So, I give the floor to Sergey Leksutov, Omsk, 2003.

Was Kutuzov going to defeat Napoleon? Any competent infantry lieutenant, if he thoughtfully reads the history of the war in the twelfth year in a textbook, immediately sees a lot of absurdities and inconsistencies in Kutuzov's behavior, and in general, in his conduct of the war. It will be objected to me that it is not given to an infantry lieutenant to comprehend the greatness of the plans of a great commander! Have mercy, gentlemen! Only from competent lieutenants grow great commanders! Those who are illiterate are retired in the ranks of majors. Kutuzov himself started as a lieutenant at Suvorov, and he fought with the former artillery lieutenant Bonaparte, who, it seems, only rose to the rank of colonel, and then appropriated the title of emperor to himself, and he seemed to have nothing to climb further up the career ladder. So, let's put aside false modesty, and look at the campaign of the twelfth year with the eyes of a literate infantry lieutenant.

DID NAPOLEON HOPE TO CONQUER RUSSIA?

Even Frederick the Great expressed the sound idea that it was impossible to defeat Russia in a war, especially on its territory. Napoleon could not but know the opinion of his great predecessor, and he himself was a sickly commander; could have thought of it myself. At the end of the nineteenth century, Bismarck only confirmed the conventional wisdom that it was impossible to conquer Russia. Although there has already been a shameful defeat in the Crimean war. Defeat, but not conquest! Crimea was not taken away from Russia. In addition, this defeat turned into a victory: in 1853, the old wooden fleet was flooded, and soon a navy of the latest steam ships appeared on the Black Sea.

A version slips in the history textbook. As if Napoleon was going to go to India through the territory of Russia, Central Asia and the Hindu Kush... But how to overcome this route of a half-million army, in which the main means of transportation and draft power are horses? For such a mass of horses, it would be simply impossible to find fodder and water on many stretches of the journey. How did the Napoleonic foragers hope to supply the army hundreds of kilometers away?

In addition, all available forces were not needed to capture India. The British did not hold large forces in India, and detachments of sepoys, at the first appearance of the French, would have rushed into their arms with joyful cries. The reliability of the sepoy detachments is evidenced at least by the fact that in the middle of the enlightened nineteenth century the British shot the rebellious sepoys by tying them to the muzzles of cannons, in order to greatly intimidate the survivors. Yes, and there is nothing to go far for: Napoleon was the idol of all Russian officers and young nobles without exception. What can we say about the Indians who slept and saw how to get rid of the damned English! An expeditionary corps of ten to twenty thousand people was enough.

WHAT DID THE KINGS TALK ABOUT IN TILZIT?

Protocols, as you know, were not kept. We talked alone. Perhaps the clue to the "Russian campaign" in Tilsit? Maybe there was a primitive collusion? And then, when Napoleon invaded Russia, Alexander got scared of something and vulgarly “changed his mind”? Or maybe he was afraid earlier, and Napoleon, by his invasion, hoped to move him to some kind of joint action, which was agreed upon in Tilsit? It was not for nothing that, a couple of years before the invasion, when the French ambassador persuaded Alexander to join the continental blockade of England and threatened with war, Alexander calmly said that he was not afraid of war and would retreat even as far as Kamchatka. Napoleon could not help but know that it was impossible to defeat Russia, but he urgently needed it not defeated, but in the form of an ally. By the twelfth year, he realized that without Russia, England could not be defeated and put everything at stake. And lost. Most likely, Alexander's innate cunning played a role. It should not be discounted that he was a parricide. It says a lot about a person's character. Worthy of surprise is the fact of the assassination of Emperor Paul. Quite a few years have passed since the death of Catherine II, the division of warm places has ended, everything has settled down, and suddenly ... As usual in Russia, all the dogs were hung on the late emperor retroactively. And he was weak-minded, and an alcoholic, and a fan of Friedrich. First, aren't there too many imbecile emperors for long-suffering Russia? Peter the Third, it turns out, was also a feeble-minded, and an alcoholic, and an admirer of Friedrich ... And who, if not Friedrich, should be worshiped ?! To the greatest general of the eighteenth century, who created the best army in Europe! In my opinion, if you take a closer look, behind the backs of the guards, who were strangling the emperor with a scarf and hitting him on the head with a snuffbox, someone with an English surname should loom, and English gold must have rang in the pockets of the guards. In fact, there were no objective reasons for the coup, they were later invented, retroactively. There was only one reason: Paul was the first to gravitate toward an alliance with Napoleon. Not such a crazy idea. If you think about it, Russia got a lot of benefits from the alliance with Napoleon. But as soon as she began to gravitate towards England, all sorts of misfortunes immediately fell on her. (The last and most cruel misfortune was the entry into the war of 1914 on the side of England and for British interests, and the revolution that followed.) And England's Russia was vital! Few people think about this, but at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, Russian wood was a strategic raw material for England; the entire English fleet from the keel to the tops of the masts was built from Russian pine! By the end of the eighteenth century, England had lost almost all of its sources of timber. The colony on the American continent turned into the United States, and became the worst enemy of its mother country. And Canadian timber was not available for the same reason - Canada belonged entirely to France, the original enemy of England. The wood that grows in India is of little use for the construction of ship hulls. For this, conifers are needed. And conifers grow there in the inaccessible highlands of the Himalayas in very small quantities. So, not from a good life, it was in England that, for the first time in the world, ship hulls subsequently began to be made of steel. Thanks to this, England got rid of the need to buy timber in Russia for the construction of ships. That is why she dared to go to war with Russia in 1853. Now back to Napoleon.

FACTS AND NUMBERS

In the history textbook recommended for the history faculties of pedagogical institutes - "The History of the USSR from Ancient Times to 1861", (Publishing House "Prosveshchenie" 1983) - it is written in black and white that six hundred thousand Napoleonic soldiers and officers crossed the border of Russia. 130,000 - 135,000 reached Borodin. Losses amounted to about 150,000. After reading such a stunning message, I suspected that the gentlemen of historians were not good with arithmetic, and then I realized that historians did not really think about the meaning of the primary source that fell into their hands. So, adding up two numbers in a column, we get - 280,000 people. The question is, where did the rest of the 320,000 soldiers and officers go? Lost in the vastness of Russia?

It is well known that Napoleon did not leave large garrisons anywhere, simply, there was no need - all combat-ready Russian troops retreated to Moscow. There were garrisons in Jekabpils, Vilnius, Volokovysk, Minsk, Borisov, Mogilev, Orsha, Vitebsk and Smolensk, but not 320,000 people! If this were so, then the retreating Napoleonic army, like a snowball, she would wrap them around herself, and not 30,000 people would come to the Berezina, but all 300,000! However, this did not happen. If all these disappeared, plus recorded losses, are the true losses of the Napoleonic army, then this means that the losses amounted to 80% personnel. For any army, this is a disaster, equivalent to a complete defeat. Yes, in general, and 60% loss is also tantamount to a disaster. Isn't it easier to assume that the number of Napoleon's army was 280,000 people? Or even less. Judging by the ratio of losses, it turns out two hundred and thirty thousand. The two active Russian armies had a total strength of 200,000 men. 120,000 people came to Borodin. (Some documents mention the figure - 157,000 people). Napoleon, of course, had to suffer heavy losses, because an advancing army always suffers heavy losses. Why was the size of the Napoleonic army more than doubled? And by whom? Perhaps even by Kutuzov himself. It is believed that he was diligent student Suvorov. It is known that after the assault on Ishmael, one of the officers asked the commander how many dead Turks should be indicated in the report? To which Suvorov, with his usual humor, replied: “There is nothing to regret about the Basurmans, write more ...” So such a perfect, such a rounded number appeared to the world - 100,000. Although, perhaps this is taken from jokes about Suvorov - how could so many people be accommodated in Izmail ? Or maybe later, long after the war, someone, in order to stick out the genius of Kutuzov, exaggerated the size of the Napoleonic army? This mystery is among other mysteries associated with the personality of Kutuzov.

Further, in the same textbook we read that 50,000 Napoleonic soldiers died on the Borodino field. 130,000 minus 50,000 turns out to be 80,000. And suddenly we read further that 100,000 Frenchmen are already retreating from Moscow, and 40,000 wagons with looted goods are following them. Where did another 60,000 soldiers come from if Napoleon did not receive reinforcements from France, and the roads to Moscow were cut by Russian troops, assuming that the stragglers pulled up? Suppose that Russian prisoners were sitting on carts with looted goods, in this case it was still necessary to put at least one soldier with a gun on each wagon. Because the Russian driver, taking advantage of the confusion of the retreat, could at any right moment turn left, and after five or six miles you will be at the location of the Russian troops. Yes, it would not be bad for gentlemen historians to decide on these wizards, Napoleonic soldiers ... Either they disappear in hundreds of thousands, they appear out of nowhere in tens of thousands ...

Most likely, forty thousand wagons with loot, the same myth as the six hundred thousand soldiers who crossed the border of Russia. Napoleonic soldiers simply would not have had time to loot anything. The fact is that there is a lot of evidence that Moscow caught fire from all over even before the French entered it. That is why they rushed to catch the arsonists; after all, these villains burned their winter apartments!

WHY DID YOU FIGHT UNDER Borodino?

Before the arrival of Kutuzov in the army, the war went on without oddities, as usual - the three Russian armies, widely stretched along the border, gradually converged towards the direction of Napoleon's main attack.

