The Burning of Moscow

by Alexander Mikaberidze

  As well as his commanders and messengers, Napoleon also met with a number of the French residents of Moscow, hoping to gain a deeper insight into Russian society. Among them was Marie-Rose Aubert-Chalmé, owner of a successful milliner’s shop on the famous Kuznetskii bridge, and the wife of Jean-Nicholas Aubert, who managed a hotel in Moscow. About 30 years old, a beautiful and charming woman, Aubert-Chalmé was very popular in the French community of Moscow but also maintained useful contacts among the Russian aristocracy. This, however, did not prevent Governor Rostopchin from exiling her husband, along with dozens of other Frenchmen, in August. Now, a month later, she was standing next to the emperor of the French. They held a long conversation, almost all of which remains unknown to us. It is unclear what made this young woman so important that Napoleon spent over an hour conversing with her. It certainly wasn’t his desire to get away from his pressing problems in the company of a charming woman. We know that he sounded her out on a couple of important political topics, including what she thought of freeing the Russian serfs. She later claimed that her response was that one-third of the serfs would welcome his decision, while the rest would not even understand what he was attempting to do for them.9 As it was, Napoleon did not dare to attempt such a radical reform. The rest of conversation is wrapped in secrecy. Yet this meeting proved fateful for Aubert-Chalmé: once the news of the meeting spread, the Russians branded her Napoleon’s spy and accused her of having been in the service of the French government for a long time before the war. Why else, they argued, would she have met the French Emperor if not to pass on some valuable information? Even her fellow French residents of Moscow stayed well away from her, fearing retaliations for any association with her. When Napoleon left Moscow in October, Aubert-Chalmé had little choice but to join the ranks of thousands of others who followed the Grande Armeé.10 Along the way Chalmé became separated from her children and died in a typhus epidemic in Vilna in December.

  After the meeting with Aubert-Chalmé, Napoleon seems to have spent some time contemplating his next moves. The troops generally expected to winter in Moscow but the emperor had grander plans. His first thought was to rally his forces, leave Moscow and either return to Smolensk or threaten St Petersburg. His so-called ‘St Petersburg Plan’ has long been studied by historians of the Russian campaign and most of them, based on the testimonies of Ségur and Caulaincourt, believe it was discussed in October. However, there is compelling evidence to suggest that Napoleon had considered an attack on St Petersburg as early as 17 September. His secretary noted that when the emperor arrived at the Petrovskii Palace, ‘the road to St Petersburg was open, while Kutuzov’s retreat had effectively exposed all of northern Russia. Viceroy [Eugène] found no forces in this direction except for a corps under the command of Wittgenstein, which retreated upon our approach and could not have stopped us. We were only fifteen marches away from Petersburg and Napoleon, therefore, contemplated launching an attack on this other capital [of Russia].’11 Napoleon intended to regroup his forces and launch a ‘simple diversion’ to the north while most of the Grande Armée would remain in the environs of Moscow before marching upon Velikie Luki, about 90 miles north-east of Polotsk and some 300 miles from Moscow. This circular movement could have been accomplished by moving ‘in echelons along the parallel roads’ that traversed the provinces of Velikie Luki and Velikii Novgorod. Napoleon would have united the corps of St Cyr, Macdonald and Victor, and by 15 October deployed his combined forces along the new line on the Dvina river, anchored on the fortress of Riga on one side and on Smolensk on the other, with reserves at Vitebsk, Mogilev, Minsk and Vilna. ‘Thus was the plan that the emperor conceived,’ wrote Fain. ‘He spent the night of 17 September contemplating operations on the map and already began dictating his first orders.’12 Ségur largely concurs with Fain, although he believed that the discussion of the plan and the generals’ opposition to it occurred in October, after Napoleon had returned to the Kremlin. According to him, ‘The Emperor declared that he should march for St Petersburg. This conquest was already marked out on his maps … orders were even issued to different corps to hold themselves in readiness. But his decision was only a feint [author’s emphasis]: it was but a better face that he strove to assume or an expedient for diverting his grief for the loss of Moscow’. The marshals convinced the emperor that he had neither time, provisions, roads nor a single requisite for so extensive an excursion. Caulaincourt also mentioned that Napoleon considered various plans at the Petrovskii Palace but he does not specify what exactly these plans entailed. But after Napoleon had returned to Moscow, Caulaincourt described a discussion of his plan for attacking St Petersburg, with Viceroy Eugène, Berthier, Dumas and Murat, who also spoke against it.13 In the light of this evidence, the Russian historian Zemtsov rightly noted that Napoleon did indeed contemplate an attack on St Petersburg in late September but was compelled to postpone its execution since ‘it was still unclear where Kutuzov was located, the [Grande Armée] itself had to be regrouped, and attempts had to be made to sound the Russians out for peace’.14

