Who Was to Blame? The Burning of Moscow in 1812

By Stephen Wilson, one of our reporters abroad

'We went from street to street, from house to house, all bore the marks of devastation.  This city, so rich and resplendent only a short time ago, was now nothing but a pile of ashes and ruins, where we wandered like ghosts...' lamented Madame Fusil after witnessing the great fire which burnt down Moscow in 1812 so swiftly as if the city was a tinderbox.  What struck witnesses was the rapid speed of the burning from the 15th of September.  One witness recalled, 'The fire spread rapidly on the 15th September.  We saw the ominous light of a couple of fires, then five fires, which soon turned into twenty and in no time it seemed that a thousand jets of flames were erupting all over the place.  After two hours the horizon was a glowing circle. The quick speed of the fire was due to a strong wind fanning the fire as well as the presence of wooden stables and coach houses next to each nobleman's house.’

THE LEGACY OF 1812

What is certain is that this represented a huge disaster not only leading to a huge loss of lives and the destruction of houses but as much as two -thirds of the city being burnt down leaving almost 200,000 people destitute.  When people returned to the city they found not only ruins but the putrid stench coming from dead corpses and horses which littered the streets.  It must have seemed as if the apocalypse had come to Moscow.  Napoleon himself wrote in his memoirs that it was the burning of Moscow that was responsible for his defeat in Russia.  

What is clear is that the legacy of time has left an indelible mark on the city's streets, squares and architecture.  Next to Lefortovsky park you will find  the '1812 park,’ the restored Cathedral of Christ the Savor in the city center, and so many memorials recalling the victory of the Russians over the French.  The victory of the Russians over the French was used as a warning by the more prudent statesmen never to make the error of going to war against Russia.  

The Russians were indefatigable patriots who would stop at nothing from defending their country.  Otto Bismark warned not to go to war against Russia.  So did the Archduke Francis Ferdinand who correctly predicted that if Austria went to war against the Russians it would spell the end of three empires: the German Empire, the Russian Empire, and Austro-Hungarian Empire.  

That was what followed!  Unfortunately, he was assassinated, this leading to more reckless politicians taking the lead and World War I broke out.

WHO WAS TO BLAME ?

Two favorite questions asked by Russians are:  Who is to blame? and 'What is to be done?' But for historians and students of history the main question ought to be 'What really happened?'  And when people asked the question 'Who was to blame?' in 1812 a lot of answers came forth.  Some blamed the French, others the Russians themselves, some people thought both had done it then a few others thought that nobody was really to blame because it was all an accident.  There was no great plan or conspiracy to burn down Moscow as it happened by mistake.  However, if you read many books which cover the 1812 War, you will note that a lot of historians blame the Mayor of Moscow, Count Rostopchin.  

One historian writes 'Kutusov led his depleted divisions Southeast towards Koloma, while the Muscovites were ordered to abandon their homes by the city governor Count Rostopchin, who was planning to set it ablaze {‘The Napoleonic Wars: 1803-1815, by David Gates, London: Pimlico, page 215}.  And "As Napoleon took up residence in the Kremlin palace, incendiaries set fire to the trading stalls by it's eastern wall.  The fires had been ordered by Count Rostopchin, the city’s  governor, as an act of sacrifice to rob the French of supplies and force them to retreat {Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia, Orlando Figes, Penguin: London, page 150}.  Napoleon Bonaparte himself wrote, 'The beautiful and superb city of Moscow no longer exists.  Rostopchin had it burnt.'  

It seems that Rostopchin has been unfairly made into a scapegoat.  Although he denied he had ordered the burning of Moscow you can understand why a lot of people continue to point the finger at him.  In a lot of letters and speeches he made he is recorded as threatening to burn down Moscow in the event of it being captured by the French and he withdrew the city fire brigade.  Even his daughter wrote that she witnessed a meeting where high-ranking people were ordered to go to different parts of Moscow to set fire to the city. 

While Rostopchin can be accused of incitement and encouraging people to burn down Moscow, he gave no explicit orders or had a plan to burn down Moscow.  Such a plan would have been tantamount to political suicide.  In his public bulletins, Rostopchin was urging people to remain in Moscow on the grounds there was no real risk of the French entering the city.  He did not know what to do.  He waited for orders from Kutusov.  No real orders or plans of action were forthcoming from Kutusov.  There was no real plan to burn down Moscow.  By plan I mean something worked out in detail.  A plan is not a wish or desire.  Yes, Kutusov ordered the destruction of ammunition magazines and destroying cannons.  However, this is not the same as ordering a fire with the intent of destroying Moscow.  In fact, when Rostopchin suggested burning down Moscow to Kutusov he baulked at the proposal as being reckless.

A Russian student of Art History, Anna, told me "We can make many interpretations of the burning down of Moscow but I think it was very obvious.  This all part of a military strategy by Kutusov to burn remaining towns and cities so the French could no longer use them and that they would be denied shelter and food supplies."  Although Kutusov never intended to burn down Moscow, he certainly ordered explosions intended to render harmless many military depots. 

However, the fires broke out despite Kutusov taking those steps.  Why do so many people presume that the Russians were the culprits?  What if the French and their allies themselves were responsible for the fire?  Napoleon initially thought that it was his own men who must have started the fires.  When he was first alerted to the first fires from the 15th to the 16th September he stated, "It is probably the result of the carelessness of some soldiers who have wanted to make bread, or who have established their campfire too close to wooden houses" {The Burning of Moscow: Napoleon’s Trial by Fire, 1812, by Alexander Mikaberidze, 2014, South Yorkshire, England: Pen and Sword, page 86}. 

As soon as the French and their allies arrived in Moscow they began to plunder the city.  They continued to plunder into the night.  In order to better plunder they made torches or lit candles so they could better steal.  Getting drunk, they could easily have dropped a candle by accident which led to the outbreak of a fire.  It is quite possible that some of the fires were caused by accidents during this plunder.  This does not seem very profound or patriotic but some historical events can be caused by trivial actions leading to unanticipated results.  

Even seemingly insignificant actions can result in imperceptible results.  Oksana Chebotareva, a Russian English teacher told me of a Russian proverb which goes 'From a kopek candle Moscow was burnt down.'   A person trying to cook a meal might forget he was boiling something and a fire erupts.  The Romans even forbade people from cooking indoors so as to avoid the outbreak of fires.  There was not one great fire but several.  

Napoleon ordered the second major fire before he was about to leave Moscow in October.  He attempted to blow up the Kremlin and other central parts of Moscow.  So there might well be some credence to the belief that if the Russians started the great fire then the French finished it.  But the claim that the French largely began and even finished many of the fires can't be wholly rejected.

SHIFTING THE BLAME

Rostopchin who was largely made a scapegoat for the fire shifted the blame on to many other people often without solid evidence.  He once blamed an innocent Russian merchant for being a French agent by directing a hysterical crowd from himself to this poor merchant.  The merchant was lynched to death while Rostopchin discreetly disappeared.  Rostopchin blamed vagabonds or homeless people for setting Moscow on fire so as to better plunder the wealth of noblemen.  In other words,  the hardcore homeless were largely to blame.  

As early as June 1812, Rostopchin complained about 'vagabonds who have flooded the city.  They beg in the morning, steal in the evening and cause various disasters at night.'  He partly spread the rumor that '12 men intended to ignite the flames so they could plunder the richest stores in town.'  As many as 10,000 stayed behind because they intended to rob and plunder.'  

There are numerous accounts of Muscovites wandering around the city, getting drunk, ransacking taverns and sacking the houses of the rich.  The historian Alexander Mikaberidze argues that in the chaos and lack of authority in Moscow, Russian army stragglers, the poor and vagabonds, bent on plunder, burnt the houses they had robbed to cover their tracks.  They sought to settle old scores with the nobility whom they accused of abandoning them.  Their presence could have been a catalyst for setting Moscow on fire.

VAGABONDS

This seems a recurring accusation.  Vagabonds are often partly or wholly blamed for great disasters.  The historian Christopher Hill noted in his book 'The World Turned Upside Down' {1991, London:  Penguin Books} that vagabonds were seen as a threat, or a force of disorder.  He notes how in the 17th century some Calvinist theologians regarded vagabonds as 'a cursed generation' who do nothing but walk the streets, wicked men, to be hired for everyman's money to do mischief.' 

In regard to Moscow in 1812, Mikaberidze suggests, 'Would it be far-fetched to suppose that in the chaos and turmoil of the first two days some of these newly minted pillagers accidently caused fires in the buildings they were ransacking?' {The Burning of Moscow, 1812 page 163}.  There is the proposal that Moscow was largely burnt down not by patriotic duty or even a plan but accident.  Well maybe this is not far-fetched but way overstated.  The French and their allied soldiers could easily have caused some fires by accident while some Russian soldiers did burn supplies so the French could not use them.  

It is also beyond doubt that the second wave of fires was deliberately ordered by Napoleon for the 23rd October, 1812, in a fit of bitter revenge at having been robbed of his victory.  That some of the blame for the great fire of 1812 was unfairly placed on vagabonds serves to indicate the level of hostility directed against them. It seems nothing much changes!

Perhaps one of the reasons for so much confusion is the talk of using the word fire in the singular as if it was just one large monster that grew bigger and bigger and greedily devoured Moscow. 

However, there was not just one fire but many.  In fact, we are talking of hundreds of fires with different causes each having a life of its own.  

So maybe a one kopek candle was not enough to burn down Moscow.  You needed a lot more candles as well as help from the wind and the wood!