By the way, where does the conclusion about mediocrity of Barclay de Tolly come from? The armies were scattered over a wide area not by his order, and with available forces he could only fight rearguard battles. As soon as enough strength was gathered for the battle, Barclay decided to give it to the Tsar's Zaimishch. What is Kutuzov doing? And he withdraws the army from the equipped positions of Tsarev Zaimishch and leads it to Borodino, arguing that there are not enough forces yet. During those few days that the army was marching towards Borodino, reinforcements still physically could not come up! After a grueling march, the army builds fortifications all night long before the battle. The full impression is that Kutuzov deliberately reduces the combat capability of his army!

Your will, gentlemen, but from the point of view of an infantry lieutenant, the Russian troops on the Borodino field are located in a very, very strange way! Firstly, what is Barclay's 40,000-strong corps doing, standing far behind the right flank, on the banks of the Kolocha River with steep banks? And does nothing! So he did not move anywhere for the entire duration of the battle. Also, the twenty-thousandth reserve, which was stationed near the village of Tatarinovo, did not move anywhere. Only episodically small detachments were sent either to Bagration's flushes or to Raevsky's battery. The main forces of the French were crushed only on the Raevsky battery! The inaction of Barclay's corps can be explained by only one thing: he covered Gorki, where Kutuzov's headquarters was, and had to cover the commander's possible flight. Nothing else can explain this strange and senseless standing of forty thousand Russian soldiers! A flank strike across the Kolocha River, not a single normal commander would inflict - for the cavalry this river was a good trap, and the infantry attack would be ineffective: the defenders would simply drop the attacking chains with bayonets from the high bank.

The result of the Battle of Borodino was that the Russians and the French were equal in terms of manpower. But! The Russians have fifty more guns, and this is a tangible advantage. But Kutuzov decides to surrender Moscow. In that case, how can one explain the massacre he committed on the Borodino field? After all, his leitmotif - to save the army at any cost - is replicated in all textbooks and in all works of art about the campaign of the twelfth year. If he really wanted to save the army, there was no need to ruin forty-four thousand soldiers and officers. It was necessary to immediately surrender Moscow, cut the roads, especially in the surrounding cities there were already thousands of people's militia detachments (in the history textbook the figure slips - 300,000 people), and calmly wait. In a month Napoleon would have asked for peace, in two he would have surrendered unconditionally.

TACTICS OR CRIME?

In the entire campaign, the only logical maneuver was Kutuzov's Tarutinsky maneuver. But how did he know that Napoleon would not go to St. Petersburg, which was only a week away on horseback? The capital is covered by just a few regiments of the palace guard, snickering and decomposed for a long time, having not sniffed gunpowder for a hundred years!

So, Napoleon is sitting in Moscow, Kutuzov is in Tarutino. Only the Napoleonic soldiers are already starving, and reinforcements are constantly approaching Kutuzov, and by the end of September his army has 240,000 people. In that case, what are you waiting for? great commander?! With more than half a million soldiers available, even if half of them were peasants with axes, and landowners with hunting rifles, against eighty thousand Frenchmen, he could simply surround Moscow from all sides. In this situation, Napoleon would never have decided on a breakthrough.

The next oddity of the conduct of the war by Kutuzov: in the presence of numerous Cossack formations, for some reason Napoleonic couriers dart from Moscow and to Moscow without hindrance. Napoleon "secretly" comes out of Moscow and moves for six days to Maloyaroslavets, and Kutuzov does not even know about it! What's this? Poor intelligence? Ignorance, or criminal intent? This is followed by a tense battle for Maloyaroslavets. Kutuzov could not but understand the importance of Maloyaroslavets, and, nevertheless, sparingly sends small detachments to him, as a result of which the city changes hands seven times. What prevented Kutuzov, having a threefold numerical superiority, to immediately send a grouping to Maloyaroslavets sufficient to reliably block Napoleon's withdrawal route ?! What masks the heroism of Russian soldiers near Maloyaroslavets; mediocrity of the commander, or criminal intent?

Desperate to break through to the Kaluga road, Napoleon leaves the army, and, accompanied by several cavalrymen, rides freely through a hostile country to the border. Where is Denis Davydov? Where are the other three or four partisan detachments formed from soldiers and officers of the regular army? Where are the Cossacks who will track down the devil and catch them with their bare hands? However, another version dominates in the textbooks: that Napoleon left his army only near Vilna. It is doubtful... Most likely, this is a nod to Napoleon.

Indeed, what should the emperor do in a defeated, retreating army? Generals can also lead the retreat. Further, dying of hunger, deprived of ammunition, abandoning cannons because of eating horses, the French army drags itself to the border, and Kutuzov literally holds his generals by the pants, who are rushing, if only out of mercy, to capture the dying French. What happened to the diligent student of Suvorov? The ingenious Teacher, with his inherent laconism, said: “The environment is a victory!”

Kutuzov himself sends reports to St. Petersburg about bloody rearguard battles. Have mercy, gentlemen! Eyewitnesses claim that the French were chasing Russian officers by the thousands, with the sole purpose of surrendering! Because it was better for the partisan peasants not to get caught - they would chop them into cabbage with axes without any talk! The history textbook also talks about bloody battles. This statement could have flown there only from Kutuzov's reports! So, there were already 60,000 French near Smolensk. Have you forgotten that there were 240,000 Russians? And all the reinforcements fit? What awaits the great commander, having a fourfold superiority? 40,000 Frenchmen came out to the Berezina, and, nevertheless, thirty thousand of them managed to cross. And Russia got two more years of war in Europe. Because already two months later Napoleon was at the head of a three hundred thousandth army. Your will, gentlemen, but if I were in the place of Emperor Alexander, I would appoint a commission of inquiry, and subject Kutuzov to a military tribunal!

GENIUS KUTUZOV

However, Alexander did not appoint, and did not subject ... Why? For only one reason: such a clear unwillingness to defeat Napoleon was the will of the emperor himself! Alexander did not want to defeat Napoleon. And Kutuzov, as an experienced courtier, sensitively guessed the will of the emperor, and almost brilliantly fulfilled it; So much so that almost no one guessed about it. In gratitude, Alexander made him great and brilliant. But in fact, he was a good colonel under Suvorov, but he didn’t pull a field marshal with himself. Yes, and the generals did a great job with their heroism, they almost defeated Napoleon; all these Yermolovs, Raevskys, Dokhturovs, Bagrations, Miloradoviches ... It was not for nothing that they were then scattered to command provincial corps. Except Miloradovich. But Miloradovich was a simple dashing fighter, and in principle he could not shed light on the oddities of the campaign of the twelfth year. Perhaps Alexander saw his own benefit in having Europe endlessly at war with Napoleon, and Russia either joining the anti-Napoleonic coalition, or joining the continental blockade.

One thing is certain - Alexander disguised some dirty political game of his with victorious fanfare. And having exalted Kutuzov, turning him into a kind of sacred cow, he finally obscured him. It is unlikely that we will ever know what kind of conspiracy it was, because of which Napoleon put everything on the line ... Although, an experienced historian who is good at working with documents, versed in the political realities of the first decade of the nineteenth century could have calculated. It is doubtful that anyone would undertake it; too much has been written about the war and the genius of Kutuzov. Although historians admit that Kutuzov was also a “brilliant” sycophant and sycophant, for some reason they do not doubt his genius as a commander. Although, it in itself is doubtful that the sycophant and sycophant was suddenly reborn and became a great commander. An indirect confirmation that Kutuzov is an exaggerated figure is at least the fact that neither his generals nor subsequent Russian officers, until 1917, said anything at all about Kutuzov! Neither good nor bad, and even more so, no one was stuffed into his disciples. Perhaps they knew something about Kutuzov that historians deny, like the devil from incense? (Not a bad expression; hell, and deny it ...) But the Russian officers were silent or observing their officer honor; did not want to get dirty, or for some other reason. But personally, it is not clear to me why a combat officer, participant Crimean War, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, who undoubtedly knew about the dirty background of Kutuzov’s “genius”, took the official point of view, and Kutuzov was brought out of him as a sort of folk hero? .. However, this can be explained psychologically: by the middle of the nineteenth century, a sort of global romantic the legend of the Great Victory, the highest patriotic impulse of the Russian people is also sung. Apparently, Tolstoy considered that he had no right to destroy such a grandiose and beautiful legend, but he considered himself and had no right not to write about the people in the war of the twelfth year. Now one can only guess about Tolstoy's motives ... If until 1917 the court chroniclers and biased historians were engaged in the exaltation of Kutuzov, and the military in general, kept proud silence, then after the seventeenth year, and especially during the years of the Great Patriotic War, the Bolsheviks took up the matter. Looks like I liked a sort of folk hero, written out by Leo Tolstoy, because the leaf image of Kutuzov does not at all resemble the real Kutuzov, as his contemporaries describe him.

BIG GAME, ALMOST KIPLING

Reflecting on the absurd gestures of the great Bonaparte, and the "brilliant" courtier Kutuzov, I came to the conclusion that from the point of view of official history it is impossible to explain the sudden insanity of the first and the obvious sabotage of the second. But everything falls into place, if we assume that Alexander, back in Tilsit, promised not to impede the passage of the expeditionary corps to India through the territory of Russia. But then the pro-English clique at court put pressure on him, and in order not to get hit on the head with a snuffbox, or something even heavier, he surrendered. By sending a burnt out courtier and a faithful Angloman to the troops, Alexander reliably ensured the observance of English interests. And he himself, in order not to lose face and not remain in history as an English lackey, retired from command of the army, but he managed to express his will to Kutuzov, or show, or hint: in any case, Napoleon must leave Russia alive.

