<...> French in Moscow:

After the bloody battle of Borodino, in which the combined losses of the parties are estimated by historians at about 80 thousand soldiers, the French army moved to Moscow. Having reached the Dorogomilovskaya outpost, Napoleon dismounted at the Kamer-Kollezhsky shaft and began to pace back and forth, waiting for a delegation from Moscow or the removal of city keys. Not wait.

"The city without inhabitants was enveloped in a gloomy silence. During our long journey, we did not meet a single local resident," Caulaincourt wrote. According to the police report, only about 6,200 civilians remained in Moscow - 2.3% of the city's pre-war population.

At the entrance of enemy troops, Moscow burst into flames. The fire made a gloomy impression on Napoleon. According to an eyewitness, he said: "What a terrible sight! It's them themselves! So many palaces! What an incredible decision! What kind of people! These are the Scythians!" Up to 400 citizens were shot by a French court-martial on suspicion of arson (decimation was practically carried out) - the French occupiers did not need any special evidence or evidence.

During their stay in Moscow, the French did not particularly stand on ceremony with Russian shrines; stables were set up in a number of churches. Melting furnaces were set up in some churches to melt gold and silver utensils. After the return of the Russians, the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin had to be sealed so that the crowd would not see the outrage committed inside, recalls Benckendorff:

“I was horrified when I found this revered temple, now turned upside down by the atheism of the unbridled soldiery, which even the flame spared, and I became convinced that the state in which it was located had to be hidden from the eyes of the people. The relics of the saints were mutilated, their tombs were filled with impurities ; decorations from the tombs were torn off. The images that adorned the church were soiled and split. "

Shakhovskaya cites a case of deliberate insult to the feelings of Orthodox believers: "a dead horse was dragged into the altar of the Kazan Cathedral and put in place of the thrown throne."

Before the inglorious abandonment of Moscow, Napoleon gave the order to Marshal Mortier, appointed by him as the Moscow Governor-General, to set fire to wine shops, barracks and all public buildings in the city, with the exception of the Orphanage, set fire to the Kremlin Palace and put gunpowder under the Kremlin walls before the final departure. The explosion of the Kremlin was supposed to follow the exit of the last French troops from the city.

“I left Moscow with the order to blow up the Kremlin,” Napoleon wrote to his wife on October 10. This order was carried out only partially, since, in the confusion of the sudden appearance, Mortier did not have enough time to properly deal with this matter. Only the Vodovzvodnaya Tower was destroyed to the ground, the Nikolskaya, 1st Bezymyannaya and Petrovskaya towers, as well as the Kremlin wall and part of the arsenal, were badly damaged. The explosion burned the Faceted Chamber. When trying to undermine the tallest building in Moscow, the bell tower of Ivan the Great, she herself remained unscathed, but a huge extension collapsed to her.

The Moscow police chief Ivashkin, in a report to Rostopchin dated October 16, estimates the number of corpses removed from the streets of Moscow at 11,959. Basically, these were wounded soldiers of the Russian army left in the city after the Battle of Borodino, who died in the city during the French occupation and remained without burial.

And for comparison - Russians in Paris:

Wanting to save the city of many thousands from bombardment and street fighting, the commander of the right flank of the French defense, Marshal Marmont, on March 30, by 5 o’clock in the afternoon, sent a truce to the Russian emperor. Alexander I gave the following answer: "I will order the battle to be stopped if Paris is surrendered: otherwise, by the evening they will not recognize the place where the capital was." Before the terms of surrender were agreed upon, the Russian bayonet had already stormed Montmartre. The terms for the surrender of Paris were signed on the night of 31 March.

At noon on March 31, 1814, squadrons of cavalry led by Emperor Alexander I triumphantly entered the capital of France.

“All the streets along which the Allies had to pass, and all the streets adjoining them, were packed with people who even occupied the roofs of houses,” recalled Colonel Mikhail Orlov.

The delight of the Parisians seemed to have no end. Hundreds of people crowded around Alexander, kissing everything they could reach: his horse, clothes, boots. Women grabbed at his spurs, and some clung to the tail of his horse. One Frenchman, who squeezed through the crowd to Alexander, said: “We have been waiting for the arrival of Your Majesty for a long time!” To this the emperor replied: "I would have come to you earlier, but the courage of your troops delayed me." Alexander's words were passed from mouth to mouth and quickly spread among the Parisians, causing a storm of delight. It began to seem to the allies that they were seeing some amazing fantastic dream.

By evening, a large number of women of a very ancient profession appeared on the streets - there was clearly no shortage of gentlemen.

Part of the French rushed to the statue of Napoleon in Place Vendôme to destroy it, but Alexander hinted that this was undesirable. The hint was understood, and the assigned guard completely cooled the hot heads. A little later, on April 8, it was carefully dismantled and taken away.

The day after the capture of Paris, all government offices opened, the post office began to work, banks accepted deposits and issued money. The French were allowed to leave the city at will and enter it. In the morning there were many Russian officers and soldiers on the street, looking at the sights of the city.

About how the Russian "occupiers" behaved in Paris, evidence of a different kind remained: watercolors by the French artist Georg-Emmanuel Opitz. Here are some of them:

The Cossack distributes to the Parisians the printed declaration of Alexander I.

Equestrian Cossack on the city street.

