1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March on Moscow

(#litres_trial_promo) This fatalism would also explain the absence of the speed and determination which were his usual hallmarks. While the vast military machine was taking shape in northern and eastern Germany in March, the diplomatic niceties continued.

For all the talk of barbarian hordes being thrown out of Europe, the unfortunate Russian ambassador in Paris, Prince Kurakin, was finding it difficult to get away. He had never enjoyed his job, and had found it increasingly difficult to carry it out as tension mounted between Napoleon and Alexander. Things had not been made any easier when, in February, a spying scandal had broken over Paris involving Alexander’s special envoy Colonel Chernyshev. He had for some time been paying a clerk at the French War Ministry to supply him with information on troop numbers and movements. The French police had got wind of this and informed Napoleon. On 25 February, just as Chernyshev was about to set off for St Petersburg with a personal letter from him to Alexander, the Emperor accorded him a long interview, in which he treated him with cordiality and respect. The following day the police broke into the apartments the departed Chernyshev had just vacated and brought the whole matter into the open.

Kurakin had to listen to torrents of outraged self-righteousness on the subject. As he watched troops leaving Paris bound for Germany, he found himself in a ridiculous position. He felt he should ask for his passports and leave, but every time he mentioned this to Maret or to Napoleon they evinced shocked surprise, affirming that there was no reason at all for him to go, and intimating that his departure would be interpreted as a declaration of war.

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On 24 April Kurakin called on Maret with a letter from Alexander stating that Russia would not negotiate until France withdrew all her troops behind the Rhine. This was rich, considering that only two weeks earlier Alexander himself had set off to join his armies on the frontier of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. On 27 April Kurakin had an audience with Napoleon at the Tuileries to discuss this. The interview was not as stormy as might have been expected, and Napoleon handed him a letter for Alexander. It expressed regret that the Tsar should be ordering Napoleon where to station his troops while he himself stood at the head of an army on the frontiers of the Grand Duchy. ‘Your Majesty will however allow me to assure him that, were fate to conspire to make war between us inevitable, this would in no way alter the sentiments which Your Majesty has inspired in me, and which are beyond any vicissitude or possibility of change,’ he ended.

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But he could not delay any longer. He had to go and take command of his armies. Before doing so, he made arrangements for the defence and the administration of France. Although he had, as a long shot, made a peace offer to Britain, suggesting a withdrawal of all French and British troops from the Iberian peninsula, with Joseph remaining King of Spain and the Braganzas being allowed back into Portugal, he expected nothing to come of it. He therefore strengthened the coastal defences in order to discourage any British attempt at invasion, and organised a national guard of 100,000 men who could be called out to deal with any emergency.

He had considered leaving Prince Eugéne in Paris as regent, but decided against it. In the event he left the Arch-Chancellor of the Empire Jean-Jacques Cambacérès in charge. The Arch-Chancellor would preside over the Council of State, which was a non-political executive composed of efficient and loyal experts.

At their last interview, on the eve of Napoleon’s departure, Étienne Pasquier, Prefect of Police, voiced his fears that if the forces of opposition building up in various quarters were to try to seize power with the Emperor so far from Paris, there would be nobody on the spot with enough authority to put down the insurrection. ‘Napoleon seemed to be struck by these brief reflections,’ recalled the Prefect. ‘When I had finished, he remained silent, walking to and fro between the window and the fireplace, his arms crossed behind his back, like a man deep in thought. I was walking behind him, when, turning brusquely towards me, he uttered the following words: “Yes, there is certainly some truth in what you say; this is but one more problem to be added to all those that I must confront in this, the greatest, the most difficult, that I have ever undertaken; but one must accomplish what has been undertaken. Goodbye, Monsieur le Préfet.”’

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Napoleon knew how to hide any anxiety he may have felt. ‘Never has a departure for the army looked more like a pleasure trip,’ noted Baron Fain as the Emperor left Saint Cloud on Saturday, 9 May with Marie-Louise and a sizeable proportion of his court.

(#litres_trial_promo) It soon turned into more of an imperial progress.

At Mainz, Napoleon reviewed some troops and received the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstädt and the Prince of Anhalt Coethen, who had come to pay their respects. At Würzburg, where he stopped on the night of 13–14 May, he found the King of Württemberg and the Grand Duke of Baden waiting for him like two faithful vassals.

On 16 May he was met by the King and Queen of Saxony, who had driven out to meet him, and together they made a triumphal entry into Dresden that evening by torchlight as the cannon thundered salutes and the church bells pealed. His lever the next morning was graced by the ruling princes of Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Coburg and Dessau. This was followed by a solemn Mass (it was Sunday), attended by the entire court and diplomatic corps. Napoleon went out of his way to greet the representative of Russia. The Queen of Westphalia and the Grand Duke of Würzburg arrived in Dresden later that day, and the Emperor Francis of Austria and his Empress the following day. A couple of days later Frederick William arrived in Dresden accompanied by his son the Crown Prince.

