226. Napoleon to Berthier, 25 September 1812, S.H.D., département de l’Armée de Terre, 17 C 113; Napoleon to Berthier and Dumas, 25 September 1812, in Chuquet, Ordres et Apostilles de Napoleon, II, 429. Napoleon allowed troops who desired to send their pay to France to exchange these forged rubles for genuine ‘franc-germinal’.
227. Vionnet de Maringone, 58.
228. Ysarn, 41–43.
229. Polyanskii, 44.
230. Griois, II, 55–56.
231. Thirion, 209.
232. Coignet, 212.
233. Peyrusse, Mémorial, 98.
234. Henckens, 132–139.
235. Bourgoing, 121.
Chapter 8: ‘By Accident or Malice?’ Who Burned Moscow?
1. Owen Connelly, The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Era (New York, 2000), 325.
2. ‘Denkwürdigteiten des Freiherrn vom Stein aus dem Jahre 1812,’ in Nachrichten von der Königlichen gesellschaft der wissenschaften zu Göttingen (1896), 190.
3. Tim Chapman, Imperial Russia, 1801–1905 (London, 2001), 30.
4. Todd Fisher, The Napoleonic Wars: The Empires Fight Back 1808–1812 (Oxford, 2001), 71.
5. Nigel Nicolson, Napoleon 1812 (Cambridge, 1985), 94. Alexander M. Martin, Enlightened Metropolis: Constructing Imperial Moscow, 1762–1855 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 180, 193. Martin cites two short articles from Otechestvennaya voina 1812 goda: Entsiklopediya but neither article refers to any direct orders by Rostopchin to burn the city.
6. Schmidt, 28.
7. Russkaya starina 12 (1883), 650–651; Dubrovin, 94, 114; Bogdanovich, II, 313–314.
8. Bagration to Rostopchin, 26 August 1812, in Dubrovin, 98. Alexander M. Martin, Enlightened Metropolis: Constructing Imperial Moscow, 1762–1855 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 180, 193. Martin cites two short articles from Otechestvennaya voina 1812 goda: Entsiklopediya but neither article refers to any direct orders by Rostopchin to burn the city.
9. Nikolai Golitsyn, Souvenir d’un officier russe pendant les campagnes 1812, 13, 14 (St Petersburg, 1848); Bertin, 123. Interestingly the Russian edition of Golitsyn’s memoirs does not contain this passage.
10. Dmitrii Pozharskii was the Russian prince who led the Russian national struggle for independence against the Polish-Lithuanian invasion known as the Time of Troubles. Zakrevskii is playing on the meaning of his name, Pozharskii, derived from pozhar, meaning fire.
11. Wolzogen, 152.
12. Andrei Tartakovskii, ‘Obmanutyi Gerostrat: Rostopchin i Pozhar Moskvy,’ in Rodina 6/7 (1992), 89.
13. Schmidt, 46.
14. No. 7 Broadsheet, 29 August 1812, in Afishy 1812 goda
15. Shakovskoi, 56.
16. Domergues, II, 54–55.
17. Rostopchin to Bagration, 24 August 1812, in Zhurnal dlya chteniya vospitannikam voenno-uchebnykh zavedenii (1842), XXXVI, 328–329.
18. Rostopchin to Kutuzov, 31 August 1812, in Russkaya starina (1870), II, 305.
19. Rostopchin to his wife, 14 September (8am) 1812, in Narichkine, Le comte Rostopchine et son temps, 171.
20. Rostopchin to Alexander, 25 October 1812, in Russkii arkhiv 8 (1892), 551.
21. Rostopchin’s daughter pointed out that her father believed that ‘the fire’s effect would have been doubly terrifying to the French if it ignited before Napoleon entered the city’. Narichkine, Le comte Rostopchine et son temps, 170.
22. Rostopchin, La Vérité, 19–20.
23. Rostopchin (1889), 716.
24. Rostopchin to his wife, 23 September 1812, in Russkii arkhiv 8 (1901), 471.
25. Rostopchin (1889), 717–718.
26. Only the three most important archives – Archives of the College of Foreign Affairs, of the Votchina Department and of Ancient Affairs (starykh del) – had been removed back in August.