  The prospect of a potential new campaign caused grumbling among the senior officer corps. Only Viceroy Eugène supported Napoleon’s idea of marching on St Petersburg, and as of 21 September expected the launch of the offensive with his corps ‘in the nearest future’.15 The other corps commanders argued against the campaign, which would necessarily have been fought in sparsely populated and less fertile provinces in the face of the fast-approaching Russian winter. Instead, they preferred to abandon Moscow and retreat back to Poland. ‘I was one of those who considered this horrible conflagration as a fortunate event, if it could decide our retreat,’ recalled Mathieu Dumas. ‘Whatever the difficulties might be, they seemed to me to be smaller or less dangerous than the prolongation of our stay at Moscow.’16 Napoleon was certainly aware of the numerous challenges facing his plan to attack St Petersburg. Sending a small force northwards would have resulted only in a waste of time, manpower and resources. Yet the Grande Armée had already expended much of its resources and hardly possessed sufficient manpower to launch a major offensive in winter time. The army had to be regrouped and resupplied, which required time – the most precious resource that Napoleon lacked. Above everything else, he desired peace: the peace that he had intended to impose on Emperor Alexander in Moscow, just as he had done with the Austrian and Prussian sovereigns at their respective capitals just few years earlier. But Moscow was gone, and with it went his last hopes of forcing Russia to bend her knee to the French imperium. ‘We have no rest!’ the marshals complained openly to the emperor. ‘We march constantly, and now might have to move northwards in the midst of the winter, expecting nothing but continued hardships and vicissitudes … It is peace that we want, peace at any cost, even if we would have to beg for it on our knees.’ Napoleon’s initial response was brusque: ‘How can you believe that the same people who burned Moscow today would accept peace just a few days later? If those responsible for this decision [to burn Moscow] continue to wield power in Alexander’s cabinet, all expectations that you are flattering yourself with are in vain.’ But on second thoughts, he agreed with his generals that the ‘circumstances must be further examined’.17

  Napoleon Returns to Moscow

  On 18 September,18 despite the fires still burning in the suburbs, Napoleon left the Petrovskii Palace to return to Moscow.19 His decision was prompted by the rain that began to fall during the night and had largely damped down the fires by the morning. Around 9am, dressed in his usual great overcoat and black hat, he mounted his horse (appropriately called le Moscou) and slowly travelled to the southeast.20 On his way Napoleon traversed the corps bivouacs, which presented an extraordinary sight. ‘In the fields, amidst thick and cold mud, large fires were kept up with mahogany furniture, windows and gilded doors. Around these fires, on a litter of damp straw, imperfectly sheltered by a few boards, were seen the soldiers and their officers, splashed all over with mud and blackened with smoke, seated in arm-chairs
or reclining on silken couches.’ Luxury items were strewn all around but no one paid heed to them any longer. Some soldiers had precious cashmere shawls or rare Siberian furs wrapped around their feet, and held sumptuous silver and gold plates off which they ate black dough and half-broiled horse flesh. It was ‘a singular assemblage of abundance and want, of riches and filth, of luxury and wretchedness’, gloomily observed one eyewitness.21

  The devastated city was a shocking sight. In the words of Caulaincourt, ‘fortunate are those who have not witnessed this horrifying spectacle, this sight of utter destruction’.22 Entering the city through the Tverskaya barrier, Napoleon and his entourage proceeded along the Tverskoi Boulevard towards Strastnaya Square, observing widespread destruction and misery. ‘Our carriages were beset all along the route by a crowd of wretched Muscovites who came to beg for alms,’ recalled Napoleon’s valet. ‘They followed us as far as the palace, walking in the hot cinders or on the calcined and still scorching stones. The most miserable were barefooted. It was a heartrending spectacle.’23 Large groups of soldiers, many of them clearly intoxicated, dragged their booty behind them or forced unfortunate Muscovites to carry it for them. Some soldiers congregated at the entrances into cellars, which were nearly all intact, sharing their trophies. Desolate civilians wandered amidst the enemy troops, clinging desperately to the few possessions they had saved from the fire.

