10:25 / 02.04.12

Napoleon Bonaparte - war with Russia or with the Third Rome?

Approaching 200th anniversary of the beginning Patriotic War 1812 makes us recall this event in the history of Russia again and try to comprehend a large number of oddities of this war, not only from the point of view of the theory of military art, but also from the point of view of the everyday, philistine logic of an ordinary person who read books or watched films about this already distant from us, war. The most important oddity of the Patriotic War of 1812 is not the reason for its occurrence, and not even the strange retreat of the Russian troops deep into the country at the beginning of the war, but Napoleon's manic desire to attack Moscow, and sometimes even to the detriment of common sense. Pyotr Khomutovsky discusses the reasons for Napoleon's invasion of Russia and his campaign against Moscow.

Many historians claim that the reasons for Napoleon's invasion of Russia and his campaign against Moscow lie in an irrational plane, and a rational explanation cannot be found. Although at the beginning of the 19th century the Russian Empire was in a rather vulnerable military-strategic position, but thanks to the efforts of such prominent Russian commanders as Kutuzov, Tormasov, Barclay de Tolly, Bagration and others, the situation on the borders of Russia was stabilized.

Europe in 1811-1815.

The general trend in ensuring the security of the Russian Empire largely depended on how the situation developed on the western borders of Russia, as in Europe victorious march at the head of his powerful, no longer at all revolutionary army, marched the newly-minted emperor of France - Napoleon Bonaparte.

In this victorious march of Napoleon and his marshals, one could see the clear intentions of conquering the whole world. On the way to achieving this goal, there was only one obstacle - the Russian Empire, headed by Emperor Alexander I.

The war of 1812 was preceded by a long diplomatic confrontation between Russia and France and many years of written communication between the Emperor of France Napoleon and the Emperor of Russia Alexander I, called in diplomacy the “war of feathers”. It really was a duel of two outstanding personalities, two major politicians. And in this duel, Alexander I not only did not lose to Napoleon, but also surpassed him in many ways.

Russia, which was defeated in the war of 1805, lost the color of its army in the Battle of Friedland and was forced to make peace, through the efforts of Alexander I managed to protect its borders from the invasion of a victorious enemy, maintain its prestige, not stand on a par with the defeated, occupied, humiliated Prussia and Austria, pushed into the background, over which the sword of Damocles hung a new blow from Napoleon.

Portrait of Emperor of Russia Alexander I

The Peace of Tilsit dramatically reoriented Russian foreign policy. Russia, under this treaty, was forced to join the continental blockade against England, refused to support Prussia, which Napoleon dismembered, but received a free hand in relation to Turkey and Sweden. Napoleon agreed to Russia's annexation of Finland, Moldavia and Wallachia, but opposed Russia's capture of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles.

And with this, he inflicted a serious insult on the Russian monarch, which predetermined the further attitude of Alexander I towards Napoleon - this proud monarch of Russia did not forget and could not forgive what was related to the affairs of the former Byzantium. At the same time, Alexander I sent secret letters to England, reassuring the British and expressing his firm desire to fight against Napoleon.

At the same time, Alexander I achieved another undoubted diplomatic success: he enlisted the support of the French Foreign Minister Talleyrand. During a secret audience with Alexander I, Talleyrand said significant words to him, which indicated that Talleyrand was betraying his emperor: “Sir, it is up to you to save Europe and you will achieve this, only in no way inferior to Napoleon. The French people are civilized, but their emperor is not civilized. The Russian emperor is civilized, but his people are not. Therefore, the Russian emperor must be an ally of the French people..

On the southern borders of Russia, the threat came from the Islamic Ottoman Empire; from the north, Russia was threatened by an old enemy from the time of Peter the Great - Sweden. In order to finally solve the northern problem, in 1808 Russia started a war with Sweden and within one year forced her to surrender. In this war, the troops of Prince Bagration, Count Barclay de Tolly and Count Shuvalov distinguished themselves.

Portrait of Emperor of France Napoleon I

According to the Friedrichsham Treaty of September 5, 1809, Sweden lost all of Finland, the Åland Islands and the eastern part of Vestro-Botnia, which came into the eternal possession of Russia. Since the Finns for the first time in their history were granted statehood in the form of the Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire, Russia received a devoted ally in the north, vigilantly guarding the northern borders of Russia until the events of 1917.

The fact is that the Finns have never had any love for the Swedes. So, for example, according to the Swedish legislation of those times, a love affair with a Finnish woman was equated with bestiality. We can say that Russia saved the people of Finland from direct genocide by the Swedes.

The victory over Sweden is a very important military aspect in the future war with Napoleon, also due to the fact that a significant part of the Polish gentry were again reminded of the lessons of the battle of Poltava, and they did not dare to go against Russia in 1812.

Although Napoleon, before the start of the Russian campaign, sought to thoroughly study the political and military-economic situation in Russia, but, in general, the military psychology of Russian society, especially the tactical, operational and strategic features of the activities of Russian military leaders, Napoleon was not understood.

In order to understand the logic of Napoleon's activities, one must remember that in 1788, with the rank of lieutenant, he tried to enter the Russian service. The Russian Empire then recruited volunteers to participate in the war with Turkey. Lieutenant-General Zaborovsky was ready to accept an energetic Frenchman for service, but here's the annoyance - a tsarist decree was recently issued, which stated that when foreigners were accepted into the Russian service, they should be demoted by one rank. And since Napoleon was a lieutenant, he "shone" to become only a second lieutenant.

They say that Napoleon was annoyed by such a proposal and, leaving General Zaborovsky, shouted loudly that the King of Prussia would give him the rank of captain. However, Napoleon did not offer his services to the King of Prussia, and subsequently he conquered the Kingdom of Prussia, making the King of Prussia a vassal of France.

Napoleon gave the order to cross the Russian border on the river. Neman without a declaration of war - June 12, 1812.

The French emperor presented this military campaign to the whole of Europe as a struggle for the revival of Poland, calling his invasion of Russia the “Second Polish War”. In connection with the beginning of the war, the Warsaw Sejm announced the restoration of the Polish kingdom and announced the mobilization of the Poles into the army of Napoleon, but, basically, the Polish gentry ignored the call to participate in the war against Russia.

Before the start of the war, on the orders of Napoleon, various kinds of intelligence activities were widely deployed using both French and Russian sources. Through Vilna to Kyiv, Petersburg, Moscow, Napoleon's intelligence sent a considerable number of spies, developed methods of communication with them, maybe very primitive, but at that time very effective.

Napoleon said that "success depends to a large extent on whether the commander of the army sees what is happening behind the neighboring mountains." Polish intelligence was also active, headed by the chief of the general staff, General Fischer. Even Prussia, officially a friendly country of Russia, had Napoleon's informants at its embassy in St. Petersburg.

Shortly before the war, French intelligence managed to do the unbelievable - it managed to steal the engraving boards of the "stolist" Russian map. Subsequently, the inscriptions on this map were translated into French, and this map was used by the French command during the war.

Stolist map of the Russian Empire

Intelligence activities of Russia in relation to clarifying the plans of Napoleon were carried out in several directions. The main thing was the conduct of strategic intelligence, which included obtaining secret political and military information abroad. Tactical reconnaissance was engaged in collecting information about enemy troops on the territory of neighboring states.

An important role was played by counterintelligence, which was engaged in identifying and neutralizing the agents of Napoleon and his allies. The Secret Affairs Expedition was created, which was supposed to solve the following tasks: strategic intelligence, which consisted in collecting strategically important secret information abroad, operational-tactical intelligence, which consisted in collecting data on enemy troops on the borders of Russia, and counterintelligence, which identified and neutralized enemy agents .

The first heads of military intelligence of the Russian Empire in turn became three people close to the Minister of War of Russia:

• from September 1810 - adjutant wing colonel A. V. Voeikov
• from March 1812 - Colonel A. A. Zakrevsky
• from January 1813 - Colonel P. A. Chuikevich

Colonel Count AI Chernyshev, officer of the Special Office of the General Staff.

In January 1810, Barclay de Tolly, being Minister of War, submits to Emperor Alexander I a report on the need to expand military intelligence activities abroad and asks for permission to send special military agents to Russian embassies in order to collect information "on the number of troops, on the organization, armament and spirit of them, on the state of fortresses and reserves, the abilities and virtues of the best generals."

These military agents were supposed to be at diplomatic missions under the guise of adjutants to ambassador-generals or civil officials and employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Colonel Count A.I. Chernyshev, an officer of the Special Office of the General Staff, especially distinguished himself in this field.

In a short time, he managed to create in France a network of informers in the government and military spheres and receive from them, often for a large reward, interesting information about the enemy. Thus, in December 1810, he wrote that “Napoleon has already decided on a war against Russia, but so far he is gaining time due to the unsatisfactory state of his affairs in Spain and Portugal”.

The intelligence network created by Count Chernyshev was important not only for obtaining information about the enemy, but also for pushing disinformation into Napoleon's entourage. One of Chernyshev's informants was M. Michel, an employee of the French Ministry of War. He was part of a group of advisers who, once every two weeks, personally compiled for Napoleon in a single copy a summary of the number and deployment of the French armed forces.

Michel gave a copy of this report to Chernyshev, who sent it to Petersburg. However, when Chernyshev was in St. Petersburg, the French police discovered a note from M. Michel during a covert search of his Parisian house. As a result, Chernyshev was accused of espionage and he could not return to France, and Michel was sentenced to death. But other agents of Russian intelligence worked throughout the war and made a significant contribution to Russia's victory over Napoleon.

Holy Roman Empire. Coat of arms

There is one interesting circumstance in the war of 1812 that many historians simply do not pay attention to. This circumstance concerns the direction of movement of Napoleon's army in Russia. Having made an attack on Russia, Napoleon persistently and consistently continues his advance in the direction of Moscow, and after the Battle of Borodino enters Moscow.

A study of the question of the goals of this war shows that it was precisely the capture of Moscow that for some reason was considered by Napoleon as the main goal of the war.

In the opinion of a contemporary, nothing strange is seen in Napoleon's intentions, since today it is Moscow - the capital of Russia. That is, it is quite natural that in order to achieve the intentions, because of which the war was unleashed, it is necessary to capture the capital of the enemy. But there is one problem - in the time of Napoleon and Alexander I, the capital of Russia was St. Petersburg.

As soon as this historical detail is recalled, there immediately arises a feeling of some kind of inner mystery in the behavior of Napoleon. He attacked Russia with a clear desire to capture Moscow, but for what purpose? This is truly a BIG question that historians are still wrestling with. Why was Napoleon so attracted to Moscow? What did Napoleon plan to do after the capture of Moscow?

Despite the fact that St. Petersburg was the capital of Russia, Napoleon considered Moscow to be the spiritual center of Russia. Before going to Russia, he said that if he took Kyiv, he would take Russia by the legs, if he took Petersburg, he would take her by the head, but if he entered Moscow, he would strike Russia in the very heart.

A comprehensive study of the Russian reality of that time shows that it is possible to find a quite probable reason because of which, in fact, Napoleon's campaign against Moscow, which seemed win-win, so ingloriously ended, was carried out.

This reason is an attempt to revive the Holy Roman Empire, which was in the air at that time, and Napoleon already saw himself as the future emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, which united all of Europe.

The Holy Roman Empire still exists, but is already falling apart, representing a conglomerate of unrelated German principalities in the form of the Confederation of the Rhine, and there is a real possibility that Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte of France will become the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Preparing for this step, Napoleon Bonaparte, back in 1804, visited the ancient imperial capital of Aachen and the tomb of Emperor Charlemagne located there. He transparently hinted that there was no better than him - the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and could not be. Even the Archchancellor of the Empire Dahlberg sympathized with the idea of ​​Napoleon accepting the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, as he saw this as a chance to continue the development of the Holy Roman Empire at a new historical stage.

In May 1804, Napoleon was proclaimed Emperor of France and anointed king in December 1804. Even in late antiquity, the coexistence of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires seemed something strange and bizarre. The leader of the Germanic tribe of the Skirs, Odoacer, deposed last emperor Western Roman Empire Romulus Augustulus in 476, but not at all in order to become emperor himself.

He sent the emperor's regalia to Byzantium with the words: “There cannot be two suns in the sky, and two emperors on earth”. After that, he humbly asked for permission to be ... the representative of the only emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire in Italy. The empire of Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation were, as it were, continuations of the Roman Empire.

Head of the Russian foreign policy under Catherine II, State Chancellor A. A. Bezborodko

The Russian Empire, proclaimed by Peter the Great in 1721, not only violated this order, but, in fact, became the Eastern Roman Empire, living, as it were, in a parallel dimension with the Western. Under Empress Catherine the Great, the Russian Empire was able to solve those problems that Muscovy and the Russian Empire could not solve for many centuries.

These were tasks that the European powers were also unable to solve. The Russian Empire loomed menacingly over Europe, dictating its policy to it. After the conquests of Catherine II, all European states were looking for an alliance and support for Russia.

The head of Russian foreign policy under Catherine II, State Chancellor A. A. Bezborodko, said at the end of his career to young Russian diplomats: “I don’t know how it will be with you, but with us not a single gun in Europe dared to fire without our permission.”

Everything changed with the appearance of Napoleon, who conquered almost all of Europe and, being in Poland, not only claimed world domination, but also decided to correct the historical incident. He decides to send his huge army on a campaign against Russia, Moscow - the Third Rome, which was supposed to disappear.

Beginning of the century

The French emperor intended to achieve his political goals in the reorganization of Europe and the world, but the Russian tsar, Napoleon's main opponent on many European issues, then had completely different plans. Napoleon decided to start a war with him and force Alexander I to sign the necessary treaty. He directed the blow of his large army, which, by the way, included not only the French, but also representatives of almost all the peoples of Europe, against Russia, which personified the Third Rome.

The logic of the armed struggle of those times should have received just such a development. Considering the question of Napoleon's war against the Russian Empire, its cause can be explained by the fact that Napoleon needed the war to eliminate Russia and Moscow in its main capacity, in which Moscow positioned itself for many centuries - as the Third Rome.

The elimination of Moscow as the main competitor on the way to the crown of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire is the real reason for Napoleon's war with Russia.

And his desire to reach Moscow and get the keys to it is explained by the fact that Napoleon in Moscow was waiting for ... at least, so Napoleon was informed not only by his intelligence, but also by diplomats of various countries that depended on Napoleon! However, this statement, as sensational as it is unfounded, requires an understanding of Napoleon's intentions not so much as a commander and emperor of France, but as a politician and de facto ruler of all of Europe.

This, quite vaguely, is said by Pushkin, who claimed that he knew why Napoleon went to Moscow: not only because Moscow is “the heart of Russia, the center and symbol of Orthodoxy”, but because he was ... expected there. But, perhaps, Pushkin simply “pecked” at the trick of Russian intelligence, which built its work in such a way as to disorient the enemy, direct his blow in the direction necessary for himself and his troops, and best of all, send Bonaparte’s army into the endless Russian plains, where the penetration ability of Napoleon's army will lose its formidable invincibility.

For example, Napoleon was informed that Moscow was the center of Russian Freemasonry and all liberties. According to various sources, then a third of the freedom-loving Russian nobility in Moscow was waiting for Napoleon as a liberator. In those days, Napoleon was an idol and a role model for almost all Russian youth - as a way to achieve personal success against the backdrop of the humiliating autocratic orders of Russia at that time.