27. Wolzogen, 156.
28. Rostopchin to his wife, 14 September (8am) 1812, in Narichkine, Le comte Rostopchine et son temps, 171. Relying on family tradition, Count Anatole de Ségur (Rostopchin’s grandson) cited an interesting incident involving his grandfather: upon leaving the city Rostopchin supposedly told his son Serge, who accompanied him, ‘Salute Moscow for the last time. Within a half-hour it will be in flames.’ However, it is doubtful that the younger Rostopchin, who served as an officer in the Akhtyrskii Hussar Regiment and aide-de-camp to Barclay de Tolly, would have been with his father at that moment. Ségur, Vie du comte Rostopchine, 173.
29. Rostopchin to his wife, 21 September 1812 in Russkii arkhiv 8 (1901), 465.
30. V. Kholodkovskii, ‘Napoleon li podzheg Moskvu?’ in Vorposy istorii 4 (1966), 35.
31. Rostopchin to Semen Vorontsov, 28 April 1813, in Arkhiv Vorontsova, VIII, 313.
32. Rostopchin to Vyazmitinov, 11 November 1812, in Russkii arkhiv 1 (1881), 225; Rostopchin to Vorontsov, 10 May 1815, in Russkii arkhiv 6 (1908), 279.
33. Rostopchin to a village manager in the Orlov province, 15 October 1815, in Russkii arkhiv (1864), 407–408.
34. For example, Rostopchin to Vyazmitinov, 11 November 1812, in Russkii arkhiv 1 (1881), 224.
35. Rostopchin, La Vérité, 5.
36. Ibid., 12.
37. Ibid., 20–22.
38. Ségur, Vie du comte Rostopchine, 193.
39. Ibid., 193.
40. RGVIA, f. VUA, d. 3465, part 11, ll. 203–207.
41. Brokker, 1432–1434.
42. Kaptsevich to Arakcheyev, 16 September 1812, in Dubrovin, 122.
43. M.I. Kutuzov: Sbornik Dokumentov, IV, part 1, 473; Mnenie Gosudarstvennogo soveta o poteryakh artilleiiskogo i intendantskogo imushestva, 718.
44. Christiani, 47.
45. Wilson, 178–179. Rostopchin’s inscription is cited in a number of French and Polish memoirs (i.e. Brandt and Dumonceau), though they cite it as: ‘I have set fire to my chateau, which cost me a million, so that no dog of a Frenchman shall lodge in it.’
46. Bourgoing, 116–117.
47. Berthezène, II, 69.
48. Bausset, II, 90.
49. Rostopchin, La Vérité, 6.
50. Unsigned report to the French authorities, 15 September 1812, in Gorshkov, Moskva i Otechestvennaya voina 1812 g., II, 52–53.
51. Markham, Imperial Glory, 298–299.
52. Prosper to his step-father, 15 October 1812, in Lettres interceptées par les Russes durant la campagne de 1812, 148.
53. Dauve to his father, 28 September 1812, in Ibid., 54.
54. Paradis to Geneviève Bonnegrace, 20 September 1812; Paradis to his son, 26 September 1812, in Ibid., 22, 24.
55. Coudère to his wife, 27 September 1812, in Ibid., 51.
56. Montesquiou-Fezensac, Journal de la Campagne de Russie en 1812, 54.
57. Fantin des Odoards, 336; Roguet, IV, 488.
58. Ysarn, 54.
59. Frederic-François Vaudoncourt, Mémoires pour server à histoire de la guerre entre la France et la Russie en 1812 (London, 1815), 192.
60. For the list of convicts see Spisok Gubernskago Tyuremnago Zamka … in Schukin, VI, 6–7.
61. Due to space constraints, seven detainees of the Temporary Prison were transferred to the Prison Castle, leaving 166 detainees. In addition, Welttman acknowledged ‘more than twenty Jews’ who had been under his authority but imprisoned in the Castle. Temporary Prison Warden Welttman to Moscow’s Uprava blagochiniya (municipal administrative police organ), 10 April 1813, in Schukin, II, 212–213.