  ‘This was a beautiful city,’ Napoleon remarked in a letter later that day. ‘I say it was because today more than half of it is destroyed.’24 Indeed, there was no longer any trace of the resplendent Moscow that had greeted the Grande Armée just four days earlier. The fiery gales had left the city a blackened heap of hissing, smoking ruins. Out of more than 9,150 homes, more than 6,350 had burnt down. Over 80 per cent of the stone buildings and over 68 per cent of the wooden buildings were destroyed and, by the end of the disaster, only 521 (out of 2,367) stone and 2,078 (out of 6,584) wooden houses remained standing. Among the worst hit districts were the Pyatsnitskii, where 160 stone and 415 wooden buildings burnt down, the Yakimanskii (182 and 257 buildings respectively), the Tverskii (238 and 135), and the Arbatskii (114 and 338). In the Sretenskii district there were 630 houses before the fire; only 11 stone and 8 wooden ones survived on 20 September.25 In addition, hundreds of taverns, shops, inns and markets had all been ransacked and destroyed; in the Yakimanskii district alone more than 100 stone and 53 wooden shopping stalls and 16 stone blacksmith shops burned down. The city also lost many state archives and important cultural centres, including Count A. Musin-Pushkin’s vast collection of manuscripts on the history of Russian society and culture, Count D. Buturlin’s famed private library of some 40,000 tomes, and the libraries of the University of Moscow and the Society of History and Antiquities. The total loss of property in Moscow was later evaluated at 250 million rubles, which equalled Russia’s entire annual revenue for 1812.26

  Acrid smoke billowing from the ruins and the putrid smell of rotting carcasses and corpses overwhelmed everyone’s senses. ‘The smell issuing from this colossus, overthrown, burned and calcined, was horrible,’ recalled Ségur.27 The city represented a landscape of collapsed houses, ruined walls and burnt trees. Blackened human corpses and animal carcasses, broken crockery, furniture and debris of various kinds obstructed movement in the streets. ‘From end to end Moscow was a scene of indescribable horror and utter desolation. The houses that had survived the fire were plundered, and the churches looted. All the pavements and side-walks were littered with fragments of chandeliers, mirrors, furniture, pictures, books, church-plate and even the sacred ikons of the saints.’28 Travelling across the city, Ségur could only see ‘heaps of ashes, and at intervals, fragments of walls or half demolished pillars were now the only vestiges that marked the site of streets’.29 In some places only the tall columns of chimney stacks marked the course of a street that had effectively ceased to exist. For Montesquiou-Fezensac, Moscow was at once ‘a horrible and extraordinary sight’. Some of the houses appeared to have been

  razed from their foundations, others preserved their outline with walls darkened by the smoke. Debris of every kind obstructed the streets, and the smell of burning exhaled from every quarter. Here and there a cottage, a church, a palace, was standing in the midst of the widespread ruin. The churches in particular, by their many-coloured domes and the richness and variety of their construction, reminded us of the ancient opulence of Moscow. They now afforded a refuge to those of the inhabitants who had been driven by our soldiers from the houses which the flames had spared. These wretched beings, wandering like ghosts among the ruins, and clothed in rags, had recourse to the most grievous expedients for prolonging life.30

  Entering the city after the fire, Private Walter saw ‘church towers with burned roofs and half-melted bells, and copper roofs which had rolled from the buildings. Everything was uninhabited and uninhabitable.’31