Then the massacre on the Borodino field and other oddities become clear. Firstly, despite the clear threat of invasion, no one bothered to pull the Russian armies to the direction of Napoleon's main attack; they stood like that until the very invasion, stretching along the entire western border of Russia. Bonaparte, most likely, planned to quickly march to Moscow, and immediately send an expeditionary corps along the Ryazan road towards Astrakhan, and with the main forces to tie down the possible pursuit of this corps by Russian troops. Perhaps he did not even expect any resistance from the Russian troops. Remember Alexander's phrase? “I am not afraid of war, and I will retreat even to Kamchatka ...”

Napoleon invaded Russia with not too much big forces, but not small, so that the war does not look like an operetta. It is clear why Kutuzov did not bring almost half of his army into battle on the Borodino field - he wanted to exclude the slightest possibility of the passage of the expeditionary force. Moscow was burned, most likely on the direct orders of Kutuzov. After all, having rested in Moscow, Napoleon could either send an expeditionary force to the southeast, or break through there with all the remnants of the army. Apparently Kutuzov until the last moment was waiting for such a maneuver by Napoleon. Therefore, he settled in Tarutino, and not in Maloyaroslavets. Therefore, the movement of Napoleon's army to Maloyaroslavets was a complete surprise for Kutuzov.

Kutuzov's sitting in Tarutino is hardly explicable from the point of view of conventional version, but if he expected Napoleon's breakthrough to the southeast, then this becomes quite logical. Kutuzov intended to let Napoleon's army pass him along the Ryazan road, and then destroy it with a blow from the rear. Well, if Napoleon sent an expeditionary force, and he himself tried to tie down the Russian army with the main forces, it would have turned out even better: with a flank attack, Kutuzov would have cut off the expeditionary force from the main forces, fettered them, and even a couple would have coped with the expeditionary force Cossack divisions: they would be cut down gradually on a long journey through the steppes.

It receives a logical explanation and the only decisive gesture of Kutuzov for the entire time of sitting in Tarutino is an order to defeat Murat's cavalry. And even then the generals persuaded Kutuzov for a long time and stubbornly, proving the need to defeat the cavalry. Why did it happen? Is it the cavalry? And not the whole army? And most of all fussed someone Benigsen. Very much his surname looks like an English one ... (By the way, he later smashed Murat's corps.) Yes, without cavalry, a raid on India became absolutely impossible!

By the way, on the Berezina, the Napoleonic army was nevertheless surrounded by two corps, and the third corps, which was late, was supposed to close the encirclement, which the French took advantage of. And the great commander Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov personally commanded the late corps!

Having come to these conclusions, I must admit that I began to respect Kutuzov! Well, what a trickster you have to be in order to make such a pirouette: he observed the interests of England, did not let the expeditionary corps go to India, and fulfilled the secret will of the emperor!

It is with regret that we have to state that the Patriotic War of the twelfth year was not at all domestic, and rivers of Russian blood were shed for the English interest. Because only England received all the benefits from the defeat of Napoleon, while Europe and Russia remained in their interest. Napoleon would not have invaded Russia at all if Alexander had kept a firm and clear position. But he twisted and turned, wriggled and maneuvered, played a dirty political game, and then created a giant exaggerated figure of the "great" commander and was shielded by it for centuries.

It is not known why, but the curiosity built into me sometimes gives out completely unexpected questions.

For example, why are there exactly seven days of the week in Japan, and most importantly, why are the names of the days of the week exactly as in English language? When and why did this “synchronization” take place? Or, for example, why in the stagnant-totalitarian USSR masterpieces of the theater/cinema/literature were created - and the masterpieces are completely non-Soviet; and in modern Russia- practically shish? Why? Or what is the role of the nuclear bomb (and technology) in the evolution of Sino-Soviet relations?

I understand that these questions may seem strange - but that's how my personal curiosity works. Which once suddenly reminded of itself with another question of the same caliber, namely:

“And with what fright did Napoleon pop on the Russian Empire, and not on the capital of the state, but on less significant city, to Moscow? Why?"

For some reason, I could not remember a normal explanation for this historical fact, so I turned this question to my friend and colleague V.G., who is currently in charge of our educational programs, and in past life was known as the chief editor, deputy editor-in-chief of the publications "However" and "Profile", and he has a lot of other different stories, yandex anyone who is interested.

But I will be brief, I give the floor to V.G. Here is the answer to the question "why Napoleon was in Moscow."

Second Polish War

On June 18, 1812, the brilliant success of French diplomacy was celebrated in Vilkowishki, the headquarters of Emperor Napoleon. Far to the west, across the Atlantic Ocean, France was able to deliver another blow to the hated Britain and strengthen the blockade british isles. United States President James Madison declared war on the former mother country.

A few days later, on June 24, advanced units great army crossed the Neman and entered the limits Russian Empire.

From the day of his coronation in 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte (who wrote to Alexander I: "sir, my brother ... I did not usurp the crown ... I found it lying in the mud and raised it with the point of my sword") professed a foreign policy concept that said that between France and Russia there were no fundamental contradictions and there is no ground for irremediable conflicts. Even in his memoirs, dictated on the island of St. Helena, Napoleon, who critically assessed many of his decisions, again and again emphasized the correctness of the course chosen and implemented in 1807: only Russia could be a strategic ally of France.

However, on June 24, 1812, the war began, which to this day is interpreted differently by historians of the warring countries. For Russia, this is the Patriotic War, which ended in the complete death of the "invasion of twelve languages." For France - a campaign during which a 1200-kilometer march into the depths of Asia was made, a brilliant victory was won in the battle near Moscow (on the grave of Napoleon in the Paris Les Invalides, in the same row with the words "Austerlitz", "Marengo" and "Wagram" in gold carved Moskova), the capital of Russia was occupied, but further unimaginable distances in Europe, the terrible climate and the cunning of the Russians first turned the victory into nothing, and then destroyed the Great Army.

For 200 years, Russian, Soviet and Russian historians have put forward a number of hypotheses about the causes of the events of June 1812:

1. Napoleon could not allow the existence of a state equal in strength to France.
2. Napoleon was truly an enemy of the human race, therefore he set out to crush Christ-loving Russia, to destroy the lawful power from God and to set up illegal power from the devil.
3. Napoleon was going by force of arms to captivate Russia in deeds, and not in words, to support the blockade of England.
4. Napoleon was jealous of the glory of Alexander the Great, wanted to surpass him, so he dreamed of repeating the campaign to India, for which his army had to pass through Russia.
5. Napoleon, who wanted to found a dynasty, was deeply offended by Emperor Alexander, who consistently refused to marry his two sisters to him - first Catherine, then Anna.
6. Napoleon was well aware from the reports of his ambassador, the Duke of Rovigo, about the “old Russian” party that had formed in St. Petersburg and Moscow, the leader of which was Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna, who rejected the Corsican. The party insisted on the termination of the Tilsit peace with France and preached a concept formulated bitingly and simply: "Revolution is a fire, the French are firebrands, and Bonaparte is a poker."

The French invasion of Russia, like any decisive move world history event occurred due to many reasons, but still the main one is sabotage by Russia economic blockade Britain.

No matter how tempting it is to explain the turning points in the history of mankind as diabolical machinations, one has to admit once again that, as a rule, economic interests dominate: Russia could not and did not want to refuse trade with the sworn enemy of France; Napoleon, especially after the destruction of his fleet at Cape Trafalgar, pinned all his hopes not on landing at the mouth of the Thames, but on strangling the British with a blockade. Russia remained a super-weak link in the system built by the French emperor. Bonaparte categorically did not intend to untie large-scale war: he intended to take several cities in the western provinces, beat up the Russian army in a border battle, intimidate Alexander I and force him to follow in line with French policy.

Exactly two months before the crossing of the Niemen, on April 25, Napoleon wrote to Alexander: “I still firmly adhere to our friendship, sealed in Tilsit. And let Your Majesty allow me to assure you that if war between us becomes inevitable, it will not change the warm feelings that Your Majesty inspires me, and they are not subject to change and vicissitudes of fate. Moreover, on June 22, the order for the Grand Army said: “Soldiers! The second Polish war began. The first ended at Tilsit, and Russia swore to be in eternal alliance with France and at war with England; now she is breaking her vows! Russia puts us between dishonor and war. The choice cannot be questioned. The second Polish war will be as glorious for French arms as the first."

As we can see, the plan and goal of the campaign are extremely simple, and there was no talk of any conquest of Russia initially. Reality made adjustments to the plan of the Corsican: the Russians evaded the general battle, maneuvered, retreated, and then a small part of the Great Army rushed to Moscow. Why not to St. Petersburg?

Firstly, Napoleon - and Leo Tolstoy is absolutely right in this - was a great poseur, and he saw his true greatness in capturing not another typical European city, which is only 100 years old, but the ancient sacred capital of Russia, on the outskirts of which a deputation the boyars will bring him the keys to the Kremlin. Secondly, as the scouts reported (and the reports were true), huge stocks of provisions, gunpowder, ammunition were accumulated in Moscow - that is, everything that the conquerors needed. Thirdly (and this is the main thing), Napoleon still, more than ever, needed peace; and it seemed to him that the conquest of Moscow was the key to peace, and the campaign against Petersburg would deprive the proud Russian emperor of the opportunity to make peace with the emperor of the French without losing face (it is curious to note that in May 1812 Alexander added one more title to many of his titles: in the text of the peace treaty concluded with Turkey, he is called the "Padishah of All Russia").

The further course of the war is well known, and there is no need to retell the events. I will only allow myself to succumb to one temptation and quote the Supreme Manifesto of Alexander I of November 15 - to quote for the sake of that crystal Russian language in which the document is written: “Great and strong is the God of truth! The triumph of the enemy did not last long. Seeing his numerous troops beaten and crushed everywhere, with small remnants of them he seeks his personal salvation in the speed of his feet: he runs away from Moscow with such humiliation and fear, with what vanity and pride he approached her ... "

That's all, that's the story, it turns out. In any case, this is how V.G. tells us.