62. Prison Castle Warden Ivanov to Moscow’s Chief of Police Ivashkin, 26 September 1812, Schukin, VI, 5. In his letter to the emperor, Rostopchin refers to 620 but in his memoirs he mentions 810 men, which probably refers to all convicts in general. On 13 September Civilian Governor Obreskov referred to 529 convicts in the Prison Castle and 166 detainees in the Temporary Prison but he specified that his number for the Prison Castle did not include military detainees. Obreskov to Ivashkin, 13 September 1812, in Schukin, VI, 4; Rostopchin, La Verité, 8. The Prison Cast
le (Tyuremnyi zamok) was Moscow’s main penitentiary.
63. Rostopchin to Emperor Alexander, 29 November 1812, in Russkii arkhiv (1892), 555; Rostopchin to Vyazmitinov, 8 November 1812, in Russkii arkhiv 1 (1881), 225; Prison Castle Warden Ivanov to Moscow’s Chief of Police Ivashkin, 26 September 1812, Schukin, VI, 5; Moscow’s Uprava blagochiniya to the 1st Department of Moscow Aulic Court, 18 June 1813, in Schukin, II, 213; Major Nittelhorst to Kutuzov, 21 September 1812, in General Staff Archives, XVIII, 42–43.
64. Prison Castle Warden Ivanov to Moscow’s Chief of Police Ivashkin, 26 September 1812, Schukin, VI, 5. It is noteworthy that to escort 627 convicts, Nittelhorst’s squad consisted of just 4 NCOs, 6 veteran soldiers, 10 newly trained soldiers and 284 recruits. Major Nittelhorst to Kutuzov, 21 September 1812, in General Staff Archives, XVIII, 42–43.
65. Civil Governor of Nizhnii Novgorod Runovskii to Count Rostopchin, 15 October 1812, in Mikhailovskii-Danilevskii, II, 410–411. Also see Ibid., 347. Four prisoners had been freed before departure from Moscow so 627 convicts should have left the city on 14 September. Spisok Gubernskago Tyuremnago Zamka … in Schukin, VI, 7.
66. Obreskov to Ivashkin, 13 September 1812, in Schukin, VI, 4.
67. Prison Warden Welttman to Moscow’s Uprava blagochiniya, 10 April 1813, in Schukin, II, 212–213.
68. Obreskov to Ivashkin, 13 September 1812, in Schukin, VI, 4.
69. Prison Warden Welttman to Moscow’s Uprava blagochiniya, 10 April 1813, in Schukin, II, 212–213; Prison Castle Warden Ivanov to Moscow’s Chief of Police Ivashkin, 26 September 1812, Schukin, VI, 5.
70. Alexander Bulgakov, ‘Zametka na pamyat,’ in Russkii arkhiv (1866), 701–702.
71. Cate, 273.
72. Rostopchin, La Vérité, 7.
73. Zemtsov, 43.
74. Zemtsov, 45.
75. Obreskov to Ivashkin, 13 September 1812, in Schukin, VI, 4–5; Ivashkin to Commandant of Moscow Lieutenant General Hesse, 13 September 1812, in Schukin, III, 195.
76. Kharuzin, 168.
77. ‘U strakha glaza veliki.’
78. Poluyaroslavtseva, 9–10.
79. Russkii arkhiv (1864), 1201.
80. Bourgogne, 30.
81. Pion des Loches, 303.
82. Van Boecop to his father, 27 September 1812, in Lettres interceptées par les Russes durant la campagne de 1812, 50. See also Dauve to his father, 27 September 1812, in Ibid., 54.
83. Ysarn, 30.
84. 21st Bulletin, 20 September 1812, in Markham, Imperial Glory, 300.