Cooking meat in the camp of the Cossacks.

Cossack dance at night on the Champs Elysees.

Bathing in the Seine horses.

A scene on the streets of Paris: an Austrian officer, a Cossack and a Russian officer are walking with two Parisians.

At the statue of Apollo in the museum.

Puppet show in a cafe.

Cossacks are invited to go to a coffee shop.

Street scene: Cossacks and sellers of fish and apples.

Cossacks in the market.

Cossacks walk along the gallery with shops and shops.

Cossacks at the Palais Royal.

Playing cards in a gambling house.

The partisan movement in the Patriotic War of 1812 significantly influenced the outcome of the campaign. The French met fierce resistance from the local population. Demoralized, deprived of the opportunity to replenish their food supplies, ragged and frozen, Napoleon's army was brutally beaten by flying and peasant partisan detachments of Russians.

Squadrons of flying hussars and detachments of peasants

The greatly stretched Napoleonic army, pursuing the retreating Russian troops, quickly became a convenient target for partisan attacks - the French often found themselves far removed from the main forces. The command of the Russian army decided to create mobile detachments to carry out sabotage behind enemy lines and deprive him of food and fodder.

During the Patriotic War, there were two main types of such detachments: flying squadrons of army cavalrymen and Cossacks, formed by order of the commander-in-chief Mikhail Kutuzov, and groups of peasant partisans, which united spontaneously, without army leadership. In addition to the actual sabotage actions, the flying detachments were also engaged in reconnaissance. Peasant self-defense forces basically fought off the enemy from their villages and villages.

Denis Davydov - the most famous commander of a partisan detachment in the Patriotic War of 1812. He himself drew up a plan of action for mobile partisan formations against the Napoleonic army and offered it to Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration. The plan was simple: to annoy the enemy in his rear, to capture or destroy enemy warehouses with food and fodder, to beat small groups of the enemy.

Under the command of Davydov there were over one and a half hundred hussars and Cossacks. Already in September 1812, in the area of ​​the Smolensk village of Tsarevo-Zaimishche, they captured a French caravan of three dozen carts. More than 100 Frenchmen from the accompanying detachment were killed by Davydov's cavalrymen, another 100 were captured. This operation was followed by others, also successful.

Davydov and his team did not immediately find support from the local population: at first, the peasants mistook them for the French. The commander of the flying detachment even had to put on a peasant's caftan, hang an icon of St. Nicholas on his chest, grow a beard and switch to the language of the Russian common people - otherwise the peasants did not believe him. [S-BLOCK]

Over time, the detachment of Denis Davydov increased to 300 people. The cavalrymen attacked the French units, sometimes having a fivefold numerical superiority, and defeated them, taking the carts and freeing the prisoners, it even happened to capture enemy artillery.

After leaving Moscow, on the orders of Kutuzov, flying partisan detachments were created everywhere. Mostly these were Cossack formations, each numbering up to 500 sabers. At the end of September, Major General Ivan Dorokhov, who commanded such a formation, captured the city of Vereya near Moscow. The combined partisan groups could withstand the large military formations of Napoleon's army. So, at the end of October, during a battle near the Smolensk village of Lyakhovo, four partisan detachments completely defeated the more than one and a half thousand brigade of General Jean-Pierre Augereau, capturing him himself. For the French, this defeat was a terrible blow. On the contrary, this success encouraged the Russian troops and set them up for further victories.

Peasant Initiative

A significant contribution to the destruction and exhaustion of the French units was made by the peasants who organized themselves into combat detachments. Their partisan units began to form even before Kutuzov's instructions. Willingly helping the flying detachments and units of the regular Russian army with food and fodder, the peasants at the same time harmed the French everywhere and in every possible way - they exterminated enemy foragers and marauders, often at the approaches of the enemy they themselves burned their houses and went into the forests. Fierce resistance on the ground intensified as the demoralized French army became more and more a collection of robbers and marauders.

One of these detachments was assembled by the dragoons Yermolai Chetvertakov. He taught the peasants how to use captured weapons, organized and successfully carried out many sabotage against the French, capturing dozens of enemy carts with food and livestock. At one time, up to 4 thousand people entered the Chetvertakov compound. And such cases when peasant partisans, led by military personnel, noble landlords, successfully operated in the rear of the Napoleonic troops, were not isolated.

In 1812, a European gang led by Napoleon once again went together to rob and kill Russia. The atrocities of the "enlightened" French were in no way inferior to the atrocities of the Nazis during another similar war...

The French loved to rape nuns and practice icon shooting. Napoleon committed atrocities in Russia no less than Hitler. This year we are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Patriotic War of 1812. Now, thanks to feature films and books, that time seems incredibly romantic to many. Gallant French, cavalry girls, sorry, madam, would you like to rendezvous with me? However, you should not be mistaken. Contemporaries considered Napoleon to be the embodiment of the devil, and in his plans he had a purposeful destruction of the Russian people.

The war of 1812 was of a very different type than all the wars before it. In addition to the most powerful ideological, propaganda support through the press, books, fabrication of rumors, visual agitation in pictures that were hung on fences for ordinary people, a kind of analogue of today's TV, a large-scale financial scam was carried out.

