Napoleon’s Russian Retreat

This series has three easy 5 minute installments. This first installment: Napoleon Leaves Moscow.

Introduction
Napoleon could have conquered Russia. Whether he could have subjugated it for years at a time is doubtful. In any case, the sheer expanse of the country would have required years of campaigning, first military and then governmental. What he tried to do – first conquest by just one battle and then conquest by taking just one city (Moscow) was impossible. This was his real mistake. The consequences of that mistaken strategy is described in this series.

We begin as Napoleon and his army leaves Moscow.

The selections are from:

• History of Modern Europe by Charles A. Fyffe published in 1890.
• Popular History of France From the Earliest Times by Francois Guizot published in 1869.

For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

There’s 2 installments by Charles A. Fyffe and 1 installments by Francois Guizot.

We begin with Charles A. Fyffe (1845-1892). He was an English historian, known also as a journalist and a liberal party candidate

Time: 1812
Place: West of Moscow

The French steadily advanced; the Russians retreated to Moscow and evacuated the capital when their generals decided that they could not encounter the French assault. The holy city was left undefended before the invader. But the departure of the army was the smallest part of the evacuation. The inhabitants, partly of their own free will, partly under the compulsion of the governor, abandoned the city in a mass. No gloomy or excited crowd, as at Vienna and Berlin, thronged the streets to witness the entrance of the great conqueror, when on September 14th Napoleon took possession of Moscow. His troops marched through silent and deserted streets. In the solitude of the Kremlin Napoleon received the homage of a few foreigners, who alone could be collected by his servants to tender to him the submission of the city.

But the worst was yet to come. On the night after Napoleon’s entry, fires broke out in different parts of Moscow. They were ascribed at first to accident; but when on the next day the French saw the flames gaining ground in every direction and found that all the means of extinguishing fire had been removed from the city, they understood the doom to which Moscow had been devoted by its own defenders. Count Rostoptchin, the governor, had determined on the destruction of Moscow, without the knowledge of the Czar. The doors of the prisons were thrown open. Rostoptchin gave the signal by setting fire to his own palace and let loose his bands of incendiaries over the city. For five days the flames rose and fell; and when, on the evening of the 20th, the last fires ceased, three-fourths of Moscow lay in ruins.

Such was the prize for which Napoleon had sacrificed two hundred thousand men and engulfed the weak remnant of his army six hundred miles deep in an enemy’s country. Throughout all the terrors of the advance Napoleon had held fast to the belief that Alexander’s resistance would end with the fall of his capital. The events that accompanied the entry of the French into Moscow shook his confidence; yet even now Napoleon could not believe that the Czar remained firm against all thoughts of peace. His experience in all earlier wars had given him confidence in the power of one conspicuous disaster to unhinge the resolution of kings. His trust in the deepening impression made by the fall of Moscow was fostered by negotiations begun by Kutusoff for the very purpose of delaying the French retreat. For five weeks Napoleon remained at Moscow as if spellbound, unable to convince himself of his powerlessness to break Alexander’s determination, unable to face a retreat which would display to all Europe the failure of his arms and the termination of his career of victory.

At length the approach of winter forced him to action. It was impossible to provision the army at Moscow during the winter months, even if there had been nothing to fear from the enemy. Even the mocking overtures of Kutusoff had ceased. The frightful reality could no longer be concealed. On October 19th the order for retreat was given. It was not the destruction of Moscow, but the departure of its inhabitants, that had brought the conqueror to ruin. Above two thousand houses were still standing; but whether the buildings remained or perished made little difference; the whole value of the capital to Napoleon was lost when the inhabitants, whom he could have forced to pro cure supplies for his army, disappeared. Vienna and Berlin had been of such incalculable service to Napoleon because the whole native administration placed itself under his orders, and every rich and important citizen became a hostage for the activity of the rest. When the French gained Moscow, they gained nothing beyond the supplies which were at that moment in the city. All was lost to Napoleon when the class who in other capitals had been his instruments fled at his approach. The conflagration of Moscow acted upon all Europe as a signal of inextinguishable national hatred; as a military operation, it neither accelerated the retreat of Napoleon nor added to the miseries which his army had to undergo.

The French forces which quitted Moscow in October numbered about one hundred thousand men. Reinforcements had come in during the occupation of the city, and the health of the soldiers had been in some degree restored by a month’s rest. Everything now depended upon gaining a line of retreat where -food could be found. Though but a fourth part of the army which entered Russia in the summer, the army which left Moscow was still large enough to protect itself against the enemy, if allowed to retreat through a fresh country; if forced back upon the devastated line of its advance it was impossible for it to escape destruction. Napoleon therefore determined to make for Kaluga, on the south of Moscow, and to endeavor to gain a road to Smolensk far distant from that by which he had come. The army moved from Moscow in a southern direction. But its route had been foreseen by Kutusoff. At the end of four days’ march it was met by a Russian corps at Yaroslavitz. A bloody struggle left the French in possession of the road: they continued their advance; but it was only to find that Kutusoff, with his full strength, had occupied a line of heights farther south, and barred the way to Kaluga.

The effort of an assault was beyond the powers of the French. Napoleon surveyed the enemy’s position and recognized the fatal necessity of abandoning the march southward and returning to the wasted road by which he had advanced. The meaning of the backward movement was quickly understood by the army. From the moment of quitting Yaroslavitz, disorder and despair increased with every march. Thirty thousand men were lost upon the road before a pursuer appeared in sight. When, on November 2d, the army reached Viazma, it numbered no more than sixty-five thousand men.

Kutusoff was unadventurous in pursuit. The necessity of moving his army along a parallel road south of the French, in order to avoid starvation, diminished the opportunities for attack; but the General himself disliked risking his forces, and preferred to see the enemy’s destruction effected by the elements. At Viazma, where, on November 3rd, the French were for the first time attacked in force, Kutusoff’s own delay alone saved them from total ruin. In spite of heavy loss the French kept possession of the road, and secured their retreat to Smo ensk, where stores of food had been accumulated, and where other and less exhausted French troops were at hand.

Francois Guizot begins here.

More information here and here and below.

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