Napoleon had taken up residence in the royal palace, which Frederick Augustus had obligingly vacated, guarded by Saxon rather than French sentries. It was he who was the host, and he dictated etiquette, treating both the King of Saxony and the Emperor of Austria as his guests. At nine every morning he would hold his lever, which was the greatest display of power Europe had seen for centuries. It was attended by the Austrian Emperor and all the German kings and princes, ‘whose deference for Napoleon went far beyond anything one could imagine’, in the words of Boniface de Castellane, a twenty-four-year-old aide-de-camp.

(#litres_trial_promo) He would then lead them in to assist at the toilette of Marie-Louise. They would watch her pick her way through an astonishing assemblage of jewels and parures, trying on and discarding one after the other, and occasionally offering one to her barely older stepmother the Empress Maria Ludovica, who simmered with shame and fury. She loathed Napoleon for the upstart he was – and for having thrown her father off his throne of Modena many years before. Her distaste was magnified by the embarrassment and resentment she felt in the midst of this splendour, as the poor condition of the Austrian finances allowed her only a few jewels, which looked paltry next to those of Marie-Louise.

In the evening they would dine at Napoleon’s table, off the silver-gilt dinner service Marie-Louise had been given as a wedding present by the city of Paris, and which she had thoughtfully brought along. The company would assemble and enter the drawing room in reverse order of seniority, each announced by a crier, beginning with mere excellencies, going on to the various ducal and royal highnesses, and culminating with their imperial highnesses the Emperor and Empress of Austria. A while later, the doors would swing open and Napoleon would stride in, with just one word of announcement: ‘The Emperor!’ He was also the only one present who kept his hat on.

To some of the older people present, and particularly to the Emperor Francis, there must have been an element of the surreal about the proceedings. It was less than twenty years since his sister Marie-Antoinette had been shamefully dragged to the scaffold and guillotined to please the Parisian mob, yet here was this product of the French Revolution not only ordering them all about, but insinuating himself into the family, becoming his own son-in-law. At dinner one evening, the conversation having touched on the tragic fate of Louis XVI, Napoleon expressed sympathy, but also blamed his ‘poor uncle’ for not having shown more firmness.

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His stay in Dresden was enlivened with balls, banquets, theatre performances and hunting parties. They were by no means just gratuitous show, but part of a carefully choreographed display of power. ‘Napoleon was indeed God at Dresden, the king amongst kings,’ was how one observer saw the proceedings. ‘It was, in all probability, the highest point of his glory: he could have held on to it, but to surpass it seemed impossible.’ Napoleon was flexing his muscles before the whole world, and he meant everyone to sit up and take note. On the one hand he wanted to remind all his German and Austrian allies of their subjection to him. More importantly, he was still hoping that Alexander’s nerve would break; that when he saw himself isolated and faced with such an array of power he might agree to negotiate.

To many, this still seemed the most likely outcome. ‘Do you know that many people still do not believe there will be war?’ Prince Eugène wrote to his pregnant wife from Plock on the Vistula on 18 May. ‘They say it won’t take place, as there is nothing to be gained from it by either party, and that it will all end in talk.’ Napoleon’s secretary Claude-François Meneval noted ‘an extreme repugnance’ to war on his master’s part.

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Napoleon had convinced himself that Alexander was being manipulated by his entourage, and that if only he could talk to him directly or through some trusted third party, he would manage to strike a deal. He therefore sent a special envoy to the Tsar. For this delicate and, as he thought, crucial mission, he chose one of his aides-de-camp, the Comte Louis de Narbonne.

Narbonne was a fifty-seven-year-old general, who had, in turn, been Minister of War in the early stages of the revolution, an émigré and Napoleon’s ambassador in Vienna. He was a man of vast education, with literary tastes and a special interest in the diplomacy of the Renaissance, on which he was something of an expert. He was generally believed to be the natural son of Louis XV, and exuded all the elegance and grace associated with the ancien régime. If anyone could inspire trust in Alexander, it must surely be him.

But Napoleon was deluding himself. Even had he wished to, Alexander could not afford to negotiate with him. ‘The defeat of Austerlitz, the defeat of Friedland, the Tilsit peace, the arrogance of the French ambassadors in Petersburg, the passive behaviour of the Emperor Alexander I with regard to Napoleon’s policies – these were deep wounds in the heart of every Russian,’ recalled Prince Sergei Volkonsky. ‘Revenge and revenge were the only feelings burning inside each and every one.’ He may have exaggerated the strength and the universality of these feelings, but they were gaining ground, encouraged by popular literature, which scoured Russia’s past for patriot heroes. ‘The upsurge of national spirit manifested itself in word and deed at every opportunity,’ wrote Volkonsky. ‘At every level of society there was only one topic of conversation, in the gilded drawing rooms of the higher circles, in the contrasting simplicity of barracks, in quiet conversations between friends, at festive dinners and evenings – one, and only one thing was expressed: the desire for war, the hope for victory, for the recovery of the nation’s dignity and the renown of Russia’s name.’

