could no longer stay at the Kremlin, where else could he go? Afterwards no one could say exactly who had suggested the Petrovskii Palace, located about 2 miles northwest of Moscow and sufficiently removed from the burning city. Once the decision was made, Napoleon dispatched his orderly officers to discover a passage through the burning city. The first of these officers (Mortemart) soon returned to report that the flames had not allowed him to make his way through. Shortly afterwards, another officer, however, brought the happier news that another route was passable. The Emperor then mounted his horse Tauris and, at around 5pm,145 quitted the Kremlin, leaving for its protection only the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Grenadier Regiment. With the Borovitskaya, Troitskaya and Spasskaya gates blocked by the flames, the imperial suite was forced to escape through the Tainitskaya (Secret) Tower located in the southern wall of the Kremlin. Fantin des Odoards and Constant described a ‘postern’ opening towards the river, while Ségur noted that Napoleon left through ‘a postern gate leading between the rocks to the Moscow river’.146 ‘Leaning on the arm of the Duke of Vicenza [Caulaincourt], [Napoleon] crossed a little wooden bridge [over the Kremlin moat] which led to the riverbank, where he found his horses.’147

  Once they were clear of the Tainitskaya Tower, the immediate question was how to proceed to the Petrovskii Palace. The direct route would have taken them through the northern quarters of the city, which were already engulfed in flames. So it was decided to move along the river westwards, where the fire had largely burned itself out. Napoleon mounted Tauris, another of his Arab greys, and set off, followed by his entourage. The Emperor ‘was preceded by one of the agents of the police of Moscow, who acted as his guide’.148 From the Vsekhsvyatskii bridge149 the imperial entourage turned west to the Prechistenski Gates, whence they moved north (probably along the Nikitskii boulevard) towards the Arbat. But they ‘had all the trouble in the world in getting out. The streets were encumbered with debris, with burning beams and trusses. We were being grilled alive in our carriages. [At times] the horses would not move forwards. I was extremely worried on account of the treasure.’150 Fantin des Odoards, whose unit accompanied the emperor, recalled that ‘everywhere the air we were breathing seemed about to asphyxiate us by its very heat … Many an old moustache was singed during this infernal journey.’151 The landscape reminded some of the Frenchmen of depictions of the entrance into Hell. The imperial suite moved along ‘narrow streets, where the fire, shut up as in a furnace, redoubled in intensity, and where the nearness of the roofs brought the flames together above our heads in heated domes which shut out from us the sight of heaven’.152 The men of Bourgogne’s company, struggling to keep up with the imperial suite, soon found the way blocked by the collapsed houses and decided to retrace their steps back to the Place du Gouvernement. To protect themselves from the flames, ‘the idea struck us of each taking a sheet of iron to cover our heads, holding it to the windy and dusty side. After bending the iron into the shape of shields, we set out, one of the men in front; then I came leading the half-blinded man by the hand, the others following. We succeeded after an infinite deal of trouble, stumbling time after time.’153

  The rest of the imperial entourage, meanwhile, pushed onwards. ‘We issued from Moscow under a perfect hail of fire,’ described Mathieu Dumas. ‘The wind was so strong that it tore the red-hot iron from the roofs and hurled it down into the streets. All our horses had their legs burnt. It is impossible to describe the confusion of our headlong flight. The roar of the flames can be likened to nothing but the noise of the waves of the ocean – it was indeed a storm raging over a sea of fire. The whole length of the road to the Petrovskii Palace was littered with odds and ends of all kinds, especially with broken bottles thrown away by the soldiers.’154 Napoleon’s mamluk Ali (St-Denis) also spoke of ‘great difficulty in extricating ourselves from the city whose streets we
re obstructed by burning beams, the ruins of fallen houses, and by flames which barred our way’. The imperial entourage was ‘continually obliged to change direction, and even to retrace our steps in order to not get caught. The wind blew violently and whirled about, so that it raised a great amount of dust, which blinded men and horses.’155 Montesquiou-Fezensac also commented on the infernal conditions in which Napoleon and his companions had to retreat from the Kremlin, noting that ‘we were obliged to protect our cheeks, hands, and eyes with our handkerchiefs, hats and the tailcoats of our uniform. The extreme heat stirred up the horses so much that we had trouble keeping them at a walking pace.’156 A much more famous description of Napoleon’s departure from the Kremlin comes from Ségur, who described how the Frenchmen had encountered a Russian man amidst the fires and promised him his life if he would act as their guide; acquiescing, he led the imperial entourage through the burning streets:

  We were encircled by an ocean of flames, which blocked up all the gates of the citadel, and frustrated the first attempts that were made to depart. After some search, we discovered a postern gate, leading through rocks to the Moscow river … The roaring of the flames around us became every moment more violent. A single narrow winding street presented itself completely on fire, and appeared rather as the entrance than as the outlet of this Hell; the emperor rushed on foot, and without hesitation, into this dangerous passage. We walked on a ground of fire, beneath a fiery sky, and between two walls of fire. The intense heat burned our eyes, which we were nevertheless obliged to keep open and fixed on the danger. A consuming atmosphere, glowing ashes, detached flames, parched our throats, and rendered our respiration short and dry; and we were already almost suffocated by the smoke. Our hands were burned, either in endeavouring to protect our faces from the insupportable heat, or in brushing off the sparks which every moment covered and penetrated our garments.

  Yet this dramatic description is countered by the more grounded account of Gaspard Gourgaud, who famously accused Ségur of exaggerations and lies contained in his history of the Russian campaign. Discussing the departure from the Kremlin, Gourgaud observed that ‘although we accompanied Napoleon during the entirety of this march, we did not witness the splendid horrors described by Mr de Segur. In traversing Moscow, we stepped upon ashes, it is true; but not under fiery vaults. Perhaps we had not taken the most direct road but it is untrue that the emperor ran any danger in the course of the march.’ Gourgaud rejected Ségur’s claim that at this moment of distress Napoleon’s Russian ‘guide stopped in uncertainty and agitation’, or that the emperor was saved by ‘some pillagers of the 1st Corps’ who recognized the emperor amidst the whirling flames and led him towards the safety of a quarter that had burnt out earlier that day. It was there, Ségur claimed, and many subsequent writers repeated, that a rather warm meeting between Napoleon and Davout occurred: upon hearing about the emperor’s distress, the Iron Marshal, despite being wounded, ‘had desired to be carried into the flames to rescue Napoleon or to perish with him’.157 But Gourgaud flatly denied any of this happening: ‘it is untrue that our guide stopped in a state of uncertainty and agitation, or that the emperor was indebted for his life to some marauders of the 1st Corps. There is as little truth in the report of that affecting meeting with Marshal Davout …’158 Indeed, it is difficult to envision Davout, who was a notoriously reserved and taciturn man, being transported with joy and rushing to embrace the emperor.

  Nevertheless, Napoleon and his companions managed to get safely through the burning streets. At one point they were accosted by a woman with ‘dishevelled hair and torn and blackened clothes’, holding her infant son in her hands. This was the wife of Armand Domergues, the stage-manager of the imperial theatre at Moscow, who had been exiled by Governor Rostopchin and thus separated from his family. Seeking to save her infant child, the woman rushed towards Napoleon, exclaiming ‘Sire, sire, have pity on me, save my son!’ and grabbing the heel of the emperor with her trembling hand. At the sight of this child, who probably reminded him of his own son, Napoleon was visibly moved; he soothed the woman and assured her that ‘we will take care of you and your son’.159 The procession then made its way towards the Dorogomilovskii bridge, where its path was blocked by a slow-moving column of Guard artillery, commanded by Colonel Boulart, which was being evacuated to the safety of suburbs. During these few moments everyone remained tense, hoping that the powder-laden caissons would not explode.160 Once safely across the bridge the imperial suite turned northwards and followed the river towards the village of Khoroshevo, where it crossed to the opposite bank on a pontoon bridge.161