A huge amount of counterfeit money was thrown into the economy of Napoleon's enemy - Russia, England and Austria. To destabilize the financial system of the enemy, they were released before, but for the first time it took on such a large-scale character. It was a real financial war. The case was staged on a grand scale: there were 2 printing houses in Paris and 2 in Warsaw. They even equipped a special “dusty” room in which fresh banknotes were carried across the dirty floor, giving them the appearance of being in circulation. During the occupation, a printing house for rubles was opened right in Moscow, on the Rogozhskaya Zastava, in the courtyard of the Old Believer church.

Fake

A note has been preserved from the Minister of Finance Dmitry Guryev, where he informed Alexander I that in 1811, according to his intelligence information, “the French released in Warsaw through the Duke de Bassano and some banker Frenkel up to 20 million rubles in banknotes of 100, 50, 25 rubles. This is 4.5% of all money that generally went in Russia! The ruble began to crack at the seams. Some historians believe that up to 120 million counterfeit rubles were injected into the Russian economy in 1811-1812. The general controller of the main audit department reported to Emperor Alexander I: “Your grandmother’s wars were a toy compared to the current ones ... You must stop the emission.” For the war, 25 kopecks of silver were given in banknotes for the ruble.

The French fakes were superior in quality to the originals - they were distinguished by a bluish tint of paper, a clearer watermark, deep embossed embossing, and an even arrangement of letters. This, by the way, let the counterfeiters down: it was possible to distinguish them, if desired, precisely because of the quality of the work. However, the ignorance of the Russian language by the French led to a funny confusion of letters: “state”, instead of “state” and “holyach”, instead of “walking”. But the masses - and the peasants, and the nobles too - were mostly illiterate, so such mistakes got away with it.

This begs the question: how did the Russian economy survive after such a huge injection of unsecured money? Very simple. Russia quickly won the war, and fakes simply did not have time to spread in sufficient volume. On Christmas Day 1812, the last occupier was thrown out of Russia. Then one important factor played its role - natural relations reigned in the country, especially among the peasants. And they never saw paper money. At best, silver and copper. A cow - the main wealth of a peasant - cost from a ruble to two, a bucket of vodka - 30 kopecks, and Napoleon issued banknotes of 25, 50, 100 rubles. There was no place to exchange them either.

He even paid the salaries of his troops with counterfeit money, with which his army could not really buy anything.

By the way, the same thing happened in 1941. In the collective-farm USSR, where subsistence-economic relations reigned, fakes printed by Hitler were also not successful.

But back to the Napoleonic scam with fakes. Even those peasants who agreed to sell food (and there were few of them) refused to take paper money of this denomination. French soldiers who received a salary could not spend it. During the retreat, the fires of the freezing occupiers were often kindled with fake banknotes. Millions burned out. But some still remained in the country. After the victory, in order to restore the economy, the ministers proposed to carry out a reform, issue new money and thus cut off the fakes. After much deliberation, Alexander I abandoned this plan. I chose the most expensive, but also the most humane way. He said: “For some of my poor subjects, a piece of paper worth 50 or 100 rubles that fell into their hands is a fortune. And I can't deprive them of it..."

The emperor equated the circulation of fake and real money, withdrawing them only through banks. Only by 1824 was a decree issued that basically all counterfeit money was seized. But they came across until the end of the 1840s. Russia withstood not only the invasion, but also the economic provocation.

Anarchists

I explain this miracle by the idea formulated by the famous Russian publicist Ivan Solonevich. He writes: “Russia ... has always represented a higher type of state than the states that attacked it. Because the state organization of the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Russian Empire has always exceeded the organization of all its competitors, opponents and enemies - otherwise neither the Grand Duchy, nor the kingdom, nor the Empire would have been able to withstand this life-and-death struggle.

To this we can safely add the Soviet Union, which, for the same reasons, withstood the Great Patriotic War. All the wars waged by the West against Russia, in 1812, in 1941, and now, only, perhaps less noticeably, came down to the destruction of Russian, Russian civilization, the nation itself.

Nikolai Berdyaev in his “Philosophy of Inequality” aptly noted that “the nation includes not only human generations, but also the stones of churches, palaces and estates, gravestones, old manuscripts and books, and in order to understand the will of the nation, you need to hear these stones, read the decayed pages". So they always destroyed faith, and stones, and churches, and manuscripts. To destroy the essence of the people. By the way, as a result of the invasion, the greatest work of the Russian people - "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", many annals, perished.

Moreover, the West always declares that it brings us its "high" civilization.

It's the same as the bombing of Belgrade or Tripoli planted "human rights" and "human values"!..

Carrying the "torch of freedom," Napoleon carried out a frenzy in our land no less than Hitler. He just had less time, only six months. The phrase of this herald of European values ​​\u200b\u200bis known: "For victory, it is necessary that a simple soldier not only hate his opponents, but also despise them."

Officers retold propaganda about the barbarism of the Slavic peoples to Napoleon's soldiers. Since then, the idea of ​​Russians as a second-rate, wild nation has been consciously entrenched in the minds of Europeans. So they despised us. Monasteries were destroyed, architectural monuments were blown up. The altars of Moscow churches were deliberately turned into stables and latrines. Priests who did not give out church shrines were killed with a fierce death, nuns were raped, and stoves were kindled with ancient icons. At the same time, the soldiers firmly knew that they had come to a barbaric, wild country and that they were bringing into it the best culture in the world - European.