According to these people, Napoleon could have brought them a constitution for Russia, the liberation of the peasantry and the creation of ... a European empire.

The improbable transformation of a short Corsican corporal into a brilliant officer, who literally overnight left the gray crowd of soldiers, and then became first a general, and then the emperor of a mighty European state, made many young people think about the whims of chance and fate. Napoleon's gray field coat became a symbol of his rapid career.

Every young man could now feel like a potential Napoleon, if, of course, fortune smiles at him and a happy chance falls in the game with fate. Not just to become something like Napoleon, but to become an emperor, a person who stands at the pinnacle of power and who received this power not by birth and inheritance, but by a combination of circumstances.

After all, Napoleon did not remain the first, among equals, the consul of France, but was crowned with purple, crowned by Pope Pius VII himself. True, under him, the unsteady revolutionary rules were replaced by monarchical orders, which gave rise to a paradoxical title for those times - "Emperor of the French Republic." This was also accompanied by the marriage of Napoleon to the Austrian Archduchess Marie-Louise, a representative of the oldest Habsburg dynasty.

Moscow before the Patriotic War of 1812

By the way, Pushkin, in connection with Napoleon, also traces the question of the integration orientation of Russia, that is, which path should Russia follow in its development? Then, and now too - this is a key issue for Russia.

The absolute monarchy in Russia did not satisfy almost the entire elite of the then Russia. Almost all of the young nobility was in secret societies, which, however, at that time, were not yet secret (secret societies were banned in 1823).

Among the youth, draft constitutions were discussed, the possibilities of secret coups and coups were worked out, the search for the possibility of removing and abdicating the tsar and even changing the Romanov dynasty. At that time, among the educated nobility, the mood for the adoption of the European version of development by Russia dominated.

If we consider this scenario, then it was they who initiated the surrender of Moscow, they remained in it, but after the battle of Borodino, for some reason, these people did not accept Napoleon, since the support of opponents of the solemn bringing of the keys to Moscow and the Moscow Kremlin to Napoleon prevailed, as a symbol of the defeat of the Russian Empire, represented by the mayor of Moscow, Count Rostopchin and his entourage.

It is also important to comprehend, in relation to modern life and those distant times, the pages of history associated with the liberation of Russia and Russia from the visible and invisible enslavement of the people and, especially, the words of the elder abbot of the Pskov Savior-Eleazar Monastery Philotheus, forgotten after 1917: “Moscow is the Third Rome, and there will be no fourth.

At the beginning of the 16th century, he had God's revelation that after the fall of Byzantium - the Second Rome - Moscow and Russia would become the Third Rome, and they would be the guardians of Orthodoxy and humanity until the second coming of Christ.

This was reported to the tsars Vasily Ioannovich and Ivan the Terrible. With this revelation, Russia was declared the heir of two great kingdoms - ancient rome And Byzantine Empire. In fact, it was a new understanding of the position of Russia and Russia in the history of mankind. The idea of ​​"Moscow - the Third Rome" revealed the special world significance of Russia and Russia, but Western Europe did not accept this idea in those years, but met it with a mockingly ironic rejection.

But when the Russian troops entered Paris, and Napoleon was sent to eternal imprisonment on about. Helena, all of Europe, it became clear that Russia and Moscow are in fact the Third Rome - the defender of the Orthodox Christian faith and humanity. When, more than a hundred years later, a new contender for world domination, Hitler, appeared in Europe, in many respects he repeated the fate of Napoleon, Moscow once again confirmed that it was the Third Rome.

... On that distant, sunny morning on September 13, 1812, Napoleon arrived with his retinue on Poklonnaya Gora and could not restrain his admiration - he, like his retinue, was struck by the beauty of the huge city that shone in the sun with the domes of many churches, which stretched out in front of them. This city could become for Napoleon the place where he would give his army the opportunity not only to rest, but also to fulfill his intentions, because of which he went on this risky campaign.

During the day of September 14, 1812, the Russian army passed through Moscow in a continuous stream and entered the Kolomna and Ryazan roads. On the heels of the Russian army was the king of Neapolitan Murat with his cavalry. General Miloradovich, who commanded the rearguard, with difficulty, but managed to get Murat's promise to give the Russian troops the opportunity to calmly pass through the city. Napoleon was waiting for the deputation of the townspeople with the keys to Moscow and the Moscow Kremlin - and did not wait.

On September 15, Napoleon entered the Kremlin. But the first fires broke out late in the evening the night before. On the morning of September 16, the fires intensified. A sea of ​​flame engulfed the center near the Kremlin, Zamoskvorechye, Solyanka, the fire embraced almost at once the most distant places in the center of Moscow from each other. Napoleon, when he was informed about the first fires, did not pay much attention to them, but when on September 17 in the morning he went around the Kremlin and from the windows of the palace, wherever he looked, he saw a raging ocean of fire, then, according to the testimony of Count Segur, Dr. Metivier and others witnesses, - the emperor turned pale and silently looked at the fire for a long time, and then said: “What a terrible sight! It is they themselves who set fire to their city... What determination! What people! These are the Scythians!”

Meanwhile, the fire began to threaten the Kremlin itself, and part of the Kremlin in the area of ​​​​the Trinity Tower was already on fire. It was impossible to leave some gates of the Kremlin, as the flames were carried by the wind in their direction. The marshals persistently began to ask the emperor to immediately move to the suburban Petrovsky Palace. Napoleon did not immediately agree, but when he finally left the Kremlin with his retinue, sparks fell already on him and on those around him, it was difficult to breathe.

"We walked on the land of fire, under the fiery sky, between the walls of fire", - then wrote Count Segur. Napoleon expected that Moscow, first of all, would serve as a guarantee that would certainly force the Emperor of Russia Alexander I to conclude peace. He dreamed that he would receive the crown of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in Moscow - in the Third Rome, from the hands of the rector of the Russian Orthodox Church and the emperor of the Russian Empire and, thus, he would become the ruler of the world and Christianity - but Napoleon's dreams turned out to be unrealizable.

The Third Rome answered him with fire, which burned not only almost the entire city center, but also turned Napoleon's plans and calculations into ashes, and his motley army, which became a gathering of "junk and scumbags", died in the snows of the Russian winter or was expelled from Russia. Since that time, harmless French words - "horse" and "dear friend" have acquired abusive meaning in Russia.

But what happened, why Napoleon - the winner of almost all of Europe, left Russia humiliated and defeated, and suffered a complete fiasco in life, losing not only the army, but also the title of Emperor of France? This question entered like a wedge into the minds of the entire young generation of the Russian nobility after the Battle of Borodino. Having not received the keys to the city, after the French troops entered Moscow, Napoleon declared the city of Moscow a war trophy.

Looting, looting, desecration began in the city Orthodox churches and aggravated national conflicts in Napoleonic army. After the failure of several attempts to negotiate and the refusal of Emperor Alexander I to start peace negotiations, it became quite clear to Napoleon that Moscow was a trap into which he was lured by Russian intelligence. And the longer he stays in this city, the sooner he will lose his entire army.

In order to understand the reasons for Napoleon's failure in the Russian campaign, one must go back to the beginning of the war. If we estimate the distance from the Duchy of Warsaw, where Napoleon came from, to Petersburg, then Petersburg is much closer than Moscow. At that time, communication routes leading to the capital of Russia, St. Petersburg, were already developed in this space.

In St. Petersburg there were not only the Russian tsar and the court nobility, there were the highest state officials, the tsarist administration, and in the vicinity of St. Petersburg there were the richest palaces and estates. The appearance of an enemy army even on the outskirts of St. Petersburg would cause, if not panic, then, in any case, noticeable tension in the Russian government and society ...

Commander Napoleon Bonaparte could not but understand that the area from Warsaw to St. Petersburg, according to the theory of military art of the early 19th century, was a single strategic corridor. A blow to Kovno, then to Riga, Pskov and Novgorod - would have brought Napoleon directly to the outskirts of St. Petersburg. The advantage was that its left flank was the Baltic Sea, from where it was not necessary to fear a flank attack, and it was easier to fend off the blows of the Russian army from the right flank by the forces of the cavalry corps.

Saint Petersburg in 1812. Watercolor

It was also possible to use such a transport artery as the Pskov tract, which led directly to the northern capital, to move to the north-west of Russia. But the most important thing was that the offensive against the main capital of the Russian Empire at that time - St. Petersburg, would not be carried out along the area devastated by the Russian troops themselves, but along the Baltic cities and villages. There, not only were the roads in the best condition, but food could simply be bought, and not rob the local population, as happened later, when attacking Moscow.

In addition, it was in Pskov and Novgorod that large food warehouses of the Russian army and the Baltic Fleet were located, and also, almost all overseas trade was conducted through these places with the main enemy of Napoleon - England. That is, a situation was created in which Napoleon's attack on Russia, if sufficient forces were attracted to carry it out, and they were involved, it was impossible to repel. Such a blow not only brought Napoleon's troops to those regions of Russia that were least protected, but the main thing was achieved: the main capital of the Russian Empire, St. Petersburg, would be taken.

This strike would cut Russia off from the Baltic Fleet bases and create a situation in which Russia again found itself without access to the Baltic Sea. Napoleon's natural ally would have been Sweden, with which Russia had waged war since the time of Peter the Great and which dreamed of regaining its former possessions.

Thus, a blow from the Duchy of Warsaw to St. Petersburg immediately opened up a lot of opportunities for Napoleon, since a situation was created that strategists and chess grandmasters can only dream of: just one move, but it breaks the entire structure of the enemy’s defense, breaks all ties and creates a threat at once many objects.

This was exactly what a blow from the Prussian ledge in the direction of St. Petersburg could have been, and it also made it possible to develop an offensive against Moscow or Kyiv. If the enemy defended Riga, then it was possible to turn and strike towards the Baltic coast on Revel, using the Baltic and numerous rivers to cover their flanks.

Such a blow cut off the Russian troops from their supply bases ... And besides this, it was possible to organize auxiliary attacks on Moscow and the southern direction from the Baltic in the Kiev direction, attacks by cavalry corps.

If we consider the intentions of Emperor Napoleon as a politician, then his goal was not the complete defeat of the Russian Empire and the Russian army, but pressure on Emperor Alexander I to create an opportunity to reach an agreement with him with a further conclusion of peace ... on Napoleon's terms. But the capture of St. Petersburg would put Alexander I in the disadvantageous position of the defeated, which did not correspond to Napoleon's plans. Napoleon wrote that he would be the ruler of the world if Russia became his vassal.

From the very beginning of the war of 1812, all of Europe was sure that the direction of the main attack of the Napoleonic army would be not Moscow, but St. Petersburg. In France, on the eve of the war, the newspapers boastfully wrote that the emperor's next birthday (August 15) would be celebrated by his guardsmen in St. Petersburg.

As you know, Napoleon had his own tactics for achieving victory and a strategy for waging war - a pitched battle. Knowing that all Russian troops were divided into three main armies, Napoleon could make any decision regarding the main attack on one of the Russian armies.

There is evidence that initially Napoleon planned to capture the capital of the Russian Empire, St. Petersburg, with a swift attack. To do this, two selected corps were concentrated in the Baltic states under the command of talented marshals - Oudinot and Macdonald, who were supposed to march from the border to the capital of Russia, capture it and announce their victory to the whole world. And it was not difficult for them to do this - the distance from the border to St. Petersburg was 350 kilometers less than to Moscow.

But the Russian command was sure that Napoleon's main goal was Moscow, and therefore the road to Petersburg was covered only by the 1st Infantry Corps of Lieutenant General Peter Wittgenstein, numbering about 17 thousand people. But the corps of Oudinot and MacDonald failed to approach the northern capital. In July 1812, a major battle took place near Polotsk.

Lieutenant General, Count Peter Khristianovich Wittgenstein.

Although General Wittgenstein was in a desperate situation, his only chance to stop the French was to take advantage of the remoteness of MacDonald's corps. Despite the inequality of forces, General Peter Wittgenstein did not miss his chance, he decided to attack Oudinot's corps on the move. Only the garrison of Riga under the command of General Ivan Essen helped him.

In this battle, Russian troops were able to stop 29 thousand French - the first victory over Napoleon was won. As a result, after that, Marshal Oudinot retreated beyond the Dvina, leaving behind him the fortified Polotsk and, thus, the French attack on St. Petersburg failed. Moreover, fearing the actions of General Wittgenstein on the supply routes of his army, Emperor Napoleon was forced to weaken the main grouping of troops, sending the corps of General Saint-Cyr to help Oudinot.

Having received an unexpected blow to his pride, Napoleon did nothing to neutralize the consequences of this failure of his troops. But on closer examination, it was the battle in the vicinity of Polotsk at Klyastitsy that could seriously affect Napoleon's future plans to create a situation for the deployment of a general battle in which he planned to defeat the Russian troops. With the development of Napoleon's offensive against Petersburg, the Russian generals would inevitably come to the decision to defend their northern capital.

General Wittgenstein, in a report to Emperor Alexander I, estimated the number of prisoners at 3 thousand, he estimated the number of killed and wounded Frenchmen at 10 thousand from the words of the prisoners. This was the first major victory in this war, greatly raising the authority of General Wittgenstein. He was awarded the Order of St. George 2nd degree. Emperor Alexander I called him the savior of St. Petersburg. From the people, Wittgenstein received the honorary title of "defender of the city of Petrov."

The fact remains that the first victory over Napoleon's army was won in the Vitebsk province, near the village of Klyastitsy. The life of the best commander of the vanguard and rearguard, cavalry general Yakov Kulnev, was laid on the altar of this victory.

Patriotic War of 1812.

Napoleon sought to catch up and defeat two Russian armies in border battles - the 1st under the command of Barclay de Tolly and the 2nd under the command of Bagration - and did not use the tactical failure of Marshal Oudinot to launch an offensive in the direction of the northern Russian capital. Napoleon was offered a general battle - at Borodino, when his communications were stretched out, and the army was weakened. Barclay and Bagration adopted the strategy of a protracted, exhausting war, trying with all their might to avoid the general battle desired by Napoleon.

Near Smolensk, according to Napoleon's plan, a general battle was to take place. After that, Alexander I could have been dictated to the terms of the peace, more like surrender. According to Napoleon's plan, the war was to end with the complete obedience of Alexander I and the transformation of Russia into an obedient vassal, necessary for further struggle in conquering the world. But the general battle at Smolensk did not work out. Subsequently, many historians will analyze why Napoleon, having crossed the Neman, tried in vain to overtake, surround and defeat the main Russian forces, evading a general battle.

Why did the tactics of lightning-fast defeat of the Russian army in the border zone not work, on which the entire plan of the Russian campaign was built. Pursuing the Russian armies, Napoleon had to leave garrisons behind him to guard the rear, gradually losing his advantage and superiority in manpower; the issues of supplying troops with food, fodder and ammunition became more and more acute. Napoleon, being an experienced commander, began to understand that he was being forced to play according to someone else's scenario, he could not help but realize what dangers awaited the French and their allies as they moved further and further deep into the vast country, which he promised several weeks to kneel.

