Burning of Moscow — 14-18 septembre 1812

The Grande Armée entered an almost empty city; from the following night, fires lit on the orders of Governor Rostopchin, whose pumps had been removed, destroyed two thirds of Moscow. Napoleon waited five weeks in the Kremlin for a peace Alexander never offered. The victory of Borodino led nowhere: the army had to leave, far too late in the season.

An empty city

On 14 September 1812, a week after Borodino, the Grande Armée entered Moscow. It found almost no one: of some three hundred thousand inhabitants, a few thousand remained. The authorities, the archives, the merchants, the treasures had left with Kutuzov's army.

That emptiness was already a political answer. Napoleon was waiting in Moscow for the delegation that comes to ask for peace when a capital falls; there was no one to come.

The fires

From the following night, fires broke out at several points at once. Governor Rostopchin had had the fire pumps removed and the prisons opened. The wind rose; the city, built largely of wood, burned for four days.

Napoleon had to leave the Kremlin on 16 September for the Petrovsky Palace and returned only on the 18th. Two thirds of Moscow had vanished, along with the food stores on which the army had counted to winter.

Five weeks of waiting

The Emperor stayed until 19 October. He wrote to Alexander, sent Lauriston to the Russian camp: no reply. The Tsar had made it known that he would not treat while a French soldier stood on Russian soil, and time was working for him.

Every week spent in Moscow brought winter closer and put the magazines of Smolensk further away. The tactical victory of Borodino and the occupation of the capital had produced no political effect: it was the demonstration that war was no longer decided by the taking of a city.