by Philip Dwyer
At six o’clock in the morning, a French cannon shot gave the signal for the commencement of battle. After a short silence, more than a thousand cannon fired at each other so that it sounded like a continual rolling of thunder, ‘producing an artificial earthquake’.109 ‘Everything seemed to announce less a battle than a general extermination.’110 The initial plan was sound.111 Napoleon had seen the apparent weakness of Kutuzov’s left wing and intended to exploit it by sending Davout and Ney to attack the right while he sent Poniatowski to turn the Russian left flank. All three generals were then meant to push the Russians north up against the Moskva River and annihilate them. Davout proposed taking 40,000 men and marching overnight in a flanking movement that would come behind the enemy’s left wing, but Napoleon denied the request on the grounds that it would have deprived the army of a large body of men for much of the opening battle, and that marching at night through heavily wooded terrain was ‘too dangerous a manoeuvre’.112
By the time the largest army in the world had reached the banks of the Moskva after more than ten weeks of marching, it had been reduced to between 103,000 and 135,000 men (depending on the sources), perhaps fewer given the tendency of commanders to inflate the numbers under their command. The French were, in fact, outnumbered, at least on paper, facing around 155,000 Russians. However, around 30,000 of those were militia who took no part in the fighting; they were used to carry away the wounded (a task that front-line troops would normally perform, often not to return), as well as forming a cordon behind the lines that prevented deserters, including officers, from fleeing.113 What’s more, the Russian cavalry was made up of 8,600 Cossacks, of no use against regular cavalry in a set battle. The Grande Armée deployed 587 cannon, while the Russians had slightly more at 640, though they had many more twelve-pounders than the French, behind defensive positions that were not, however, as strong as some French descriptions have made them out to be.114 The opposing forces were then roughly equal in strength and quality, although the Russian troops were no doubt more motivated by a desire to defend their homeland. The only thing that could possibly have motivated the multi-national force under Napoleon’s command, a point he made in the order of the day, was that a victory would bring them ‘abundance, good winter quarters and a rapid return’ to their homelands.115 Finally, the Russian troops were probably in slightly better condition than those of the Grande Armée. A supply line from Moscow had been set up to keep the troops fed, while Napoleon’s troops had had to resort to foraging (many had not eaten properly in days); his men were sick, tired, badly clothed (some even went into battle barefoot); and his cavalry was in such an appalling state it was incapable of actually charging.
Napoleon has been criticized for adopting an unimaginative frontal assault rather than attempting an outflanking manoeuvre, the result of a lethargy he seems to have been unable to shake.116 In his defence it has to be said that, as at Smolensk, he was anxious to give battle, and was concerned that if the Russians got whiff of a flanking movement they would decamp. So he decided to slog it out, although he may have come to regret his decision in the course of the day. When, around ten o’clock in the morning, Murat, Ney and Davout finally managed to batter a hole in the Russian centre, effectively splitting the Russian line in two, and sent messages, all three of them, back to Napoleon requesting that he commit the Guard, Napoleon at first decided to do so, then changed his mind. Part of the Guard was actually on the move when he ordered it to halt. As many have pointed out, a younger Napoleon would have been on his horse riding up to see the situation for himself, but now he stayed in the same position, leaving the Shevardino redoubt over a kilometre behind the front only once in the course of the battle, at about three in the afternoon.117 From there, it was impossible to see what was actually going on. It was obvious even to contemporaries that Napoleon lacked the energy and enthusiasm with which he normally conducted a battle, riding to points that were particularly difficult in order to galvanize the troops.118 General Augustin Belliard described him as ‘suffering and dejected, his features sunken, the look bleak’.119 It led Ney to exclaim, ‘If he [Napoleon] is no longer a general . . . then he should go back to the Tuileries and let us be generals for him.’120
