Napoleon Enters Moscow: The Fire Begins

Napoleon Bonaparte rode into Moscow on September 14, 1812, expecting to receive a delegation of city officials bearing the keys to the Russian capital. Instead, he found empty streets, deserted mansions, and a city stripped of provisions. The Grande Armee, 600,000 strong when it crossed the Niemen River three months earlier, had been reduced to roughly 100,000 exhausted soldiers by disease, desertion, and the brutal Battle of Borodino fought a week before. The prize they had marched so far to claim was a trap. The Russian strategy of trading space for time, implemented by generals Barclay de Tolly and then Kutuzov, had refused Napoleon the decisive battle he needed. The French army advanced deeper into Russia through a summer of scorching heat, its supply lines stretching to the breaking point across hundreds of miles of hostile territory. Borodino, fought on September 7, killed or wounded roughly 70,000 men on both sides but decided nothing strategically. Kutuzov withdrew his battered army and allowed Napoleon to enter Moscow unopposed. Fires broke out across the city within hours of the French arrival. Whether set by Russian patriots, released convicts, or accidental sparks remains debated, but Governor Rostopchin had ordered the fire brigades to evacuate their equipment before the French arrived. The conflagration burned for three days and consumed three-quarters of Moscow’s buildings, destroying the shelter, food stores, and winter quarters Napoleon desperately needed. Napoleon waited five weeks in the smoldering ruins, sending repeated peace overtures to Tsar Alexander I, who refused to reply. On October 19, with temperatures dropping and no prospect of negotiation, Napoleon ordered the retreat. The return march through the Russian winter became one of the greatest military catastrophes in history. Starvation, cold, Cossack raids, and the crossing of the Berezina River reduced the army to fewer than 27,000 effective soldiers by the time it staggered out of Russia in December. The invasion’s failure shattered Napoleon’s aura of invincibility and set the coalition of European powers on the path to his abdication in 1814.