Subsequently, as contemporaries of those events wrote, seeing the hatred and neglect of themselves on the part of both the Russian government and the Russian people, who decided it was better to give up their ancient capital to him than to bow before him, Napoleon ordered, when delivering food to the Kremlin, instead of horses to use for this, Russians of both sexes, without considering either state or age.

Barbarians

The banal robbery began even from the distant approaches to Moscow. In Belarus and Lithuania, soldiers destroyed orchards and orchards, killed livestock, and destroyed crops. Moreover, there was no military need for this, it was just an act of intimidation.

As Evgeny Tarle wrote: “The ruin of the peasants by the passing army of the conqueror, countless marauders and simply robbing French deserters was so great that hatred of the enemy grew every day.”

“We came to Gubernatorskaya Square and closed a square against the Rostopchin Palace, they announced to us that our entire regiment was assigned to guard, and no one under any circumstances could leave. But, despite the order, in half an hour the whole square was covered with all sorts of things ... there were different varieties of wine, vodka, a huge amount of sugar heads, a little flour, but there was no bread.

A few hours later, returning from the picket, Bourgogne saw no longer the guards, but some kind of booth. “Our soldiers were dressed as Kalmyks, Cossacks, Tatars... while others sported rich furs.” True, Bourgogne explains all this by the fact that "the soldiers entered the houses in the square to demand food and drink, but, not finding a soul, they themselves took what they needed." (From the memoirs of a sergeant of the Velites company - privileged units of the Napoleonic army, close to the guard - F. Bourgogne)

The real robbery and horror began on September 3, 1812 - the day after entering Moscow, when officially, by order, it was allowed to rob the city. Numerous Moscow monasteries were completely ruined. Soldiers tore off silver salaries from icons, collected lampadas, crosses. For the convenience of viewing, they blew up the Church of John the Baptist, which stood next to the Novodevichy Convent. In the Vysokopetrovsky Monastery, the invaders set up a slaughterhouse, and the cathedral church was turned into a butcher's shop. The entire monastery churchyard was covered with caked blood, and in the cathedral on chandeliers and on nails hammered into the iconostasis hung pieces of meat and animal entrails.

In the Andronievsky, Pokrovsky, Znamensky monasteries, French soldiers chopped icons for firewood, the faces of saints were used as targets for shooting. In the Miracle Monastery, the French, wearing mitres and clergy vestments on themselves and on their horses, rode like this and laughed very much. In the Danilov Monastery, they stripped the shrine of Prince Daniel and tore off the clothes from the thrones. In the Mozhaisk Luzhetsky Monastery, the icon of St. John the Baptist kept here has traces of a knife - the French used it as a cutting board, chopped meat on it. From the historical relics of the palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, located on the territory of the Savvino-Storozhevsky monastery, almost nothing remained. The bed of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was burned, expensive chairs were stripped, mirrors were broken, stoves were broken, rare portraits of Peter the Great and Princess Sophia were stolen.

Hieromonk of the Znamensky Monastery Pavel and priest of the St. George Monastery Ioann Alekseev were killed. The priest of the Church of the Forty Saints, Peter Velmyaninov, was beaten with rifle butts, stabbed with bayonets and sabers for not giving them the keys to the church. All night he lay on the street, bleeding, and in the morning a French officer passing by mercifully shot Father Peter. The monks of the Novospassky Monastery buried the priest, but the French then dug up his grave 3 times: when they saw fresh soil, they thought that they had buried a treasure in this place. In the Epiphany Monastery, the treasurer of the monastery Aaron, the French dragged his hair, pulled out his beard and then carried loads on it, harnessing it to a cart.

The killers

On October 10-11, 1812, powder mines were laid under the towers, walls and buildings of the Kremlin. If everything happened the way Napoleon, the creator of modern Europe, wanted, then Russia would lose the symbol of its thousand-year history. But by God's providence, it began to rain at night, extinguished some of the wicks, and Muscovites put out the rest, risking their lives. However, some of the charges worked. The Vodovzvodnaya tower was demolished to the ground, Nikolskaya was half destroyed. The Arsenal was partially destroyed, the Faceted Chamber, the Filaret's extension, the Commandant's House were damaged.

The building of the Senate was damaged, and the bronze George the Victorious, which adorned the dome of the Round Hall, disappeared without a trace. According to one version, he, along with two more items that were the pride of the Kremlin - an eagle from the Nikolsky Gate and a cross from the Ivan the Great Bell Tower - was taken out in a convoy of "civilized" occupiers. So far, these historical relics have not been found.

Leaving Moscow, the French also tried to blow up the Novodevichy, Rozhdestvensky, Alekseevsky monasteries. Here, too, a miracle happened: the monks managed to put out the fire in time and thereby save their cloisters.

These are just touches on the behavior of the occupiers. The whole truth is even scarier. What the already doomed invaders were doing, retreating, does not lend itself to common sense at all. Depraved French officers forced peasant women to perform oral sex, which for many girls and women was then worse than death. Those who disagreed with the rules of the French kiss were killed, some deliberately went to death, biting their teeth into the flesh of the invaders.