85. The Military Commission included nine members. Its chair was General Jean Lauer, the head of the gendarmerie and chief justice (grand-prévôt) of the Grande Armée. Other members of the commission were: General Claude Etienne Michel, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Guard Infantry Division; Louis Charles Saunier, head of the gendarmerie of the 1st Army Corps; Major Pierre Bodelin, commanding the Fusiliers-Grenadiers of the Young Guard; Adjutant-Commandant Louis Noel Théry, the Commandant of the Quarter-Impérial; Chef-d’escadron Jeannin of the Gendarmerie d’élite; General François Bailly de Monthion; Chef-d’escadron François Weber of the Gendarmerie d’élite, and Sous-officier Jouve de Guibert of the Gendarmerie. Monthion served as a prosecutor, and Weber as a rapporteur responsible for presenting cases. Protocol of Proceedings of the Military Commission, in Schukin, I, 129–130.
86. Peyrusse, Mémorial, 102; Protocol of Proceedings of the Military Commission, in Schukin, I, 129.
87. These men came from various walks of life, including a lieutenant of the 1st Moskovskii Infantry Regiment, three housepainters, nine policemen, a merchant, a tailor and a farrier. Their average age was 42–45 years; the oldest were 70–year-old Ivan Maksimov, a servant of Prince Simbirskii, and 67–year-old Ivan Ivanov, a sexton at the church of St Philipp, while the youngest were two 18–year-olds, the farrier Ilya Yagokomov and the upholsterer Semen Ivanov.
88. The Military Commission described these cadenats phosphorique as hollow spheres filled with phosphorus and wrapped in canvas covered with sulphur.
89. Protocol of Proceedings of the Military Commission, in Schukin, I, 132.
90. Protocol of Proceedings of the Military Commission, in Schukin, I, 131–132.
91. Protocol of Proceedings of the Military Commission, in Schukin, I, 134–140. Also see Rostopchin, La Vérité, 9–10; Georges Chambray, Réponse de l’auteur de l’Histoire de l’expédition de Russie, a la brochure de M. le comte Rostopchin, intitulée La Vérite sur l’incendie de Moscou (Paris, 1823), 5–10.
92. A. Yelnitskii, ‘Rostopchin, F.V.’ in Russkii biograficheskii slovar (Petrograd, 1918), 281–282.
93. Protocol of Proceedings of the Military Commission, in Schukin, I, 132–134.
94. Bogdanovich, II, 311.
95. Bogdanovich, II, 270.
96. Protocol of Proceedings of the Military Commission, in Schukin, I, 132–134.
97. Kutuzov to Rostopchin, 13 September 1812, in Borodino: dokumenty, pis’ma, vospominaniya, 143–144; Rostopchin to his wife, 13 September 1812, in Russkii arkhiv 8 (1901), 461; Rostopchin to the Senate, 9 August 1814, in Russkii arkhiv 6 (1868), 884.
98. Rostopchin (1889), 721.
99. ‘Spisok chinovnikov moskovskoi politsii …’ [Roster of Officials of the Moscow Police …] in Gorshkov, Moskva i Otechestvennaya voina 1812 g., II, 13–15. Some of these officers had been rewarded after the war: police supervisors Egor Rovinskii of the Pyatnitskii district and Fedor Pozharskii of the Tverskoi district were, for example, rewarded with gold watches for their services. It must be noted that some policemen chose to collaborate with the French authorities and served in the newly established municipal police, for which they were later prosecuted by the Russian authorities.
100. Ivashkin to Tormasov, 21 August 1816, in Istoricheskii arkhiv 3 (2003), 162–165.
101. No. 15 Broadsheet, 11 August 1812, in Afishy 1812 goda
102. Glinka, ‘Iz zapisok o 1812 gode,’
103. Liprandi, 168.
104. Blagovo, 166.
105. Boyen, II, 231. Young artillery officer Nikolai Mitarevskii recalled that ‘after the fall of Smolensk the residents of the Russian heartlands eagerly offered soldiers everything that they could not hide or evacuate. It was they who destroyed the remaining furniture and other property in landowners’ estates. All of this was done to prevent [property and resources] from falling into French hands.’ Mitarevskii, 88.
106. Griois described how ‘several generals and some of my own comrades had helped themselves to carriages to replace their own, rendered more or less unserviceable by the road’. He himself chose ‘one of the lightest calèches’ and decided to move it the following day. However, during the night the fire consumed the carriage yard. Griois, II, 57.
