The Burning of Moscow

by Alexander Mikaberidze

  However, these resources were quickly consumed through carelessness and rapacious behaviour. By early October memoirs of the Grande Armée tell the same tale of plentiful luxuries but scarce essentials. While the palaces of the nobles had plenty of wine, sugar and preserved fruits, there was an acute shortage of flour and vegetables. Even though there were still considerable supplies of wheat and grain, the shortage of mills meant that both the Grande Armée and the Muscovites suffered acute shortages of both flour and groats. At the Foundlings Home Tutolmin received 10 tonnes of wheat and 2 tonnes of groats from Durosnel but his employees faced the challenge of turning the wheat into flour. After requesting gendarmes for protection, several of them wandered all across Moscow in search of mills, only to find that almost all of them had been abandoned and destroyed.44 ‘Such was the pretended abundance which the pillage of the city had procured us,’ lamented one French officer. ‘Liqueurs, sugar and sweetmeats there were a-plenty at the very time that we were without bread and meat. We clothed ourselves in furs, but had neither coats nor shoes, and we were on the eve of dying of hunger, with diamonds, jewels and other articles of luxury around us.’45 Von Muraldt agreed: ‘Though there was wine, sugar, coffee, etc. in superfluity, we were still suffering from a lack of bread, meat and fodder for our horses.’46 And Césare de Laugier’s diary entry for 29 September reported, ‘We are swimming, so to speak, in abundance, though let me also note that this is not due to the Administration, but to our own lucky discoveries.’47

  Lack of meat remained one of biggest challenges, as the army had mainly depended on the droves of cattle that had followed it but these supplies were now becoming exhausted. By October Russian reports from the city claimed that the ‘lack of supplies is so acute that even ravens and jackdaws are being eaten’.48 Montesquiou-Fezensac’s regiment found it very difficult to procure meat and had to send out ‘strong detachments’ to bring in cattle from the neighbouring woods, where the peasants had sought asylum. Yet these detachments often returned empty-handed in the evening.’49 Mathieu Dumas, the Intendant-Général of the Grande Armée, testified that even though the city still had considerable supplies after the fire, ‘these resources were soon exhausted’.50 Pierre Louis Valot Beauvollier of the 5th Cuirassier Division recalled that he and his comrades had

  found enormous amounts of supplies in Moscow. These were spared by the fire because they were stored in cellars. These provisions consisted of flour, sugar, coffee, alcohol, salted fish and mushrooms, which represent the principal fare of the local people. If this food had been distributed among different divisions of the army, it would have averted the terrible famine that contributed in so deplorable a manner to the army’s destruction. But the disorganization and looting prevented any administrative action in this regard. More than once the Intendant-Général [Dumas] would use military force to preserve precious stores; his efforts, however, proved to be in vain …51

  With each passing day it became more difficult and more dangerous to forage outside the city. One officer recalled that by early October Murat’s ‘horses had been nearly destroyed and his men had for some time past been reduced to eating horseflesh’.52 By early October the foragers had been compelled to move four to six hours out of the city, recalled a Dutch officer, to gather the necessary supplies for horses, which they did with great difficulty. ‘This caused the steady decline of health of these poor animals, on which our very welfare depended.’ One of the French generals advised his officers to ‘become good walkers as we would likely lose our horses soon’.53

  Nevertheless, the actual experience of individual soldiers varied depending on the district they were billeted in. Some troops experienced acute shortages, while others were more fortunate in procuring supplies. The Württemberg troops, billeted in the eastern suburbs, discovered ‘an abundance of beets, which were as round and large as bowling balls and fiery red throughout. There were masses of cabbages three and four times bigger than cabbage heads that we would consider large.’54 A Guard officer also recalled that his men dug up potatoes from the outlying fields, where they also managed to procure some vegetables.55 August Thirion of the 2nd Cuirassiers was also thrilled to harvest some potatoes, ‘these precious tubers’ that were nothing short of ‘a piece of gastronomical good luck’.56