But, despite this, the Russians were sympathetic to the sick and wounded enemies. In the Novodevichy Convent, sick French soldiers were treated, and in Rozhdestvensky they shared their food with the hungry invaders. Speaking about this, one of the nuns explained: “Again, it’s a pity for them, my hearts, they don’t have to die of starvation, but they didn’t come at us of their own free will.”

universal generosity

Good Russian man. Sometimes even redundant. Apparently, and therefore a huge part of Napoleon's troops remained in Russia just to live. For different reasons. Most of the Russian people helped for Christ's sake, picking them up frostbitten and hungry. Since then, the word "sharomyzhnik" appeared in Russia - from the French "cher ami" (dear friend).

They became janitors, porters. The educated became teachers of French. We remember them very well by their numerous uncles, tutors, who appeared in Russian literature after 1812... They completely took root in Russia, became completely Russian, being the founders of many well-known surnames, such as Lurie, Masherovs (from mon cher - my dear), Mashanovs , Zhanbrovy. The Bergs and Schmidts with numerous children are also mostly from the Napoleonic German soldiers.

The fate of Nikolai Andreevich Savin, or Jean Baptiste Saven, a former lieutenant of the 2nd Guards Regiment of the 3rd Corps of the army of Marshal Ney, a participant in the Egyptian campaigns, Austerlitz, is interesting and in many ways at the same time typical. The last soldier of that Great Army. He died, surrounded by numerous offspring, in 1894, having lived 126 years. He taught at the Saratov gymnasium for over 60 years. Until the end of his days, he retained clarity of mind and remembered that one of his students was none other than Nikolai Chernyshevsky. He recalled a very characteristic episode, how Platov's Cossacks captured him. Excited, Platov immediately punched him in the face, then ordered him to drink vodka so as not to freeze, feed him and send him to a warm convoy so that the prisoner would not catch a cold. And then constantly inquired about his health. This was the attitude in Russia towards the defeated enemy. Therefore, they remained in Russia in tens of thousands.

Trophies, glory, all the blessings for which we sacrificed everything, became a burden to us; now it was not about how to decorate your life, but about how to save it. At this great wreck, the army, like a great ship wrecked by a terrible storm, did not hesitate to throw into this sea of ​​ice and snow everything that could impede and delay its movement.(from the Notes of the Adjutant of Emperor Napoleon I Philippe Paul de Segur)

Napoleon's retreat from Russia
Jerzy KOSSAK

Napoleon's retreat from Russia (detail)
Jerzy KOSSAK

Trophies taken from Moscow were thrown into the waters of Smelevsky Lake: cannons, ancient weapons, Kremlin decorations and a cross from the bell tower of Ivan the Great were flooded.

A few words about the hardships that befell the Napoleonic Great Army on the territory of Russia. It just so happened that the non-combat losses of the army exceeded the combat ones, which, however, happened quite often in those days. As we remember, in the first half of the campaign, terrible heat, dust that covered the eyes and penetrated everywhere, and not only into the upper respiratory tract, endless strenuous marches, diseases tormented and mowed down the fighters. People died from heatstroke, heart attacks, intestinal, lung infections and simply from physical overwork.

Retreat after Smolensk
Adolf NORTERN

Road
Jan HELMINSKY

hard road
Jan HELMINSKY

Literally a few days after the exodus of the French army from Moscow, interruptions began in the supply of its food, and the further the worse.

In the evening, hunger began to be felt among those units that had managed to deplete their supplies. Until then, each time soup was cooked, each gave his portion of flour, but when it was noticed that not everyone participated in the clubbing, many began to hide in order to eat what they had; they ate together only the soup of horse meat, which they began to cook in recent days.

Dinner preparation
Alexander APSIT

Not only the meat of fallen and specially slaughtered horses was used, but also birds, bears, everything that came across in the way of hungry people:
- Since yesterday, I have eaten only half of the crow I raised on the road, and a few spoonfuls of groats stew, half with oat straw and rye salted with gunpowder.

The flight of the French with their families from Russia.
Bogdan VILLEVALDE

In contemplation. 1812
Woyzeck KOSSACK

Return
Jerzy Kossak

Two French hussars
Woyzeck KOSSACK

In addition, ahead of time it was necessary to take care of the coming winter, especially since on the way to Moscow, some soldiers, exhausted from the intense heat, got rid of warm uniforms. And from Moscow, they did not take warm winter clothes with them, and this became one of the fatal mistakes. As Dominique Pierre de la Flies, Assistant Surgeon General of the French Army and the Imperial Guard, Jean-Dominique Larrey wrote: ... our French did not seem to have foreseen it. The Poles, who were more ingenious, and even familiar with the region, in advance, back in Moscow, stocked up on fur coats they had collected in shops and rows, since no one prevented them from doing this, and their vans were full of this stuff.. He also claimed, and apparently had grounds for this, since he lived both in France and in Russia (after the Russian captivity he did not want to return to his homeland, remained in the Russian Empire, got married) that those who believe that , the French, Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese who were in the army died from the cold, like inhabitants of the south who were not used to it. On the contrary, the doctor believed that this Russian peasant, who grew up in a warm, stuffy hut, was more sensitive to cold than the French and Italians, accustomed to it in their unheated rooms; they tolerate 5-6 ° frosts quite well in light clothing.