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Reading the letters and memoirs of Russian nobles of the time, one is struck by the fact that nobody seems to have a good word to say of anyone in positions of authority, be it in the civil administration or the army. They reverberate with invective against ‘foreigners’ running the country, and laments over ‘corruption’, Freemasonry, ‘Jacobins’, and any other bogey that came to mind. Much of this discontent settled on the figure of Speransky, who was heartily detested by Grand Duchess Catherine and her court, and by most of the nobility, who hated him for blocking their careers by introducing qualifying exams for senior posts in the civil service and who feared his alleged intention of emancipating the serfs. ‘Standing beside him I always felt I could smell the sulphurous breath and in his eyes the glimpse the bluish flames of the underworld,’ noted one contemporary.

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In February 1812 an intrigue was spun by Gustav Mauritz Armfeld, a Swede who was one of Alexander’s military advisers, with the participation of the Minister of Police Aleksandr Dmitrievich Balashov, to show up Speransky as being in secret contact with the French (which indeed he was, with Talleyrand, on Alexander’s orders). At the same time a rumour was spread to the effect that the police had uncovered a plot by Speransky to arm the peasants and call them out against their masters.

Alexander had Speransky put under surveillance by the police, but also had his Minister of Police followed and watched – this kind of paranoia was not a Soviet innovation. It is impossible to tell whether Alexander believed that Speransky had betrayed him or not, but it was certainly clear even to him that his State Secretary’s unpopularity was not only tainting him, but even exposing him to danger.

On the evening of 29 March 1812 Speransky was summoned to an audience with the Tsar in the Winter Palace. There were no witnesses to the two-hour interview, but those waiting in the antechamber could see that something was wrong when the Minister emerged from the Tsar’s study. Moments later the door opened again and Alexander himself appeared, with tears pouring down his cheeks, and embraced Speransky, bidding him a theatrical farewell. Speransky drove home, where he found Balashov waiting for him. He was bundled into a police kibitka and driven off through the night to exile in Nizhni Novgorod.

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His post as State Secretary was given to Aleksandr Semionovich Shishkov, a retired admiral and a particular hater of everything pertaining to France and her culture. He had denounced the Tilsit treaty and made frequent attacks on Speransky, and had of late achieved a certain notoriety through his Dissertations on the Love of One’s Fatherland. He was astonished, and somewhat overwhelmed, to be hauled out of obscurity. But nobles up and down the empire rejoiced.

The fall of the hated Minister was an unequivocal signal to them that Alexander had understood he needed them during the uncertain times ahead. He was acutely aware that an invasion of Russia might well trigger a new Time of Troubles similar to that two hundred years before. It was probably for this reason that he agreed to give the post of Governor General of Moscow, which had fallen vacant in March, to his sister Catherine’s protégé Count Fyodor Rostopchin. This erstwhile Foreign Minister to Tsar Paul was a lively, clever man, forthright in his opinions, but he was also something of a fantasist, and possibly mentally unbalanced. Alexander did not consider him up to the job, and had tried to resist his sister’s request. ‘He’s no soldier, and the Governor of Moscow must bear epaulettes on his shoulders,’ he argued. ‘That is a matter for his tailor,’ she riposted. Alexander gave way. It was, after all, a largely honorary post.

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He had removed the most obvious points of friction between himself and his people, and pacified the most vociferous centres of opposition. Now it was up to God. At 2 p.m. on 9 April, after attending a solemn service in the monumental new cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, Alexander left St Petersburg for the army, accompanied part of the way by a crowd of wellwishers who ran alongside his carriage cheering and weeping. He had decided that his place was with his troops.

The Russian army was unlike any other in Europe, and could not have been more different from the French, particularly where the common soldier was concerned. He was drafted for a period of twenty-five years, which effectively meant for life. He was unlikely to serve that term, as no more than 10 per cent survived the dreadful conditions and the frequent beatings – including the practice of making them run the gauntlet of two rows of their comrades beating them as they went – let alone disease or death in battle.

When he was drafted, his family and often the entire village would turn out to see him off, treating the event as a funeral. His family and friends excised him from their lives, never expecting to see him again. As the children of men drafted into the army could not be looked after by working single mothers, they were sent to military orphanages to be brought up and trained to become non-commissioned officers when they grew up. But conditions in these institutions were so poor that only about two-thirds of them survived into adulthood.