This year, Russia modestly celebrates its victory over Napoleon. We will also pay tribute to our ancestors, and try to figure out why Napoleon went to Russia?

On August 15, 1769, one of the most prominent commanders and statesmen in history, Napoleon Bonaparte, was born in the small.

The future First Consul of the French Republic and the future French Emperor Napoleon I, he was born in the apartment of Charles Bonaparte, a minor Corsican nobleman who practiced law. His 19-year-old wife Letizia, being on the street, feeling the sudden approach of labor pains, only managed to run into the living room and immediately gave birth to a child. There was no one next to her at that moment, the child from the mother's womb just fell to the floor. Thus, their second son appeared in the Bonaparte family, who was destined to reshape the fate of France and Europe.

A few months before this event, in 1768, the Genoese, who previously owned the island, sold it to France, so Napoleon's father quickly turned from a Genoese into a French nobleman.

Napoleon's father

Carlo Maria Bonaparte (1746-1785)

Napoleon's mother

Marie Laetitia Ramolino (1750-1836)

The revolution that began in France in 1789 shook Europe and the whole world. The news of the fall of the Bastille was greeted in the capitals of the world as an event of great importance. Progressive people in all countries enthusiastically welcomed the revolution, they saw in it the beginning new era in history. In a number of countries, such as Spain, Greece, the Italian states, as well as the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Latin America, the revolution was perceived as a call for a liberation struggle. In Belgium, the national liberation movement against Austrian oppression developed into a revolution in the autumn of 1789. In the western German lands - in the Rhineland, in the Electorate of Mainz, in Saxony - an anti-feudal peasant movement arose.

If all the oppressed and disenfranchised took the revolution in France with a bang, then the monarchs, governments, aristocracy, church nobility of large and small states of Europe saw in it a violation of the lawful order, outrage, rebellion, dangerous for its contagion. All this must be kept in mind when we talk about the formation of Europe. There was a strong England, France, Sweden, Austria, Russia, Prussia, Poland. True, Poland has ceased to be great. But she played huge role in the redistribution of the world at the beginning of the 19th century. In 1772, Russia and Austria carried out the first partition of Poland. Poland ceded to Austria part of Pomerania and Kuyavia (excluding Gdansk and Torun) to Prussia; Galicia, Western Podolia and part Lesser Poland; eastern Belarus and all lands north of the Western Dvina and east of the Dnieper went to Russia. January 23, 1793 Prussia and Russia carried out the second partition of Poland. Prussia captured Gdansk, Torun, Greater Poland and Mazovia, and Russia captured most of Lithuania and Belarus, almost all of Volhynia and Podolia. The third partition of Poland, in which Austria participated, took place on October 24, 1795; after that, Poland as an independent state disappeared from the map of Europe. Poland owes its independence to Napoleon.

In 1799, the French Revolution made Napoleon the First Consul of France (he just happened to be at the right time in right place), and in 1804 he became Emperor.

The Napoleonic Wars are a series of conflicts between France, which fought under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, and a number of European countries, taking place between 1799 and 1815. They began with the war of 1793-97, and included practically all European countries in a bloody struggle, a struggle that also spread to Egypt and America.

In 1801 on Russian throne Emperor Alexander I entered, who at first tried not to interfere in European affairs. He proclaimed friendly neutrality towards all powers: he made peace with England, restored friendship with Austria, while maintaining good relations with France. But the growth of Napoleon's aggressive policy, the execution of the Duke of Enghien (from the Bourbon dynasty) forced the Russian emperor to change his position. In 1805, he joined the Third Anti-French Coalition, which included Austria, England, Sweden and Naples.

The Allies planned to launch an offensive against France from three directions: from Italy (south), Bavaria (center) and Northern Germany(north). The Russian fleet under the command of Admiral Dmitry Senyavin acted against the French in the Adriatic.

On October 21, 1805, the famous Battle of Trafalgar took place on the Atlantic coast of Spain, in which the entire fleet of Napoleon was defeated, and the British did not lose a single ship. In this battle, the commander of the English fleet, Admiral Nelson, was killed. England established itself for 100 years as a great sea ​​power world, and Napoleon abandoned his plans to invade southern England and concentrated his forces on the war in Europe against Austria and Russia.

The main actions of the 1805 campaign of the year unfolded in Bavaria and Austria. On August 27, the Austrian Danube army under the nominal command of Archduke Ferdinand and the real command of General Mack (80 thousand people) invaded Bavaria, without waiting for the Russian army (50 thousand people) under the command of M. Kutuzov. famous battle of Austerlitz which determined the course of the war, took place on December 2, 1805 (according to the new style), between the united Russian-Austrian troops and Napoleon's army. The forces of the parties at the source of the battle were as follows: allied troops consisting of 60 thousand Russians, 25 thousand Austrians with 278 guns under the unified command of M. I. Kutuzov against 73 thousand French under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte.

In the legendary battle of Austerlitz, where Napoleon utterly defeated General Kutuzov. Emperors Alexander and Franz fled from the battlefield long before the end of the battle. Alexander trembled and wept, losing his composure. His flight continued in the following days. The wounded Kutuzov barely escaped captivity. Allied losses amounted to 27,000 killed and wounded, including 21,000 Russians, 158 guns, 30 banners (15,000 killed). The losses of the French were half as much - approximately 12,000 people (1,500 people were killed). The defeat of the Russian-Austrian troops led to the collapse of the 3rd coalition against Napoleon and the conclusion of the Peace of Pressburg.

On December 27, 1805, the Treaty of Pressburg was signed, according to which Austria lost its last possessions in Italy: Dalmatia, Istria and Venice. They were included in the Kingdom of Italy created by Napoleon. In addition, Austria was ordered to pay an indemnity of 40 million francs. The Russian Empire, after Austerlitz, refused the reconciliation proposed by Napoleon. Austerlitz dealt a crushing blow to the Third Coalition and it ingloriously (except for the Battle of Trafalgar) ceased to exist.

The town of Austerlitz was renamed Slavkov near the Czech city of Brno.

At this place of the battle of the three emperors in 1911, a monument was erected in memory of all those who died in this battle. The monument, which is called the "Tomb of the World", can be reached if you drive from Slavkov about 10 km. west to the village of Prace, and in the center of the village itself, turn left following the sign (Mohyla mieru).

The Vendôme column in Paris used to be called Austerlitz, as it was made in honor of the triumphal victory from captured Russian and Austrian cannons captured by Napoleon in the legendary battle of Austerlitz

Despite Austria's withdrawal from the war, Alexander did not make peace with France. Moreover, he came to the aid of Prussia, which in 1806 was attacked by Napoleon. After the crushing defeat of the Prussian troops near Jena and Auerstedt, the French army moved to the Vistula. The advanced units of the French occupied Warsaw. Meanwhile, Russian troops under the command of Field Marshal Mikhail Kamensky gradually entered Poland. The appearance of French units in Poland, near Russian borders, directly affected the interests of Russia. Moreover, the Poles in every possible way persuaded Napoleon to restore the independence of their state, which was fraught with the problem of redrawing Russian borders in the west. The most crushing defeat of the Russian army in the war against Napoleon was The Battle of Friedland and the Treaty of Tilsit concluded after it (1807). On June 1, 1807, the Russian army lost (according to various sources) from 10 to 25 thousand killed, drowned, wounded and captured. In addition, the Friedland battle was different in that the Russians lost a significant part of their artillery in it .. The damage of the French amounted to only 8 thousand people.

Soon the Russian army withdrew beyond the Neman to its own territory. Pushing the Russians out East Prussia Napoleon stopped hostilities. His main goal - the defeat of Prussia - was achieved. The continuation of the fight against Russia required a different preparation and was not part of the plans at that time. french emperor. On the contrary, in order to achieve hegemony in Europe (in the presence of such strong and hostile powers as England and Austria), he needed an ally in the east. Napoleon invited the Russian Emperor Alexander to conclude an alliance. After the defeat of Friedland, Alexander (he was still at war with Turkey and Iran) was also not interested in dragging out the war with France and agreed to Napoleon's proposal.

On June 27, 1807, in the city of Tilsit, Alexander 1 and Napoleon I entered into an alliance, which meant the division of spheres of influence between the two powers. Dominance in Western and Central Europe was recognized for the French Empire, and dominance in Eastern Europe for the Russian Empire. At the same time, Alexander achieved the preservation (albeit in a truncated form) of Prussia. Peace of Tilsit limited Russia's presence in the Mediterranean. The Ionian Islands and the Bay of Kotor, occupied by the Russian fleet, were transferred to France. Napoleon promised Alexander mediation in concluding peace with Turkey and refused to help Iran. Both monarchs also agreed on a joint struggle against England. Alexander joined the continental blockade of Great Britain and severed trade and economic ties with it. The total losses of the Russian army in the war with France in 1805-1807 amounted to 84 thousand people.

Having defeated Prussia, Napoleon created in 1807 from the territories captured by Prussia during the second and third partitions, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw (1807-1815). Two years later, territories that became part of Austria after the third partition were added to it. Miniature Poland, politically dependent on France, had a territory of 160 thousand square meters. km and 4350 thousand inhabitants. The creation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw was considered by the Poles as the beginning of their complete liberation.