French withdrawal from Moscow
January SUKHODOLSKY

Good weather stood both near Maloyaroslavets and Vyazma, but this did not help the French army to win the battles. Campaigner Henri Beuyl (the future writer Stendhal) wrote: It would be a mistake to think that the winter of 1812 came early; on the contrary, the weather in Moscow was most beautiful. When we set out from there on October 19, it was only three degrees of frost, and the sun was shining brightly. Although it should be noted that spending the night in the open air, even at low positive temperatures, high humidity, causing chills, is sometimes more dangerous than severe frosts.

Retreat from Russia
Theodore GERICO

They say that when leaving Moscow, Emperor Napoleon intended to send all the wounded, in order to avoid Russian revenge, saying:
- I will give all the treasures of Russia for the life of one wounded man...

Dutch regiment during the retreat from Russia
Kate ROCCO

In fact, it turned out differently. Carriages full of wounded often bogged down on Russian roads, left without help, despite the cries for help and the groans of the dying. Everyone passed by. At first, Napoleon's order was executed, according to which everyone who had a carriage was obliged to seat one wounded person in his cart, each sutler had a sick or wounded person in the cart, but this did not last long. Later they were simply thrown out onto the road.

Return from Russia
Theodore GERICO

... many sick and wounded who were unable to walk were forced to leave on the road; among them were women and children, exhausted by hunger and prolonged walking. In vain they persuaded us to help them, but we did not have the means for this... ...the wounded trudged along as best they could, some on crutches, some with a bandaged hand or head; after a few steps, they sat down on the edge of the road.

The moment we left the battlefield was terrible and sad; our poor wounded, seeing that we were leaving them on the killing field surrounded by the enemy - especially the soldiers of the 1st Voltizhor Regiment, most of whose legs were crushed by buckshot - dragged with difficulty on their knees after us, staining the snow with their blood; they raised their hands to the sky, emitting soul-rending cries and begging for help, but what could we do? After all, the same fate awaited us every minute; retreating, we were forced to leave to the mercy of fate all those who fell in our ranks.(from the Memoirs of Sergeant Bourgony)

The return of the French army from Russia
J. RUSSO

Return of Napoleon from Russia in 1812
Marie Gaston Honfray de BREVILLE

Retreating French
Kazimir PULATSKY

Hussar in the snow
Woyzeck KOSSACK

Russian frosts began in early November, very severe after Smolensk, they alternated with thaws, but did not play a decisive role in the defeat of the French, since the army was demoralized even before their offensive. Did not contribute to the strengthening of combat capability and daily endless transitions. People were so weak, even hardened, that, having fallen down, they could not get up and froze; the whole road was strewn with corpses. The despair, hopelessness and fear that gripped many contributed to an increase in losses, especially after Smolensk, when hopes for warm shelter and more or less decent food collapsed.

The main reason for the death of the French in the coming frosts was the lack of warm clothes, the lack of nutritious food and vodka, which cannot be dispensed with, being constantly in the cold.(Napoleon's campaign in Russia in 1812, de la Flies)

retarded
Vladimir ZVORYKIN

retarded
Alexander APSIT

Soon, chronic hunger and exhaustion led to the fact that many soldiers, obeying the instinct of self-preservation, began to disperse singly or in groups in search of food and shelter, to fall behind their columns. But in vain, everything in the district was devastated by them during the invasion. The stragglers were met by Cossacks, partisans or local peasants, who did not stand on ceremony with them, undressed them, drove them to the Smolensk road, or even completely killed them.

In 1812. Captured French
Illarion Pryanishnikov

As Leo Tolstoy so aptly remarked, The partisans destroyed the Great Army in parts. They picked up those fallen leaves that fell of their own accord from a withered tree - the French army, and sometimes shook this tree ...

Partisans in ambush
Alexander APSIT

partisans
Alexander APSIT

Alexander APSIT

Don't stop - let it pass!
Vasily VERESHCHAGIN

The painting is dedicated to the peasant struggle against the enemy in 1812. In the center of it is a generalized image of the hero of the partisan movement in 1812, about which the artist learned from oral traditions. In my searches, I collected what I could from the oral folk traditions of the old people, such as, for example, the legend about a partisan, the headman of one of the villages of the Mozhaisk district, Semyon Arkhipovich, whom I depicted in the picture Do not block - let me come!

The partisans lead the French prisoners. Illustrations for Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace
Dementy SHMARINOV

It happened that the peasants themselves fell into the hands of the French, whom they also did not spare.

With a weapon in hand - shoot
Vasily VERESHCHAGIN

Napoleon sentences partisans to be shot
Alexander APSIT

Military execution. The execution of Lieutenant Colonel P.I. Engelhardt in October 1812
Engraving by JAZET after the original by P. VIGNERON

At the beginning of the Patriotic War of 1812, Pavel Ivanovich Engelhardt, a retired lieutenant colonel, lived in his estate Dyagilevo, Smolensk province. When the enemy occupied Smolensk, he, along with several other landowners, armed his peasants, organizing a people's detachment. Engelhardt's detachment caused quite serious damage to the enemy, robbing French carts and attacking separate groups of Frenchmen who looted throughout the county.

The execution of Lieutenant Colonel P.I. Engelhardt in October 1812
Semyon KOZHIN

Execution of Engelhart
Engraving by an unknown author

Later, Pavel Ivanovich was captured, they say, his own peasants surrendered him. The French tried to persuade him to betray the Fatherland, to go to their service, but to no avail. From was sentenced to death. In Smolensk, behind the Molokhov Gates, an execution was carried out. Courageously, not allowing himself to be blindfolded, he accepted death.