(#litres_trial_promo) If the conscript were to return after a quarter of a century (with no leave and no letters) he would be a stranger. And he would no longer be a serf, so there was no place for him in the rural economy any more. Those who did last out the twenty-five years would therefore either try to go on serving, or go off to towns looking for work.

When they entered their regiments the conscripts effectively joined a brotherhood, removed from the normal stream of Russian life and bound together by misery. Virtually the only respect in which they had an advantage over their French counterparts was that their uniforms, predominantly green in colour, were more practical and less constricting, as well as better made. In peacetime, their platoon functioned as a trading corporation, an artel, leasing their labour to local civilians, with the profits theoretically being shared out between them, though more often going into the pockets of their officers.

Desertion was difficult within the boundaries of the Russian empire, as an unattached peasant would stick out wherever he went. But when Russian armies were stationed along the western border it became frequent, and many would cross it and take service in the Polish or other forces. When they operated abroad, particularly when they were about to return home, desertion became common, and its scale testified to the misery of military life. In 1807, as they began their march back into Russia after Tilsit, Prince Sergei Volkonsky noted that his regiment, the élite Chevaliergardes, lost about a hundred men in four days, despite doubled sentries posted all around the camp perimeter.

(#litres_trial_promo) The men nevertheless behaved with the greatest patriotism and loyalty in the face of the enemy.

Much of the training in the Russian army was directed at good performance on the parade ground rather than on the battlefield. The men were drilled mercilessly and marched about in formation until they learnt to operate as a mass, and taught to rely on the bayonet rather than musketry. In battle, obedience was considered to be a key factor. A special instruction addressed to infantry officers stipulated that on the eve of an engagement they must give their men a talk, reminding them of their duty and that they would be severely punished for any signs of cowardice. Even trying to dodge a cannonball while the unit was standing to was to be punished by caning. If a soldier or non-commissioned officer showed cowardice in the field, he should be executed on the spot. The same went for one who created confusion, by, for instance, shouting ‘We’re cut off!’, as he was to be considered a traitor.

(#litres_trial_promo) All these factors conspired to generate solidarity, resilience and the ability to put up with almost any conditions. But they did not breed intelligence or initiative.

The chasm dividing officers from the other ranks was unbridgeable, and there was no possibility of promotion. The officers were drawn exclusively from the nobility. They were supposed to serve their apprenticeship in the ranks, but usually did this in cadet formations or officer schools, and kept contact with their troops down to a minimum. This was not a problem, since many could not sustain a conversation in Russian. But they did personally cane them for minor faults.

The pay of junior officers in the Russian army was lower than anywhere else in Europe. And as promotion to senior ranks was almost entirely dependent on influence at court, junior officers from the minor nobility were sentenced to a life of poverty and obscurity. As a result, such a career only attracted those of meagre talents. The operations of 1805–1807 had shown up grave faults in the command structure of the Russian army, lack of cooperation between units and arms, and other weaknesses, mainly to do with the low calibre and poor training of the officers. But all attempts at addressing these problems were vitiated by the rapid expansion of the armed forces over the next few years, which created a shortage of officers, with the result that in 1808 the length of training was actually cut.

Alexander did everything he could to prepare the army for its next showdown with Napoleon. He created a Ministry of the Armed Forces with the aim of making the army more effective, and lavished money on it. Military spending rose from twenty-six million roubles out of a total budget of eighty-two million at Alexander’s accession to seventy million out of a budget of 114 million by 1814. He raised the draft, which took four men out of five hundred souls in 1805, to five out of five hundred, yielding 100 to 120,000 men each year, which meant that he conscripted more than 500,000 men between 1806 and 1811. In the course of that year 60,000 retired but capable soldiers were brought back into service. The total number under arms in Russia’s land forces increased from 487,000 in 1807 to 590,000 in 1812, and in March of that year an extra draft of two men per five hundred souls yielded another 65 to 70,000 men. By September 1812 the total number of men under arms in the land forces would reach 904,000.

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In 1803 Alexander had charged General Arakcheev with modernising the artillery. His reforms did not yield fruit in time for the war of 1805, but by the end of the decade it was probably the most professional in Europe. Arakcheev got rid of small-calibre guns, and equipped it with six- and twelve-pounder field guns, and ten- and twenty-pounder ‘licornes’, a kind of howitzer. He fitted these guns with the most sophisticated and accurate sights, and made sure that the gunners knew how to use them to best advantage.

The latest reform to see the light of day, in January 1812, was an ordinance for the command of large armies in the field. This laid out clearly who was responsible at every level of command, and gave the commander-in-chief almost unlimited powers in time of war. It also prescribed the channels through which all information should flow up from the furthest outpost to the commander-in-chief and how orders should be transmitted down from him to the company commander. Unfortunately, it was to be almost universally disregarded in the forthcoming campaign, with lamentable results.