It was then that the suspicion arose in Napoleon's headquarters that the Russians had skillfully presented misinformation regarding Moscow and the entire campaign in Russia. But Field Marshal Kutuzov, the new commander-in-chief of the Russian army, had already begun to dictate the initiative and further rules of the war to him ... On October 18, after a month and a half of a fruitless stay in Moscow, Napoleon gave the order to retreat from Moscow. And here oddities begin, but already on the part of the Emperor of Russia Alexander I. In essence, he missed the opportunity to turn Napoleon Bonaparte into a vassal of the Russian Empire. To do this, he only needed to present an ultimatum to the Emperor of France on surrender, but on the terms of Russia, when he was in Moscow.

Then it was possible to prevent the uncivilized retreat of Napoleon's army from Russia and to return the huge looted valuables that Napoleon's army took away from Russia. It was possible to prevent the mass death of people who were in the convoys of Napoleon's army in the conditions of a fierce Russian winter.

For some reason, no attempt was made to encircle Napoleon's army by the forces of Kutuzov's army corps. All the thoughts of the generals of the Russian army were directed at the complete destruction of Napoleon's army, despite the fact that many of the problems that Emperor Alexander I and Emperor Napoleon once discussed in Tilsit face to face, in a house on a raft in the middle of the Neman, could have been solve with the help of Napoleon - a vassal of the Russian Empire.

Russian troops enter Paris (1814).

In essence, having defeated Napoleon, the Emperor of Russia Alexander I did nothing for his people, for Russia, for the Third Rome. Oddly enough, but the war of 1812 is a war of missed opportunities for Russia, which will eventually lead the Russian Empire to death in 1917. ... The Russian army, having thrown out the remnants of the defeated Napoleon's army outside of Russia, then undertook a campaign to Europe together with the troops of the allied countries.

The Russian army entered Paris under the command of Barclay de Tolly, who replaced Field Marshal Kutuzov, who died on the campaign. At the end of the European campaign, Barclay de Tolly was awarded a field marshal's baton. The official reason is for the capture of Paris, and in fairness - for the skillful leadership of Russian intelligence, which made the most significant contribution to the victory of Russian weapons and military art. And Russia and Moscow are still the Third Rome, but the Byzantine shores remain a historical haze...

By this, he created his own outpost at the Russian borders, hostile to Russia, participating in the divisions of the Commonwealth. Despite the protests of St. Petersburg, Napoleon gave the Poles hope for the restoration of their state, which increased the danger of a new redistribution of borders in Eastern Europe. Bonaparte continued to seize the lands of the German principalities, including the Duchy of Oldenburg, where the sister's husband ruled Russian emperor(Ekaterina Pavlovna). A serious disruption in Franco-Russian relations occurred after the unsuccessful courtship of Napoleon to the sister of Alexander I, Grand Duchess Anna. This was facilitated by court circles and the tsar's family, who, on the whole, were sharply opposed to an alliance with Bonaparte. Trade and economic contradictions were no less acute. The French emperor demanded from St. Petersburg the strict implementation of the Continental blockade, as a result of which the turnover of the Russian foreign trade fell almost 2 times. The blockade affected, first of all, the landowners - exporters of bread, and the nobility, who bought expensive imports. The alliance with Alexander I was for Napoleon only a temporary maneuver, facilitating France's path to world domination. Having achieved power over almost the entire continental Europe, the French emperor no longer needed the support of Russia. Tenep it has already become an obstacle to the implementation of his future plans. “In five years,” he said, “I will be the master of the world; only Russia remains, but I will crush it.” By the beginning of 1812, Napoleon had persuaded the majority to ally against Russia. European countries and even her former ally - Prussia. Moreover, the Prussian king demanded Courland and Riga for participation in the future campaign. England remained the only state that continued to fight against Napoleon. But she was then in hostile relations with Petersburg. In a word, on the eve of the invasion, the Russian Empire found itself in the face of a united and hostile Europe. True, the defeat of Sweden and Turkey, as well as the skill of Russian diplomacy, prevented Napoleon from attracting these countries to his camp and using them to organize formidable flank attacks on the north- and south-western borders of the empire.

Distribution of forces. For the invasion of Russia, Napoleon concentrated near the Russian border a huge grouping for those times with a total number of approximately 480 thousand people. Together with the French, the Poles, Italians, Belgians, Swiss, Austrians, Dutch, Germans and representatives of other European peoples, who made up about half of the Napoleonic army, also participated in the campaign. She concentrated on a 700-kilometer front from Galicia to East Prussia. On the right flank of the Napoleonic troops, in Galicia, main force represented by the army of Prince Schwarzenberg (40 thousand people). On the left, in East Prussia, stood the army of Marshal MacDonald (30 thousand people), consisting mainly of Prussians. The central forces of Napoleon were located in Poland, in the region of Polotsk and Warsaw. Here, in the direction of the main attack, there were three armies with a total strength of about 400 thousand people. There were also rear troops (approximately 160 thousand people), which were in reserve between the Vistula and the Oder. The trip was carefully prepared. It was taken into account, for example, that in a sparsely populated and vast theater of operations, a huge army would not be able to feed only on requisitions. Therefore, Napoleon created large quartermaster warehouses on the Vistula. Only in Danzig alone was stored a 50-day supply of food for 400 thousand people. There were two main plans for the Napoleonic campaign. One of them was nominated by the Poles. They proposed a phased fight against Russia - first to push the Russian army back to the eastern borders of the Commonwealth in 1772, and then, having strengthened and reorganized Poland, to lead further fighting . But Napoleon still chose the traditional for him version of the "blitzkrieg" war with the use of general battles to defeat the main enemy forces. His huge, multilingual army was not designed for protracted campaigns. She needed a quick and decisive success. The Napoleonic army on the western borders of Russia was opposed by about half the size of the forces, with a total number of about 240 thousand people. The 1st Army under the command of General Barclay de Tolly (127 thousand people) covered the Russian border along the Neman. To the south, between the Neman and the Bug, in the region of Bialystok, the 2nd Army was located under the command of General Bagration (45 thousand people). In the Lutsk region, in Western Ukraine, there was the 3rd Army under the command of General Tormasov (45 thousand people). In addition, the Riga direction was covered by the corps of General Essen (about 20 thousand people). A large contingent of Russian troops (approximately 50 thousand people) was then in the southwest, where the war with Turkey had just ended. Part of the troops remained in the Caucasus, where military operations against Persia continued. In addition, the troops were located in Finland, the Crimea and in the interior of Russia. In general, the number of Russian armed forces at that time was not inferior to Napoleon's. Based on the situation on the western borders, the Russian command rejected the idea of ​​an offensive and chose a defensive plan of action. However, at first he did not envision a protracted war. So, according to the accepted plan of the German theorist Fuhl, the main military operations unfolded on the territory of Belarus. According to the Fulev strategy, the 1st Army retreated, luring Napoleon's troops to the Western Dvina, where the so-called. Drissa fortified camp. At that time, the 2nd Army was delivering a blow to the flank and rear of the Napoleonic formations that had deepened into Russian borders from the south. This plan suffered from schematism. He did not take into account the real balance of forces, the characteristics of the theater of operations and Napoleon's possible countermeasures. Despite the poor tactical elaboration of the campaign plan, the Russian armed forces were, on the whole, ready for worthy resistance. The Russian army had high fighting qualities, strong command and rank and file, who had rich military experience behind them. Over the past years, Russia's armed forces have grown both quantitatively and qualitatively. So, the number of chasseur regiments increased significantly, the composition of the guards greatly increased. New types of troops appear - lancers (light cavalry armed with pikes and sabers), engineer troops, etc. The number of field artillery has increased, its organization has improved. On the eve of the war, new regulations and instructions appeared in the Russian army, reflecting modern trends in the art of war. The armament of the Russian army was provided by the military industry, which was quite developed at that time. Thus, Russian factories annually produced up to 150-170 thousand guns, 800 guns, over 765 thousand pounds of shells. The quality of Russian weapons, in general, was not inferior, and in some cases even surpassed European counterparts. For example, the resource of the Russian cannon of those years (in terms of the number of shots) was 2 times higher than the French one. Nevertheless, the coalition created by Bonaparte surpassed Russia both in terms of population (almost 2 times) and economic potential. For the first time, the West managed to unite on such a large scale and move its best forces to the East. The defeat promised Russia territorial losses, political and economic dependence on France, one-sided development as an agrarian and raw material appendage of Europe. In addition, taking into account the experience of the development and conquest of America by Europeans, it can be assumed that in the event of the success of the Napoleonic campaign, the Old World opened up a new boundless direction of colonization - the east. For the Russian people, this was the first such a major invasion since the time of Batu. But if then the enemy was opposed by scattered principalities, now he was dealing with a single empire capable of worthy resistance.

The course of the war. Napoleon's forces crossed the Russian border without a declaration of war on June 12, 1812. This perfidious aggression was presented by the French emperor to everyone as a struggle for the rebirth of Poland, calling his invasion the "Second Polish War". The Warsaw Sejm announced the restoration of the Kingdom of Poland and announced the mobilization of Poles into the Napoleonic army (this also applied to those who served in the Russian armed forces). The course of the Patriotic War of 1812 can be conditionally divided into a number of stages. 1st stage: Belarusian-Lithuanian operation. This period covers June and July, when the Russians managed to avoid encirclement in Lithuania and Belarus, repel the onslaught in the St. Petersburg and Ukrainian directions and connect in the Smolensk region. 2nd stage: Smolensk operation. It includes fighting in the Smolensk region. Stage 3: March on Moscow, or the culmination of the Napoleonic invasion. 4th stage: Kaluga campaign. It represents an attempt by Napoleon to break through from Moscow in the direction of Kaluga. Stage 5: The expulsion of the Napoleonic troops from Russia.

Belarusian-Lithuanian operation

Soon after the invasion, the failure of Ful's plan was revealed. The 1st and 2nd armies were cut off from each other by the French corps, which immediately tried to capture the key highways in order to cut off the escape routes for both armies and defeat them one by one. The Russian armies did not have a unified command. Each of them had to act according to the circumstances. Avoiding defeat one by one, both armies began to retreat to the east.

Battle of Mir (1812). The most difficult situation was for the 2nd Army. After the start of the invasion, on June 18 she received an order to join the 1st Army. Bagration went to Nikolaev and began crossing the Neman to go to Minsk. But the city was already occupied by Marshal Davout. Meanwhile, in the rear of the 2nd Army, near Slonim, the French avant-gardes appeared. It became clear that the Napoleonic troops had already bypassed the 2nd Army from the north, and now they were trying to bypass it from the south. Then Bagration quickly turned south, to Nesvizh, and then headed east to Bobruisk, moving parallel to Marshal Davout advancing north. Before this, the Bagration rearguard under the command of the Don ataman Matvey Platov fought on June 27-28 near the town of Mir to the vanguard of the French army of the Westphalian king Jerome Bonaparte. Platov left one Cossack regiment in Mir, and hid his main forces (7 regiments with artillery) in the nearest forest. The French cavalry, suspecting nothing, broke into the town, on the streets of which a fierce battle broke out. Then Jerome sent fresh uhlan regiments to reinforce the attackers. They were attacked by Platov from the rear, surrounded and killed. In two days of fighting near Mir, 9 lancers regiments of the Napoleonic army were defeated. This was the first major Russian success in World War II. He ensured the withdrawal of Bagration's army from Western Belarus.

Battle of Saltanovka (1812). Having reached the Dnieper near Novy Bykhov, Bagration was ordered to try again to break through to join the 1st Army - now through Mogilev and Orsha. To do this, he sent a vanguard under the command of General Nikolai Raevsky (15 thousand people) to Mogilev. But Marshal Davout's corps was already there. His units (26 thousand people) advanced to the village of Saltanovka and blocked the path of Raevsky. He decided to break through to Mogilev with a fight. On July 11, Russian attacks were repulsed by superior French forces. Then Davout tried to bypass Raevsky's detachment from the right flank, but the marshal's plan was thwarted by the stamina of General Ivan Paskevich's division. In this hot battle, Raevsky personally led the soldiers on the attack, along with his 17-year-old son. The damage of the French in the battle of Saltanovka amounted to 3.5 thousand people. The Russians lost 2.5 thousand people. The next day, Davout, having strengthened his position, was expecting a new attack. But Bagration, seeing the impossibility of a breakthrough through Mogilev, ferried the army across the Dnieper near Novy Bykhov and moved on a forced march to Smolensk. Napoleon's plan to encircle the 2nd Army or impose a general battle on it failed.

Battle of Ostrovno (1812). After the outbreak of hostilities, the 1st Army, according to the disposition drawn up, began to withdraw to the Dris camp. Having reached it on June 26, Barclay de Tolly gave his soldiers a six-day rest. In this situation, the Dris position was unsuccessful. The defense in the Drissa camp pressed against the river could have ended with the encirclement and death of the 1st Army. Moreover, communication with the 2nd Army was interrupted. Therefore, Barclay left this camp on July 2. Having allocated a 20,000-strong corps under the command of General Peter Wittgenstein to protect the St. Petersburg direction, Barclay with the main forces of the 1st Army moved east to Vitebsk, which he reached on the day of the battle of Bagration's troops near Saltanovka. Two days later, the avant-garde French units under the command of Marshals Ney and Murat approached Vitebsk. Their path near the village of Ostrovno on July 13 was blocked by the 4th Corps of General Osterman-Tolstoy. Despite the advantage in artillery, the French, after several hours of continuous attacks, could not overcome the resistance of the Russians. When Osterman was informed that the losses in the corps were great, and asked what to do, he, phlegmatically sniffing tobacco, replied: "Stand and die!" These words of the Russian general went down in history. The corps held its ground until it was replaced by fresh units of General Konovnitsyn, who heroically held back the attacks of superior French forces for another day. Losses on both sides in this hot affair amounted to 4 thousand people. Meanwhile, Barclay was waiting for Bagration's 2nd Army to approach him from the south (through Mogilev and Orsha). Instead, on July 15, Napoleon's main forces approached Vitebsk from the west, threatening to give a general battle. On the night of July 16, Barclay finally received news from Bagration that he could not get through Mogilev and was going to Smolensk. On the same night, Barclay, leaving burning fires to disorient the French, quietly removed the army from its positions and moved on a forced march to Smolensk. On July 22, both armies joined at Smolensk. The general command of them was taken by General Barclay de Tolly. Napoleon's plan to cut and destroy one by one the Russian armies in Belarus failed.

Klyastitsy (1812) . If in the central direction the Russian troops had to retreat almost non-stop, then on the flanks the advance of the enemy was stopped. The greatest success was achieved by the corps of General Wittgenstein (17 thousand people), who on July 18-20 in the Klyastits region (a village in Belarus, north of Polotsk) defeated the French corps of Marshal Oudinot (29 thousand people). The battle began with a dashing attack by a hussar detachment led by General Kulnev, who pushed back the French vanguard to Klyastitsy. The next day, the main forces entered the battle on both sides. After a fierce battle, the French retreated to Polotsk. On July 20, inspired by success, the indomitable Kulnev began an independent pursuit of the retreating. His detachment broke away from his own and in the battle with the main forces of the French corps suffered heavy losses (Kulnev himself died in the skirmish). Despite this local failure, the battle near Klyastitsy generally stopped the French advance towards St. Petersburg. In addition, Napoleon had to strengthen defeated the northern group of Oudinot due to the transfer to it from the central Moscow direction of the Saint-Cyr corps.