By the way, you can listen to or read about the prisoners in the war of 1812 and their fate from a brilliant storyteller,
historian Alexei Kuznetsov

Retreat of the Grand Army
L. BRIEF

The army was moving, shrouded in a cold mist... It seemed that the sky descended and merged with this land and with this hostile people to end our death!

While our soldiers struggled to make their way through the raging snow whirlwind, the wind swept snowdrifts. These snowdrifts hid from us the ravines and potholes on the road unfamiliar to us; soldiers fell into them, and the weakest of them found their grave there.

A whirlwind of snow both from above and from below lashed them in the face; he seemed to vehemently rebel against their campaign. Russian winter, in its new form, attacked them from all sides: it made its way through their light clothes and torn shoes. The wet dress froze on them; this icy shell bound and twisted the body; a sharp and fierce wind made it impossible to breathe; beards and mustaches were covered with icicles. The unfortunate, shivering from the cold, still trudged along until some fragment, branch, or corpse of one of their comrades made them slip and fall. Then they began to moan. In vain: they were immediately covered with snow; small mounds made people aware of them: here was their grave! The whole road was covered with these elevations, like a graveyard. Nature, like a shroud, shrouded the army! The only objects that stood out from the mist were firs, these grave trees with their gloomy greenery, and the majestic stillness of their dark trunks, their sad appearance complemented the spectacle of general mourning, wild nature and an army dying in the midst of dead nature! (from the Notes of the Adjutant of Emperor Napoleon I Philippe Paul de Segur)

On June 24 (June 12, old style), 1812, the Patriotic War began - the liberation war of Russia against Napoleonic aggression.

The invasion of the troops of the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte into the Russian Empire was caused by the aggravation of Russian-French economic and political contradictions, the actual refusal of Russia to participate in the continental blockade (a system of economic and political measures applied by Napoleon I in the war with England), etc.

Napoleon aspired to world domination, Russia interfered with the implementation of his plans. He hoped, inflicting the main blow on the right flank of the Russian army in the general direction of Vilna (Vilnius), to defeat it in one or two pitched battles, to capture Moscow, to force Russia to capitulate and dictate a peace treaty to her on favorable terms.

On June 24 (June 12, old style), 1812, Napoleon's "Great Army" crossed the Neman and invaded the Russian Empire without declaring war. It numbered over 440 thousand people and had a second echelon, in which there were 170 thousand people. The "Great Army" included in its composition the troops of all the countries of Western Europe conquered by Napoleon (French troops accounted for only half of its strength). She was opposed by three Russian armies, far apart from each other, with a total number of 220-240 thousand people. Initially, only two of them acted against Napoleon - the first, under the command of General of Infantry Mikhail Barclay de Tolly, covering the St. Petersburg direction, and the second, under the command of General of Infantry Pyotr Bagration, concentrated on the Moscow direction. The third army of cavalry general Alexander Tormasov covered the southwestern borders of Russia and began hostilities at the end of the war. At the beginning of hostilities, the general leadership of the Russian forces was carried out by Emperor Alexander I, in July 1812 he transferred the main command to Barclay de Tolly.

Four days after the invasion of Russia, French troops occupied Vilna. On July 8 (June 26, old style) they entered Minsk.

Having figured out Napoleon's plan to separate the Russian first and second armies and defeat them one by one, the Russian command began a systematic withdrawal of them for connection. Instead of a phased dismemberment of the enemy, the French troops were forced to move behind the elusive Russian armies, stretching communications and losing superiority in forces. Retreating, the Russian troops fought rearguard battles (a battle undertaken with the aim of delaying the advancing enemy and thus ensuring the retreat of the main forces), inflicting significant losses on the enemy.

To help the army in the field to repel the invasion of the Napoleonic army on Russia, on the basis of the manifesto of Alexander I of July 18 (July 6, according to the old style), 1812 and his appeal to the inhabitants of the "Mother-throne capital of our Moscow" with a call to act as initiators, temporary armed formations began to form - people's militia. This allowed the Russian government to mobilize large human and material resources for the war in a short time.

Napoleon sought to prevent the connection of the Russian armies. On July 20 (July 8, according to the old style), the French occupied Mogilev and prevented the Russian armies from connecting in the Orsha region. Only thanks to stubborn rearguard battles and the high skill of the maneuver carried out by the Russian armies, who managed to frustrate the plans of the enemy, on August 3 (July 22, old style) they united near Smolensk, keeping their main forces combat-ready. The first big battle of the Patriotic War of 1812 took place here. The battle of Smolensk lasted three days: from 16 to 18 August (from 4 to 6 August, old style). The Russian regiments repulsed all the attacks of the French and retreated only on orders, leaving the burning city to the enemy. Almost all the inhabitants left it with the troops. After the battles for Smolensk, the united Russian armies continued to withdraw in the direction of Moscow.