  The Emperor made a brief stop at the Kremlin, which was still standing largely intact thanks to the gallant battalion of the Imperial Guard that had preserved it. He examined the damage caused to the Kremlin buildings before changing horses and resuming his survey of the city.32 This time he rode westwards before turning right near the Arbat Gates and proceeding along the relatively well preserved sections of the Nikitskii and Tverskoi boulevards towards the Myasnitskii district, northeast of the Kremlin. He encountered ‘numerous miserable residents who had been reduced to the most frightful destitution by fire and looting’, and gave orders to establish shelters and provide food rations and financial aid of some fifty thousand rubles.33 From the Myasnitskii district Napoleon slowly moved southwards, completing his semicircular movement around the Kremlin at the Moskvoretskii bridge, where he turned west towards the Foundlings Home. The Emperor travelled along the grand quai of the Moscow river and amidst ‘numerous heartrending scenes’ he soon saw that the Foundlings Home was still standing intact. He immediately instructed one of his officers to ‘go and see what happened to those unfortunate little ones’ who were housed there.34 The officer reported back that the building and children were safe under the watchful eye of Actual State Councillor Ivan Tutolmin. Napoleon then resumed his trip. Crossing the Yauza Bridge, he reached the Pokrovskaya barrier, where he examined the surrounding area, then he re-entered Moscow through the Rogozhskaya barrier and visited the military hospitals located at Lefortovo; passing by the smouldering ruins of the Sloboda Palace, he returned to the Kremlin at about 4pm.35 Later that day he wrote a lengthy missive to his wife, sharing his impressions of the day:

  My dear, I have already written to you about Moscow. [But] I had no idea about this town. It had 500 palaces as fine as the Elysée-Napoléon, furnished in the French style with incredible luxury, several imperial palaces, barracks and magnificent hospitals. It has all disappeared. Fire has been consuming everything for four days. As all the small houses of the bourgeois are of wood, they catch fire like matches. It was the Governor and the Russians who, furious at being conquered, set fire to this beautiful town. Some 200,000 worthy inhabitants are in despair, in the streets and in misery. However, there is enough left for the army, and the troops have found no lack of riches of all kinds, for everything is exposed to looting in this upheaval. This loss is immense for Russia. Its trade will suffer a great shock from it.36

  Napoleon was at least partially correct in stating that ‘there is enough left for the army’. Despite the widespread destruction, enough buildings remained to provide shelter for the troops. Some, like Sergeant Bourgogne of the Guard, found themselves in a more than agreeable situation: ‘We took possession of our quarters in a fine street hitherto preserved from fire, not far from the first enclosure of the Kremlin. Our company had a large café assigned to it; one of the rooms contained two billiard tables … We found a great quantity of wine in the cellars and some Jamaica rum, also a large cellar filled with barrels of excellent beer, packed in ice to keep it fresh during the summer.’37 In fact, some estates contained so much wine and alcohol that a
few soldiers were drowned while pillaging in wine cellars.38 Some soldiers found the sight of abandoned buildings with plenty of property still inside them rather suspicious and believed it was all part of an elaborate trap. ‘Once inside the lodgings,’ one eyewitness described, ‘officers and soldiers barricaded all the entrances and slept fully dressed and with weapons within their reach.’39

  Fortunately for the Grande Armée, the fire did not destroy all Moscow’s resources. All around the city there were immense fields of various vegetables, including potatoes, beets and cabbages. Aart Kool recalled that although ‘meat and bread were rationed daily, we found vegetables aplenty in the community kitchen gardens, allowing us to prepare quite good meals’.40 Major Le Roy of the 85th Line recalled marching his men along the quay where there were still ‘some boats laden with grain’, and his men later found ‘a grange filled with sacks of grain, made of bulrushes, sewn with string, and heaped up to the neck’. Most Russian houses had cellars and other underground stores that emerged relatively unscathed from the conflagration. ‘We have found immense quantities of resources in Moscow,’ Napoleon told his minister of foreign affairs.41 That same day one French officer recorded in his diary that the city still contained vast provisions. ‘Houses contain provisions for eight months and wine is plentiful. Consequently, our soldiers are getting drunk and … sit surrounded by numerous bottles of wine that they generously offer to passers-by.’42 A Russian eyewitness observed that the Allied soldiers were at first quite finicky about food and refused to eat ‘cured meats, caviar or large dried fish from the Volga river and the Caspian Sea that were in abundance in Moscow’. In addition, the French soldiers relished the French wines they found, but ignored the Ukrainian and Moldovan wines, which ‘they found too flat or sour’, and the Spanish and Portuguese wines that were ‘too strong for them’.43