The Burning of Moscow

by Alexander Mikaberidze

  When he visited Kutuzov at Fili on 13 September, the governor was already a man on the edge. He was extremely frustrated by Kutuzov’s hollow promises to defend the city and the sight of the Russian army, battered as it was in the wake of Borodino, could not have made a good impression on him. Even physically Rostopchin was not well: he later acknowledged that since the fall of Smolensk on 18 August he had not slept in bed and instead napped ‘fully clothed on a couch, repeatedly awakened by dispatches that continuously reached me from all directions’;22 he had not changed his clothing in days. The sense of responsibility for what was going to happen to the city would have lain heavily on his shoulders. Yet the meeting with Kutuzov and other Russian generals only further inflamed him. Kutuzov continued to mislead him, while Barclay de Tolly bluntly informed him that defending Moscow was nothing but ‘madness’.23 Writing to his wife ten days after the fall of Moscow, Rostopchin lamented that ‘my idea of burning the city before the villain entered it was a useful one but Kutuzov deceived me and by the time he readied [the troops] on the eve of his retreat through Moscow, it was already too late to do it’.24

  Rostopchin may not have had a long-standing plan to burn Moscow but in the hours before the city fell he was determined to do everything possible to deny Napoleon his triumph. One of his numerous decisions – the removal of firefighting equipment – has been discussed by numerous memoirists and historians. In La vérité sur l’incendie de Moscou, Rostopchin acknowledged evacuating ‘two thousand, one hundred firefighters and ninety-six pumps (for there were three for each ward) the day before the enemy’s entry into Moscow. There was a body of officers attached to the service pumps, and I did not see fit to leave their services to Napoleon; instead, I had all civil and military authorities withdrawn from the city.’25 His supporters later argued that the governor was justified in evacuating this equipment since the fire brigade was part of Moscow’s Uprava Blagochiniya (municipal administrative police organ) and could not be left behind amidst the general evacuation of the capital city. The problem is that Rostopchin was less conscientious about other state property, which was left behind in large quantities. The vast holdings of the provincial archives were forsaken,26 and some 300,000 rubles’ worth of copper coins and stamped papers valued at almost 1.5 million paper rubles were abandoned at the municipal treasury. When it came to the firefighting equipment, Rostopchin’s order is quite peculiar: he instructed the fire brigade ‘to depart only with fire engines and leave other firefighting equipment behind’. The governor’s decision to remove only part of the equipment may sound puzzling but the spontaneity of his resolution to doom Moscow to destruction does explain it. He could not remove everything in the few remaining hours (which once again points to the lack of long-term planning) and so chose to take the most important gear: without the pumps, the other equipment would have been less useful. Observing a group of soldiers accompanying transports out of the city, Ludwig Wolzogen approached them and discovered that they were removing the fire pumps, which, he wrote, ‘greatly perturbed me’. Finding Rostopchin, he asked the purpose of the removal of this equipment and was told that the governor had ‘a good reason for it’.27 Wolzogen could not have known that just moments earlier Rostopchin had penned a letter to his wife: ‘By the time you receive this letter, Moscow will have turned to ashes. I hope I will be forgiven for acting as the Roman.’28

  Available evidence suggests that Rostopchin did not issue a direct order to set the city on fire. Such an act would have involved considerable personal liability. Instead, he simply created conditions in which the city could burn out of control. This way he avoided direct responsibility and could portray the fire as the manifestation of popular will. He was well aware of the inherent fire hazard that any largely wooden city faced – in June–July he had become so concerned about the risk of fire in the city that he prohibited smoking in the streets – and doubtless anticipated that, amidst the turmoil of evacuation and enemy occupation, the city would inevitably catch fire. Somebody was bound to leave a burning hearth or accidentally drop a candle, which was all that might be needed to ignite the initial fires. Writing to his wife on 21 September, he admitted, ‘I knew that fire would be inevitable [when] 30,000 French brigands and a few thousand Russian marauders plundered the city.’29 Removing the fire pumps guaranteed that, even in the case of accidental outbreaks of fires, the enemy would find it difficult to contain the flames and the city would suffer greater damage, denying Napoleon the benefits he hoped for.