Battle near Kobrin (1812). Another success was achieved on the left flank of the Russian forces. The 3rd Army of General Tormasov distinguished himself here. On July 10, Tormasov moved north from the Lutsk region against the Saxon corps of General Rainier, who threatened the southern flank of Bagration's army. Taking advantage of the scattered Saxon corps, Tormasov sent his cavalry vanguard against the brigade of General Klingel (4 thousand people). On July 15, the Russians swiftly attacked this brigade and surrounded it. After the approach of the Russian infantry, the Saxons laid down their arms. Their losses amounted to 1.5 thousand killed, the rest surrendered. The Russians lost 259 people in this case. After the battle of Kobrin, Rainier stopped threatening Bagration's army and retreated to join the corps of General Schwarzenberg.

Battle near Gorodechna (1812). On July 31, near Gorodechna, a battle took place between units of the 3rd Russian Army under the command of General Tormasov (18 thousand people) with the Austrian corps of Schwarzenberg and the Saxon corps of Rainier (40 thousand people in total). After the battle near Kobrin, Schwarzenberg's corps came to the rescue of the Saxons. Having united, both corps attacked units of the 3rd Army at Gorodechno. Due to the successful regrouping of forces, Tormasov threw back Rainier's corps, which was trying to bypass the Russian left flank. Having held their positions until nightfall, the units of the 3rd Army retreated south, to Lutsk, in full battle order. The corps of Schwarzenberg and Renier followed him there. After the battle at Gorodechna on the left flank of the Russian army, in Western Ukraine, there was a long lull. So, in the Byelorussian-Lithuanian operation, the Russian troops, by a skillful maneuver, managed to avoid encirclement and a disastrous general battle for them in Belarus. They retreated to Smolensk, where the forces of the 1st and 2nd armies were joined. On the flanks, the Russians stopped attempts to expand Napoleonic aggression: they repelled the French offensive in the St. Petersburg direction and did not allow them to intensify operations on the left flank. Nevertheless, during the Belarusian-Lithuanian operation, Napoleon managed to achieve major political success. In less than two months, Lithuania, Belarus and Courland were in his hands.

Smolensk operation

After the 1st Army left Vitebsk, Napoleon stopped the offensive and began to put his forces in order. Having traveled more than half a thousand kilometers in a month, the French army was stretched out on communications, discipline fell in it, looting spread, and there were interruptions in supply. In the 20th of July, both the French and Russian troops remained in place and came to their senses after a long and difficult transition. On July 26, Barclay de Tolly was the first to take offensive actions from Smolensk, who moved the forces of the united armies (140 thousand people) in the direction of Rudnya (to the north-west of Smolensk). Without accurate information about the enemy, the Russian commander acted cautiously. Having passed the 70-kilometer path to Rudnya, Barclay de Tolly stopped the troops and stood in place for five days, clarifying the situation. The offensive turned out to be directed into the void. Having learned about the Russian movement, Napoleon changed his disposition and with the main forces (180 thousand people) crossed the Dnieper to the south of the location of the Russian army. He moved to Smolensk from the southwest, trying to occupy it and cut off Barclay's path to the east. Marshal Murat's equestrian vanguard (15 thousand people) was the first to rush to Smolensk.

Battle of Krasny (1812). In the area through which Murat broke through, the Russians had only one 27th Infantry Division under the command of General Dmitry Neverovsky (7 thousand people). It was made up entirely of recruits. But it was they who stood on August 2 near the village of Krasnoy as an insurmountable wall in the way of Murat's cavalry. Neverovsky took a position on the road, on the sides of which there was a birch forest, which prevented the cavalry from making a flank round. Murat was forced to attack the Russian infantry head-on. Having built the soldiers in one column, Neverovsky addressed them with the words: "Guys, remember what you were taught. No cavalry will defeat you, just take your time in firing and shoot accurately. No one dare to start without my command!". Bristling with bayonets, the Russian infantrymen repulsed all the attacks of the French cavalry. In the interval between fights, Neverovsky cheered up his soldiers, conducted a debriefing and divisional exercises with them. The division did not allow a breakthrough of Murat's corps and retreated in an organized manner to Smolensk, covering itself with unfading glory. According to the Napoleonic General Segur, "Neverovsky retreated like a lion." The damage of the Russians amounted to 1 thousand people, the French (according to their data) - 500 people. Thanks to the resilience of the 27th division, the 1st and 2nd armies managed to withdraw to Smolensk and take up defense there.

Battle for Smolensk (1812). On August 3, the Russian army withdrew to Smolensk. Bagration considered it necessary to wage a general battle here. But Barclay de Tolly insisted on continuing the retreat. He decided to give a rearguard action in Smolensk, and withdraw the main forces behind the Dnieper. On August 4, the corps of General Raevsky (15 thousand people) entered the battle for Smolensk, which repelled the attacks of the French corps of Marshal Ney (22 thousand people). On the evening of August 4, the main forces of Barclay (120 thousand people) pulled up to Smolensk from Rudnya. They settled north of the city. The weakened corps of Raevsky was replaced by the corps of Dokhturov, the divisions of Neverovsky and Konovnitsyn (a total of 20 thousand people). They were supposed to cover the withdrawal of the 1st and 2nd armies to the Moscow road. All day on August 5, the Russian rearguard heroically held back the brutal onslaught of the main forces of the French army (140 thousand people). On the night of the sixth, the Russians left Smolensk. The bitterness of the soldiers was so great that they had to be taken to the rear by force, as they did not want to obey the order to retreat. The last, leading rearguard battles on August 6, was the division of General Konovnitsyn who left the burning city. Departing, she blew up powder magazines and a bridge across the Dnieper. The Russians lost 10 thousand people in this battle, the French - 20 thousand people.

Battle at Valutina Mountain (1812). After the Battle of Smolensk, on August 7, Napoleon once again tried to cut off the retreat of the 1st Army, which had not yet had time to cross the Dnieper and retreat to Dorogobuzh. To capture the Dnieper crossing, Napoleon sent Ney's corps forward (40 thousand people). To contain the French, Barclay advanced to the village of Valutina Gora (10 km east of Smolensk) a rearguard under the command of General Pavel Tuchkov (over 3 thousand people). Ney intended to immediately crush the small Russian detachment that had taken up positions near the village, but Tuchkov's soldiers stood firm and valiantly repelled the onslaught of the French. By evening, due to reinforcements that arrived in time, the number of Russian troops at Valutina Gora was brought to 22 thousand people. The fierce battle lasted here until late at night. During the last attack in the moonlight, Tuchkov, wounded by bayonets, was taken prisoner. By that time, the main forces of the 1st Army had already managed to cross the Dnieper. The losses of the Russians in this battle amounted to 5 thousand people, the French - over 8 thousand people. The battle at Valutina Gora ended the two-week Smolensk operation, as a result of which the "key to Moscow" fell and the Russians retreated again, without giving a pitched battle. Now the French army, gathered in one fist, moved on Moscow.

Trip to Moscow

It is known that after the first walk through the ruined Smolensk, Napoleon exclaimed: "The campaign of 1812 is over!". Indeed, the great losses of his army, fatigue from a difficult campaign, the stubborn resistance of the Russians, who managed to maintain their main forces - all this made the French emperor think deeply about the advisability of further movement forward. Napoleon seemed to be leaning towards the original Polish plan. However, after 6 days of deliberation, the French emperor nevertheless set off on a campaign against Moscow. There were good reasons for this. Having failed to inflict a decisive defeat on the Russian army in Belarus, Napoleon never achieved a radical change in the course of the campaign. Meanwhile, his army in Smolensk was almost a thousand kilometers cut off from the main supply bases on the Vistula. She was in a hostile country, the population of which not only did not supply the invaders with food, but also began an armed struggle against them. In the event of interruptions in supply, wintering in Smolensk became impossible. For the normal life support of the army during the cold season, Napoleon would have to retreat to his bases on the Vistula. This meant that the Russian army could winter time recapture most of the territories they occupied from the French. Therefore, for Napoleon it seemed extremely important to defeat the Russian armed forces before the onset of cold weather. Based on these considerations, he nevertheless decided to use the last summer month for a trip to Moscow. His calculation was based on the fact that the Russians would certainly give a general battle near the walls of their ancient capital, the success of which Napoleon did not doubt. It was a convincing victory in the campaign of 1812 that could save him from the difficult problems of the upcoming winter and would greatly facilitate his victorious end to the war. Meanwhile, Barclay de Tolly continued to retreat, imposing on Napoleon a protracted war in which space and time became Russia's allies. The retreat from Smolensk aroused open hostility in society towards the "German" Barclay. He was accused of cowardice and almost treason. Although the accusations were unfair, Alexander I, on the advice of those close to him, nevertheless appointed a new commander in chief. They became Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov. He arrived in the army on August 17, when Barclay was already preparing, under pressure from society and the military, to give a general battle at Tsarev Zaimishch. Kutuzov considered the chosen position unsuitable and ordered the retreat to continue. Kutuzov, like Barclay, understood that Napoleon needed the battle first of all, since each new step to the east moved the French army away from sources of life support and brought its death closer. The new commander was a determined opponent of the general battle. But, as under Austerlitz, Kutuzov had to fight for the sake of the opinion of the country's leadership and its society, excited by the failures. True, now Kutuzov himself made decisions on tactical issues. Therefore, not wanting to take risks, he chose a purely defensive version of the coming battle. The Russian strategist intended to achieve victory in this war not only on the battlefields.

Battle of Borodino (1812). The battle for Moscow between the French and Russians took place near the village of Borodino on August 26, 1812, on the day of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God. Napoleon brought only a third of the army that started the war (135 thousand people) to Borodino. The rest, like a sponge, absorbed the spaces from the Neman to Smolensk. Some died, some remained to guard stretched communications, some settled in hospitals or simply deserted. On the other hand, the best have arrived. The French were opposed by the 132,000-strong Russian army, in which there were 21,000 unfired militias. Kutuzov deployed his forces between the New and Old Smolensk roads. The right flank of his army was covered by the Koloch and Moscow rivers, which excluded the possibility of coverage. On the left flank, south of the Old Smolensk road, this was prevented by a wooded area. Thus, a frontal battle was imposed on Napoleon in a 3-kilometer space between the villages of Gorki and Utitsa. Here Kutuzov built a defense in depth (its total depth, together with reserves, was 3-4 km) and placed the main fortifications. In the center was a battery at the height of Kurgannaya. It was defended by the 7th Corps of General Raevsky (which is why this place was called "Raevsky's battery"). On the left flank, near the village of Semenovskoye, field fortifications were erected - flushes. Initially, the consolidated grenadier division of General Mikhail Vorontsov and the fearless 27th Infantry Division of General Dmitry Neverovsky from the 2nd Army of Bagration were located here. To the south, in the forest near the village of Utitsa, Kutuzov placed the 3rd Corps of General Nikolai Tuchkov. He received the task of hitting the flank of the attacking French units. Actually, the main events of the Battle of Borodino unfolded in these three areas: at the Kurgan Battery, Semenovsky flushes and Utitsa. Napoleon, longing for a general battle, was ready for any options. He accepted Kutuzov's challenge to a frontal collision. He even abandoned Davout's plan to bypass the Russians on the left, through Utitsa, because he was afraid that then they would not accept the battle and retreat again. The French emperor planned to break through the Russian defenses with a frontal attack, press them against the Moscow River and destroy them. The battle was preceded by a battle on August 24 near the village of Shevardino (Shevardinsky redoubt), in which the 8,000-strong detachment of General Gorchakov held back the attacks of superior French forces (40,000 people) all day. This gave Kutuzov the opportunity to take the main positions. On August 25, the troops prepared for the battle, which began the next day at 5 o'clock in the morning. The first distracting attacks were made by the French on the right flank of the Russians. They pushed back the Russian units across the Koloch River. But French attempts to cross the river were repulsed. Then, at 6 o'clock in the morning, the shock group of Marshal Davout launched the first attack against the Russian left flank, where the Semyonov flushes were located. Almost simultaneously, in order to reach the rear of the Semenovsky flashes, the Polish corps of General Poniatovsky tried to break through to the village of Utitsa, where he entered into an oncoming battle with Tuchkov's soldiers. The decisive battle in the first half of the day flared up for the Semyonov fleches, where Napoleon planned to make the main breakthrough. Here both commanders threw the main reserves. “Terrible was the picture of that part of the Borodino field near the village of Semenovskoye, where the battle was in full swing, as in a cauldron,” recalled officer F.I. Glinka, a participant in the battle. “Thick smoke and bloody steam eclipsed the midday sun. a field of horrors, over a field of death.In this twilight nothing could be seen but formidable columns advancing and broken... The distance presents a view of perfect chaos: broken, broken French squadrons crash, wave and disappear in smoke... We have no language to describe this scuffle, this knocking down, this crackling, this last struggle by a thousand! At the cost of huge losses, after the eighth attack, the French managed to knock out the Russians from the flushes by 12 o'clock. In this battle, General Bagration was mortally wounded, who personally led the defense of the flashes (they received a second name: "Bagrationovskie"). At the same time, the French fiercely attacked the center of the Russian army - Kurgan height. At 11 o'clock, during the second attack of Raevsky's battery, the brigade of General Bonami managed to break into the height. The situation was saved by General Ermolov, Chief of Staff of the 1st Army, who was passing by. Assessing the situation, he led the counterattack of the nearby battalions of the Ufa Infantry Regiment and recaptured the hill. General Bonami was taken prisoner, and his soldiers fled. Inspired by the Ufa began the pursuit of the French. Cossacks had to be sent to bring back the attackers. At this time, a heated battle was in full swing near Utitsa between Poniatovsky's units and the 3rd Corps, which was now led (instead of the mortally wounded Tuchkov) by General Alsufiev. The bitterness on both sides during the battle was extraordinary. "Many of the combatants threw down their weapons, grappled with each other, tore each other's mouths, strangled one another and fell dead together. Artillery galloped over the corpses like on a log pavement, squeezing the corpses into the blood-soaked ground... The cries of commanders and the cries of despair in 10 different languages ​​were muffled by firing and drumming. A terrible sight then presented the battlefield. A thick black cloud hung over the left wing of our army from smoke mixed with blood vapor ... At the same time, day, evening and night were presented to the eyes, "recalled N.S. Pestrikov, a participant in that battle. After Bagration, command of the left flank received the senior General Konovnitsyn (then Kutuzov sent General Dokhturov to lead the left flank. He began to withdraw the broken units behind the Semenovsky ravine, where he organized a new line of defense. After the surrender of the flushes, fearing a blow to the rear, he retreated to new positions and the 3rd Corps "The critical moment of the battle came. The positions of the defeated units at the Semenovsky ravine were not fortified, and the reserves had not yet come up. In this situation, Kutuzov organized a counterattack on the left flank of the Napoleonic army by the forces of the cavalry regiments of Uvarov and Platov. Their attack caused confusion in the ranks of the French. This two-hour the delay gave Kutuzov time to pull up his reserves.At 1400, the French carried the main attack on Raevsky's battery.After the 3rd attack, they succeeded by 17 hours to break into the heights. In the battle for her, almost the entire division of General Likhachev, abandoned from the reserve, perished. But the attempts of the French cavalry to develop success were stopped by the Russian cavalry regiments, which were led into battle by General Barclay de Tolly. The marshals demanded that Napoleon inflict a final blow on the Russians shot down from all the fortifications, throwing the guards into battle. Then the emperor himself went to the line of fire to assess the situation. He looked at the new positions of the Russians, and "it was clear how they, without losing courage, closed their ranks, again entered the battle and went to die," General Segur, who was at that moment with the emperor, recalled. Napoleon saw an army that did not run away, but was preparing to fight to the end. He didn't have the strength to crush her. "I cannot risk my last reserve three thousand leagues from Paris." Throwing this historical phrase, Napoleon went back. Soon he withdrew the troops to their original positions. The Battle of Borodino is over. The Russians lost 44 thousand people in it, the French - over 58 thousand. The battle of Borodino is sometimes called the "battle of the generals". During it, 16 generals were killed on both sides. Europe has not known such losses in the generals for 100 years, which indicates the extreme bitterness of this battle. “Of all my battles,” Bonaparte recalled, “the most terrible one was the one I gave near Moscow. The French showed themselves worthy of victory in it, and the Russians acquired the right to be invincible.” For Borodino, Kutuzov received the rank of field marshal. The main result of the Battle of Borodino was that it did not give Napoleon the opportunity to defeat the Russians in a pitched battle. It was the collapse of his strategic plan, followed by defeat in the war. In general, two general concepts clashed here. One assumed an active onslaught and victory over the enemy, in a general battle, forces gathered into one fist. The other preferred skillful maneuver and imposing on the enemy a variant of the campaign that was obviously unfavorable for him. On the Russian field, the maneuverable doctrine of Kutuzov won.

