Certain facts appear to emerge from the confusion as proved:—
(1) The city was by no means entirely deserted by the more respectable classes. Tutulmin, the director of the foundling hospital, remained at his post; and a certain number of merchants and gentlemen, some of Francophil leanings, did not leave. The foreign colony—chiefly French—also remained.
(2) The lowest of the lower classes naturally remained; and the disreputable elements probably preferred to take their chance of making their profit out of the invaders. The criminals in the prisons had also been released.
(3) Whatever may have been the case as regards the mass of ordinary private dwellings, the palaces and mansions, of which Moscow was full, as well as most of the many warehouses and shops, were abandoned, as a seaman might say, “all standing.”
(4) The fire was beginning as the Russian rear-guard left the city.
(5) Plundering on the part of the invaders commenced almost immediately after their entry.
(6) The wind changed its direction more than once.
(7) The French captured and utilised a vast quantity of gunpowder.
(8) Several thousand Russian wounded were left in the city.
The obvious deduction from (1) and (3) is that Moscow was hurriedly evacuated, and this is further supported by the evidence of (7) and (8). Had there been any settled plan of destruction one does not see why the powder-magazines were not fired, and the buildings of most importance to the invaders ruined. Nothing of this description was attempted, and the ammunition was for the most part saved by the French, to their great advantage. For the rest, with a mob of soldiery, together with a mixed horde of camp-followers of all nations, beggars, criminals, and prostitutes, plundering indiscriminately, there was every opportunity for wanton destruction. The frequent changes of the wind helped to spread the conflagration, and it was further assisted by the fact that the great majority of the private dwellings were wooden constructions.
On the whole, regarding the question solely from the standpoint of the established facts, it seems at least possible that the conflagration of Moscow, like most events of the kind recorded in history, was accidental in its origin.
It is probable that four-fifths of Moscow vanished in the conflagration, but it is doubtful if the material injury inflicted upon the invaders was very serious. In the city itself some 500 secular buildings of stone and brick survived, besides many churches and convents. The Kremlin was little injured. It is also clear that there were available great stores of food and other supplies. Forage alone was lacking. De Fezensac, who now commanded the 4th Regiment of Ney’s corps, which was generally encamped outside the city, speaks of trouble in obtaining supplies, and of poor and coarse fare, but not of actual want. In Moscow itself there appears to have been a superfluity of food, though flour was less abundant than other less necessary supplies. Clothing and materials for manufacturing it were seized in quantities, and no doubt the whole army could have been refitted had organised attempts been made to that end.
It was the possession of Moscow which exercised a disastrous influence upon the fortunes of Napoleon. Having failed to crush the Russian field-army, and thereby force Alexander to make peace, he had now become obsessed with the idea that the occupation of Moscow would bring about the desired consummation of his hopes. There was, indeed, hardly ever the slightest chance of their fulfilment, but Napoleon could not bring himself to admit this, and lingered among the ruins for week after week.
It is certain that fires were already commencing as the Russians evacuated the city; but the first serious outbreak appears to have occurred at a Government spirit store. It was extinguished, but soon afterwards the great bazaar in which, as at Constantinople and other Oriental cities, the bulk of the retail trade of Moscow was concentrated, was found to be on fire. Both spirit stores and shops would be natural marks for plunderers. The wind rose, drifted inflammable wreckage across the city, and scattered it among the wood-built suburbs, through which the conflagration spread with terrifying rapidity. The stories that the fire engines had disappeared, and that the ropes of the wells had been cut, may be taken for what they are worth. It is obvious that little organised endeavour to control the conflagration of a vast and largely wood-built city was, or could be, made. The Guards in the central quarters soon abandoned all efforts to fight the flames in order to devote themselves to plunder, and the officers of the corps encamped outside, convinced that it was vitally necessary to fill their nearly empty store-waggons, permitted, or connived at, the entry of their own men to take part in the sack.
Napoleon himself remained in the Kremlin until the 16th, when a change in the wind brought the conflagration from the suburbs to the inner quarters of the city, and rendered residence in the Imperial Palace dangerous, more especially since the larger part of the captured powder-magazines were within the citadel. The Emperor left by the river gate—the land fronts of the walled enclosure being practically encircled by the flames—and proceeded along the quays, eventually reaching the Imperial palace of Petrovski, some 2 miles on the Petersburg road.
With Napoleon’s departure pillage became universal. Some officers endeavoured to induce their men to take food and clothing, but apparently with little success, and that vast quantities of food were saved was due to the fact that the half-famished troops naturally turned to it. Murder and outrage went hand in hand with pillage. Many inhabitants were massacred by the soldiery, maddened with licence and intoxicating liquor; many others perished in the flames of their homes, or in attempting to escape from them. The miscellaneous horde of female camp-followers behaved as badly as the men. Paymaster Duverger relates how he knocked down a ruffianly cantinière who was robbing a sick and helpless Russian lady. There is unhappily evidence that many of the officers set a disgraceful example. Some pillaged openly; others made a levy upon the plunder of their men. The Guards had the best opportunities and gained an unenviable pre-eminence in misconduct. Drunkenness was everywhere rife. The men of the 1st Corps were almost as bad as the Guards, and probably this carnival of licence was the event which contributed most to the destruction of their discipline early in the retreat. It is worthy of note that Ney’s corps, which took little direct share in the sack, was the one which kept the best order amid the horrors of the retreat. Marshal Lefebvre was furious at the disorder in the Old Guard, and issued a severe order on the subject.