  Most studies point to Rostopchin’s removal of the firefighting equipment as the prime evidence for his deliberate effort to burn the city. Yet we cannot but wonder how useful the firefighting equipment would have been if it had been left behind. The Soviet historian V. Kholodkovskii believed that Rostopchin’s decision revealed his real intentions, for ‘to deprive the city of the means of protection from fire meant preparing it for fiery destruction’.30 This is true, but we must also bear in mind that the presence of fire engines does not equate to total fire safety. The risk of fire was a common hazard in all early modern European cities that had been built predominantly of wood, and they were vulnerable to fires even during peacetime. Moscow suffered several devastating fires (in 1712, 1730, 1736, 1737, 1748, 1752 and 1773) even in peacetime when it had manpower and equipment to fight the flames. The Great Fire of London of 1666 was sparked off by a minor accident but it rapidly turned into a fiery inferno that consumed much of the city – over 13,000 houses and 87 churches – despite the best efforts of the inhabitants. The presence of municipal authorities and firefighting equipment did not prevent the Copenhagen Fire of 1795, which raged for two days and destroyed 941 houses and made homeless some 6,000 residents; it came in the wake of the 1728 fire that had already destroyed much of historic Copenhagen. Across the Atlantic the city of New Orleans fell victim to fires in 1788 and 1794 that destroyed more than a thousand buildings. Taking these global examples into account, one cannot but wonder if the presence of fire engines in Moscow would have made any difference in a city that was largely abandoned by its citizens, lacked the municipal authorities to coordinate a response and was being pillaged both by its own citizens and by the occupying force?

  Over the years Rostopchin adopted a dubious position over his involvement in the burning of Moscow. On one hand, he firmly rejected claims that he had burned the city and insisted that the fire was caused by the French, who had ‘pillaged and burned this poor city for five days’.31 As early as November 1812 he argued that the French were trying to turn him into a scapegoat, and later complained that ‘in his effort to blame this shameful misdeed on someone else, Bonaparte rewarded me with the title of arsonist and many people actually believe him’.32 Yet, while denying his involvement in the fire, Rostopchin also basked in the glory that it bestowed on him. Starting in 1814, he had been warmly welcomed in conservative circles throughout Europe, hailed as a hero who had contributed to the downfall of the Corsican ogre. ‘In German lands, they show me all the marks of esteem and consideration,’ he boasted in a letter to a manager of his estates. ‘They all acknowledge me as the main weapon in the destruction of Napoleon, which the latter himself had acknowledged, for if there were a popular uprising in Moscow what would the nobility have done and what consequences would this have produced?’ He lamented that instead of similar acclaim, Muscovite society in fact poured scorn on him. ‘Back home everyone talks about their burned houses and property but no one thinks beyond that. Yet, here [in Germany] my portraits are everywhere and even many monuments [can be seen]. So while my own compatriots cannot be gratified, foreigners are thanking me.’33

  Rostopchin’s acceptance of such homage reinforced the public’s perception that he was the architect of the great conflagration. But such an assessment weighed heavily on his mind, and in 1823 he published a pamphlet entitled La Vérité sur l’incendie de Moscou (The Truth about the Fire of Moscow), in which he surprised his contemporaries by denying any involvement in the fire. ‘Ten years have e
lapsed since the burning of Moscow,’ he wrote, ‘and I am still being pointed out to history and posterity as the author of an event, which, according to accepted opinion, was the principal cause of the destruction of the army of Napoleon, his downfall, the salvation of Russia and the delivery of Europe.’ But now Rostopchin stood ready to ‘renounce the finest role of the epoch’ and to ‘personally bring down the edifice of my celebrity’.