Tarutino maneuver (1812). Upon learning of the losses, Kutuzov did not resume the battle the next day. Even in the event of success and the advance of his army, the position of the Russians remained precarious. They did not have any stocks on the section from Moscow to Smolensk (all warehouses were made in Belarus, where at first it was supposed to wage war). Napoleon had large manpower reserves beyond Smolensk. Therefore, Kutuzov believed that the time had not yet come to go on the offensive, and ordered a retreat. True, he hoped to receive reinforcements and did not exclude the possibility of giving a new battle already at the walls of Moscow. But the hopes for reinforcements did not come true, and the position chosen for the battle near the city turned out to be unprofitable. Then Kutuzov took upon himself the responsibility of surrendering Moscow. "With the loss of Moscow, Russia has not yet been lost ... But if the army is destroyed, both Moscow and Russia will perish," Kutuzov told his generals at a military council in Fili. Indeed, Russia had no other army capable of coping with Napoleon. So, the Russians left their ancient capital, which for the first time in 200 years was in the hands of foreigners. Leaving Moscow, Kutuzov began to withdraw in a southeasterly direction, along the Ryazan road. After two crossings, the Russian troops approached the Moscow River. Having crossed at the Borovsky ferry to the right bank, they turned west and moved in a forced march to the Old Kaluga road. At the same time, the Cossack detachment from the rearguard of General Raevsky continued to retreat to Ryazan. With this, the Cossacks misled the French vanguard of Marshal Murat, who followed on the heels of the retreating army. During the withdrawal, Kutuzov introduced tough measures against desertion, which began in his troops after the surrender of Moscow. Having reached the Old Kaluga road, the Russian army turned to Kaluga and camped in the village of Tarutino. Kutuzov brought 85 thousand people there. cash composition (together with the militia). As a result of the Tarutino maneuver, the Russian army got out of the attack and took an advantageous position. While in Tarutino, Kutuzov covered the southern regions of Russia, rich in human resources and food, the Tula military-industrial complex, and at the same time could threaten French communications on the Smolensk road. The French, on the other hand, could not advance from Moscow to Petersburg without hindrance, having the Russian army in the rear. Thus, Kutuzov actually imposed on Napoleon the further course of the campaign. In the Tarutinsky camp, the Russian army received reinforcements and increased its strength to 120 thousand people. In 1834, a monument was erected in Tarutino with the inscription: "In this place, the Russian army, led by Field Marshal Kutuzov, saved Russia and Europe." The capture of Moscow did not lead Napoleon to a victorious end to the campaign. He was met by a city abandoned by the inhabitants, in which fires soon began. At this tragic moment in Russian history, Alexander I declared that he would fight with the people in Siberia, but would not make peace as long as at least one armed invader remained on Russian soil. The firmness of the emperor was important, since many influential people at court (the king's mother, his brother, Grand Duke Konstantin, General Arakcheev and others) did not believe in the success of the fight against Napoleon and advocated peace with him. Kutuzov, at a meeting with the French envoy Lauriston, who arrived for peace negotiations, philosophically uttered that the real war was just beginning. "The enemy could destroy your walls, turn your property into ruins and ashes, impose heavy shackles on you, but he could not and cannot win and conquer your hearts. Such are the Russians!", These words of Kutuzov, addressed to the people, marked the beginning of the people's, Patriotic war. The entire population of the country, regardless of class or nationality, rises to fight the invaders. National unity became the decisive force that crushed the Napoleonic army. In less than two months, the peoples of Russia sent 300,000 new militias to help their army and collected more than 100 million rubles for it. In the areas occupied by the enemy, a guerrilla war unfolds, in which Denis Davydov, Vasilisa Kozhina, Gerasim Kurin, Alexander Figner and many other heroes became famous. The year 1812 fully showed the talents of M.I. Kutuzov, the commander and wise national strategist, who managed to organically combine the actions of the army with the patriotic struggle of the nation.

Battle of Chernishna (1812). Having strengthened, Kutuzov proceeded to decisive actions, on October 6, his detachments under the command of Generals Miloradovich and Bennigsen attacked Murat's corps (20 thousand people) near Chernishni (a river north of Tarutino), which was monitoring the Tarutino camp. The blow was prepared secretly. The plan for reaching Murat's positions involved a night march through the forest of Bennigsen's main detachment. It was not possible to successfully complete the maneuver to the end. In the darkness, the columns got mixed up, and by morning only the Cossack regiments led by General Orlov-Denisov reached the assigned place. In accordance with the letter of the plan, he resolutely attacked the French, overturned the cuirassier division and captured the carts. But other columns, having wandered through the forest, reached the battlefield later and could not support the onslaught of their cavalry in time. This made it possible for Murat to recover from an unexpected attack and have time to organize a defense. The parts of Bennigsen that finally came out of the forest came under fire and suffered losses (in particular, the commander of the 2nd Corps, General Baggovut, was killed). Nevertheless, under the onslaught of the Russians, Murat was forced to retreat to join the Napoleonic army. The inconsistency of the actions of the Russians allowed him to avoid encirclement. The French lost 2.5 thousand killed and 2 thousand prisoners. Russian losses amounted to 1.2 thousand people. The defeat of Murat's corps accelerated the performance of Napoleon's army from Moscow. It caused a moral upsurge in Kutuzov's army, which won the first major victory after leaving Moscow.

Kaluga campaign

On the evening of October 6, Napoleon set out from Moscow to meet Kutuzov's army, leaving the 10,000th corps of Marshal Mortier in the city. But soon (apparently, under the impression of the appearance of an army overloaded with loot, more reminiscent of a camp than a professional army), he abruptly changed his plan. Napoleon decided not to engage in battle with Kutuzov, but to turn onto the New Kaluga road and retreat west through the southern regions not devastated by the war. Mortier was also ordered to march from Moscow. Before leaving, Napoleon ordered him to blow up the Kremlin. As a result, the most valuable historical and architectural ensemble was partially destroyed. The Kaluga campaign was perhaps Bonaparte's most inconsistent operation, during which he changed his mind several times over the course of a week. Apparently, he did not have a clear plan of action at all. The French Emperor was like a gambler who kept raising the stakes, not wanting to see himself defeated.

Battle of Maloyaroslavets (1812). Having learned about Napoleon's movement along the New Kaluga Road, Kutuzov sent the vanguard corps of General Dokhturov (15 thousand people) to cut across the French army. He was supposed to block her way to Kaluga, where the Russians had huge stocks of weapons and food. On the morning of October 12, Dokhturov approached Maloyaroslavets and drove out the French units that had occupied the city the night before. But the corps that soon approached under the command of Prince Eugene Beauharnais ousted the Russians from Maloyaroslavets. In the future, the battle unfolded as new forces approached from both sides, successively recapturing the city from each other. During the day, Maloyaroslavets changed hands 8 times. An end to the fierce battle was put by the 15th Italian division of General Pino, which approached the evening, thanks to which the city remained for the night for the French. They lost 5 thousand people that day, the Russians - 3 thousand people. The battle for Maloyaroslavets was the last offensive success of Napoleon in the campaign of 1812. The French did not fight so hard for nothing. They occupied an important strategic point, from where the fork of two roads began - to Kaluga (to the south) and Medyn (to the west). At night, Kutuzov's army fortified south of Maloyaroslavets. After long hesitation, Napoleon nevertheless decided to attack her in the last hope for a victorious outcome of the campaign. But after an unsuccessful attempt on October 13 by the corps of General Poniatovsky to break through to the west near Medyn, where he was repulsed by the cavalry detachment of General Ilovaisky, the emperor was frightened of the trap and did not dare to fight the Russian army again. By the way, on this day, when leaving to inspect the positions, Napoleon was almost captured by the Cossacks. Only the French squadrons that arrived in time saved the emperor and his retinue from the raiding horsemen. Nevertheless, the appearance of Cossack detachments near the Napoleonic headquarters was an ominous sign of the weakening of the French army. The roads to Medyn and Maloyaroslavets were closed to them. On October 14, Napoleon gave the order to turn north and enter the Smolensk road. In turn, Kutuzov, having decided that Poniatowski wanted to go to his rear through Medyn, also began a retreat and withdrew his army to the village of Detchino, and then to the Linen Factory. The Battle of Maloyaroslavets also had a deeper historical meaning. Here, in the words of the Napoleonic General Segur, "the conquest of the world stopped" and "the great collapse of our happiness began."

Expulsion of Napoleonic troops from Russia

Now the roles have been reversed. Napoleon avoided battles in every possible way and quickly left to the west along the Smolensk road devastated by the war and attacked by partisans. With the complete absence of warehouses with provisions here, the French logistics system finally collapsed, turning the withdrawal of the Napoleonic army into a catastrophe. Kutuzov did not seek to attack the enemy. He went south with his army, preventing a possible French breakthrough into the southern regions. The Russian commander took care of his soldiers, believing that now hunger and winter would complete the defeat of the Great Army better than any battles. At that time, a plan had already been developed to encircle Napoleon beyond the Dnieper by the forces of the corps of General Peter Wittgenstein from the north and the 3rd and Danube armies approached from the south, led by Admiral Pavel Chichagov.

Battle of Polotsk and Chashnikov (1812). The corps of Wittgenstein (50,000 men), which received reinforcements, went on the offensive against the corps of Marshal Saint-Cyr (30,000 men), which was defending Polotsk. In the battle of October 8-11, the Russians took Polotsk. Then, having crossed the Western Dvina, they began the pursuit of the defeated French formations. The victory near Polotsk created a flank threat for Napoleon's army. This forced him to send Marshal Victor's corps, which had arrived from Poland, to help Saint-Cyr, which was first intended to reinforce the Napoleonic troops on the Kaluga road. On October 19, Wittgenstein continued the offensive and attacked in the Chashnikov area, on the Ulla River, the corps of Saint-Cyr. The Russians succeeded in pushing the French. But having learned about the approach to Saint-Cyr of the new corps of Victor, Wittgenstein stopped the onslaught. Saint-Cyr and Victor also showed no activity. But soon they received an order from Napoleon to push the Russians back beyond the Dvina. Thus, the French emperor sought to clear for his army another, safer route for withdrawal through Polotsk and Lepel. On November 2, the corps of Saint-Cyr and Victor (46 thousand people) attacked the corps of Wittgenstein (45 thousand people). They managed to push the Russian avant-garde to Chashnikov. But in a stubborn battle near the village of Smolnya, which changed hands more than once, the French were stopped. Having lost 3 thousand people, Saint-Cyr and Victor were forced to withdraw to join the main forces of the Napoleonic army. The victory at Chashnikov gave Wittgenstein the opportunity to cut the communications of the Great Army retreating from Russia.

Battle of Vyazma (1812). The first major battle of the Russians with the retreating army of Napoleon was the battle at Vyazma on October 22. Here, detachments of the Russian army under the command of General Miloradovich and the Don ataman Platov (25 thousand people) defeated 4 French corps (37 thousand people in total). Despite the overall numerical superiority of the French, the Russians had superiority in cavalry (almost twice). The morale of the Russian soldiers, who wanted to quickly expel the invaders from native land. Having cut off the retreat route for Davout's corps at Vyazma, Miloradovich and Platov tried to destroy it. The corps of Beauharnais and Poniatowski came to the aid of their own, which allowed Davout to break through the encirclement. Then the French withdrew to the heights near the city, where Ney's corps was located, and tried to organize a defense. But in the battle with the Russian avant-garde they were defeated. In the evening, the burning Vyazma was taken by storm. Partisan detachments under the command of captains Seslavin and Figner distinguished themselves here, who were among the first to break into the burning city. The French lost 8.5 thousand people in the battle of Vyazma. (killed, wounded and captured). Russian damage - about 2 thousand people. The defeat of the best French formations caused the moral breakdown of the Napoleonic troops and forced them to hasten their withdrawal from Russia.

Battle at Red (1812). On October 27, Napoleon's main forces reached Smolensk, where they plundered the remaining warehouses. Due to the threat of encirclement and the complete disorganization of his army, which was reduced to 60 thousand people, Napoleon decided to leave Smolensk on October 31. Leaving the city, the French army stretched for almost 60 km. Its vanguard was approaching Krasnoy, while the rearguard was just leaving Smolensk. Kutuzov took advantage of this. On November 3, he sent the vanguard of General Miloradovich (16 thousand people) to Krasnoy. He fired artillery fire at the French troops marching along the Smolensk road, then attacked them and, cutting off the rear columns, captured up to 2 thousand people. The next day, Miloradovich fought all day with the Beauharnais corps, capturing 1,500 prisoners from him. In this battle, Miloradovich, pointing out the suitable French to the grenadiers of the Pavlovsky regiment, uttered his famous phrase: "I give you these columns!" On November 5, the main forces of both armies entered the battle near Krasnoe. Kutuzov's plan was to gradually cut off French units on the road with strikes from the south and destroy them piece by piece. For this, two strike groups were allocated under the command of Generals Tormasov and Golitsyn. During a fierce battle, in which Miloradovich's detachment also took part, the Russians inflicted heavy losses on the Young Guard, the corps of Davout and Ney. Nevertheless, it was not possible to completely eliminate the French army. Part of it, led by Napoleon, managed to break through and continued to retreat to the Berezina. The French lost 32 thousand people in the battle of Krasnoe. (of which 26 thousand prisoners), as well as almost all of their artillery. Russian losses amounted to 2 thousand people. This battle was the biggest success of the Russian army since the beginning of the campaign. For Red Kutuzov received the title of Prince of Smolensk.

