In the Battle of Borodino, the Russian army suffered huge losses, after which the commander-in-chief Kutuzov ordered a retreat to Moscow and Mozhaisk in order to save the army. On September 13, 1812, at the military council in Fili, it was decided to leave the ancient capital of the Russian state.
Military Council in Fili in 1812 / A. D. Kivshenko
Napoleon's army saw Moscow on September 14, 1812. Bonaparte ordered to stop at Poklonnaya Hill (about three miles from the then city limits) and gazed at the ancient Russian capital for a long time. Together with him, numerous officers of the retinue looked with all eyes.
One of the guards saw "fantastic childhood visions of the Arabs that emerged from the Thousand and One Nights." Captain Fantin des Odard recalled:
We were suddenly transported to Asia. In contrast to the aspiration of the bell towers of our European cities to the clouds, here thousands of minarets were rounded: some were green, others were of bright colors, shining under the rays of the sun. Blinded by the brilliance of this picture, our hearts jumped with pride, joy and hope.
For about an hour Napoleon with the vanguard awaited intelligence reports. Soon he received a report according to which the Russian army continued to retreat towards the Volga. After that, the headquarters, together with the emperor, moved to the city gates.
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The honor to accompany Napoleon at the entrance to the conquered Moscow went to the Rogue division from the Young Guard and the guards gendarmes. At about noon, the solemn cavalcade stopped at the Dorogomilov Gate. Napoleon was waiting for the delegation with the keys to the city and the report of the Russian commandant on the abandonment of positions (according to military etiquette).
Walking along the Kamer-Kollezhsky shaft, Bonaparte discussed with his entourage the truce proposed to Alexander I and the upcoming winter in Moscow. The ceremonial orchestra froze at the ready. Officers and soldiers involuntarily compared what they saw with Paris. Most agreed that Moscow is at least as large and looks more elegant.
Many expressed regret that their beloved emperor strictly forbade robbery and looting. Around the city, posts were set up to prevent the penetration of army units and individual military units into Moscow, with the exception of the Roge division. In the city itself, order was to be guarded by two regiments of army gendarmes.
After about half an hour of waiting, a young man in a blue greatcoat and top hat approached Bonaparte's retinue, he was allowed to pass without hindrance. He spoke a few words to the emperor in private and left. Napoleon muttered to the crowd: "There is no garrison or inhabitants in the city," and then added a few Corsican curses. An hour later, the vanguard of the Great Army entered the empty city.
The French were struck not so much by the empty streets, although they also made a depressing impression, as by the houses abandoned by the population. Most of them, even the wealthiest, were not locked up. Inside, everything was in place and in perfect order. Particularly striking were the watches that had recently been wound and had not yet exhausted their power reserve, as well as the embers in the kitchen stoves.
Napoleon in Moscow / S. L. Kozhin
Rare residents who remained in Moscow met columns of the French on the doorsteps of their houses and shops. These were mainly people of the merchant class, in which the Russian army left the wounded French officers before retreating. The mood of the winners dropped sharply.
They had to wait for the answer of the Russian emperor in the ghost town. A few hours later, the first fire victims began to contact the French authorities. The city was so huge that rare plumes of smoke were not visible from the Kremlin, where Napoleon was located. But they were already rising to the sky in completely different parts of Moscow.
A city of this size, and even two-thirds wooden, left almost completely without inhabitants, is potentially fire hazardous. No posts on the outskirts of the city could keep the French marauders from temptation.
We should not forget about the Russian soldiers who were lagging behind the army, who could also quite decide to plunder. To top it off, before the retreat of Kutuzov's army, all criminals were released from prisons on the orders of Moscow Governor Fyodor Rostopchin.
The French in Moscow in 1812 / Christian Wilhelm Faber du Fort
Napoleon and his headquarters judged that the fires that began were accidental and were the work of marauders. The emperor immediately gave the appropriate orders to the gendarmerie and began to settle in the Kremlin.
That evening, he told his generals, “We'll see what these Russians are going to do. We are provided with apartments. We will show the world an amazing performance of the peacefully wintering army among the enemy nations that surrounded it from all sides."
French bivouac in the house of the Romanov boyars / I. M. Lviv
When Napoleon retired to bed on the evening of September 15, the Kremlin still did not see that the fires were taking on the character of a catastrophe. Meanwhile, a strong wind arose at night, and by morning the whole city was literally on fire. In the morning, Bonaparte was informed that the fire was already surrounding the Kremlin.
Struck by the sight of the capital drowning in flames, he called out: “There is no more Moscow! I have lost the reward promised to the troops! The Russians ignite themselves! What extraordinary determination! What kind of people? These are the Scythians!"