On January 1, 1807, on the way to Warsaw, Emperor Napoleon met Maria Walewska, whom he later called his "Polish wife". For the sake of Poland, the beauty went to bed with the French emperor. Morality and patriotism fought in the heart of a chaste Catholic. Love for the motherland won over love for God, or maybe a persistent and strong-willed man managed to break the resistance of a young and, in essence, a lonely woman who was married to a 70-year-old man. Walewska visited her beloved Napoleon in Paris in early 1808, and then lived in an elegant house near the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, where she became pregnant. On May 4, 1810, Alexander-Florian-Joseph Colonna-Walevsky was born there, son of Napoleon and Mary.

Maria Valevskaya

By 1810 France was a very strong state. But Napoleon wanted to greatly curtail the influence of England in India.

This is what Europe looked like before the war of 1812

After the crushing defeat in the two Patriotic Wars of 1805 and 1806-1807 (and there were such in history, even though they try not to remember the proclamation of them "Patriotic"), the need to protect this very Fatherland became quite real. The inspector of the Engineering Department (in whose hands all serfdom was concentrated since 1802), engineer-general P.K.van-Sukhtelen personally examined the western border and proposed to strengthen Kovno, Vilna, Brest-Litovsk and Pinsk. But in 1807 this plan did not find support.

Only three years later, the case moved forward. And here we again return to Operman, who, already in the rank of engineer major general, conducted a new reconnaissance and stopped at three points: Borisov, Bobruisk and Dinaburg. Pay attention to a radical change in approach - instead of border fortresses designed to keep the war on enemy territory, strongholds are offered in the depths of one's own country. Another fortification - the Drissa camp, which is mentioned in L.N. Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace", arose thanks to the recommendations of the Prussian general Ful. The Russian army was to be based on Drissa, intended for operations in the flank and rear French army.

The direct choice of the site for the construction of the future fortress and the management of the work was carried out by colonel-engineer Geckel. military units, involved in the construction, was commanded by Major General of Artillery Prince Yashvil (during the war he was recalled to the disposal of Lieutenant General Count P. Kh. Wittgenstein). The basis of the garrison was the Mitavsky (later - Dinaburg) mountain battalion. Parts from Minsk, Vilna, Volynsk, Tobolsk, Krimenchug also participated in the construction. The population was also involved in the work. By May 1812, 12 battalions of the 32nd Infantry Division and 6 battalions of the 33rd Infantry Division and half of an artillery company from Kronstadt were concentrated here. Major General Gamin commanded the field units. The commandant of the fortress was Major General Ulanov.

They built it hastily. Work began even before the plan of the fortress was approved. Despite the fact that the main structures of the fortress were supposed to be located on the right bank of the Western Dvina, the construction was first launched on the left bank with the erection of a tet-de-pon or "bridge cover". Actually, all three fortifications proposed by Operman had the main task of controlling the crossings. Not an obstacle to the enemy's crossing, a la "standing on the Ugra River", but the possibility of crossing their own troops. That is, ensuring freedom of maneuver for field armies.

The Drissa fortified camp was built before the start of the war of 1812 near the mountains. Drissa. According to the plan of Gen. Pfuel - a native of Germany, who was then considered a great strategist - the army of Barclay de Tolly, relying on this camp, was supposed to hold the enemy from the front, and the army of Prince. Bagration - to act on his flank. Pfuel's combinations turned out to be completely untenable due to the vast superiority of Napoleon's forces, so that already 5 days after D.'s occupation of the fortified camp, he was abandoned and the troops of the 1st Army began to retreat to Vitebsk and further in order to have time to connect with the army of Prince. Bagration. We see that Alexander was preparing for Napoleon's invasion.

Realizing the disastrous consequences for Russia of the continental blockade and the need to crush Napoleon, Alexander 1 tried in the autumn of 1811 to persuade the Prussian king Frederick William III to joint action against France. On October 17, a military alliance convention was already signed, according to which the 200,000-strong Russian and 80,000-strong Prussian armies were to reach the Vistula before the French troops strengthened there. The Russian emperor has already given orders to concentrate five corps on western border. However, the Prussian king last moment scared new war with the "enemy of the race of mankind", refused to ratify the convention, and then even entered into an alliance with Napoleon. On this occasion, Alexander wrote to Friedrich Wilhelm on March 1, 1812: "A glorious end is better than a life of slavery!"

Napoleon did not know about the plan of attack against him, drawn up in the autumn of 1811, but he had no doubt that in order to assert his dominance on the continent and create an effective blockade against England, it was necessary to crush Russia, making her an obedient satellite, like Austria or Prussia. And the summer of 1812, the French emperor considered the most suitable time for an invasion of Russian territory.

The goals of the Russian campaign for Napoleon were:

• first of all, the tightening of the continental blockade of England;
• revival in opposition to the Russian Empire of the Polish independent state with the inclusion of the territories of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine (initially Napoleon even defined war as Second Polish);
• the conclusion of a military alliance with Russia for a possible joint campaign in India

Napoleon planned to quickly end the war by defeating the Russian army in a general battle on the Polish-Lithuanian territory in the Vilna or Warsaw region, where the population was anti-Russian

On the eve of the Russian campaign, Napoleon declared to Metternich: The triumph will be the lot of the more patient. I will open the campaign by crossing the Neman. I will finish it in Smolensk and Minsk. There I will stop". Unlike the policy pursued in Europe, Napoleon did not set the task of changing the political structure of Russia (in particular, he was not going to free the peasants from serfdom).

The retreat of the Russian army into the depths of Russia took Napoleon by surprise, leaving him indecisive to stay in Vilna for 18 days!

As early as 1811 Emperor Alexander wrote to Frederick: If Emperor Napoleon starts a war against me, then it is possible and even likely that he will beat us if we accept the battle, but this will not give him peace yet. ... We have an immense space behind us, and we will keep a well-organized army. ... If the lot of arms decides the case against me, then I would rather retreat to Kamchatka than give up my provinces and sign agreements in my capital that are only a respite. The Frenchman is brave, but long hardships and a bad climate tire and discourage him. Our climate and our winter will fight for us»

June 12, 1812 Napoleon, at the head of the 448,000th Great Army, crossed the Neman and invaded Russia. Later, until November 1812, another 199 thousand people joined it, including the Prussian and Austrian auxiliary corps. Actually, the French in the Grand Army were slightly less than half, and of the allies, the French troops were not inferior in combat readiness only to the Polish corps of the Minister of War of the Duchy of Warsaw, Prince Jozef Poniatowski. The Italians from the corps of Eugene Beauharnais also fought well. The troops from the German principalities were unreliable. The Austrians and Prussians were also not too zealous in the war against yesterday's ally.

So, in June 1812, the French troops attacked Russia. The number of Frenchmen was amazing - there were more than 600 thousand of them. The army was really huge. Napoleon intelligently divided his army, dispersing his forces in such a way as to get the opportunity to capture Russia as quickly as possible. He was aware that the size of Russia and the population are huge, so he planned to capture it within 3 years. The Russian army was much smaller - 3 times. Russian troops were also scattered across large area, which also made it difficult to resist. Napoleon, dividing his army, also divided the territory of Russia, choosing for each detachment its own zone for capture. According to the plan of the great Frenchman, first it was necessary to seize the territory, starting from Riga and to Lutsk, then Moscow was next in line, and after it - Petrograd. Napoleon perfectly understood that even the unexpectedness of the attack would not allow him to immediately become the conqueror of Russia. The Russian troops tried to fight, but they soon realized that their small detachments could not inflict much damage on the French troops, and therefore began to leave for Moscow. This was the first failure of Napoleon - he had to move behind the retreating, losing his soldiers and dispersing over a large area.

Napoleon tried to give a general battle to the Russian army near Smolensk. On August 16, French troops stormed the city and captured it during three days of fighting. However, Barclay entrusted the defense of Smolensk only to the rearguard corps of Dokhturov and Raevsky, who were then able to break away from the enemy and join the main forces retreating to Moscow. Initially, Napoleon had the idea to spend the winter in Smolensk, but it had to be abandoned very quickly. The food supplies available here could not be enough for more than 200,000 army, and it was not possible to organize its delivery from Europe in the required volume and at the right time. Emperor Alexander left Polotsk for St. Petersburg to create reserves, setting up an army without a single command. after the setting of Smolensk, relations between Bagration and Barclay became more and more tense, and on August 20, 1812, the Russian army was taken over by M.I.Kutuzov.

September 7 near the village Borodino the largest battle took place near Moscow Patriotic War 1812. Kutuzov, who took command of the united Russian army on August 29, considered his forces sufficient to withstand the Great Army, which had greatly decreased in numbers as a result of a three-month march from the Neman. Napoleon, on the other hand, who had been looking for a general battle from the first day of the campaign, hoped this time to finish off the main forces of the Russian troops with one blow and force Emperor Alexander to peace.

Kutuzov, remembering Austerlitz, did not hope to defeat Bonaparte. He considered the best possible outcome of the battle of Borodino to be a draw.

After a bloody 12-hour battle, the French, at the cost of 30-34 thousand killed and wounded, pushed the left flank and center of the Russian positions, but could not develop the offensive. The Russian army also suffered heavy losses (40-45 thousand killed and wounded). There were almost no prisoners on either side. On September 8, Kutuzov ordered a retreat to Mozhaisk with the firm intention of preserving the army.

At 4 pm on September 1, in the village of Fili, Kutuzov held a meeting on a further plan of action. Most of the generals were in favor of a new battle. Kutuzov interrupted the meeting and ordered to retreat through Moscow along the Ryazan road. Late in the evening of September 14, Napoleon entered the deserted Moscow.