  Inside the city soldiers had to fight for their plunder or be repeatedly robbed of it by other troops, especially by the Imperial Guard and Davout’s 1st Corps. In the words of Colonel Boulart, ‘the men of Marshal Davout’s 1st Corps … flowed into the city, penetrating into every accessible place and particularly into the cellars, looting everything they could find and indulging in all the excesses of drink. One could see a continuous procession of soldiers carrying off to their camp wine, sugar, furniture, furs and so on.’57 And who could have resisted the find of vast ‘barrels that were inscribed in capital letters with the names of the most famous French vineyards’?58 Private Walter recalled that ‘everyone tried to dress as much as possible with silks and materials of all colours. Only tailors were lacking: silks, muslins and red Morocco leather were all abundant.’59 ‘On glancing at the Place du Gouvernement where the men bivouacked,’ Bourgogne remarked, ‘it seemed to be an assembly from all parts of the world, for our soldiers were clothed as Kalmycks, Chinese, Cossacks, Tartars, Persians and Turks, and many of them were covered with splendid furs. There were even some dressed in French court dresses, wearing swords with steel hilts shining like diamonds. Add to this that the space was covered with all kinds of dainties to eat, abundance of wines and liqueurs, a little fresh meat, a quantity of hams and fish, a little flour, but no bread.’ Brandt echoes this description:

  in our camp alone there was a vast quantity of silver, enamelled gold, linen, precious gems and furs for the men to sleep on, and more were being brought in on a daily basis. In addition there was a whole mass of objects such as chairs, torches and so on, which the looters were forcing Russians, as drunk as themselves, to carry. Most of the objects were quickly snatched up by dealers, who paid ridiculous prices and appeared out of nowhere. So it was that starvation quickly gave way to excess. Our camps were overflowing with fresh and preserved meats, smoked fish, wine, rum, cognac, and so on. Around each fire the men were cooking, eating, and especially, drinking. The arrival of each new consignment of pillaged items was met with loud cheers …60

  Senior officers were not above such practices and Albrecht Adam was surprised when he saw French officers and generals, including Viceroy Eugène, fighting over ‘an immense number of new coaches and beautifully made carriages’ that they had found in Moscow’s market. With the fires approaching, they were all hurrying to claim the best of the carriages before the entire place went up in flames.61 Coignet described a certain ‘colonel of the staff, who had charge of the clearing of the hospitals’, who went out every evening with three servants furnished with wax tapers. ‘He knew that the pictures in the churches were all in relief on plaques of silver so he took them down in order to get this silver plate; he put the saints into a crucible and reduced them to ingots, which he sold to the Jews for bank-notes. He was a hard man with a face to match.’ One evening the colonel showed off ‘some beautiful fur robes’ made of Siberian fox skins. Coignet was foolish enough to show off his own loot, including a fur coat made of sable, and was duly relieved of his treasure in return for a small fox fur. ‘I feared the colonel’s vengeance,’ he later lamented. ‘He was rascal enough to take it from me, and sell it to Prince Murat for three thousand francs. This robber of churches was a disgrace to the name of Frenchman.’62

  The looting had a profound impact on the Grande Armée, sapping its resources and affecting its élan. ‘We took possession of Moscow as if it had been built expressly for us alone,’ explained an Italian officer. ‘[Our orders] allowed each subaltern to have a magnificent palace for himself, through whose sumptuously furnished apartments he strolled at his ease since no proprietor put in an appearance to dispute its ownership with him.’63 Thus, as Tolstoy would
later comment, ‘the aim of each man was no longer, as it had been, to conquer, but merely to keep what he had acquired’.64 Pierre Louis Valot Beauvollier of the 5th Cuirassier Division noted that ‘the soldiers, exhausted and weary, thought only of satisfying their hunger for that moment, without concern for the future. They looted everything and committed all kinds of excesses, and many of them became victims of this ravenousness and haste. Over six thousand men died smothered by flames in the cellars of homes that had been preserved during the initial fires but were burned during the looting.’65

  ‘The army had dissolved completely,’ lamented Major Pion des Loches. ‘Everywhere one could see drunken soldiers and officers loaded with booty and provisions seized from houses that had fallen prey to the flames.’66 Brandt believed that ‘the most serious consequence of the looting was that we were now to reap the full benefits of the disorder we had been sowing ever since crossing the Niemen. When order was finally re-established, there still remained bad characters in each unit who would steal away at night to continue marauding. Others, perhaps, still worse, never even rejoined the ranks. Right up to the evacuation of Moscow, there were some five or six thousand of this kind, whom we referred to as “loners”. These would swell the ranks of the marauding bands, and these bands reached monstrous proportions during the misfortunes of the retreat.’67 And there were still no signs of improvement for the thousands of civilians trapped inside the city. The courage of the people of Moscow even excited the admiration of their foes. Labaume commented, ‘Although we suffered so terribly from the fire, we could not but admire the generous self-sacrifice of the inhabitants of the city, who, by their courage and steadfastness, have attained that high degree of true glory that marks a great nation …’