Battle of the Berezina (1812). After the Red Ring around the Napoleonic troops began to shrink. Wittgenstein's corps (50,000 men) approached from the north, and Chichagov's army (60,000 men) approached from the south. At the Berezina, they were preparing to close in and cut off Napoleon's escape route from Russia. On November 9, Chichagov's units approached the Berezina and occupied the city of Borisov. But soon they were driven out of there by the French corps of Marshal Oudinot. The Russians retreated to the right bank of the river and blew up the bridge. Thus, the crossing on the main road, along which Napoleon's army retreated, was destroyed. The Berezina had not yet frozen over, and the French were trapped. On November 13, the main forces of Napoleon approached the Berezina, which, with the joined corps of Victor, Saint-Cyr and a number of other units, numbered up to 75 thousand people. In this critical situation, when every minute was precious, Napoleon acted quickly and decisively. South of Borisov was another crossing. Napoleon sent Oudinot's corps there. The French emperor sought to make the Russian commander believe that he would be crossing there to retreat to Minsk. Meanwhile, the main army of Kutuzov, marching towards Minsk, was moving to the area south of Borisov. A meeting with her could have ended in failure for Napoleon. He sought to withdraw to the north-west of Minsk, to Vilna. To do this, 15 km north of Borisov, near the village of Studenka, the Polish uhlans found a ford, where French sappers built temporary bridges. On them, Napoleon began crossing on November 14. The demonstration of Oudinot's body was a success. Chichagov, leaving part of the troops at Borisov, with the main forces went down the river. For two days, the French crossed, repelling the attacks of scattered detachments of Wittgenstein and Chichagov. On November 15, the vanguard units of the persecution sent by Kutuzov under the command of Ataman Platov and General Yermolov broke into Borisov. Kutuzov himself was in no hurry to the Berezina, hoping that even without him there were enough forces to eliminate the French army. When Chichagov finally returned to Borisov, the Napoleonic troops had already entrenched themselves on the right bank of the river. On November 16, a fierce battle broke out on both sides of the Berezina. Chichagov tried to push back the French units covering the Studenkov crossing on the right bank. Wittgenstein attacked the corps of Marshal Victor, who staunchly covered the crossing on the left bank. The wooded terrain hindered the maneuvering actions of the cavalry. All day long until 11 o'clock in the morning there was a stubborn frontal shooting battle, which cost heavy losses for both sides and became the culmination of the battle. Due to the low capacity of the built bridges, the huge congestion of people and convoys, panic and the intensification of the onslaught of the Russians, only one third of the troops (25 thousand people) managed to break through to the west, towards Vilna. The rest (about 50 thousand people) died in battle, froze to death, drowned or were captured. Fearing the capture of the Russian crossing, Napoleon ordered to destroy it, leaving a mass of his troops on the left bank. Contemporaries noted that in some places the river was littered to the top with the corpses of people and horses. The Russians lost 4 thousand people in this battle. After the Berezina, the main forces of the Napoleonic army in Russia ceased to exist.

During the campaign of 1812, the personnel color of the French army disappeared, which France could only dream of later. In 1813-1814, the veterans of the Moscow campaign who survived on the Berezina made up less than 5% of Napoleon's army (a considerable part of them were blocked in the Danzig fortress, which surrendered in December 1813). After 1812, Napoleon had a completely different army. With her, he could only delay his final downfall. Soon after the Berezina, Napoleon left the remnants of his army and went to France to collect new troops. At this time, severe frosts hit, accelerating the liquidation of the Napoleonic troops. In mid-December, Marshal Murat, left by the commander-in-chief, transferred only the miserable remnants of the Great Army across the frozen Neman. So ingloriously ended Napoleon's attempt to defeat Russia. History knows few examples of such military disasters. In his report, M.I. Kutuzov summed up the results of the campaign in this way. "Napoleon entered with 480 thousand, and withdrew about 20 thousand, leaving at least 150,000 prisoners and 850 guns." The death toll in the Russian troops amounted to 120 thousand people. Of these, killed and died from wounds - 46 thousand people. The rest died of disease mainly during the persecution of Napoleon.

In Russian history, the Patriotic War became the most intense in terms of the number of battles. On average, every month there were 5 battles. On December 25, the day of the Nativity of Christ, the tsar issued a Manifesto on the expulsion of the enemy and the victorious end of the Patriotic War of 1812. This day, like the date of the Battle of Poltava, also became an official religious holiday in memory of "the deliverance of the Church and the Russian Power from the invasion of the Gauls and with them are twelve tongues."

"From Ancient Russia to the Russian Empire". Shishkin Sergey Petrovich, Ufa.

The Napoleonic Wars are the military campaigns against several European coalitions waged by France during the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte (1799-1815). Italian campaign of Napoleon 1796-1797 and his Egyptian expedition of 1798-1799 is usually not included in the concept of the "Napoleonic Wars", since they took place even before Bonaparte came to power (the coup of 18 Brumaire, 1799). The Italian campaign is part of the Revolutionary Wars of 1792-1799. The Egyptian expedition in various sources either refers to them, or is recognized as a separate colonial campaign.

Napoleon at the Council of Five Hundred 18 Brumaire 1799

Napoleon's war with the Second Coalition

During the coup of 18 Brumaire (November 9), 1799, and the transfer of power in France to the first consul, citizen Napoleon Bonaparte, the republic was at war with the new (Second) European coalition, in which the Russian emperor Paul I took part, who sent an army to the West under the leadership of Suvorov. The affairs of France went badly, especially in Italy, where Suvorov, together with the Austrians, conquered the Cisalpine Republic, after which a monarchical restoration took place in Naples, abandoned by the French, accompanied by bloody terror against the friends of France, and then the fall of the republic in Rome took place. Dissatisfied, however, with his allies, mainly Austria, and partly with England, Paul I left the coalition and the war, and when the first consul Bonaparte let Russian prisoners go home without ransom and re-equipped, the Russian emperor even began to draw closer to France, very pleased that in this country "anarchy was replaced by a consulate." Napoleon Bonaparte himself willingly went towards rapprochement with Russia: in fact, the expedition he undertook in 1798 to Egypt was directed against England in her Indian possessions, and in the imagination of the ambitious conqueror, a Franco-Russian campaign against India was now drawn, the same as later, when the memorable war of 1812 began. This combination, however, did not take place, since in the spring of 1801 Paul I fell victim to a conspiracy, and power in Russia passed to his son Alexander I.

Napoleon Bonaparte - First Consul. Painting by J. O. D. Ingres, 1803-1804

After Russia's withdrawal from the coalition, Napoleon's war against other European powers continued. The first consul turned to the sovereigns of England and Austria with an invitation to put an end to the struggle, but he was given in response unacceptable conditions for him - the restoration Bourbon and the return of France to its former borders. In the spring of 1800, Bonaparte personally led an army into Italy and in the summer, after battles of marengo, took possession of all Lombardy, while another French army occupied southern Germany and began to threaten Vienna itself. Peace of Luneville 1801 ended Napoleon's war with Emperor Francis II and confirmed the terms of the previous Austro-French treaty ( Campoformian 1797 G.). Lombardy turned into the Italian Republic, which made its president the first consul Bonaparte. Both in Italy and in Germany, a number of changes were made after this war: for example, the Duke of Tuscany (from the Habsburg family) received the principality of the Salzburg Archbishop in Germany for renouncing his duchy, and Tuscany, under the name of the Kingdom of Etruria, was transferred to the Duke of Parma (from the Spanish line). Bourbons). Most of all territorial changes were made after this war of Napoleon in Germany, many sovereigns of which, for the cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France, had to receive rewards from smaller princes, sovereign bishops and abbots, as well as free imperial cities. In Paris, a real bargaining for territorial increments was opened, and the Bonaparte government, with great success, took advantage of the rivalry of the German sovereigns in order to conclude separate treaties with them. This was the beginning of the destruction of the medieval Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, which, however, even earlier, as the wits said, was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, but some kind of chaos from the same approximately number of states as there are days in a year. Now, at least, they have been greatly reduced, thanks to the secularization of spiritual principalities and the so-called mediatization - the transformation of direct (immediate) members of the empire into mediocre (mediated) - various state trifles, like small counties and imperial cities.

The war between France and England ended only in 1802, when a contract was concluded between the two states. Peace in Amiens. The first consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, then also acquired the glory of a peacemaker after a ten-year war, which France had to wage: a lifetime consulate was, in fact, a reward for making peace. But the war with England soon resumed, and one of the reasons for this was that Napoleon, not content with the presidency of the Italian Republic, also established his protectorate over the Batavian Republic, that is, Holland, quite close to England. The resumption of the war took place in 1803, and the English king George III, who at the same time was the Elector of Hanover, lost his ancestral possession in Germany. After that, Bonaparte's war with England did not stop until 1814.

Napoleon's war with the Third Coalition

The war was a favorite deed of the emperor-commander, whose equal history knows little, and his unauthorized actions, which must be attributed assassination of the Duke of Enghien, which caused general indignation in Europe, soon forced other powers to unite against the impudent "upstart Corsican". His acceptance of the imperial title, the transformation of the Italian Republic into a kingdom, of which Napoleon himself became sovereign, who was crowned in 1805 in Milan with the old iron crown of the Lombard kings, the preparation of the Batavian Republic for the transformation into a kingdom of one of his brothers, as well as various other actions of Napoleon in relation to other countries were the reasons for the formation of the Third Anti-French Coalition against him from England, Russia, Austria, Sweden and the Kingdom of Naples, and Napoleon, for his part, secured alliances with Spain and the South German princes (sovereigns of Baden, Württemberg, Bavaria, Gessen, etc.), who, thanks to him, significantly increased their possessions through the secularization and mediatization of smaller possessions.

War of the Third Coalition. Map

In 1805, Napoleon was preparing to land in Boulogne in England, but in fact he moved his troops to Austria. However, the landing in England and the war on its very territory soon became impossible, due to the destruction of the French fleet by the English under the command of Admiral Nelson. at Trafalgar. But the land war of Bonaparte with the Third Coalition was a series of brilliant victories. In October 1805, on the eve of Trafalgar, surrendered to the surrender of the Austrian army in Ulm, Vienna was taken in November, on December 2, 1805, on the first anniversary of the coronation of Napoleon, the famous “battle of the three emperors” took place at Austerlitz (see the article The Battle of Austerlitz), which ended in the complete victory of Napoleon Bonaparte over the Austro-Russian army, in which there were Franz II, and young Alexander I. Finished the war with the Third Coalition Peace of Pressburg deprived the Habsburg monarchy of all Upper Austria, Tyrol and Venice with its region and gave Napoleon the right to widely dispose of in Italy and Germany.

Triumph of Napoleon. Austerlitz. Artist Sergei Prisekin

Bonaparte's war with the Fourth Coalition

The following year, the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm III joined the enemies of France - thereby forming the Fourth Coalition. But the Prussians also suffered, in October of this year, a terrible defeat at Jena, after which the German princes, who were in alliance with Prussia, were also defeated, and Napoleon occupied during this war first Berlin, then Warsaw, which belonged to Prussia after the third partition of Poland. Help given to Friedrich Wilhelm III Alexander I, was not successful, and in the war of 1807 the Russians were defeated under Friedland, after which Napoleon occupied Koenigsberg. Then the famous Tilsit peace took place, which ended the war of the Fourth Coalition and was accompanied by a date between Napoleon Bonaparte and Alexander I in a pavilion arranged in the middle of the Neman.

War of the Fourth Coalition. Map

In Tilsit, it was decided by both sovereigns to help each other, dividing the West and the East between them. Only the intercession of the Russian tsar before the formidable victor saved Prussia from disappearing after this war from the political map of Europe, but this state nevertheless lost half of its possessions, had to pay a large contribution and accepted the French garrisons to stay.

The reorganization of Europe after the wars with the Third and Fourth Coalitions

After the wars with the Third and Fourth Coalitions, the Peace of Pressburg and Tilsit, Napoleon Bonaparte was the complete master of the West. The Venetian region enlarged the Kingdom of Italy, where Napoleon's stepson Eugene Beauharnais was made Viceroy, and Tuscany was directly annexed to the French Empire itself. The very next day after the Treaty of Pressburg, Napoleon announced that "the Bourbon dynasty had ceased to reign in Naples," and sent his elder brother Joseph (Joseph) to reign there. The Batavian Republic was turned into the Kingdom of Holland with Napoleon's brother Louis (Louis) on the throne. From the areas taken from Prussia west of the Elbe with neighboring parts of Hanover and other principalities, the Kingdom of Westphalia was created, which was received by another brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, Jerome (Jerome), from the former Polish lands of Prussia - Duchy of Warsaw given to the Sovereign of Saxony. Back in 1804, Franz II declared the imperial crown of Germany, the former electoral, hereditary property of his house, and in 1806 he withdrew Austria from Germany and began to be titled not the Roman, but the Austrian emperor. In Germany itself, after these wars of Napoleon, a complete reshuffling was carried out: again some principalities disappeared, others received an increase in their possessions, especially Bavaria, Württemberg and Saxony, even elevated to the rank of kingdoms. The Holy Roman Empire no longer existed, and the Confederation of the Rhine was now organized in the western part of Germany - under the protectorate of the emperor of the French.

By the Treaty of Tilsit, Alexander I was granted, in agreement with Bonaparte, to increase his possessions at the expense of Sweden and Turkey, from which he took away, from the first in 1809 Finland, turned into an autonomous principality, from the second - after the Russian-Turkish war of 1806-1812 - Bessarabia included directly in Russia. In addition, Alexander I undertook to annex his empire to Napoleon's "continental system", as the cessation of all trade relations with England was called. The new allies also had to force Sweden, Denmark and Portugal, who continued to side with England, to do the same. At that time, a coup d'etat took place in Sweden: Gustav IV was replaced by his uncle Charles XIII, and the French marshal Bernadotte was declared his heir, after which Sweden went over to the side of France, as Denmark also went over after England attacked her for wanting to remain neutral. Since Portugal resisted, Napoleon, having entered into an alliance with Spain, announced that “the House of Braganza had ceased to reign”, and began the conquest of this country, which forced its king and his whole family to sail to Brazil.

Beginning of Napoleon Bonaparte's war in Spain

Soon it was the turn of Spain to turn into the kingdom of one of the Bonaparte brothers, the ruler of the European West. There were strife in the Spanish royal family. In fact, the government was governed by Minister Godoy, beloved of Queen Maria Louise, wife of the narrow-minded and weak-willed Charles IV, an ignorant, short-sighted and unscrupulous man, who since 1796 completely subordinated Spain to French politics. The royal couple had a son, Ferdinand, whom his mother and her favorite did not love, and now both sides began to complain one against the other to Napoleon. Bonaparte tied Spain even more closely with France when he promised Godoy to divide her possessions with Spain for help in the war with Portugal. In 1808, members of the royal family were invited to negotiate in Bayonne, and here the matter ended with the deprivation of Ferdinand of his hereditary rights and the abdication of Charles IV himself from the throne in favor of Napoleon, as "the only sovereign capable of giving prosperity to the state." The result of the "Bayonne catastrophe" was the transfer of the Neapolitan king Joseph Bonaparte to the Spanish throne, with the transfer of the Neapolitan crown to Napoleon's son-in-law, Joachim Murat, one of the heroes of the coup of 18 Brumaire. Somewhat earlier, in the same 1808, French soldiers occupied the Papal States, and the following year it was included in the French Empire with the deprivation of the pope of secular power. The fact is that Pope Pius VII, considering himself an independent sovereign, did not follow the instructions of Napoleon in everything. “Your Holiness,” Bonaparte once wrote to the pope, “enjoys supreme power in Rome, but I am the emperor of Rome.” Pius VII responded to the deprivation of power by excommunicating Napoleon from the church, for which he was forcibly transported to live in Savona, and the cardinals were resettled in Paris. Rome was then declared the second city of the empire.

