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After Rostopchin’s departure, Barclay and Yermolov came to see Kutuzov and pointed out that, following a full reconnaissance, they had come to the conclusion that the position was indefensible. ‘Having listened attentively, Prince Kutuzov could not conceal his delight that it would not be him who would bring up the idea of retreat,’ wrote Yermolov, ‘and, wishing to divert from his person any possibility of reproach, ordered that all senior generals be called to a council of war at eight o’clock.’

When this convened, Kutuzov began by stating that in the circumstances it would be impossible to hold the position they had chosen, as it could easily be broken and turned. If they were obliged to disengage
and fall back, they would find themselves fleeing through Moscow, which would probably result in confusion and the loss of most of the artillery. ‘As long as the army exists and is in a condition to oppose the enemy we can preserve the possibility of bringing the war to a favourable conclusion,’ he explained, ‘but if the army is destroyed, Moscow and Russia will perish.’

Kutuzov then asked the others to give their opinion, but seemed uninterested in what they had to say. Uvarov and Osterman-Tolstoy agreed with him, but others were incensed. Bennigsen suggested going onto the offensive and delivering a vigorous attack on one of the French corps while they were on the march, in which he was enthusiastically supported by Dokhturov, Yermolov and Konovnitsin. But Barclay pointed out that even if they had the men, they simply lacked enough experienced officers to carry out an offensive manoeuvre. Raevsky agreed that since the army was so weakened, and since the Russian soldier was unsuited to offensive tactics, the only thing to do was to abandon Moscow.

Bennigsen pointed out that nobody would believe they had won the day at Borodino if the only consequence of the victory was retreat and the surrender of Moscow. ‘And would we not then be obliged to admit to ourselves that we had in truth lost it?’ he questioned. After about half an hour of this discussion, Kutuzov broke in, declared that they would be leaving Moscow, and ordered a general retreat.
⁵⁴

Konovnitsin claimed the hair on the back of his neck bristled at the thought of abandoning Moscow, and Dokhturov was unsparing in his indictment of ‘those small-minded people’ who had made the decision. ‘What shame for the Russian people; to abandon one’s cradle without a single shot and without a fight! I am in a fury, but what can I do?’ he wrote to his wife that evening. ‘I am now convinced that all is lost, and since that is so nobody will convince me to remain in service; after all the unpleasantness, the hardships, the insults and the disorders permitted by the weakness of the commanders, after all of that nothing will induce me to serve – I am outraged by all these goings-on! …’
⁵⁵

Another who was outraged was Rostopchin, who at seven o’clock that evening received a note from Kutuzov informing him that he would not be making a stand in defence of Moscow after all. Rostopchin flew into such a fit of despair that it was all his son could do to calm him down. ‘The blood is boiling in my veins,’ he wrote to his wife, who had left the city some time before. ‘I think that I shall die of the pain.’
⁵⁶
He then busied himself with countermanding all the preparations he had made for the defence and hastened the final evacuation of the city.

Ever mindful of his reputation, Kutuzov sent Yermolov to Miloradovich, who was in command of the rearguard, with orders to ‘honour the venerable capital with the semblance of a battle under its walls’ once the main army had moved through. Miloradovich was indignant. He saw through the ploy: if he were to score some success, Kutuzov could say he had mounted a defence of Moscow; if he was defeated, Kutuzov could blame him. Later that night Kutuzov wrote to the Tsar, explaining that he was abandoning the city to the enemy, declaring that it was an ineluctable fact that the fall of Smolensk had entailed the fall of Moscow, thus deftly shifting the blame from his shoulders to those of Barclay.
⁵⁷

The retreat began at once, and by eleven o’clock that night the artillery was rolling through the streets of the old capital. Staff officers with platoons of cossacks were posted at strategic points to direct the columns and keep order. ‘The march of the army, while being executed with admirable order considering the circumstances, resembled a funeral procession more than a military progress,’ according to Dmitry Petrovich Buturlin. ‘Officers and men wept with rage.’
⁵⁸