  Restoring Order

  Settling back into the Kremlin, Napoleon found himself preoccupied with a myriad issues, leaving very little time for him to observe in personal what was happening in the city. Between 19 and 29 September he left the Kremlin only once.68 His critics attribute this either to his ‘utter apathy’ or possibly to a spate of ‘epileptic seizures’, or suggest that he was ‘paralysed by his own errors’.69 Such claims are rather egregious. Caulaincourt’s journal does show that the emperor stayed at the Kremlin throughout the first ten days after his return, but this should not be misconstrued as idleness or apathy. A quick glance at Napoleon’s correspondence reveals a wide range of issues he considered and dealt with during this period.70 As both commander-in-chief and head of state, Napoleon had to cope with a plethora of issues affecting his vast empire and one can only marvel at his ability to deliberate on such a multitude of problems at once. He had to govern the French empire, keep a close watch on the political situation throughout Europe, and conduct the war in Spain (where the French had suffered a series of setbacks in recent months), not to mention exercising command over his forces scattered in the vastness of Russia’s interior, making arrangements for the Russian prisoners of war, and restoring order and discipline in Moscow. Despite the range of issues confronting him, Napoleon’s legendary keen eye for detail did not falter. His letter of 24 September, for example, reprimanded officials for sending a single battalion of Swiss and Illyrian troops in the wrong direction. ‘This is a mistake!’ Napoleon observed and demanded the battalion be redirected to Vilna; its 900 Swiss troops were then to join Marshal St Cyr’s corps while its 250 Illyrians made their way to Smolensk.71 Just three days later Napoleon scolded his foreign minister for not delivering up-to-date reports on events in Europe. ‘I receive no news from Warsaw, very little from Vienna, and none from Constantinople. Nor do I hear anything about America, and yet it is urgent to do something in that quarter.’72 So here was a man controlling territory stretching from Spain to Russia, micromanaging a single battalion and fretting about the lack of news from America. Hardly the actions of a man ‘paralysed by his own errors’!

  Napoleon’s most pressing concern was the need to bring some semblance of order to his weakened and fatigued Grande Armée. The Central Army Group, which he personally commanded, crossed the Niemen some 380,000 men strong; three months later its total effective force in Moscow amounted to 95,585 men.73 Many units were mere shadows of their former selves. Montesquiou-Fezensac recalled that ‘from 2,800 men, which had been the strength of the 4th Line Regiment on its crossing the Rhine, only 900 survived. Thus the four battalions equalled no more than two in the field, while each company had twice its number of officers and non-commissioned.’74 The Württembergers crossed the Niemen on 25 June numbering some 8,200 infantry under arms, but mustered fewer than 1,000 men when they finally reached Moscow.75 The entire 3rd Reserve Cavalry Corps comprised just 3,000 men, while the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th Army Corps combined mustered just 55,000 men. There were also thousands of French wounded and sick convalescing in hospitals.76

  Thus, one of Napoleon’s immediate concerns was to maintain sufficient forces in the field. Demonstrating once again his singular talents – a remarkable memory, an eye for detail and a talent for administration – the emperor began mobilizing forces all across Europe. He called up some 140,000 men in France and 30,000 in Italy.77 Reserves in East Prussia and Poland were placed on a war footing, while requests for new troops were conveyed to Saxony and all the courts of the Confederation of the Rhine.78 ‘The battle of Borodino and the entry into Moscow should not weaken our zeal nor send our allies to sleep,’ the emperor declared.79 Paying no heed to the fact that the Poles had already provided tens of thousands of troops, Napoleon demanded more and complained about the failure of the Polish authorities to comply. ‘We need as many men as possible,’ he wrote to his foreign minister, urging him to ensure that this levy was ‘carried out without a delay’.80 He instructed Poniatowski to select a sufficient number of men from his Polish corps and send them back to the Duchy of Warsaw to recruit and train additional troops. Meanwhile, the French governor of the duchy was told to ‘press on with the conscription and levy of horses that are necessary to replenish our cavalry’.81 At the same time French commandants along the lines of communication were ordered to start moving any stragglers found in their cities to Moscow immediately.82 Napoleon also made arrangements to raise new units in those Russian provinces where the populace might be more welcoming to the French.83 He was thus pleased to hear that ‘the Tartares [probably Crimean Tatars] are impatient and eager to join and serve under my flags’ and expected them to form a thousand-strong regiment.84