Erfurt date 1808

In the interval between the wars, in the autumn of 1808, in Erfurt, which Napoleon Bonaparte left directly behind him as a possession of France in the very heart of Germany, a famous meeting took place between the Tilsit allies, accompanied by a congress of many kings, sovereign princes, crown princes, ministers, diplomats and commanders . It was a very impressive demonstration of both the power that Napoleon had in the West, and his friendship with the sovereign, to whom the East was placed at the disposal. England was asked to start negotiations on ending the war on the basis of retaining for the contracting parties what everyone would own at the time of the conclusion of peace, but England rejected this proposal. The sovereigns of the Confederation of the Rhine kept themselves on Erfurt Congress in front of Napoleon, just like servile courtiers in front of their master, and for the greater humiliation of Prussia, Bonaparte arranged a hunt for hares on the battlefield of Jena, inviting a Prussian prince who came to fuss about softening the difficult conditions of 1807. Meanwhile, an uprising broke out in Spain against the French, and in the winter from 1808 to 1809, Napoleon was forced to personally go to Madrid.

Napoleon's war with the Fifth Coalition and his conflict with Pope Pius VII

Counting on the difficulties that Napoleon met in Spain, the Austrian emperor in 1809 decided on a new war with Bonaparte ( War of the Fifth Coalition), but the war was again unsuccessful. Napoleon occupied Vienna and inflicted an irreparable defeat on the Austrians at Wagram. By ending this war Schönbrunn Peace Austria again lost several territories divided between Bavaria, the Kingdom of Italy and the Duchy of Warsaw (by the way, it acquired Krakow), and one area, the coast of the Adriatic Sea, under the name of Illyria, became the property of Napoleon Bonaparte himself. At the same time, Francis II had to give Napoleon his daughter Maria Louise in marriage. Even earlier, Bonaparte had become related through members of his family with some sovereigns of the Confederation of the Rhine, and now he himself decided to marry a real princess, especially since his first wife, Josephine Beauharnais, was barren, he also wanted to have an heir of his blood. (At first he wooed the Russian Grand Duchess, the sister of Alexander I, but their mother was strongly against this marriage). In order to marry the Austrian princess, Napoleon had to divorce Josephine, but then there was an obstacle from the pope, who did not agree to a divorce. Bonaparte neglected this and forced the French clergy subject to him to divorce him from his first wife. This further aggravated relations between him and Pius VII, who took revenge on him for depriving him of secular power and therefore, among other things, refused to consecrate to bishops the persons whom the emperor appointed to vacant chairs. The quarrel between the emperor and the pope, among other things, led to the fact that in 1811 Napoleon organized a council of French and Italian bishops in Paris, which, under his pressure, issued a decree allowing archbishops to ordain bishops if the pope did not consecrate government candidates for six months. The members of the cathedral who protested against the captivity of the pope were imprisoned in the Château de Vincennes (just as earlier cardinals who did not attend the marriage of Napoleon Bonaparte to Marie Louise were stripped of their red cassocks, for which they were mockingly nicknamed black cardinals). When Napoleon had a son from a new marriage, he received the title of Roman king.

The period of the greatest power of Napoleon Bonaparte

This was the time of the greatest power of Napoleon Bonaparte, and after the war of the Fifth Coalition, he continued, as before, completely arbitrary to dispose of in Europe. In 1810 he stripped his brother Louis of the Dutch crown for failing to respect the continental system and annexed his kingdom directly to his empire; for the same thing, the entire coast of the German Sea was also taken from their rightful owners (by the way, from the Duke of Oldenburg, a relative of the Russian sovereign) and annexed to France. France now included the coast of the German Sea, all of western Germany as far as the Rhine, parts of Switzerland, all of northwest Italy, and the Adriatic coast; the north-east of Italy was a special kingdom of Napoleon, and his son-in-law and two brothers reigned in Naples, Spain and Westphalia. Switzerland, the Confederation of the Rhine, covered on three sides by the possessions of Bonaparte, and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw were under his protectorate. Austria and Prussia, severely curtailed after the Napoleonic Wars, were thus squeezed between the possessions of either Napoleon himself or his vassals, Russia, from sharing with Napoleon, except for Finland, had only the Bialystok and Tarnopol districts, separated by Napoleon from Prussia and Austria in 1807 and 1809

Europe in 1807-1810. Map

Napoleon's despotism in Europe was unlimited. When, for example, the Nuremberg bookseller Palm refused to name the author of the brochure “Germany in its greatest humiliation”, which he published, Bonaparte ordered him to be arrested on foreign territory and brought to a military court, which sentenced him to death (which was, as it were, a repetition of the episode with the Duke of Enghien).

On the mainland Western Europe after the Napoleonic Wars, everything was, so to speak, turned upside down: the borders were confused; some old states were destroyed and new ones created; many even changed geographical names etc. The temporal power of the pope and the medieval Roman Empire no longer existed, as well as the spiritual principalities of Germany and its numerous imperial cities, these purely medieval city republics. In the territories inherited by France itself, in the states of Bonaparte's relatives and clientele, a whole series of reforms were carried out according to the French model - administrative, judicial, financial, military, school, church reforms, often with the abolition of class privileges of the nobility, limiting the power of the clergy, destroying many monasteries , the introduction of religious tolerance, etc., etc. One of the remarkable features of the era of the Napoleonic Wars was the abolition of the serfdom of peasants in many places, sometimes immediately after the wars by Bonaparte himself, as was the case in the Duchy of Warsaw at its very foundation. Finally, outside the French empire, the French civil code was put into effect, " Napoleonic code", which continued to operate here and there after the collapse of Napoleon's empire, as it was in western parts Germany, where it was in use until 1900, or as it is still the case in the Kingdom of Poland, formed from the Grand Duchy of Warsaw in 1815. It should also be added that during the Napoleonic Wars in different countries in general, French administrative centralization was very readily adopted, distinguished by its simplicity and harmony, strength and speed of action, and therefore an excellent instrument of government influence on subjects. If the daughter republics in late XVIII in. were arranged in the image and likeness of the then France, their common mother, even now the states that Bonaparte gave to the administration of his brothers, son-in-law and stepson, received representative institutions for the most part according to the French model, that is, with a purely illusory, decorative character. Such a device was introduced precisely in the kingdoms of Italy, Holland, Neapolitan, Westphalia, Spain, etc. In essence, the very sovereignty of all these political creations of Napoleon was illusory: one will reigned everywhere, and all these sovereigns, relatives of the emperor of the French and his vassals were obliged to deliver to their supreme overlord a lot of money and many soldiers for new wars - no matter how much he demanded.

Guerrilla warfare against Napoleon in Spain

It became painful for the conquered peoples to serve the goals of a foreign conqueror. While Napoleon dealt in wars only with sovereigns who relied on armies alone and were always ready to receive increments of their possessions from his hands, it was easy for him to cope with them; in particular, for example, the Austrian government preferred to lose province after province, as long as the subjects sat quietly, which the Prussian government was also very busy with before the Jena defeat. Real difficulties began to be created for Napoleon only when the peoples began to revolt and lead a petty battle against the French. guerrilla war. The first example of this was given by the Spaniards in 1808, then by the Tyroleans during the Austrian War of 1809; on an even larger scale, the same took place in Russia in 1812. The events of 1808-1812. in general, they showed the governments in what only their strength could lie.

The Spaniards who first set the example people's war(and whose resistance was helped by England, who did not spare money at all to fight France), gave Napoleon a lot of worries and troubles: in Spain he had to suppress the uprising, wage a real war, conquer the country and maintain the throne of Joseph Bonaparte by military force. The Spaniards even created a common organization for waging their little wars, these famous "guerillas" (guerillas), which, due to our unfamiliarity with the Spanish language, later turned into some kind of "guerillas", in the sense of partisan detachments or participants in the war. The Guerillas were one; the other was represented by the Cortes, the popular representation of the Spanish nation, convened by a provisional government, or regency in Cadiz, under the protection of the English fleet. They were collected in 1810, and in 1812 they made up the famous Spanish constitution, very liberal and democratic for that time, using the model of the French constitution of 1791 and some features of the medieval Aragonese constitution.

Movement against Bonaparte in Germany. Prussian reformers Hardenberg, Stein and Scharnhorst

Significant fermentation also took place among the Germans, who were thirsty by way of new war come out of your humiliation. Napoleon knew about this, but he fully relied on the devotion to himself of the sovereigns of the Confederation of the Rhine and on the weakness of Prussia and Austria after 1807 and 1809, and the intimidation that cost the life of the ill-fated Palm should have served as a warning that will befall every German who dares to become enemy of France. During these years, the hopes of all German patriots hostile to Bonaparte were pinned on Prussia. This state, so exalted in the second half of the XVIII century. the victories of Frederick the Great, reduced by a whole half after the war of the Fourth Coalition, was in the greatest humiliation, the way out of which was only in internal reforms Oh. Among the king's ministers Friedrich Wilhelm III there were people who just stood for the need for serious changes, and among them the most prominent were Hardenberg and Stein. The first of them was a big fan of new French ideas and practices. In 1804-1807. he served as minister of foreign affairs and in 1807 proposed to his sovereign a whole plan of reforms: the introduction in Prussia of popular representation with strictly, however, centralized administration according to the Napoleonic model, the abolition of noble privileges, the liberation of the peasants from serfdom, the destruction of the constraints that lay on industry and trade. Considering Hardenberg his enemy - which was in fact - Napoleon demanded from Friedrich Wilhelm III, after the end of the war with him in 1807, that this minister be resigned, and advised him to take Stein in his place, as a very efficient person, not knowing that he was also an enemy of France. Baron Stein had previously been a minister in Prussia, but he did not get along with the court spheres, and even with the king himself, and was resigned. In contrast to Hardenberg, he was an opponent of administrative centralization and stood for the development of self-government, as in England, with the preservation, within certain limits, of estates, workshops, etc., but he was a man of a greater mind than Hardenberg, and showed a greater ability to development in a progressive direction, as life itself pointed out to him the need to destroy antiquity, remaining, however, still an opponent of the Napoleonic system, since he wanted the initiative of society. Appointed minister on October 5, 1807, Stein already on the 9th of the same month published a royal edict abolishing serfdom in Prussia and allowing non-nobles to acquire noble lands. Further, in 1808, he began to put into effect his plan to replace the bureaucratic system of government with local self-government, but managed to give the latter only to cities, while the villages and regions remained under the old order. He also thought about state representation, but of a purely deliberative nature. Stein did not remain in power for long: in September 1808, the French official newspaper published his letter intercepted by the police, from which Napoleon Bonaparte learned that the Prussian minister strongly recommended that the Germans follow the example of the Spaniards. After this and another article hostile to him in the French government body, the reformer minister was forced to resign, and after a while Napoleon even directly declared him an enemy of France and the Confederation of the Rhine, his estates were confiscated and he himself was subject to arrest, so that Stein had to flee and hide in different cities of Austria, until in 1812 he was not called to Russia.

After one insignificant minister who replaced such a big man, Frederick William III again called Hardenberg to power, who, being a supporter of the Napoleonic system of centralization, began to transform the Prussian administration in this direction. In 1810, at his insistence, the king promised to give his subjects even national representation, and with the aim of both developing this issue and introducing other reforms in 1810-1812. meetings of notables were convened in Berlin, that is, representatives of estates at the choice of the government. More detailed legislation on the redemption of peasant duties in Prussia dates back to the same time. The military reform carried out by General Scharnhorst; according to one of the conditions of the Tilsit peace, Prussia could not have more than 42 thousand troops, and so the following system was invented: universal military service was introduced, but the terms of stay of soldiers in the army were greatly reduced in order to train them in military affairs, to take new ones in their place , and trained to enroll in the reserve, so that Prussia, if necessary, could have a very large army. Finally, in the same years, according to the plan of the enlightened and liberal Wilhelm von Humboldt, the university in Berlin was founded, and to the sounds of the drums of the French garrison, the famous philosopher Fichte read his patriotic Speeches to the German Nation. All these phenomena characterizing the internal life of Prussia after 1807 made this state the hope of the majority of German patriots hostile to Napoleon Bonaparte. Among the interesting manifestations of the then liberating mood in Prussia is the formation in 1808 of Prussia. Tugendbunda, or the League of Valor, a secret society, which included scientists, military officers, officials and whose goal was the revival of Germany, although in fact the union did not play a big role. The Napoleonic police followed the German patriots, and, for example, Stein's friend Arndt, the author of the Zeitgeist imbued with national patriotism, had to flee Napoleon's wrath to Sweden so as not to suffer the sad fate of Palm.

The national excitement of the Germans against the French began to intensify from 1809. Starting the war with Napoleon that year, the Austrian government directly set its goal as the liberation of Germany from the foreign yoke. In 1809, uprisings broke out against the French in Tyrol under the leadership of Andrei Hofer, in Stralsund, which was captured by the insanely brave Major Schill, in Westphalia, where the "black legion of revenge" of the Duke of Brunswick operated, etc., but Gofer was executed, Schill killed in a military battle, the Duke of Brunswick had to flee to England. At the same time, in Schönbrunn, an attempt was made on the life of Napoleon by a young German, Shtaps, who was later executed for this. "The fermentation has reached the highest degree, his brother, the King of Westphalia, once wrote to Napoleon Bonaparte, “the most reckless hopes are accepted and supported; they set Spain as their model, and, believe me, when the war begins, the countries between the Rhine and the Oder will be the theater of a great uprising, for the extreme despair of peoples who have nothing to lose must be feared. This prediction was fulfilled after the failure of the campaign in Russia, undertaken by Napoleon in 1812 and the former, according to the apt expression of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Talleyrand, "the beginning of the end."

Relations between Napoleon Bonaparte and Tsar Alexander I

In Russia, after the death of Paul I, who was thinking about rapprochement with France, “the days of Alexandrov began a wonderful beginning.” The young monarch, a pupil of the republican La Harpe, who himself almost considered himself a republican, at least the only one in the whole empire, and in other respects recognized himself as a “happy exception” on the throne, from the very beginning of his reign made plans for internal reforms - right up to, in the end after all, before the introduction of a constitution in Russia. In 1805-07. he was at war with Napoleon, but in Tilsit they made an alliance with each other, and two years later in Erfurt they sealed their friendship in the face of the whole world, although Bonaparte immediately discerned in his friend-rival the “Byzantine Greek” (and he himself, however, being, according to the recall of Pope Pius VII, a comedian). And Russia in those years had its own reformer, who, like Hardenberg, bowed before Napoleonic France, but much more original. This reformer was the famous Speransky, the author of a whole plan for the state transformation of Russia on the basis of representation and separation of powers. Alexander I brought him closer to himself at the beginning of his reign, but Speransky began to use especially strong influence on his sovereign during the years of rapprochement between Russia and France after the Tilsit peace. By the way, when Alexander I, after the war of the Fourth Coalition, went to Erfurt to meet with Napoleon, he took Speransky with him among other close associates. But then this outstanding statesman suffered the royal disfavor, just at the very time that relations between Alexander I and Bonaparte deteriorated. It is known that in 1812 Speransky was not only removed from business, but also had to go into exile.