The remark is perhaps a little unfair. Napoleon had sent the commander of the Guard Cavalry, Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bessières, to reconnoitre, and he reported that the Russians were still resisting, the implication being that the Russians might be strong enough to continue to fight the next day. It was Berthier and Murat who argued that it would be pointless sending in the Guard and, as it was the only corps that remained intact, it was necessary to keep it for a later date.121 Moreover, at about the same time that these requests were coming through, worrying news was filtering in from his left flank. The Guard was told to prepare for a possible march north. Napoleon can be blamed for excessive caution here; the cavalry sighted in the north was easily contained, and it would certainly appear as a result that he missed his chance to crush the Russian army. It is more than likely that if he had committed the Guard, the battle would have been a decisive victory, thereby seriously damaging Russian morale, but it has also been pointed out that the rest of the Russian army would still have retreated down the New Smolensk Road, thus rendering void the strategic outcome.122
Historians usually point to Napoleon’s state of health to explain his lacklustre performance during the battle. Shortly before he left for the campaign he was described as having ‘put on a good deal of weight’.123 It has been suggested that this sudden onset of obesity may have been a result of Fröhlich’s Syndrome, a rare condition brought on by a pituitary tumour or a damaged hypothalamus that can affect hormone levels.124 Others have hinted at a form of venereal disease, which may explain the strange behaviour that was remarked upon by some contemporaries. However, there is no hard evidence for either of these diagnoses. It is more likely that he was suffering from dysury, an infection of the bladder that made it difficult to urinate. When he did, it came out in drops, was thick with sediment and caused enormous pain. Moreover, his leg was swollen, he had fits of shivering and had complained of feeling sick, was suffering from a terrible migraine, a persistent dry cough, an irregular pulse and, probably, some sort of psoriasis.125 None of these symptoms was particularly serious, but they help explain why, no longer a young man, he could not sustain the types of exertion he had once submitted himself to.
This is as good an explanation as any for the lack of initiative he demonstrated throughout the day, barely moving from his seat on the Shevardino redoubt and hardly reacting to the news that was coming in from various parts of the battlefield. As a result, Napoleon kissed goodbye an opportunity, ironically since this was exactly what he had been looking for, to inflict a crushing defeat on the enemy, a knockout blow that would bring the war to an end. The result was the prolongation of the war.
When the French awoke the next day, it came as a surprise to some that the Russians had abandoned the field of battle.126 Kutuzov had done so after realizing just how great his losses were, and in particular how many good commanders were out of action. A retreat was ordered, but for the first time since the campaign began, the rearguard performed poorly, largely because it was under the command of the relatively incompetent Cossack general Matvei Platov. Also for the first time, thousands of Russian wounded were left on the field of battle.
Between 60,000 and 90,000 rounds from 587 cannon were fired from the French side that day, and possibly as many again by the Russians.127 Between 1.4 and 2 million cartridges or ‘cartouches’ were fired by the French forces. One cannon ball could have a devastating effect, taking off a limb or a head or a large part of a torso before continuing on to maim or kill other people.128 When the Russians were finally able to clear the battlefield in 1813, they buried or burnt 67,000 bodies and 36,000 horse carcasses.129 It was the highest loss in any European engagement in a single day’s fighting since Hannibal’s defeat of the Romans at Cannae in 216 bc, and it was not to be surpassed unti
l the battle of the Somme.130 Russian losses were devastating: anywhere between 40,000 and 50,000 men killed and wounded, that is, a third of their forces.131 The casualties of the Grande Armée were fewer – about 30,000–35,000 men killed and wounded, or about 22 per cent of their forces – but just as devastating, especially given the distance from their supply sources.
