French occupation of Moscow

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Napoleon Bonaparte's Grande Armée entered Moscow on the 14th of September 1812 to find it nearly deserted. A police survey from the beginning of that year had counted 270,184 residents in the city. By the time French cavalry rode through the gates, anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 civilians remained.

  Napoleon paused three miles short of the city limits and waited half an hour for a Russian delegation to formally surrender Moscow. None came. A young man eventually confirmed what the silence already made clear: both the army and the population had gone. The news was met with bewilderment and then grief.

  The occupation that followed lasted 36 days and marked the summit of the French invasion of Russia. What followed raised questions that would outlast the war. Why did Russia's second city go up in flames? And why did Napoleon wait inside its ruins for weeks, expecting a reply that never came?

• 2. The Chase from Borodino

  ›

  Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov's Russian army suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Borodino on the 7th of September 1812. Before dawn the following morning, Kutuzov ordered a retreat eastward to preserve what remained of his force. The army camped first outside Mozhaysk.

  By the 10th of September, the Russian main force had settled at Bolshiye Vyazyomy. Kutuzov spent the night in the manor house, sleeping on a sofa in the library. On the 11th of September, Napoleon wrote to Marshal Victor expressing concern about the casualties his own army had already absorbed. The attrition tactics of both Barclay de Tolly and Kutuzov were draining the Grande Armée.

  On the 12th of September, Napoleon arrived at the same manor house. He slept on the same sofa Kutuzov had used just two days before. The two commanders, one fleeing and one in pursuit, had shared a bed a single night apart.

  On the 13th of September, Russian army commanders gathered at the village of Fili near Moscow. After a long discussion, Kutuzov followed the advice of Karl Tol and chose to retreat south rather than defend the city. That decision meant Moscow would pass into French hands without a battle for the city itself.

• 3. Entering an Empty City

  ›

  General Mikhail Miloradovich, commanding the Russian rearguard, faced a difficult position. His force was stretched across Moscow, burdened with wounded soldiers and long supply convoys. He sent Captain Fyodor Akinfov of the Hussar Regiment's Life Guards to open negotiations with Marshal Joachim Murat, who commanded the French vanguard.

  Akinfov carried a written note from Colonel Paisiy Kaysarov. The note stated that the wounded soldiers left behind in Moscow were entrusted to the humanity of the French troops. Miloradovich added a verbal message: if the French advanced aggressively, he would fight to the last man and leave only ruins. Akinfov was also instructed to remain in the French camp as long as possible to buy time.

  On the morning of the 14th of September, Akinfov and a trumpeter arrived at the French lines. The cavalry was just resuming its advance. Colonel Clément Louis Elyon de Villeneuve of the 1st Horse-Jaeger Regiment received them. He passed Akinfov on to General Horace François Bastien Sébastiani of the II Cavalry Corps. When Sébastiani offered to accept the note himself, Akinfov refused; his orders were to deliver it personally to Murat. Murat initially rejected any compromise. He told the Russians that sick and wounded soldiers were no longer considered enemies. Only Napoleon, he said, could halt the offensive. He then reversed himself and recalled the delegation. Murat agreed to advance no faster than the retreating Russians, on the condition that the French could enter Moscow that same day. He also asked Akinfov, a native of the city, to urge residents to remain calm.

  The Grande Armée entered Moscow that afternoon. Cavalry and infantry passed through the gates without a fight. Napoleon moved through the city with a large retinue; two squadrons of horse guards preceded him at a distance of a hundred fathoms. On Arbat Street, he passed only a pharmacist and his family tending to a wounded French general. At the Borovitsky gate of the Kremlin, Napoleon looked at the ancient walls and said with a sneer: "What a scary wall!"

  Discipline collapsed quickly. Looting began that first day, driven initially by the search for valuables and later by hunger. Soldiers of the elite Imperial Guard joined their comrades in ransacking the city, and civilians were killed by troops. Kutuzov had separately arranged for the destruction of most of Moscow's remaining food supplies before abandoning the city. Around 10,000 to 15,000 wounded and sick Russian soldiers also remained inside, alongside the few civilians who had stayed behind.

• 4. The Burning City

  ›

  Arson broke out across Moscow on the 14th of September. The most widely accepted explanation is that Governor Fyodor Rostopchin ordered the fires as a scorched earth measure. He had also removed or disabled all firefighting equipment before the French arrived, making it impossible to control the flames.

  Strong winds began on the night of the 15th-the 16th of September and persisted for more than a day. They drove the fire across the city. In the early morning of the 16th of September, Napoleon was forced to flee the Kremlin. The flames had surrounded the fortress, and he relocated to the Petrovsky Palace.

  Count Ségur, who was present during the escape, left a description. "We were surrounded by a sea of flame; it threatened all the gates leading from the Kremlin," he wrote. He described the suffocating air, hot ashes, and the burning of hands as the party tried to shield their faces. Historian Yevgeny Tarle records that Napoleon and his entourage then traveled along the burning Arbat. They made their way from there along the safer shores of the Moscow River.

  The fire burned until the 18th of September and destroyed most of the city. Flames were reportedly visible over 215 kilometers, or 133 miles, away. Louise Fusil, a French actress who had been living in Russia for six years, witnessed the fire and described it in her memoirs. A French military court shot up to 400 citizens on suspicion of arson. One eyewitness recorded Napoleon's words as he watched the city burn: "What a terrible sight! And they did this themselves! So many palaces! What an incredible solution! What kind of people! These are Scythians!" Cossack guerrilla raids against French supply lines were compounding the shortages the fire had created.