Napoleon in burning Moscow / Albrecht Adam
Many French officers recalled that the nature of the fires was very strange. Fires started in all parts of the city and were immediately very strong. So much so that even stone structures collapsed. Napoleon's adjutant Philippe Paul de Segur recalled:
Two officers were stationed in one of the Kremlin buildings, from where they had a view of the northern and eastern parts of the city. Around midnight, they were awakened by an extraordinary light, and they saw that the flames engulfed the palaces: first it illuminated the graceful and noble outlines of their architecture, and then it all collapsed.
Fire in Moscow, September 1812 / William Heath Robinson
Very often the guards noted that the fire broke out in tightly locked and guarded buildings, and in many unburned mansions the French found parcels of phosphorus soaked in saltpeter - ideal lighters. Other Frenchmen recall what happened when they tried to occupy the remaining neighborhoods:
Before entering these locked and abandoned houses, they stopped, hearing there a slight crackle of an explosion, followed by a thin plume of smoke, which quickly became thick and black, then reddish, finally took on a fiery color, and soon the whole building collapsed in a whirlwind of flame …
The French tried to resist the fire element, but there was no equipment in the fire departments - carts with barrels and even horses were in place, but not a single pump was found.
On the evening of September 16, Napoleon moved from the Kremlin to the Petrovsky Palace, where he remained for three days. Later, he blamed Rostopchin for the fires: “The Russian governor wanted to destroy this beautiful city when he learned that the army was leaving him. He armed three thousand villains, whom he released from prison."
If at first Bonaparte fought against looting, then, realizing the scale of the fire, he decided to put it in order. The robberies began on September 14, and the next day the Young Guard, whose soldiers had time to visit the "burials of the tsars" in the Kremlin, was replaced by the Old Guard. It did not help.
Robbery in the Archangel Cathedral / I. M. Lviv
Napoleon ordered to allocate outfits from units outside the city, "for the search for food supplies, leather, cloth, fur, etc." The emperor did not hide the fact that he gave Moscow to plunder in retaliation for the arson and flight of the population. He wrote to Alexander I: "The fires allowed robbery, with the help of which the soldier disputes what is left in the flame."
Despite the heavy rain on September 16, the flame did not subside until the evening of the 18th. Almost all wooden buildings and a significant part of stone ones were destroyed. Zamoskvorechye and Solyanka completely burned out. In total, three quarters of the city was destroyed.
The French, desperate to fight the flames, began to fight the arsonists. In his letters, Napoleon mentions 400 people who were shot and caught in arson. Officially, 26 people of different classes were brought to trial.
Arrest of arsonists / B. V. Zvorykin
Ten people confessed and showed that they did the arson on the orders of Rostopchin, they were shot. The guilt of another 16 people was not fully proven, and they remained in custody until the retreat of the French.
Rastrel of arsonists / V. V. Vereshchagin
In addition, according to various estimates, from 2 to 10 thousand Russian wounded, whom they did not manage to evacuate, and about 3 thousand local residents, died in the fire. But the French army left the city on October 19, missing 30 thousand soldiers and officers who perished in ruined Moscow.
The fire of Moscow at the time of the retreat of Napoleon's army / V. V. Mazurovsky
The Great Army began its last retreat, leaving several thousand wounded in the burned city, but taking the plundered goods. According to contemporaries, only gold, silver and jewelry "pulled" tens of tons, not to mention antiques, paintings and furs. This is only the imperial booty, and each soldier also carried about a pood of valuables.
At the Kaluga outpost in Moscow, October 19, 1812 / Christian Wilhelm Faber du Fort
The difficulties of the campaign and the need to return to the ruined Smolensk road forced Napoleon to order to get rid of the least valuable part of the cargo.
The soldiers also gradually got rid of the excess. At the same time, the French tried to either bury the values or drown them. However, all the way to the Polish border, Cossacks and partisans fought off whole carts with loot from the French.
They threw guns, the wounded, even provisions, but the two imperial convoys were guarded almost more carefully than the emperor himself. In total, according to modern estimates, about 80 tons of gold remained there, silver and so on were drowned somewhere else in the Smolensk region. Valuables stolen from the Kremlin have not yet been found.
Cossacks attack the retreating French / John Atkinson
It is the latter circumstance that indicates that the main "Napoleon's treasure" still rests somewhere in the forests or lakes of Belarus, because the Emperor crossed the Niemen in one sleigh under the protection of hardly a cavalry squadron.
Retreat of the French from Russia / B. P. Villevalde
Already a year after the invaders were driven out, a mass of eyewitnesses appeared, ready to point out where "a detachment of Frenchmen buried chests and barrels in the forest." Landowners, retired officers, and even the Smolensk governor were dispatched to the peasants in search of treasures. But apart from small finds on the sides of the road, nothing was found.
A few years later, French veterans were drawn to the places of former battles. Not a year has passed without another "monsieur" appearing in a particular district for a search permit. By the 20th century, hectares of land from Smolensk to Vilna were dug up, but to no avail. So, the secret of Napoleon's treasure has not yet been solved.
Boris Sharov