  It was early in the evening (around 7.30pm according to Caulaincourt)162 when the imperial suite finally reached the Petrovskii Palace, from where Napoleon beheld Moscow swallowed up in a sea of flames. If anything could further deepen the grave impression that this spectacle had on the emperor’s feelings, it was the increasing certainty that the conflagration was not the result of chance, but that the Russians themselves had sacrificed their city to wipe away the stain of foreign occupation and to make it impossible for the enemy to stay there. That night Napoleon lay in bed without sleeping and often came out to look at Moscow smouldering in the distance. Some of his companions seemed to have developed a macabre fascination for the conflagration. Despite being exhausted by his trip to the Petrovskii Palace, Henri Beyle (Stendhal) still managed to enjoy ‘the most beautiful fire in the world that formed an immense pyramid, which, like the prayers of the faithful, had its base on the ground and its summit in heaven’.163 Mathieu Dumas beheld ‘the image of Hell – an immense city that was nothing but a plain of fire; the heavens and the entire horizon appeared to be in flames’.164 ‘The glow of the fire was so bright even at this distance,’ recalled La Riboisière’s aide-de-camp, ‘that standing next to the window I was able to read two letters from the emperor by the light of the distant fire as easily as I would have in daylight.’ 165 After resting and consuming a quick supper, Anatole de Montesquieu-Fezensac and his friends decided ‘to have another look at this fiery spectacle that was doing us so much harm and to which, in spite of this, we kept returning’. Standing on the immediate outskirts of Moscow, he and his companions watched as

  the fire seemed to devour both earth and sky. Great whirlwinds of the densest black smoke arose after the collapse of the largest buildings, making long, broad transverse gashes in and above the flames. One saw volcanoes whose immeasurable eruptions had no limits but the skies … Often the flames were drawn aside like curtains and displayed to us not only palaces, but also the amphitheatres of palaces, which, at the moment of being devoured, appeared to us thus in a fairytale splendour to bid the world a last goodbye.166

  Chapter 6

  The Great Conflagration

  ‘It was the most grand, the most sublime, and the most terrific sight the world ever beheld!’ Napoleon declared ostentatiously on St Helena.1 For three successive days – 17, 18 and 19 September – the conflagration continued with unabated intensity. Eyewitnesses report that the sky was scarcely visible through the thick clouds of smoke that hung heavily over the city, while the sun appeared as a blood-red orb atop the city. ‘During the night of 17 September,’ wrote Peyrusse to his brother, ‘new disasters broke out and nothing could escape them. The flames spread for more than four lieues [12km] and it seems the sky itself was on fire.’2 As thousands of homes, taverns and shops burned, frightful crashes were heard at every moment, as roofs crashed down and the stately façades of princely palaces crumbled headlong into the streets. The ground was so hot that in places it was impossible to touch it, and some witnesses even assert that molten lead and copper could be seen on some streets. Claude François Madeleine Le Roy of the 85th Line recalled that as he rummaged through the streets he found ‘the fires so strong that their force was lifting the metal roofing of copper plates which covered most of the houses. Soon they fell back with a crash and, thrust sideways by the wind, were as dangerous to passers-by as the fire itself.’
3 Although a light rain began on 17 September and continued throughout the 18th, it failed to damp down the flames; in fact, several new fires broke out during these days. Vionnet de Maringone recalled that ‘on the 17th, the wind changed suddenly and carried the fire towards the Kremlin. We made extraordinary efforts to save at least part of the city … On the 18th the fiery storm redoubled in violence so that it was difficult to stand in the streets and squares.’4

  ‘A sea of flames flooded all areas of the city,’ described Abbé Surrugues, a Catholic priest residing in the northeastern part of Moscow. ‘The undulations of the flames agitated by the force of the wind were an exact imitation of the waves raised by a tempest.’ The conflagration was so enormous and ferocious that many felt it was ‘supernatural’ as well.5 Standing near the Kremlin, Dominique Larrey thought ‘it would be difficult, under any imaginable circumstances, to find a more horrible sight than that which pained our eyes’,6 while Sergeant Scheltens of the Guard Fusiliers-Grenadiers explained that ‘it is impossible to conceive what this fire was like. You had to have seen it to understand the consternation that then gripped the army.’ The weather remained dry for the first few days after the Grande Armée’s arrival and the wind, always violent, continued to blow and change incessantly. The men of the Grande Armée watched in utter amazement as ‘the whole city burned, thick sheaves of flame of various colours rising up on all sides to the heavens, blotting out the horizon, sending in all directions a blinding light and a burning heat. These sheaves of fire, swirling in every direction through the violence of the wind, were accompanied in their upward rise and onward progress by a terrible hissing and combustion of powders, saltpetre, resinous oils and alcohol contained in the houses and shops.’7 On 17 September Viceroy Eugène confided to his wife, ‘My dear Auguste, you cannot imagine the horrifying scenes that we witnessed in the past three days and they still continue today.’8