As was his custom, Napoleon toured the battlefield where lay tens of thousands of dead and wounded, surveying the carnage of what one general referred to as the most disgusting sight he had ever seen – ‘Mountains of dead on both sides’.132 It was raining and the wind was cold. Napoleon was not always able to avoid stepping on a body or a wounded soldier with his horse, so many lay on the ground. General Philippe-Paul, Comte de Ségur (the son of Louis Philippe, Comte de Ségur), noticed that although his expression was impenetrable, he was paler than usual, until, having accidentally stepped on another wounded soldier, he yelled at those in his entourage to go and help them.133
A letter to Marie-Louise described the numbers of killed and wounded that Napoleon attempted to but could not really hide.134 There would be no painting competition this time around to give them some sense of meaning. The Emperor remained at Mozhaisk, thirteen kilometres from Borodino, for three days, locked in his room, gripped with a high fever, probably brought on by work and anxiety.135 He had also, apparently, become mute, unable to speak above a whisper, forced to write summaries of his dispatches for his secretaries and explaining himself by sign language. This then is a crisis point in Napoleon’s life; he knew that all was failing around him but was unable to do anything about it. When Bessières came to read out the list of senior officers wounded during the battle – forty-seven generals and more than one hundred colonels – Napoleon managed to find his voice to interrupt him, only to say, somewhat brusquely, ‘Eight days in Moscow and all will be as good as gold.’136
19
‘The Struggle of Obstinacy’
Moscow
The traveller arriving in Moscow on the road from Smolensk passed through a forest at the end of which was a hill, the Poklonnaya Gora (literally the Hill of Worshipful Submission), from where one could get an overview of the entire city. From there the troops would have discovered a city ‘more Asiatic than European, standing at the end of a deserted and barren plain’.1 The rounded church steeples, gilded in gold and silver and reflecting the sunlight, resembled ‘luminous globes’, Montgolfier aerostats floating in the air.2 ‘Whenever we reached the top of a hill, our eyes tired of looking for our goal [Moscow] through swirls of smoke and dust that . . . obscured the horizon. Then suddenly a cry rang out from the columns up ahead. We squash together, we hurry on, and then a multitude of voices begin to cry out, Moscow! Moscow!’3 For these westerners setting eyes on Moscow for the first time, it appeared like something out of One Thousand and One Nights, a fantastical creation whose architecture and monuments were completely unfamiliar to them. In that ‘magical’ moment, all the suffering they had endured over the past weeks and months disappeared and gave way to the thought of the pleasure that awaited them.4
It was a beautiful day, 14 September, the sun reflecting on the golden domes of the hundreds of churches, over 240 of them, all of which had five domes.5 With a population of around 275,000, Moscow was the largest city in Russia and the fourth largest in Europe (after London, Paris and Naples).6 Aristocratic society was dominated by a few incredibly wealthy families and was to that extent more clan-based than, say, St Petersburg. Aristocrats tended to live insular lives, never mixing with people below their class: they worshipped in their own private churches, while very wealthy nobles had their own theatres and troupes. Of the fifteen theatres in Moscow, fourteen were in private residences (theatre was an activity considered sinful and disgraceful by the common people). Most aristocrats spoke French exceedingly well but could not speak or write in Russian.7 When they did go out they invited each other to balls. It was not for all that a particularly cosmopolitan city; it boasted no more than fourteen coffee houses.8 More than one French officer remarked on the enormous palaces that were the homes of the Russian aristocracy in Moscow. ‘Of an inconceivable luxury,’ wrote one Polish count to his wife, ‘stucco, colonnades, architecturally delightful. The inside of these beautiful buildings is decorated with taste.’9 The middle classes, for want of a better term to describe merchants, artisans, minor state officials and so on, totalled about 40,000 people.10 The vast majority of the population (around 168,000) was made up of the lower classes, that is, house serfs and peasants.
Kutuzov decided to abandon the city during a war council that met at Fili, outside Moscow, on 13 September 1812.11 He was not, in other words, prepared to make the decision by himself. It was evident that the terrain before Moscow was unsuitable for a defensive battle, and if the battle were lost it would be difficult to retreat through the streets of Moscow quickly and in good order.