• 5. An Emperor Without an Answer

  ›

  Napoleon returned to the Kremlin on the 18th of September. He announced his intention to remain in Moscow for the winter, believing the city still offered better facilities than the open country. He ordered the fortification of the Kremlin and the surrounding monasteries, and continued conducting the empire's affairs from within the ruined capital.

  A civic administration, the Moscow municipality, was assembled and met at the house of Chancellor Nikolai Rumyantsev on Maroseyka 17. A merchant named Dulong was chosen to lead the body, on instructions from Quartermaster Lesseps. The 25 members searched for food near the city, helped the poor, and worked to save churches still in danger. After the occupation, they were not punished for collaborating; they had been conscripted into the role. The French created a municipal police force on the 12th of October.

  Peace overtures ran alongside these administrative efforts. General Tutolmin, the head of the Moscow Orphanage, was allowed to write to his patron, Empress Maria, about the welfare of his pupils. Napoleon asked Tutolmin to communicate his desire for peace to Emperor Alexander I. Tutolmin's messenger was permitted through French lines on the 18th of September.

  A second attempt involved Ivan Yakovlev, a wealthy landowner who had stayed in the city. He remained to care for his young son Alexander Herzen and the boy's mother. Yakovlev was permitted to leave for Saint Petersburg carrying a letter from Napoleon to Alexander I. The last attempt came on the 4th of October. Napoleon sent General Jacques Lauriston, the pre-war ambassador to Russia, to speak with Kutuzov at Tarutino. Kutuzov declined to negotiate but promised to relay any proposals to Alexander. Napoleon received no replies to any of his overtures.

  Some Soviet historians, including Tarle, later speculated that Napoleon had considered abolishing serfdom during the occupation. Such a move would have been designed to pressure Alexander I and the Russian nobility. Cases of serfs already declaring themselves freed from their obligations to their landlords were being reported as the occupation continued.

• 6. The Sacred Profaned

  ›

  Gold and silver objects from Moscow's churches were melted down to fill Napoleon's war chest. Some buildings were converted into stables. Wooden fittings were stripped out and burned for fuel.

  After the occupation, the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin was closed to the public to hide the extent of the damage. A written account described finding the cathedral "put upside down by the godlessness of the unbridled soldier." Relics had been disfigured and tombs filled with sewage.

  A second account suggested that rumors had exaggerated the damage. Most cathedrals and monasteries, this account reported, had been converted into barracks rather than systematically destroyed. Some Russians had concealed sacred items before fleeing. Alexander Shakhovskoy recorded that at the Miracle Monastery, the shrine of Saint Alexei had been quietly removed and hidden. The relics of Saint Tsarevich Demetrius had also been concealed. He found only a single sheet of cotton paper in the empty tomb.

  Shakhovskoy identified one act of deliberate desecration above all others. At the Kazan Cathedral, a dead horse had been placed on the altar in the position of the throne. Napoleon toured the city and nearby monasteries in near-daily sojourns throughout the occupation.

• 7. The End of the Occupation

  ›

  On the 18th of October, General Bennigsen's Russian force defeated Murat's cavalry at the Chernishna River in the Battle of Tarutino. The Second Battle of Polotsk, fought the same day, brought another French defeat. Napoleon ordered the evacuation of Moscow.

  The main French army began moving along the Old Kaluga Road on the 19th of October. Only Marshal Édouard Mortier's corps remained behind in Moscow; Mortier served as the city's Governor General. Napoleon made camp that night in the village of Troitsky on the Desna River. His orders to Mortier were clear: destroy Moscow, then rejoin the main army.

  Mortier was directed to set fire to wine shops, barracks, and public buildings before burning the city at large. Gunpowder was placed beneath the Kremlin walls. There was time for only partial destruction. The Vodovzvodnaya Tower was completely destroyed. The Nikolskaya, 1st Bezymyannaya, and Petrovskaya Towers, along with the Kremlin wall and part of the arsenal, were badly damaged. The explosion set the Palace of Facets on fire. The Ivan the Great Bell Tower, the city's tallest structure, survived the demolition nearly unharmed. The nearby Church of the Resurrection was destroyed.

  General Ferdinand von Wintzingerode led the Russian cavalry vanguard back into Moscow. He was captured almost immediately by Mortier's remaining troops. Command fell to General Alexander von Benckendorff. On the 26th of October, Benckendorff wrote to General Mikhail Vorontsov. "The city was given for plunder to peasants, who flocked a great many, and all drunk," he reported. People were killing each other in the streets and setting fires to what remained. Restoring order, Benckendorff wrote, required "several real battles."

  Ivashkin, the chief of the Moscow police, filed a report dated the 16th of October. He recorded that 11,959 human corpses and 12,546 horse corpses had been removed from the streets. Governor Rostopchin, on returning, announced that looters could keep what they had taken but that victims should be compensated. Vladimir Gilyarovsky later wrote that the following Sunday market near the Sukharev Tower was packed with looted goods. The imperial manifesto of the 30th of August 1814 granted amnesty for most crimes committed during the invasion. Moscow itself would require more than half a century to rebuild and return to its pre-war population.