But order soon began to break down. As news of the retreat swept through the city, people spilled out into the streets. Over the past weeks Rostopchin had managed to inflame the inhabitants to such a degree with his rabid proclamations that they had reached fever pitch. There had been fights and brawls during the past few days. Some hurled insults at the retreating soldiers, others opened their shops
and houses and began handing out their goods so the French would not get them. Rostopchin was busily evacuating everything he could, and setting fire to stores of wheat and other victuals. Tens of thousands more civilians now left the city, taking the same direction as the troops and encumbering their march. Stones as well as abuse were hurled at the carriages of departing nobles, and in some instances wounded men and officers were dragged off wagons and out of carriages to make way for fugitives and their chattels. ‘There was shouting and lamenting everywhere,’ recalled N.M. Muraviov, ‘the streets were full of dead and wounded soldiers.’
⁵⁹

In the midst of this violence and confusion people tried to locate relatives or friends, and officers who were from Moscow went home to at least provide themselves with some necessities and a change of clothes. Captain Sukhanin decided to call on an acquaintance, Count Razumovsky. The Count was not at home, but the servants welcomed him as though nothing was happening. ‘The Count’s cook prepared breakfast for us, they brought wine, the musicians laid out their notes and began to play,’ Sukhanin wrote.
⁶⁰

As the streets became choked with horses and vehicles, the waiting soldiers wandered off to find food and particularly drink. They were soon breaking into wine shops and cellars, helped by the city’s criminals; Rostopchin had opened the gaols and asylums. He had ordered a number of buildings to be set on fire, and the looting added to the fires blazing throughout the city.
⁶¹

Rostopchin himself narrowly escaped being lynched when a baying mob surrounded his palace, only saving his skin by handing over to them a young man accused of being a French spy, who was promptly butchered as the Governor drove off. As he was leaving the city, he came face to face with Kutuzov. The commander had asked his aide-de-camp Galitzine, a Muscovite, to lead him through back streets so that he should not encounter anyone, so he was particularly annoyed. Galitzine recorded that Rostopchin tried to say something but was cut by Kutuzov, while Rostopchin, more credibly, claims that Kutuzov told him he would be going into action against Napoleon soon, to
which he replied nothing, ‘as the reply to a
bêtise
can only be a
sottise
’. Either way, the meeting was enjoyable to neither.
⁶²

Another altercation took place between the commander of the small Moscow garrison and Miloradovich. The elderly general marched his men out of the Kremlin with their band playing. But as he proceeded through the streets he came across Miloradovich, whose rearguard was now moving through the city. ‘What swine ordered you to play?’ Miloradovich roared at the garrison commander. The latter pointed out that according to regulations laid down by Peter the Great himself, a garrison must always march out of its fortress to the sound of a military band. ‘And what do the regulations of Peter the Great have to say about surrendering Moscow?’ snarled Miloradovich.
⁶³

Miloradovich had reason to be tense. As he approached Moscow with the rearguard in order to march through it and out the other side, he discovered that Polish Hussars from Murat’s corps were already riding into the city, and that he and many other small units or groups of soldiers were in effect swamped by the rest of the King of Naples’ corps. Had Murat pressed on, he could have scooped up not only Miloradovich’s rearguard, but also a large portion of the Russian army, which was still straggling through the streets and in no position to defend itself, including a great many officers.

Miloradovich sent an officer to Murat to say that he was willing to hand over Moscow without a fight if Murat would only halt his troops for a few hours and give him time to pass through it. If Murat refused, he threatened to set fire to it as he retreated. Murat, who knew Napoleon wanted Moscow whole, and who, like most of the French, thought the war was to all intents and purposes over, agreed to this. He noticed that the cossacks escorting the officer who had brought him the message looked at him with awe, and positively drooled when he pulled out his watch, so he gave it to one of them and ordered all his aides-de-camp to give theirs as well.
⁶⁴

