1812

Louis-François Lejeune painted the Battle of Borodino in 1822, a decade after 7 September 1812. Smoke, cavalry, a crowded ridge: this is a later reconstruction of the day, not a sketch from the redoubts. Do not ask the canvas to do the whole campaign. The last article closed on Tilsit’s broken bargain. This page is the year Russians call a Patriotic War: an invasion, a retreat that used time and space, a battle before Moscow, a capital that burned, and an army that came apart on the road west. Paris in 1814 has the next article. Keep this one as 1812, from the crossing to the remnants on the Niemen.

Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 ended five years of peace after Tilsit. Students’ Britannica dates the crossing to 24 June, with an army of some 600,000. When the war began, the longer Britannica records, patriotic feeling reached its pitch. It was to be a Scythian war — a war of retreat. Time and space were to be the chief allies of Russia, whose military forces were between one-half and one-third the size of Napoleon’s. The deeper Napoleon penetrated into Russia’s vast expanses, the more equal the chances became. Alexander named Mikhail Kutuzov commander in chief in place of Mikhail Bogdanovich, Prince Barclay de Tolly, and Fyodor Vasilyevich, Count Rostopchin, governor of Moscow, the capture of which was the final aim of Napoleon’s strategy. Fruitful though Barclay’s cautious methods had been, he was replaced by the veteran Kutuzov on 17 August 1812.

The new commander was determined to fight a major battle before abandoning Moscow. The French arrived before his positions around the village of Borodino on 5 September. The next day was spent in concentrating the army, reconnaissance, and preparations. The inconclusive Battle of Borodino was fought on 7 September. Lejeune’s later canvas is that day as Versailles wanted to remember it: crowded, smoky, grand. Britannica’s campaign article calls the battle inconclusive. The Russians fell back southeastward to the Nara River. Napoleon entered Moscow with 95,000 men on 14 September. That night the city was fired, partly at least by the Russians themselves. The next picture is that fire. This paragraph should not steal the retreat. It should leave the reader in a city that had been the aim of the strategy and was already burning.

A. Smirnov painted the fire in 1813: Moscow alight after Napoleon took the city. Use it as the burning capital, then return to dated facts. A red sky is not a peace proposal. It is what the Grande Armée found instead of winter quarters.

The city was abandoned by its residents. The army that had taken it was in the process of dissolution, and winter was approaching. Napoleon had come for a political decision in a capital. He found empty streets and fire. Britannica’s Russian Empire page puts the capture of Moscow as the final aim of his strategy and then, in the next breath, the dissolution and the approaching winter. That is the hinge of the year. A battle that did not destroy the Russian army, a city that did not offer a court to treat with, a season that would not wait. Students’ Britannica adds that the conflict Russians called the Patriotic War transformed Alexander, and that the deserted city gave the French neither shelter nor stores. The next sentences are the road back. They are not yet Paris. They are not yet a congress. They are an army trying to leave a country that had used space against it.

Unable to winter in the ruined city, Napoleon was forced to retreat. The Grande Armée was nearly annihilated. Britannica’s detailed campaign narrative follows the remnants toward the Berezina. Victor-Perrin’s corps and Oudinot’s rejoined west of Orsha. The French approached the Berezina only to learn that the vital bridge at Borisov had been captured by Chichagov. Oudinot’s corps took Borisov, but the Russians burned the bridge before they withdrew. During the night of 25–26 November 1812, two bridges were constructed upstream at Studyanka while a feint to the south distracted the Russians’ attention. Oudinot’s 7,000 men crossed on 26 November, the main body of the army the next day. On 28 November the rear guard under Victor-Perrin held off Wittgenstein’s attacks along the east bank while Chichagov’s assaults on the west bank were contained. At 9:00 a.m. on 29 November Victor-Perrin’s men fired the bridges.

From Smorgon the French continued their march, now in extreme cold, to Vilnius on 9 December and thence to Kovno, where a few broken thousands crossed the Niemen to find refuge at Königsberg. A further 40,000 men in isolated detachments subsequently made their way to the Vistula. From the north, Macdonald’s corps retired with 16,000 men. Those numbers are Britannica’s campaign close, not an invention. They are enough to say that the army that had entered Russia as the largest of the age left it as remnants, stragglers, and a few formed corps. Vereshchagin’s later night halt, two generations on, is how a Russian painter imagined the snow. Use it as later art. Do not treat it as a photograph from November. The dated facts are the bridges, the cold, Kovno, and the Niemen recrossed by broken thousands.