The retreat strategy of Barclay de Tolly, which was unpopular neither in the army nor in Russian society, leaving a significant territory to the enemy forced Emperor Alexander I to establish the post of commander-in-chief of all Russian armies and on August 20 (August 8, old style) to appoint General of Infantry Mikhail Golenishchev- Kutuzov, who had great combat experience and was popular both among the Russian army and among the nobility. The emperor not only put him at the head of the army in the field, but also subordinated to him the militias, reserves and civil authorities in the provinces affected by the war.

Based on the requirements of Emperor Alexander I, the mood of the army, which was eager to give the enemy a fight, the commander-in-chief Kutuzov decided, relying on a pre-selected position, 124 kilometers from Moscow, near the village of Borodino near Mozhaisk, to give the French army a general battle in order to inflict as much damage as possible on it and stop the advance on Moscow.

By the beginning of the Battle of Borodino, the Russian army had 132 (according to other sources 120) thousand people, the French - about 130-135 thousand people.

It was preceded by a battle for the Shevardinsky redoubt, which began on September 5 (August 24, old style), in which Napoleon's troops, despite more than threefold superiority in strength, managed to capture the redoubt only by the end of the day with great difficulty. This battle allowed Kutuzov to unravel the plan of Napoleon I and to strengthen his left wing in a timely manner.

The battle of Borodino began at five o'clock in the morning on September 7 (August 26, old style) and lasted until 20 o'clock in the evening. Napoleon did not succeed in the whole day either to break through the Russian position in the center, or to go around it from the flanks. The private tactical successes of the French army - the Russians retreated from their original position by about one kilometer - did not become victorious for her. Late in the evening, the disorganized and bloodless French troops were withdrawn to their original positions. The Russian field fortifications they took were so destroyed that there was no longer any point in holding them. Napoleon failed to defeat the Russian army. In the Battle of Borodino, the French lost up to 50 thousand people, the Russians - over 44 thousand people.

Since the losses in the battle turned out to be huge, and the reserves were used up, the Russian army left the Borodino field, retreating to Moscow, while conducting rearguard battles. On September 13 (September 1, according to the old style), at the military council in Fili, the decision of the commander-in-chief "for the sake of preserving the army and Russia" to leave Moscow to the enemy without a fight was supported by a majority of votes. The next day, Russian troops left the capital. Most of the population left the city with them. On the very first day of the entry of French troops into Moscow, fires began, devastating the city. For 36 days, Napoleon languished in the burned-out city, waiting in vain for an answer to his proposal to Alexander I for peace, on favorable terms for him.

The main Russian army, leaving Moscow, made a march maneuver and settled in the Tarutinsky camp, reliably covering the south of the country. From here, Kutuzov launched a small war with the forces of army partisan detachments. During this time, the peasantry of the Great Russian provinces, engulfed in war, rose to a large-scale people's war.

Napoleon's attempts to enter into negotiations were rejected.

On October 18 (October 6, old style), after the battle on the Chernishna River (near the village of Tarutino), in which the vanguard of the "Great Army" under the command of Marshal Murat was defeated, Napoleon left Moscow and sent his troops towards Kaluga to break into the southern Russian provinces rich in food resources. Four days after the departure of the French, the advance detachments of the Russian army entered the capital.

After the battle of Maloyaroslavets on October 24 (October 12, old style), when the Russian army blocked the enemy's path, Napoleon's troops were forced to begin a retreat along the devastated old Smolensk road. Kutuzov organized the pursuit of the French along the roads south of the Smolensk tract, acting with strong vanguards. Napoleon's troops lost people not only in clashes with their pursuers, but also from partisan attacks, from hunger and cold.

To the flanks of the retreating French army, Kutuzov pulled troops from the south and north-west of the country, who began to actively operate and inflict defeat on the enemy. Napoleon's troops actually found themselves surrounded on the Berezina River near the city of Borisov (Belarus), where on November 26-29 (November 14-17, according to the old style) they fought with Russian troops trying to cut off their escape routes. The French emperor, misleading the Russian command with a false crossing, was able to transfer the remnants of the troops along two hastily built bridges across the river. On November 28 (November 16, old style), Russian troops attacked the enemy on both banks of the Berezina, but, despite the superiority of forces, they were unsuccessful due to indecision and incoherence of actions. On the morning of November 29 (November 17, old style), by order of Napoleon, the bridges were burned. Convoys and crowds of lagging behind French soldiers (about 40 thousand people) remained on the left bank, most of whom drowned during the crossing or were captured, and the total losses of the French army in the battle of the Berezina amounted to 50 thousand people. But Napoleon in this battle managed to avoid complete defeat and retreat to Vilna.

The liberation of the territory of the Russian Empire from the enemy was completed on December 26 (December 14 according to the old style), when Russian troops occupied the border cities of Bialystok and Brest-Litovsky. The enemy lost up to 570 thousand people on the battlefields. The losses of the Russian troops amounted to about 300 thousand people.

The official end of the Patriotic War of 1812 is considered to be a manifesto signed by Emperor Alexander I on January 6, 1813 (December 25, 1812 according to the old style), in which he announced that he had kept his word not to stop the war until the enemy was completely expelled from Russian territory. empire.

The defeat and death of the "Great Army" in Russia created the conditions for the liberation of the peoples of Western Europe from Napoleonic tyranny and predetermined the collapse of Napoleon's empire. The Patriotic War of 1812 showed the complete superiority of Russian military art over the military art of Napoleon, and caused a nationwide patriotic upsurge in Russia.

(Additional