On the same day, a gigantic fire broke out in the capital. His organization is partly the fruit of " collective creativity"Kutuzov, Barclay de Tolly and the Moscow Governor-General Fyodor Rostopchin, but to a greater extent it was caused by spontaneous arson. The entire fire tool was taken out of Moscow, but 22.5 thousand wounded were left to fend for themselves in the city doomed to burning. Almost all of them died in the fire. Horses were preferred to be used for the removal of fire pipes. A large arsenal was abandoned during the retreat - 156 cannons, 75 thousand rifles and 40 thousand sabers. The troops themselves, during the retreat, set fire to the abandoned warehouses, and many residents, leaving the city, set fire to their houses and property that could not be taken away - so that the enemy would not get it.As a result, more than two-thirds of the city's wooden buildings and almost all food and fodder supplies were destroyed.The Great Army lost its winter quarters and was doomed to starvation.

Napoleon remained in burned Moscow for 36 days, waiting in vain for envoys from the Russian emperor with an offer of peace. The tsar did not receive the Napoleonic ambassador, General Lauriston, and did not respond to Bonaparte's letter.

Napoleon was prompted to leave Moscow both by the complete disintegration of his army and by the defeat that Murat's corps suffered in a clash with Russian troops on October 18 at Tarutin. On October 19, French troops began to leave the Russian capital. Napoleon ordered to blow up the Kremlin. Fortunately, the explosion did not take place. The downpour dampened the fuses, and some of the charges were neutralized by the inhabitants and the Cossack patrols who came to the rescue. Several small explosions damaged the Kremlin Palace, the Palace of Facets, the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, several towers and part of the Kremlin wall.

The Russian emperor and Kutuzov were going to completely surround and destroy the Great Army on the Berezina. Kutuzov's army by that time was twice the size of Napoleon's army. Wittgenstein's corps was also supposed to approach the Berezina from the north, and the 3rd Army under the command of Admiral P.V. Chichagov from the south. The admiral was the first to reach the Berezina - already on November 9 and occupied the crossing in the city of Borisov. The thaw prevented the French from building bridges. However, Napoleon took advantage of the fact that Kutuzov was three crossings behind him and left open a significant part of the river bank. French sappers imitated building a crossing near the village of Uholody. When Chichagov transferred his main forces here, Napoleon quickly set up a crossing in another place - near the village of Studenice (Studianki). The crossing of the Great Army across the Berezina began on November 27, and the very next day the troops of Wittgenstein's corps and the vanguards of Kutuzov's army approached the river. Fighting began on both banks of the Berezina. Russian troops took trophies and prisoners, but missed the French emperor. In total, on the Berezina, the Great Army lost up to 50 thousand of its soldiers. On November 29, the French emperor with the guard was already outside the ring, on the way to Zembin.

The impossibility of supplying a 600,000-strong army under conditions large spaces and comparative poverty and much lower population density than in Western Europe, became an insoluble task for Napoleon. This brought the Grand Army to ruin.

Of the 647 thousand people who participated in the Russian campaign, about 30 thousand French, Poles, Italians and Germans crossed back through the Neman. In more or less complete form, only the 20,000-strong corps of Austrians, Prussians and Saxons, operating on the flanks, survived. Of those who fell into Russian captivity, few survived the harsh winter of 1812/13.

The success of Bonaparte was buried by a campaign in Russia in 1812. Huge spaces a foreign country, a hostile population, extended communications, the unyielding spirit of the Russians, who did not want to give up and put up with defeats, hunger, burned cities, including Moscow - all this utterly exhausted and broke Bonaparte's fighting spirit. He hardly got out of this country, not losing a single battle in it, but not having won a single clean victory over the Russian troops, taking with him the rest of the "Great Army". Of the 600 thousand people with whom he came to Russia, 24 thousand returned.

This was the beginning of his end. In the "Battle of the Nations" near Leipzig (October 16-19, 1813), the French were defeated by the combined Russian, Austrian, Prussian and Swedish forces, and Napoleon left the army and, after the Allied troops entered Paris, abdicated.

At noon on March 31, 1814, units of the allied army (mainly the Russian and Prussian guards), led by Emperor Alexander 1, triumphantly entered the capital of France.

On the evening of March 7, 1815, a ball was held in the Imperial Palace in Vienna, given Austrian court in honor of the assembled sovereigns and representatives of the European powers. Suddenly, in the midst of the festivities, the guests noticed some kind of confusion around Emperor Franz: pale, frightened courtiers hurriedly descended from the main staircase; it was as if a fire had suddenly broken out in the palace. In the blink of an eye, incredible news spread through all the halls of the palace, forcing the audience to leave the ball in a panic: a courier who had just rushed in brought the news that Napoleon had left Elba, landed in France and, unarmed, was going straight to Paris. Thus began the most amazing 100 days of Napoleon's life.

After the most grandiose victories, the most brilliant campaigns, after the most enormous and richest conquests, he was never greeted in Paris in the same way as on the evening of March 20, 1815.

Exiled to the island of Elba, he fled from there less than a year later and returned to Paris, greeted by the jubilant French. French troops passed under his command with songs and under unfolded banners. He entered Paris, from where Louis XVIII had fled, without firing a shot. Bonaparte hoped to create a new huge military force with which he will once again conquer Europe.

But his luck and luck had already run out. In the terrible and last battle of Bonaparte at Waterloo, his troops were defeated. They say because the reserve to which Bonaparte allotted important role in battle, simply did not have time to come to his aid at a certain time. Napoleon became a prisoner of the British and was sent to the distant island of Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa.

There he spent the last six years of his life, dying from a serious illness and boredom. He died May 5, 1821. Last words which the people standing near his bed heard were: "France ... the army ... the vanguard." He was 52 years old.

At the Congress of Vienna significant influence on the course of which the Austrian Foreign Minister Prince von Metternich provided, a new territorial arrangement Europe. France lost all the territories conquered by her since 1795, but she was again included as an equal member of the European powers. Poland has again become a bargaining chip.

After the defeat of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna (1815) approved the divisions of Poland with the following changes: Krakow was declared a free city-republic under the auspices of the three powers that divided Poland (1815-1848); the western part of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw was transferred to Prussia and became known as the Grand Duchy of Poznan (1815-1846); its other part was declared a monarchy (the so-called Kingdom of Poland) and annexed to the Russian Empire. In November 1830, the Poles raised an uprising against Russia, but were defeated. Emperor Nicholas I canceled the constitution of the Kingdom of Poland and began repressions. In 1846 and 1848 the Poles tried to organize uprisings, but failed. In 1863, a second uprising broke out against Russia, and after two years of partisan warfare, the Poles were again defeated. With the development of capitalism in Russia, the Russification of Polish society also intensified. The situation improved somewhat after the 1905 revolution in Russia. Polish deputies sat in all four Russian Dumas (1905-1917), seeking the autonomy of Poland.

Napoleon's tomb in Paris

On September 7, 2012, the memory of Bagration was immortalized in St. Petersburg. A monument was erected to him on the Semyonovsky parade ground.

The monument to Bagration will complement the architectural ensembles of St. Petersburg, testifying to the feat of our ancestors in the Patriotic War of 1812. In honor of the victory, the Triumphal Arches of the General Headquarters and at the Narva Gates were erected, on Palace Square the pillar of Alexandria ascended. Portraits of famous generals adorn the Hermitage gallery. One of the main symbols of the victory over Napoleon is the Kazan Cathedral, which has monuments to the great commanders Kutuzov and Barclay de Tolly.

HOW EMPIRES WERE BUILT

Watch this movie, then you will understand why the French idolize Napoleon. And we forget our history.

What did Napoleon want from Russia? At first, he almost became an officer in the Russian army, then he wanted to intermarry with the Russian imperial family. The "Russian factor" became fatal for Napoleon. His campaign against Moscow was the beginning of the end of the Empire.

Military career

Perhaps Napoleon's very first plans for Russia were his desire to join the Russian army. In 1788 Russia recruited volunteers to take part in the war with Turkey. Governor-General Ivan Zaborovsky, commander of the expeditionary corps, came to Livorno to "keep an eye on military affairs" of Christian volunteers: militant Albanians, Greeks, Corsicans. By this time, Napoleon graduated with honors from the Paris military school in the rank of lieutenant. In addition, his family was in poverty - his father died, the family was left with virtually no means. Napoleon applied for readiness to serve in the Russian army.
However, just a month before Bonaparte's request for enrollment, a decree was issued in the Russian army - to take foreign officers into the Russian corps with a demotion by one rank. Napoleon was not satisfied with this option. Having received a written refusal, purposeful Napoleon managed to be accepted by the head of the Russian military commission. But this did not work, and, as they say, the offended Bonaparte ran out of Zaborovsky's office, promising that he would offer his candidacy to the King of Prussia: "The King of Prussia will give me the rank of captain!" True, as you know, he also did not become a Prussian captain, remaining to make a career in France.

Intermarry with the Russian Emperor

In 1809, already being emperor, Napoleon, to his regret, learned about the infertility of the Empress Josephine. It is possible that the disease developed during her imprisonment in Carm prison during the French Revolution. Despite the sincere affection that bound Napoleon and this woman, the young dynasty needed a legitimate heir. Therefore, after long outpourings and tears, the couple parted according to mutual desire.

Josephine, like Napoleon, did not belong to blue blood To secure his position on the throne, Bonaparte needed a princess. Strange as it may seem, there was no question of choice - according to Napoleon, the Russian Grand Duchess should have been the future French Empress. Most likely, this was due to Napoleon's plans for a long-term alliance with Russia. He needed the latter in order, firstly, to keep the whole of Europe in subjection, and secondly, he counted on the helping hand of Russia in Egypt and in the subsequent transfer of the war to Bengal and India. He built these plans back in the days of Paul I.