Russia became a party to the Quadruple Alliance against France, and the wars of liberation of 1813–14 brought Alexander and his army to Paris. That sentence is the hinge into the next article. This page should not occupy Paris, sign a Final Act, or found a Holy Alliance. It should remain the year in which time and space, a replaced commander, an inconclusive battle, a burning capital, and a river crossing in late November undid the invasion. Barclay’s caution, Kutuzov’s battle, Rostopchin’s Moscow, Napoleon’s 95,000 on 14 September, the fire that night: those names and figures are the campaign as sourced. The patriotic feeling Britannica records is the Russian name for the year. The Scythian war is the method. The annihilation of the Grande Armée is the result.

He took the city that was supposed to end the war and found fire, empty houses, and a winter that belonged to the road home.

Lejeune’s 1822 Borodino is French memory in oil, hung later at Versailles. Smirnov’s 1813 fire is closer to the year. Vereshchagin’s 1896–97 bivouac is a nineteenth-century Russian afterword. Three pictures, three distances from 7 September and 14 September. The facts do not depend on the paint. Kutuzov replaced Barclay on 17 August. Borodino was 7 September and inconclusive. Moscow was entered on 14 September with 95,000 men and burned that night, partly at least by the Russians. The Berezina bridges were built on 25–26 November and burned on 29 November. Broken thousands recrossed the Niemen. Keep those dates even when the canvases pull toward legend.

Do not invent a speech at Fili unless Britannica’s pages used here give it. Do not invent a temperature. Do not invent last words in the Kremlin. The campaign article is already crowded with corps names and bridge hours. That crowding is a gift: it lets this page be precise without becoming a novel. The previous article’s duchy and open ports explain why the invasion happened. This article explains what happened to the invading army. The next article explains what Alexander did with the victory once he had followed it to Paris. Three cuts, three titles. 1812 is the middle cut.

Keep the Decembrists out of this page. Officers who later stood on Senate Square may have served in this war; their conspiracy is 1825, not 1812. Keep Nicholas I out of it. Keep Sevastopol in the 1850s out of it. This year is Barclay, Kutuzov, Rostopchin, Borodino, Moscow, the Berezina, and the Niemen. The campaign article’s corps names — Wittgenstein, Chichagov, Victor-Perrin, Oudinot, Macdonald — are enough to show that the wreck was not a single column but several remnants trying to meet. Readers who want the congress and the Holy Alliance will find them next. This article’s inventory should smell of smoke and wet timber, not of ballrooms. A patriotic war is a name. An inconclusive battle and a burned capital are the events. A few broken thousands at Kovno are the remainder.

Vereshchagin painted the night halt in 1896–97. Historical theatre, a lifetime later. Use it for the retreat as later Russia imagined it, then put it aside. Snow in a studio is not 29 November at the Berezina.

Stop this page before the allied entry into Paris. The wars of liberation of 1813–14 are the next title’s opening, not this one’s secret last chapter. 1812 here is an invasion met by retreat, a commander replaced, a battle that did not decide, a fire, and a wreck on the road west. Lejeune’s ridge is the day. Smirnov’s sky is the night in Moscow. Vereshchagin’s fires are the legend of the return. The Grande Armée that Tilsit had made thinkable died in that sequence. Alexander still had to decide what to do with the wreckage. He decided, Britannica says, to go to Paris.

The last chapter’s Crimea was an annexation in 1783 and a harbour in 1784. This year’s Moscow is a different fire in a different century. Do not confuse them. Do not confuse this retreat with the Crimean War still four decades away. 1812 is the year the large Russia of the nineteenth century proved it could trade space for an army. Paris is the year it spent the prestige. The Decembrists are the year some of the officers who had seen Europe tried to spend it at home. This article should not spend it for them. It should leave the reader at the Niemen with broken thousands, and a tsar who had not yet ridden down a Paris street.