The truce merely formalised a situation which was already developing naturally. A quartermaster of one of the cossack regiments in the
Russian Second Army watched in astonishment as a French cavalry division allowed a Russian brigade to trot through their ranks and out of encirclement. Heinrich Roos, a medical officer with the Württemberg Chasseurs, noted that there were hundreds of Russian stragglers in the streets, and that nobody on the French side bothered to pick them up, as everyone considered the war to be over. He came across some lightly wounded Russian officers, so he dressed their wounds and directed them to their units, which they were able to rejoin. When his Chasseurs met a regiment of Russian dragoons beyond the city, there was amiable fraternisation rather than fighting.
⁶⁵

If the French believed the war was over, the Russians felt that the world had come to an end. ‘The entire army is as though undone,’ wrote Uxküll as he watched the flames shooting up from the city they had evacuated that morning. ‘There is much talk of treachery and traitors. Courage has been undermined, and the soldiers are beginning to revolt.’ They were also now deserting in large numbers. Lieutenant Aleksandr Chicherin felt that ‘the last day of Russia’ had dawned as he marched through Moscow, and he could not accept any of the practical strategic arguments put forward for abandoning the city. ‘Wrapping myself in my greatcoat, I spent the whole day in an unthinking torpor, doing nothing, unsuccessfully trying to repress the waves of indignation which surged over me again and again,’ he wrote in his little diary.

Many now accepted that Alexander would have to make peace with Napoleon, and even the diehards thought this to be inevitable. Some were already talking of going off to fight against the French alongside the English in Spain.
⁶⁶

A
s the Grande Armée’s marching columns reached the top of the Poklonnaia hill on the afternoon of 14 September, the men saw Moscow laid out at their feet. ‘Those who had reached the highest point were making signs to those who were still behind, shouting: “Moscow! Moscow!”’ remembered Sergeant Adrien Bourgogne of the Vélites of the Guard, and the columns quickened their pace, the men jostling each other to catch a glimpse of the goal of their seemingly endless trek. ‘At that moment,’ he recalled, ‘all the suffering, the dangers, the hardships, the privations, everything was forgotten and swept from our minds by thoughts of the pleasure of entering Moscow, of taking up comfortable winter quarters in it and of making conquests of another kind, for that is the character of the French soldier: from the fight to lovemaking, and from lovemaking to battle.’
¹

Before them lay one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and one which immediately struck them by its exoticism. ‘This capital looked to us like some fantastical creation, a vision from the thousand and one nights,’ remembered Captain Fantin des Odoards. According to statistics drawn up in January that year, it covered 34,337,304 square metres with its 2567 stone houses and 6584 wooden ones, 464 factories and workshops, its gardens, churches and monasteries, and had a population of 270,184. ‘This magnificent spectacle surpassed by far everything that our imagination had been able to conjure in terms of
Asiatic splendour,’ wrote Lieutenant Julien Combe. ‘An incredible quantity of bell towers and domes painted in bright colours, topped with gilded crosses and linked to each other with chains which were also gilded, stood out even at a distance in the reddish tinge of the declining sun. The vast Kremlin, and its bell tower ending in a great cross which everyone claimed was of solid gold, but which was certainly of sparkling silver-gilt, dominated this magnificent picture.’
²

Napoleon was surprised to find no delegation waiting to greet him. ‘It is customary, at the approach of a victorious general, for the civil authorities to present themselves at the gates of the city with the keys, in the interests of safeguarding the inhabitants and their property,’ wrote a French officer in Russian service. ‘The conqueror can then make known his intentions concerning the governance of the city, and order the authorities to continue to police it and exercise their pacific functions.’
³
As nobody came out to meet him, Napoleon sent some of his aides into the city to seek out some officials with whom he could make arrangements for its occupation.

French troops had already entered the city. The first in, at about two o’clock in the afternoon, were a squadron of the 1st Polish Hussars, followed by other units of the 2nd Cavalry Corps. They picked their way through the streets, which were still full of Russian soldiers, some armed, some not, and reached the Kremlin, which they found occupied by a rabble which had raided the city arsenal. The defenders fired a few shots at the French, but were soon dispersed by a salvo from Colonel Seruzier’s artillery, and the French rode into the Kremlin.