  In just forty-seven pages Rostopchin sought to refute the charge that he had deliberately destroyed Moscow. His main argument was the same as that he had used in letters written immediately after the liberation of Moscow in 1812:34 the fire was caused by the actions of the Grande Armée, and Napoleon had subsequently sought to shift the responsibility for it. He analysed Napoleon’s bulletins, pointing out inconsistencies and mistakes. He rejected Napoleon’s claim that he had planned to use a flying machine designed by ‘Schmidt’. How can one believe, he argued, that ‘Schmidt could destroy the French army with a balloon similar to the one which the French themselves used at the Battle of Fleurus’?35 Rostopchin denied both the existence of any special incendiary devices and the use of police and convicts to ignite the city. Instead, he blamed the fire on the actions of the Muscovites, who had ‘preferred to destroy rather than surrender’.36 He justified his decision to launch a general evacuation of Moscow because he ‘wanted to deny Napoleon any means to establish local contacts, to communicate with the interior of the empire, and to take advantage of the influence that the French have gained in Europe through their literature, fashion, cuisine and language’. Instead, the abandonment of Moscow rallied Russians to the national cause. It incited an ‘ardent patriotism, the sense of sacrifice, military ardour and desire for vengeance against the enemy who had the audacity to penetrate so far into the Motherland’.37

  Many contemporaries refused to accept the governor’s belated denial and wondered what persuaded him, ‘after a silence of more than ten years, to open his mouth to deny what has become a universal opinion’.38 We will never know what impelled him to do it, although one of his descendants mentioned some factors. Rostopchin seems to have been exasperated at seeing his countrymen ignoring ‘the glorious side of this great deed’ and instead ‘contemplating the disastrous consequences of the fire in terms of their material losses’. He must have wanted to punish them: ‘the Muscovites complain about the glorious halo that I have placed around their heads. Well then, I will deprive them of it.’ Or Rostopchin could have written the book out of ‘sublime sentiment and wounded patriotism’, after he realized that he personally had been largely credited with ‘the deed that saved the nation’ and wanted to ‘attribute it to all of his countrymen’.39

  The memoir of Rostopchin’s daughter Natalya Naryshkina, written some fifty years after the event, offers a few more tantalizing insights. She described how, during the night of 14 September, ‘Police Constable [Adam] Brokker brought several people, some of whom were civilians and others police officials. They held a secret discussion in my father’s cabinet in the presence of Brokker and my brother.’ Naryshkina, who was not present at the meeting, claimed that ‘these people received precise instructions on which buildings and districts had to be burned immediately after the passing of our troops through the city’. Naryshkina argued that she wanted to reveal these detail to challenge the belief that ‘criminals and convicts’ burnt the city. Instead, it was the handiwork of ‘men devoted to their Fatherland and to their duty’. Among these men Naryshkina named Ivan Prokhorov (who was later shot by the French), Anton Gerasimov (who disappeared, and probably perished in Moscow) and District Supervisor and Police Constable P. Voronenko. The latter is particularly noteworthy, for it was he, wrote Naryshkina, who

  was among the first to begin implementing this plan. Around ten o’clock in the evening he courageously undertook this enterprise when part of the enemy army occupied the city’s suburbs. In one instant, stores with provisions, barges with grain on the river and stalls with various goods … – everything became prey to the flames. The wind spread the flames and since fire pumps and firefighters were absent and could not stop the fire, the sacrifice inspired by that moment was accomplished, as was my father’s desire.