Relations between Napoleon and Alexander I deteriorated for many reasons, among which the main role was played by Russia's non-compliance with the continental system in all its severity, the encouragement of the Poles by Bonaparte regarding the restoration of their former fatherland, the seizure of possessions by France from the Duke of Oldenburg, who was related to the Russian royal family etc. In 1812, things came to a complete break and the war, which was the "beginning of the end."

Murmuring against Napoleon in France

Prudent people have long predicted that sooner or later there will be a catastrophe. Even at the time of the proclamation of the empire, Cambacérès, who was one of the consuls with Napoleon, said to another, Lebrun: “I have a premonition that what is being built now will not be durable. We have waged war on Europe in order to impose republics on her as daughters of the French Republic, and now we will wage war to give her monarchs, sons or brothers of ours, and the end will be that France, exhausted by wars, will fall under the weight of these crazy enterprises. ". - “You are satisfied,” the Minister of Marine Decres once said to Marshal Marmont, because now you have been made a marshal, and everything appears to you in a pink light. But don't you want me to tell you the truth and draw back the veil that hides the future? The emperor has gone crazy, completely crazy: all of us, how many of us there are, he will make him fly somersault, and it will all end. terrible disaster". Before the Russian campaign of 1812, and in France itself, some opposition began to appear against the constant wars and despotism of Napoleon Bonaparte. It has already been mentioned above that Napoleon met with a protest against his treatment of the pope from some members of the church council convened by him in Paris in 1811, and in the same year a deputation from the Paris Chamber of Commerce came to him with an idea of ​​ruin continental system for French industry and commerce. The population began to be weary of the endless wars of Bonaparte, the increase in military spending, the growth of the army, and already in 1811 the number of those who evaded military service reached almost 80 thousand people. In the spring of 1812, a muffled murmur in the Parisian population forced Napoleon to move especially early to Saint-Cloud, and only in such a mood of the people could a bold idea arise in the head of one general, named Male, to take advantage of Napoleon's war in Russia in order to carry out a coup d'état in Paris for the restoration of the republic. Suspected of unreliability, Male was arrested, but escaped from his imprisonment, appeared in some barracks and there announced to the soldiers about the death of the "tyrant" Bonaparte, who allegedly died in a distant military campaign. Part of the garrison went after Male, and he, having then made a false senatus-consultant, was already preparing to organize a provisional government, when he was captured and, together with his accomplices, was brought before a military court, which sentenced them all to death. Upon learning of this conspiracy, Napoleon was extremely annoyed by the fact that some even representatives of the authorities believed the attackers, and that the public reacted rather indifferently to all this.

Napoleon's campaign in Russia 1812

The Malé conspiracy dates back to the end of October 1812, when the failure of Napoleon's campaign against Russia was already sufficiently clear. Of course, the military events of this year are too well known to require a detailed account of them, and therefore it remains only to recall the main moments of the war with Bonaparte in 1812, which we called "Patriotic", that is, national and the invasion of "Gauls" and with them "twelve languages".

In the spring of 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte concentrated large military forces in Prussia, which was forced, like Austria, to enter into an alliance with him, and in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and in mid-June, his troops, without declaring war, entered the then borders of Russia. Napoleon's "Great Army" of 600,000 men consisted only half of the French: the rest were various other "peoples": Austrians, Prussians, Bavarians, etc., that is, in general, subjects of the allies and vassals of Napoleon Bonaparte. The Russian army, which was three times smaller and, moreover, scattered, had to retreat at the beginning of the war. Napoleon quickly began to occupy one city after another, mainly on the road to Moscow. Only near Smolensk did the two Russian armies manage to unite, which, however, turned out to be unable to stop the enemy's advance. Kutuzov's attempt to detain Bonaparte at Borodino (see the articles The Battle of Borodino 1812 and the Battle of Borodino 1812 - briefly), made at the end of August, was also unsuccessful, and in early September Napoleon was already in Moscow, from where he thought to dictate peace terms to Alexander I. But just at that time the war with the French became popular. Already after battles near Smolensk the inhabitants of the areas through which the army of Napoleon Bonaparte was moving began to burn everything on its way, and with its arrival in Moscow, fires began in this ancient capital of Russia, from where most of the population had left. Little by little, almost the entire city burned down, the reserves that were in it were depleted, and the delivery of new ones was difficult for the Russians. partisan detachments who launched a war on all the roads that led to Moscow. When Napoleon became convinced of the futility of his hope that he would be asked for peace, he himself wished to enter into negotiations, but on the Russian side he did not meet the slightest desire to make peace. On the contrary, Alexander I decided to wage war until the final expulsion of the French from Russia. While Bonaparte was inactive in Moscow, the Russians began to prepare to completely cut off Napoleon's exit from Russia. This plan did not materialize, but Napoleon realized the danger and hurried to leave the devastated and burned Moscow. First, the French made an attempt to break through to the south, but the Russians cut off the road in front of them at Maloyaroslavets, and the remnants of the great army of Bonaparte had to retreat along the former, devastated Smolensk road during a very severe winter that began early this year. The Russians followed this disastrous retreat almost on the heels, inflicting one defeat after another on the lagging detachments. Napoleon himself, who happily escaped capture when his army crossed the Berezina, abandoned everything in the second half of November and left for Paris, only now deciding to officially notify France and Europe of the failure that had befallen him during the Russian war. The retreat of the remnants of the great army of Bonaparte was now a real flight amid the horrors of cold and hunger. On December 2, less than six full months after the start of the Russian war, Napoleon's last detachments crossed back into the Russian border. After that, the French had no choice but to abandon the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, whose capital the Russian army occupied in January 1813.

Napoleon's army crossing the Berezina. Painting by P. von Hess, 1844

Foreign campaign of the Russian army and the War of the Sixth Coalition

When Russia was completely cleared of enemy hordes, Kutuzov advised Alexander I to limit himself to this and stop further war. But in the soul of the Russian sovereign, a mood prevailed that forced him to transfer military operations against Napoleon beyond the borders of Russia. In this latter intention, the German patriot Stein strongly supported the emperor, who had found shelter against Napoleon's persecution in Russia and to a certain extent subordinated Alexander to his influence. The failure of the war of the great army in Russia made a great impression on the Germans, among whom national enthusiasm spread more and more, a monument of which remained the patriotic lyrics of Kerner and other poets of the era. At first, the German governments did not dare, however, to follow their subjects, who rose up against Napoleon Bonaparte. When, at the very end of 1812, the Prussian General Yorck, at his own peril, concluded a convention with the Russian General Dibich in Taurogen and stopped fighting for the cause of France, Frederick William III was extremely dissatisfied with this, as he was also dissatisfied with the decision zemstvo members East and West Prussia to organize, according to Stein, a provincial militia for the war against the enemy of the German nation. Only when the Russians entered Prussian territory did the king, forced to choose between an alliance with either Napoleon or Alexander I, bow to the side of the latter, and even then not without some hesitation. In February 1813, in Kalisz, Prussia concluded a military treaty with Russia, accompanied by an appeal by both sovereigns to the population of Prussia. Then Frederick William III declared war on Bonaparte, and a special royal appeal to the loyal subjects was published. In this and other proclamations, with which the new allies also addressed the population of other parts of Germany and in the drafting of which Stein played an active role, much was said about the independence of peoples, about their right to control their own destiny, about the strength of public opinion, before which sovereigns themselves must bow. , etc.

From Prussia, where, next to the regular army, detachments of volunteers were formed from people of all ranks and conditions, often not Prussian subjects, the national movement began to be transferred to other German states, whose governments, on the contrary, remained loyal to Napoleon Bonaparte and restrained manifestations in their possessions. German patriotism. Meanwhile, Sweden, England and Austria joined the Russian-Prussian military alliance, after which the members of the Confederation of the Rhine began to fall away from loyalty to Napoleon - under the condition of the inviolability of their territories or, at least, equivalent rewards in cases where any or changes in the boundaries of their possessions. This is how Sixth Coalition against Bonaparte. Three days (October 16-18) battle with Napoleon near Leipzig, which was unfavorable for the French and forced them to begin a retreat to the Rhine, resulted in the destruction of the Confederation of the Rhine, the return to their possessions of the dynasties expelled during the Napoleonic wars and the final transition to the side of the anti-French coalition of South German sovereigns.

By the end of 1813, the lands to the east of the Rhine were free from the French, and on the night of January 1, 1814, part of the Prussian army under the command of Blucher crossed this river, which then served as the eastern border of Bonaparte's empire. Even before the Battle of Leipzig, the allied sovereigns offered Napoleon to enter into peace negotiations, but he did not agree to any conditions. Before the transfer of the war to the territory of the empire itself, Napoleon was once again offered peace on the terms of maintaining the Rhine and Alpine borders for France, but only renouncing domination in Germany, Holland, Italy and Spain, but Bonaparte continued to persist, although in France itself public opinion considered these conditions quite acceptable. A new peace proposal in mid-February 1814, when the Allies were already on French territory, likewise came to nothing. The war went on with varying happiness, but one defeat of the French army (at Arcy-sur-Aube on March 20-21) opened the way for the Allies to Paris. On March 30, they took by storm the Montmartre heights that dominate this city, and on the 31st, their solemn entry into the city itself took place.

The deposition of Napoleon in 1814 and the restoration of the Bourbons

The next day after this, the Senate proclaimed the deposition of Napoleon Bonaparte from the throne with the formation of a provisional government, and two days later, that is, on April 4, he himself, in the castle of Fontainebleau, abdicated in favor of his son after he learned about the transition of Marshal Marmont to the side of the Allies. The latter were not satisfied with this, however, and a week later Napoleon was forced to sign an act of unconditional abdication. The title of emperor was reserved for him, but he had to live on the island of Elba, given to him. During these events, the fallen Bonaparte was already the object of extreme hatred of the population of France, as the culprit of devastating wars and enemy invasion.

The provisional government, formed after the end of the war and the deposition of Napoleon, drafted a new constitution, which was adopted by the Senate. Meanwhile, at that time, in agreement with the winners of France, the restoration of the Bourbons was already being prepared in the person of a brother who was executed during revolutionary wars Louis XVI, who, after the death of his little nephew, recognized by the royalists as Louis XVII, became known as Louis XVIII. The Senate proclaimed him king, freely called to the throne by the nation, but Louis XVIII wanted to reign solely by his hereditary right. He did not accept the Senate constitution, and instead granted (octroyed) a constitutional charter with his power, and even then under strong pressure from Alexander I, who agreed to the restoration only under the condition of granting France a constitution. One of the main figures involved in the end of the Bourbon War was Talleyrand, who said that only the restoration of the dynasty would be the result of principle, everything else was mere intrigue. With Louis XVIII returned his younger brother and heir, the Comte d'Artois, with his family, other princes and numerous emigrants from the most irreconcilable representatives of pre-revolutionary France. The nation immediately felt that both the Bourbons and the emigrants in exile, in the words of Napoleon, "forgot nothing and learned nothing." Alarm began throughout the country, numerous reasons for which were given by the statements and behavior of the princes, the returned nobles and the clergy, who clearly sought to restore antiquity. The people even started talking about the restoration of feudal rights, etc. Bonaparte watched on his Elbe how irritation against the Bourbons grew in France, and at the congress that met in Vienna in the autumn of 1814 to arrange European affairs, bickering began that could wreck the allies. In the eyes of the fallen emperor, these were favorable circumstances for the restoration of power in France.

"Hundred Days" of Napoleon and the War of the Seventh Coalition

On March 1, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte secretly left Elba with a small detachment and unexpectedly landed near Cannes, from where he moved to Paris. The former ruler of France brought with him proclamations to the army, to the nation, and to the population of the coastal departments. “I,” it was said in the second of them, “was enthroned by your election, and everything that was done without you is illegal ... Let the sovereign, who was placed on my throne by the power of the armies that devastated our country, refer to the principles feudal law, but it can secure the interests of only a small handful of enemies of the people!.. The French! in my exile, I heard your complaints and desires: you demanded the return of the government chosen by you and therefore the only legal one, ”etc. On the way of Napoleon Bonaparte to Paris, his small detachment grew from soldiers who joined him everywhere, and his new military campaign received kind of triumphal procession. In addition to the soldiers who adored their "little corporal", the people also went over to the side of Napoleon, who now saw him as a savior from the hated emigrants. Marshal Ney, sent against Napoleon, boasted before leaving that he would bring him in a cage, but then, with his entire detachment, went over to his side. On March 19, Louis XVIII hastily fled from Paris, forgetting in the Tuileries Palace the reports of Talleyrand with Congress of Vienna and a secret treaty against Russia, and the next day a crowd of people carried Napoleon literally in their arms into the palace, which had been abandoned by the king only the day before.

The return of Napoleon Bonaparte to power was the result not only of a military revolt against the Bourbons, but also of a popular movement that could easily turn into a real revolution. In order to reconcile the educated classes and the bourgeoisie with him, Napoleon now agreed to a liberal reform of the constitution, calling to this cause one of the most prominent political writers of the era, Benjamin Constant who had previously spoken out sharply against his despotism. A new constitution was even drawn up, which, however, received the name of an "additional act" to the "constitutions of the empire" (that is, to laws of the VIII, X and XII years), and this act was submitted for approval by the people, who adopted it with one and a half million votes. . On June 3, 1815, new representative chambers were opened, before which a few days later Napoleon gave a speech announcing the introduction of a constitutional monarchy in France. The response addresses of representatives and peers, however, did not please the emperor, as they contained warnings and instructions, and he expressed his displeasure to them. However, he did not have a further continuation of the conflict, since Napoleon had to rush to the war.

The news of Napoleon's return to France forced the sovereigns and ministers, who gathered at the congress in Vienna, to stop the strife that had begun between them and unite again in a common alliance for a new war with Bonaparte ( Wars of the Seventh Coalition). On June 12, Napoleon left Paris to go to his army, and on the 18th at Waterloo, he was defeated by the Anglo-Prussian army under the command of Wellington and Blucher. In Paris, defeated in this new short war, Bonaparte faced a new defeat: the House of Representatives demanded that he abdicate in favor of his son, who was proclaimed emperor under the name of Napoleon II. The allies, who soon appeared under the walls of Paris, decided the matter differently, namely, they restored Louis XVIII. Napoleon himself, when the enemy approached Paris, thought to flee to America and for this purpose arrived in Rochefort, but was intercepted by the British, who installed him on the island of St. Helena. This second reign of Napoleon, accompanied by the War of the Seventh Coalition, lasted only about three months and received in history the name "one hundred days