107. Pierre de Ségur, ‘Rostopchin en 1812,’ in La Revue de Paris 7 (1902), 94.
108. Rostopchin (1889), 697–698.
109. Ueber die Verbrennung der Stadt Moskau, 4.
110. Volkonskii, 141.
111. Bourgogne, 15.
112. In fact, even some Russian government officials could not resist the lure of quick profit and partook in the plunder. The employees of the Moscow post office were later charged with accompanying and assisting the enemy in pillaging. A. Karfachevskii to D. Runich, December 1812; Investigation File of Employees of the Moscow Post Office, January 1814, in Gorshkov, Moskva i Otechestvennaya voina 1812 g., II, 142–143, 146–147.
113. Muravyev (1885), 349.
114. Nevzorov to Golenischev-Kutuzov, 3 December 1812, in Gorshkov, Moskva i Otechestvennaya voina 1812 g., II, 20–21.
115. Brandt, 228.
116. Rostopchin to Vyazmitinov, 12 November 1812, in Schukin, VII, 417–418.
117. Kruglova, 62.
118. Chudimov to Soimonov, 17 November 1812, in Gorshkov, Moskva i Otechestvennaya voina 1812 g., II, 16. Titular Councillor Vasilii Popov, a blind and ag
eing civil official, stayed in Moscow, believing the governor’s assurances that the city would not fall. On 14 September he was robbed by his maid and landlady and abandoned in a park amidst the burning neighbourhood. He begged passers-by to help him but was instead beaten mercilessly and robbed threadbare by three young men. Popov barely made it to a village where a kind old woman sheltered him. Alas, the next morning the enemy soldiers savagely beat him after finding that he had no valuables to steal. ‘Proshenie titulyarnogo sovetnika Vasillia Popova grafu F.V. Rastopchiny’, 22 November 1812, in Schukin, I, 121–2.
119. Vasilii Ermolaevich, 69.
120. Kozlovskii, 113.
121. ‘Kratkoe opisanie proizshestvii, byvshikh pri Pokhvalskoi, chto v Bashmakove, tserkvi v 1812 godu,’ in Chteniya v Obshchestve lyubitelei dukhovnogo prosveshcheniya 36 (March 1914), 71. A house serf recalled, ‘the people grumbled very much about the lords, saying they had surrendered Moscow, that they had frittered everything away’. A Moscow priest later told his grandson that ‘a horde of peasants came to him with bear-spears and threatened to slaughter [the affluent] for having “frittered Moscow away”.’ ‘Razskaz nabilkinskoi bogadelenki, Anny Andreyevny Sazonovoi,’ in Tolycheva (1872), 291; A. Lebedev, ‘Iz razskazov rodnykh,’ in Schukin, III, 257.
122. Lavrov, 110–111; Nordhof, 234.
123. Toll, II, 152.
124. Cited in Zemtsov, 42.
125. Alexander Bulgakov, ‘Zametka na pamyat,’ in Russkii arkhiv (1866), 701–702.
126. Rostopchin to Kutuzov, 29 September 1812, in Journal of Outgoing Correspondence of Governor Rostopchin, 182.
127. Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, ‘Memorandum on the War in Russia in 1812,’ in George R. Cleig, ed. Personal Reminiscences of the First Duke of Wellington (London, 1904), 387–388.
128. Philibert Poulachard to his wife, 27 September 1812, in Lettres interceptées par les Russes durant la campagne de 1812, 51.
129. Pion des Loches, 301.
130. Castellane, I, 155.
131. Horn, 118–121.
132. Lossberg, 196.
133. Wellington, ‘Memorandum on the War in Russia in 1812,’ 387.
134. Ségur, Vie du comte Rostopchine, 192.
135. For an eyewitness account see Lieutenant Frederick Mackenzie’s account in George F. Scheer and Hugh F. Rankin, Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolution Through the Eyes of Those Who Fought and Lived it (New York, 1957), 188–189.
The Burning of Moscow Page 50