  Once the fires died down, Napoleon began inspecting his armaments. He instructed General La Riboisière, the commander of the Grande Armée’s artillery, to ‘make a general report on my artillery, and on the means of replacing all the losses. My intention is not to lose a single piece, but to preserve my organization complete, which is not now too strong.’ La Riboisière was also to take advantage of the vast quantities of ammunition and ordnance captured in Moscow and to investigate whether it would be possible to establish powder mills in the city.85 The Emperor inspected artillery parks and workshops and was displeased to discover ‘little activity and poor order’ in some of them. ‘I was surprised to find not a single superior officer,’ he complained to General La Riboisière, urging him to pick up the pace of resupplying the artillery: ‘The park produced just 10,000 artillery rounds in the fortnight that we have been here. I desire that starting the day after tomorrow you increase production rates to 6,000 per day.’ Napoleon urged extra measures to be taken to replenish the artillery munitions. ‘All the information we have procured leads us to believe that the enemy had a hundred thousand balls … and they are supposed to have been thrown into the water. It being a pond, it will be easy to drain it. [La Riboisière] must, therefore, work actively at a ditch for this purpose, and recover these sunken balls.’86 In early October La Riboisière completed a new assessment of the artillery, which revealed that more than one-third of the cannon and caissons were missing.87 But the report was full of contradictory information and lacked sufficient detail, which infuriated Napoleon. ‘The i
gnorance in which I remain of the state of my artillery greatly affects current operations …’, he wrote, demanding specific information on the number of cannon, caissons, ammunition without caissons and other relevant details for each corps. ‘I cannot be satisfied with such a languid performance,’ ended the imperial missive to the artillery commander.88 Four days later Napoleon seems to have received a more up-to-date status report on the artillery since his letter to Berthier contains an in-depth discussion of the ammunition shortages in both artillery and infantry. The letter reveals that the Grande Armée still had a sizeable artillery arsenal – 58 12-pounder cannon, 264 6-pounders, 122 3-pounders and more than 150 other calibre guns and howitzers – but lacked sufficient ammunition.89 To further strengthen his artillery, Napoleon ordered additional artillery units to start transferring to the control of the army. Thirteen artillery companies at Erfurt, Magdeburg, Spandau, Glogau, Custrin, Stettin, Stralsund, Thorn, Danzig, Pillau and Kovno were ordered to rejoin the army as soon as possible. 90

  One of Napoleon’s greatest concerns was the weakness of his cavalry, which had been decimated during the first three months of the war. Thousands of horses perished due to poor weather, lack of forage and combat losses, and had to be replaced before hostilities resumed in earnest. ‘I stand in the greatest need of 14,000 horses,’ the emperor informed his Minister of Foreign Affairs. ‘I have sent General Bourcier to Vilna and have placed 4 million francs at his disposal.’91 Napoleon instructed his officials to make inquiries all across Europe to find new steeds and demanded to know ‘how many men, horses and equipment’ were available at cavalry depots in Prussia, Poland and the occupied Russian provinces.92 He expected to procure some 14,000 horses from France, 7,000–8,000 from Prussia and another 2,000–3,000 from Hannover, Holstein, Mecklenburg and other German states. In addition, he sought to raise additional horses within the Russian realm. ‘In the province of Mogilev’, he told Maret, ‘there are immensely rich Jews. Send for the chief ones and see if you cannot deal with them by paying ready money to procure 3,000 or 4,000 horses … Nothing should be spared to raise new cavalry.’93 But gathering and delivering horses across such vast distances required considerable time, which the emperor lacked. He considered requisitioning horses from the local peasantry but this could not be easily accomplished. Irrespective of the fact that peasant horses could hardly replace well-trained war steeds, the residents of the closest villages had concealed their horses and cattle in the woods, while more distant settlements could resist the enemy detachments, requiring some commitment of military resources. Thus the Grande Armée’s cavalry continued to gradually wither away.