In this regard, Napoleon badly needed a marriage with one of the sisters of Emperor Alexander - Catherine or Anna Pavlovna. At first, Napoleon tried to achieve the favor of Catherine, and most importantly the blessing of her mother, Maria Feodorovna. But, while the Grand Duchess herself said that she would rather marry the last Russian stoker than “this Corsican”, her mother began to hastily look for her daughter a suitable party, if only she would not go to the unpopular French “usurper” in Russia .
Almost the same thing happened to Anna. When in 1810 the French ambassador Caulaincourt turned to Alexander with a semi-official offer of Napoleon, the Russian emperor also vaguely answered him that he had no right to control the fate of his sisters, since by the will of his father Pavel Petrovich, this prerogative completely went to his mother Maria Feodorovna.

Russia as a foothold

Napoleon Bonaparte was not at all going to dwell on the subjugation of Russia. He dreamed of the empire of Alexander the Great, his further goals lay far in India. Thus, he was going to sting Great Britain with the peak of the Russian Cossacks in her most painful place. In other words, take over the rich English colonies. Such a conflict could lead to a complete collapse british empire. At one time, according to the historian Alexander Katzur, Paul I also thought about this project. Back in 1801, the French agent in Russia, Gitten, conveyed to Napoleon “... Russia from its Asian possessions ... could give a helping hand to the French army in Egypt and, acting in concert with France, to transfer the war to Bengal." There was even a joint Russian-French project - a 35,000-strong army under the command of General Massena, to which Russian Cossacks joined in the Black Sea region, through the Caspian, Persia, Herat and Kandahar were to go to the provinces of India. And in fairyland the allies had to immediately "grab the British by the schulats."
The words of Napoleon, already during his exile to the island of St. Helena, are known, which he said to the Irish doctor Barry Edward O`Meara assigned to him: "If Paul had remained alive, you would have already lost India."

Moscow was not included in the plans

The decision to go to Moscow was for Napoleon not a military one, but a political one. According to A.P. Shuvalov, it was precisely the reliance on politics that was major mistake Bonaparte. Shuvalov wrote: “He based his plans on political calculations. These calculations turned out to be false, and its building collapsed.

The ideal solution from the military point of view was to stay for the winter in Smolensk; Napoleon discussed these plans with the Austrian diplomat von Metternich. Bonaparte declared: “My enterprise belongs to those whose decision is given by patience. The triumph will be the lot of the more patient. I will open the campaign by crossing the Neman. I will finish it in Smolensk and Minsk. I will stop there."

The same plans were voiced by Bonaparte and according to the memoirs of General de Suger. He recorded the following words of Napoleon, which he said to General Sebastiani in Vilna: “I will not cross the Dvina. To want to go further during this year is to go to your own death.”

It is obvious that the campaign against Moscow was a forced step for Napoleon. According to the historian V.M. Bezotosny, Napoleon "expected that the whole campaign would fit within the framework of the summer - the maximum of the beginning of the autumn of 1812." Moreover, the French emperor planned to spend the winter of 1812 in Paris, but the political situation confused all his cards. Historian A.K. Dzhivelegov wrote: “To stop for the winter in Smolensk meant to revive all possible discontent and unrest in France and Europe. Politics drove Napoleon further and forced him to violate his excellent original plan.

The tactics of the Russian army came as an unpleasant surprise to Napoleon. He was sure that the Russians would be forced to give a general battle to save their capital, and Alexander I would ask for peace to save her. These predictions were thwarted. Napoleon was ruined by both the retreat from his original plans and the retreat of the Russian army under the leadership of General Barclay de Tolly.

Before the castling of Tolly and Kutuzov, the French were awarded only two battles. At the beginning of the campaign, such behavior of the enemy was in the hands of the French emperor, he dreamed of reaching Smolensk with small losses and stopping there. The fate of Moscow was to be decided by a general battle, which Napoleon himself called the grand coup. It was needed by both Napoleon and France.

But everything turned out differently. Near Smolensk, the Russian armies managed to unite and they continued to draw Napoleon deep into the vast country. Grand coup was postponed. The French entered the empty cities, finished their last supplies and panicked. Later, sitting on the island of St. Helena, Napoleon recalled: “My regiments, amazed that after so many difficult and deadly transitions the fruits of their efforts are constantly moving away from them, began to look with concern at the distance separating them from France.”

The Patriotic War of 1812 is not only the Battle of Borodino, Moscow burned down, not only a clash of armies and military leaders' plans. Two hundred years ago, under the battle banners of Bonaparte, a real state entered the territory of the Russian Empire, with its own currency, mail, office, and finally, its own ideology.

By the end of the campaign, this wandering Babylon, a cast of all civilized Europe, ceased to exist. However, not all of his "citizens" died on the battlefields, died of hunger and frost. A considerable part was taken prisoner, and these people - several tens of thousands of foreigners - were dispersed throughout Russian provinces, where many spent the rest of their lives, becoming related to the local way of life and somehow changing it. The consequences for Russia of this spontaneous ethno-cultural intervention are realized and studied only to an insignificant extent. Of course, Napoleon was not going to leave his Grand Army in a harsh enemy country, thousands of leagues from Paris, and then he was preparing a campaign to the east.

Napoleon was not going to leave his Grand Army in a harsh enemy country, thousands of leagues from Paris, then he was preparing a campaign to the east

About how far the plans of the French emperor stretched and what prevented their implementation - the conversation of "Echo of the Planet" with the researcher of the Napoleonic era, ethnopsychologist, founder of the Eastern Bonapartist Committee Cyril Serebrenitsky.

- For what purpose did Bonaparte cross the Niemen by starting a war?

He wanted to achieve the restoration of the peace of Tilsit. This agreement consisted of two parts, official and secret. Secret articles can only be found on French. We are talking about a direct military alliance at the level of common armed forces. That is, about the infusion of Russian corps into the Great Army and the creation of a joint contingent aimed at the east. Napoleon was going to reorient it to India, and Alexander I was going to use it to divide the Ottoman Empire. Napoleon hatched a project that I would conditionally call " union of four empires". Two of them are European: Russia and France and two eastern ones: India and Osmania or Iran. Such is the complex diplomatic intrigue. Bonaparte saw this quartet as a project for the future universe, the basis of geopolitics. Thus, it was about the complete elimination of Britain as factor of political influence and providing Russia with the very niche that the United Kingdom occupied.

And Napoleon went to Russia to force Alexander I to return to the execution of the secret articles of the Tilsit Treaty. The Great Army cannot be treated only as a French, only hostile Russia. In accordance with the same treaty, Russia, with the help of France, captured Finland. The Russian Corps of Prince Sergei Golitsyn was part of the Great Army, under operational control. I am ready to prove that in 1813 Alexander I, a staunch Bonapartist, planned the creation of a Russian analogue of the Great Army. Then he passionately tried to drag the Napoleonic generals into his service. Except for Baron Henri Jomini, who was admitted to the headquarters and retinue of Alexander I, almost everyone refused. But the junior ranks were hundreds. The whole policy of the Russian Tsar in 1813-1814 was unsuccessful - it was an attempt to take the place of Napoleon. Therefore, he did his best to hamper the accession of the Bourbons to the throne of France.

The whole policy of the Russian Tsar in 1813-1814 was unsuccessful - this is an attempt to take the place of Napoleon

Many in Russia understood that breaking the alliance with France was politically advantageous for England. In 1812, Russia undoubtedly fought in the interests of London. Of course, her troops eventually entered Paris, made a decisive contribution to the overthrow of Napoleon. However, at the Vienna Congress of 1814-1815, which determined the new balance of power in Europe and new state borders, Russia turned out to be the most offended party: royal Britain received much more significant acquisitions and status. By the way, Kutuzov belonged to the people who foresaw such a development of events.

Now more and more often they say about Kutuzov that during the Patriotic War he behaved strangely, that he deliberately missed the emperor of France under the Berezina. What do you think of it?

Well, this is the version of Robert Wilson, the English commissar at the headquarters of the Russian army. When the French were in Moscow, he wrote to Alexander I that the field marshal was a traitor, that he was on Napoleon's support. I deeply doubt that Kutuzov participated in some kind of conspiracy, that he artificially slowed down events. He was an excellent commander and, by the way, defeated the French in the battle of Maloyaroslavets, a difficult, bloody battle that turned the tide of the campaign. Why Russia is still celebrating success at Borodino, I don’t know. As for the Berezina, I think Napoleon played another successful chess game there. He assessed the current disposition incredibly soberly, saw it as if from a bird's eye view, calculated many factors. Unlike Admiral Chichagov, who did not know how. I note that Kutuzov’s troops, and not just the French, suffered unimaginable losses, were exhausted, not receiving food in time, which was brought to them from afar - from Kaluga, Tver, Nizhny Novgorod. The field marshal lagged behind, he tried to urge the army on, but it did not work. And Chichagov approached the Berezina with fresh energy.

Napoleon is a controversial figure, but at all times a cult. For some, he is the ideal of a strong personality, others consider him a tyrant-destroyer, still others - a misunderstood, lonely, vulnerable genius, fourth - a lucky upstart without special talents. How do you feel about him?

I don't consider him my idol. In some ways it attracts me, in some ways it repels me. Brutal southern man. For example, I would not stand his manner of holding people by the ear. Marina Tsvetaeva said about Napoleon that he was the only poet in the history of mankind who broke free from the chain of allegory. All other poets, in her perception, lived in captivity of words, limited themselves to words. Bonaparte created with the help of realities - armies, countries, overthrowing and raising thrones. Tsvetaeva considered all his activities as a grandiose poem in the open air.