  Naryshkina’s testimony is usually cited as evidence in support of Rostopchin’s direct order to destroy the city, especially since it seems to be supported by Voronenko’s own report submitted not long after Moscow burned to the ground. Voronenko enjoyed a close relationship with Rostopchin, who in August had entrusted him with a mission to the Russian army headquarters to report on military operations. Voronenko remained with the army for a couple of weeks before returning to Moscow on the eve of its abandonment. ‘At 5am on 14 September,’ he later described, ‘[Rostopchin] ordered me to go to the Wine Merchants’ Court [Vinnyi dvor] and Customs Office [Mytnyi dvor] and evacuate the state and private barges located near the Krasnyi hill and the Simonov Monastery; in the event of the enemy’s prompt entry into the city, I was instructed to destroy everything with fire, which I carried out in various places until 10 o’clock in the evening.’40 Voronenko’s reference to instructions ‘to destroy everything with fire’ is often cited out of context, creating the impression that he was directly instructed by Rostopchin to destroy the city as a whole. Yet a closer reading of the report shows that it actually refers to Rostopchin’s instructions to remove supplies and ammunition and destroy any that remained so as to prevent it falling into the enemy hands. Less well known is the report of Adam Brokker, another ‘conspirator’ named by Naryshkina, who was asked in 1817 to submit a report on his action. Brokker explained that ‘during the night of [14] September I was left behind by Police Chief Ivashkin to destroy barrels of wine stored in the Wine Merchants’ Court and the shops [around it]. I executed this mission until 7am, when I received an order to appear with my squad before my superiors on the occasion of the departure of the police from the capital.’41 Thus Brokker, who attended the same meeting as Voronenko, was also tasked with the destruction of state property to prevent its falling into the enemy hands.

  Even if we assume that Rostopchin was the mastermind of the Moscow fire, we must also note that he must share, at least partially, this notoriety with others, since he was not the only one igniting storehouses. General P. Kaptsevich, who commanded the 7th Infantry Division, reported that as the Russian army passed through the city, ‘two ammunition magazines were blown up on the orders of General Miloradovich, causing a horrendous explosion’.42 A month after the conflagration, Kutuzov acknowledged that he had ‘ordered the destruction of some magazines’, while the subsequent investigation into the loss of state property noted that ‘the remaining barges that were to sail in the wake of the artillery barges but had been delayed by them and therefore could not be saved from the enemy, had been burnt and sunk on the orders of the late Prince Kutuzov’.43 Looking out of the windows of his apartment in the Foundlings Home, Christian Christiani watched the result of these orders as ‘barges, some empty and some carrying wheat and other grains, anchored on the Moscow river right next to our building, were all in flames, as were flours and grains unloaded on the riverbank’.44 Did Miloradovich and Kutuzov realize the consequences that igniting these storehouses and barges might have on the wooden city that surrounded them? They certainly should have. Yet neither is accused of burning Moscow. These explosions, carried out in the chaotic atmosphere of the enemy’s initial occupation of the city, could by themselves have caused the outbreak of the initial fires as the city’s markets and wooden buildings were filled with combustible materials that could be easily ignited by the falling smouldering debris.

  Another incident cited in favour of Rostopchin’s culpability was his burning of the magnificent estate at Voronovo, which was decorated in the most superb and costly manner with precious and antique articles. ‘The very stabling was of rare grandeur, surmounted over the gateways by colossal casts of the Monte Cavallo horses and figures which he had brought from Rome, with costly models of all the principa
l Roman and Grecian buildings and statues that filled a large gallery in the palace, the interior of which was most splendidly and tastefully furnished with every article of luxurious use and ornament that foreign countries could supply.’ When the French threatened the place in late September, Rostopchin had it all burnt down, leaving a note: ‘Frenchmen, I abandon to you my two houses at Moscow, with their furniture and contents worth half a million of rubles. Here you will only find ashes.’45 Some have used this incident as further proof that Rostopchin had indeed ordered the fire in Moscow. But this seems far-fetched. The burning of the Voronovo estate seems to be more a direct response to the approach of the enemy army than part of any larger design. It took place on 29 September, almost two weeks after the Moscow conflagration, and only when threatened with French occupation. Robert Wilson, who was present at Voronovo, described how distraught Rostopchin was in the wake of Moscow’s fall: