United States or Italy ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This Rostopschine whom some have described as a hero, was a barbarian, who would shrink from nothing to achieve his aims. He had allowed the populace to strangle a number of foreign merchants, mainly the French, who were living in Moscow, on the sole grounds that they were suspected of hoping for the arrival of Napoleon's troops.
General Rostopschine, who was one of the authors of this plan, was entrusted with its execution, the blame for which he later laid on the French.
Marches and countermarches. Retreat to Polotsk. General St. Cyr. Oudinot is wounded. St. Cyr takes over. Chap. 11. Surprise attack on the enemy. Various incidents. We settle in Polotsk. Chap. 12. The advance of the Grande Armée. Capture of Smolensk. The battle for Moscow. Chap. 13. Bad news from Spain. Rostopschine. The fire of Moscow. Revival of the Russian army. Koutousoff's treachery.
Major Fabvier, who brought this despatch, volunteered to join in the battle for Moscow and was wounded in the assault on the great redout. It was a long way to come to be hit by a bullet. On the 12th of September Napoleon left Mojaisk, and on the 15th he entered Moscow. This enormous city was deserted. General Rostopschine, its governor, had forced all the inhabitants to leave.
Patrols went about the streets and killed a number of those caught setting fires alight, but it was too late; fire broke out in various parts of the city and spread rapidly owing to the fact that Rostopschine had taken away all the fire-fighting equipment. It was not long before the whole of Moscow was ablaze. The Emperor left the Kremlin and went to the château of Peterskoe.
It is often claimed that the fire of Moscow, for which praise is given to the courage and resolve of the Russian government and General Rostopschine, was the principal cause of the failure of the 1812 campaign. This assertion seems to me to be contestable.
The aristocracy was not taken in, it accused the government so loudly and manifested so much discontent at the useless burning of its palaces that the Emperor Alexander, to avoid a personal catastrophe, was obliged not only to permit the rebuilding of the city, but to banish Rostopschine who, in spite of his protestations of patriotism, died in Paris, hated by the Russian nobility.
He stated that before leaving Moscow, Rostopschine had thrown open all the prisons and released the prisoners and convicts, to whom he had given torches said to have been supplied by the British, and that these persons were lying hidden in the abandoned houses waiting for the signal. When the Emperor heard of this he instituted the strictest precautionary measures.
As this was happening, policemen read to the populace a proclamation by Rostopschine in which, to encourage them to take up arms, he declared that all the French were in a similar feeble state and would be easily overcome. When this disgusting performance was over, the majority of the soldiers still alive were killed by the mob, without Rostopschine doing anything to protect them.
Word Of The Day