All his victories and mistakes are due to his mathematical, if you like, cybernetic mindset.

From what I know about Napoleon, he's more of a mathematician out of his chains. All his victories and mistakes are due to his mathematical, if you like, cybernetic warehouse mind. The Emperor of France had a fantastic geopolitical flair. His Russian tragedy is precisely the result of a collision between a mathematician and reality. He, as a mathematician, absolutely accurately calculated how many kilometers the army was able to walk, how many provisions the soldiers would need for a minimally comfortable stay in the Russian climate. However, he ignored the realms of physiology and psychology. I did not understand that a hungry and frozen person turns into a beast, that this is no longer an army, but a frightened crowd, unable to fight.

- What was the Grand Army in the understanding of the Emperor of France himself?

In the "Memorial of Saint Helena", notes of the Comte de Las Case, secretary of the exiled emperor, there is an interesting phrase belonging to Napoleon: "The military are like freemasons, and I am their venerable master." He considered the Great Army as a para-Masonic mystical organization, having its own ideology, and its own mythology, its own mystical space. For him, it was what parties later became for politicians - an instrument for the ideological transformation of reality. Napoleon's concept fit into the maxim: "Peace on the continent will come only if there is one army on it." The one who has no one to fight. In the 20th century, this project was recreated in the form of the Entente. And even NATO is also, in fact, a continuation of this idea, albeit indirectly. Soviet and world historical schools failed projects were treated with disdain, and this is their gigantic conceptual error. A thwarted war, a failed expedition are also events.

By December 1812, about 100 thousand prisoners had accumulated in Russia - the French and people of other nationalities. How were they treated, how were they kept, where were they transported?

There were two transportation vectors. One - east, in the direction of the Volga region and Siberia, where they drove, of course, on foot, mainly the French and Germans. Final destination - Barnaul. To the south, towards Tambov and Odessa, Poles were sent, who were considered Russian subjects. The prisoners were not actually kept in any way, they tried to transfer them to the balance of local municipalities, terribly burdened with military extortions and did not have such an article in the budget. In March 1813, they realized it, carried out the first audit, and it turned out that from December to March, about 53 thousand "French" died - that was the name of the humiliated invaders, regardless of nationality. Shoeed, undressed people died on the way, unable to withstand this walking through the torments. There are forty thousand left.

Shoeed, undressed people died on the way, unable to withstand this torment

In addition to the prisoners, there were many enemy soldiers - exhausted, freezing, unable to move independently. They were picked out of compassion by the peasants. What is the fate of these soldiers?

Indeed, there were such "French". They remained in the estates in the villages, and they were attributed to the serfs. In a bloodless country, there was not enough male hands, and there are so many valuable employees here at once. Compared with the general peasant mass, foreigners fell into a privileged position. If one of them had a craft - a shoemaker, a tailor, a cook, a saddler, then he was incredibly valued, they literally shook over such a person, they blew off dust particles. In Russia, there were not enough good saddlers - masters in the manufacture of blinders, side eyecups for horses.

Craftsmen were granted privileges, they were exempted for 10 years from taxes "to equip a house and farm". As a rule, they married, good beautiful women maidens and widows were in abundance. In addition, by a circular of the Ministry of the Interior of July 4, 1813, soldiers and officers of the Great Army were allowed to take a written oath "for temporary or eternal citizenship of Russia." Within two months, such newly converted subjects had to decide on the type of their occupation, on which their belonging to the estate depended: nobles, philistines, peasants. They also accepted Orthodoxy. Many went to tutors. In former times, a French tutor cost the landowner up to a thousand rubles a year. And here, at the table and a roof over their heads, yesterday's combatants undertook to teach the offspring of small-scale nobles anything, and not just French speech, dancing and decent manners. The well-known surnames in Russia - Draverts, Lansere, Cui, Boye - are just the descendants of such tutors. Lermontov, by the way, was brought up by the retired Napoleonic guard Jean Cape.

There were also deserters - soldiers who fled from the Grand Army almost immediately after crossing the border in June 1812. These scattered in the forests of the Smolensk province, present-day Lithuania and Belarus. Back in 1816, gangs of Poles and ethnic Belarusians continued to operate there. The last in the Great Army, there were 22 thousand. They attacked farms, estates, robbed on the roads.

As far as we know, there were restrictions on the geography of the settlement of the Napoleonic soldiers who settled in Russia. What exactly?

- "French" did not have the right to settle in areas of strategic importance. It was forbidden to settle in Moscow, St. Petersburg and in all territories along the western border - in Poland, the Baltic States, Finland, Bessarabia. By decree of August 17, 1814, prisoners of war were granted freedom. Some returned home, mostly noble officers who received money from relatives. For example, the first batch of two thousand repatriates gathered in Riga and was sent on French ships to Le Havre. The lower ranks were not provided with "travel allowances" for travel, but to walk across Europe, embittered, devastated by the war and the same Great Army, there were only a few who wanted to.

The lower ranks were not provided with “travel allowances”, but to walk across Europe, embittered, devastated by the war and the same Great Army, there were only a few who wanted to

To what extent did the foreigners who remained in Russia assimilate in a foreign environment? Did they change their surnames to Russian ones, or did they prefer to keep them intact?

They tried their best to blend in. total mass local population, do not give out your origin, do not seem mi. And so most of the names changed. The Villiers became the Velirovs, the Bouchens became the Bouchenovs, the Saint-Bevs became the Sentebovs, the Matisas Matisovs. The son of one of the French, who settled in Altai, received the nickname Plenko - from "prisoner". This street name was fixed in the passport: the descendants are now called Plenkins. For example, Nikolai Plenkin - teacher-

philologist, author of books on teaching the Russian language. Or Mark Burno, the famous psychiatrist, the founder of his own school, a corresponding member since the Soviet era. Stalin's grandson director Alexander Burdonsky has an ancestor from the Great Army, however, through the female line. From there, the Soviet commanders Mikhail Tukhachevsky and Konstantin Rokossovsky led their family. The process of Russification of Napoleonic veterans can be traced well in the example of the so-called French Cossacks. This relic ethnic group lives in the Nagaybaksky district on Southern Urals. The settlement of the descendants of Napoleonic soldiers exists in Altai, in the village of Smolenskoye, forty kilometers from Biysk. I recently found a similar community in Kazakhstan, in the town of Aryk-Balyk, not far from Pavlodar. On the map Chelyabinsk region the names survived - Paris, Berlin, Kassel, Vershampenauz.

I will also mention such a phenomenon as the Bonapartist emigration to Russia after 1815, after the restoration of the Bourbons. Then proscriptive lists of persons who contributed to the return of Napoleon from Elba were compiled. The revolutionaries and Bonapartists were arrested, Ney and Murat were shot. And Napoleonic officers and generals moved to Russia in dozens, as in the most favored country. Take, for example, Colonel Gaspard Drouville, commander of the 30th Ingrian Dragoon Regiment, adventurer, traveler, participant Russian-Turkish war 1812, author of Travels in Persia.

- How many descendants of the soldiers of the Great Army live in Russia and the CIS countries today?

Unknown. In 1830, in connection with the unrest in Poland, the corps of gendarmes, on the orders of Nicholas I, carried out an audit of all foreigners who remained after the war on the territory of the empire. There were three thousand veterans of the Great Army. But this is a conditional figure, since only those who belonged to the privileged classes - the nobility, the merchant class and lived in major cities... Our Oriental Bonapartist Committee is engaged in just such a search. We are collaborating with Professor Thierry Schoffat, Director of the Center for Bonapartist Studies at the University of Nancy. I sent him a list: about 70 names of persons - descendants of the combatants of the Grand Army of French, German and Italian descent. They live in Kyiv, Minsk, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow. It becomes more and more difficult to search every year: the archives are half-closed, access is being tightened. But we are trying to act by the very fact of existence, and this is like a signal to extraterrestrial intelligence.

If you like, I am Chingachgook in search of other Mohicans, and for me this is a personal matter. In 1996, I opened "Memoirs" by Anastasia Tsvetaeva, and the line caught my eye: "our grandmother Maria Lukinichna Bernatskaya." And my great-grandmother Elena Lukinichna Bernatskaya. As it turned out, Tsvetaeva and I have a common ancestor - Stanislav Ledukhovsky, Deputy Minister of Police of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw.

If you think about it, the two hundred years that separate us from the Patriotic War of 1812 are not so long term. The last Napoleonic soldiers died in the 90s of the XIX century...

The Napoleonic era formally lasted 20 years, but in reality did not end either in 1812, or in 1814, or in 1815, or in 1821

It's not even about time. Napoleonic era formally lasted 20 years, but in reality did not end either in 1812, or in 1814, or in 1815, or in 1821. Why did the myth about Bonaparte arise, why did the emperor of France not become an inverted page for humanity, like others historical figures like Cromwell? After all, there is no cult of Cromwell in Russia. Napoleonic is the gate through which the Middle Ages entered the present. For example, the 18th century is psychologically extremely far from us. This is a complete mystery. It is very difficult to read the memoirs of the people of that time, to try to peer into their faces. Napoleonic is a grandiose cataclysm that created the modern language, culture, aesthetics, state borders. The Napoleonic era is a genealogy, a retrospective of today's events, which in one way or another go back to that time, have their own prototype in it.

I can call myself a Russian Bonapartist. This phenomenon - Russian Bonapartism - is generated by the death of Napoleon. This is not an ideology, but rather an aesthetics, at the origins of which are Pushkin and Lermontov. Her guides in the 20th century were Marina Tsvetaeva and Dmitry Merezhkovsky, the author of the book "Napoleon"