A contingent of French troops entered the city about two o’clock on the afternoon of 14 September. Unlike other major European cities that had been occupied by the French, in Moscow the vast majority of the inhabitants simply fled. Some of the 6,200-odd inhabitants remaining (plus another 22,500 wounded Russian soldiers that had been left behind), convinced of the wild rumours flying around about the imminent arrival of allied troops, mistook the French for British and came out to greet them with food.12 Most of the troops of the Grande Armée thought that the war had come to an end, so they did not bother with the stragglers from the Russian army roaming the streets, as many as 10,000 according to Ségur.13 The appearance of the Grande Armée before Moscow led everyone to believe that peace would be signed. Even the Russians were convinced of this; Cossacks approached the advance guard with gifts of vodka, while Russian officers speaking fluent French conversed and traded with their French counterparts.14
Nothing that happened in Russia, though, was like any other campaign Napoleon had fought. Not only had it taken months for the enemy to stand and fight after being pursued hundreds of kilometres, but they abandoned Moscow – Napoleon called them ‘barbarians’ for it – and still did not consider themselves to be defeated. Napoleon entered the city on 14 September followed by his Imperial Guard in full parade uniform and with the regimental bands blasting out their music.15 Few people were there to greet them, and the only cheering that occurred came from his own troops or Russian onlookers who were forced to cheer.16 Officers in Napoleon’s entourage threw silver coins to those Russians who were there, but according to one witness, as soon as the entourage had passed the soldiers robbed them.
For the French, any feelings of joy felt on seeing Moscow – ‘the fever of happiness’ as one soldier put it – soon gave way to a wave of anxiety.17 The impression one finds in some of the memoirs is of a Moscow completely deserted and eerily silent as the troops marched in: ‘No one in the streets, no one in the houses, no one in the temples. Everything is dead . . . Only occasionally did we glimpse one of these men from the Russian populace who remained among us to get a part of the booty. Covered in rags, their long beards in disorder, they wander alone through the streets like phantoms, and at the approach of a Frenchman, afraid of being robbed, they fade away as if an apparition.’18 No official deputation came out to greet Napoleon to hand over the keys of the city; no representative of the Tsar came forward to discuss the peace terms. Napoleon waited two hours before the gates of Moscow in the vain hope that some deputation or another would appear. It is understandable then that, in the face of this Russian passivity, he was at a loss to know what to do. When he realized that the city was almost deserted he became ‘deeply impressed’ and ‘greatly disturbed’.19
About 100,000 men entered Moscow with Napoleon. Many tens of thousands of others were to be found with corps commanders, or had been placed in strategic centres along the way to keep open the lines of communication with central Europe.20 After months on the road, some since January,21 the troops would have been incredibly dirty. Lieutenant Ducque recalled that in the first well-bu
ilt house he entered he saw his reflection in a mirror, covered in dust and growing a one-month-old beard.22 It is likely that some had not washed since first setting foot on Russian soil. The filthy, hungry mob that invaded the city was in stark contrast to the traditional image of France held by the educated Russian.23 When Frédéric List entered Moscow and found a bivouac, it was the first time he had slept under a roof in four months, or sat down at a table on a chair to eat off plates.24 Letters sent home give an indication of the state of French morale. Captain Richard wrote on 22 September, well before the cold set in, that it was ‘one of the most arduous wars we have fought to date’.25 General Baraguay d’Hilliers wrote to his wife that there was not ‘a soldier in the army who does not sigh for the end of the war. The officers sigh even more.’26 Jean-François Boulart, talking of a fellow officer who had had part of his upper thigh carried away by cannon shot, wrote: ‘I wish that I had as much, so that I could consecrate the rest of my days to you and my children . . . The devil take me if the wish I make is not sincere. This profession is too hard for anyone to be able to do it long.’27
‘The Irresponsible Act of a Deranged Asiatic’
Mme de Staël met with the military governor of Moscow, Count Rostopchin, as she passed through the city around the middle of August. In typical French style, she asserted that no other civilized nation resembled savages as much as the Russian people.28 Rostopchin had assured the people of Moscow that the French would not enter the city, and he had done as much as he possibly could to arouse the ire of the Russian people against the French before and during the invasion, whipping up xenophobic passions while trying to prevent foreigners from being lynched by enraged mobs.29 Anyone suspected of pro-French sympathies was publicly punished, and foreigners – there were probably about 3,000 working in Moscow at the time – were often abused.30
