Why did Napoleon leave Moscow? Speaking with his most efficient orderly, the old field marshal was cunning: from day to day he was waiting for the movement of the French troops, but he took pity on the young “lieutenant Alexandrov.” On October 7, the French emperor ordered his troops to leave Moscow.

So, I give the floor to Sergey Leksutov, Omsk, 2003.

Was Kutuzov going to defeat Napoleon? Any competent infantry lieutenant, if he thoughtfully reads the history of the war in the twelfth year in a textbook, immediately sees a lot of absurdities and inconsistencies in Kutuzov's behavior, and in general, in his conduct of the war. It will be objected to me that it is not given to an infantry lieutenant to comprehend the greatness of the plans of a great commander! Have mercy, gentlemen! Only from competent lieutenants grow great commanders! Those who are illiterate are retired in the ranks of majors. Kutuzov himself started as a lieutenant at Suvorov, and he fought with the former artillery lieutenant Bonaparte, who seemed to have risen only to the rank of colonel, and then appropriated the title of emperor to himself, and he seemed to have nothing to climb further up the career ladder. So, let's put aside false modesty, and look at the campaign of the twelfth year with the eyes of a competent infantry lieutenant.

DID NAPOLEON HOPE TO CONQUER RUSSIA?

Even Frederick the Great expressed the sound idea that it was impossible to defeat Russia in a war, especially on its territory. Napoleon could not but know the opinion of his great predecessor, and he himself was a sickly commander; could have thought of it myself. At the end of the nineteenth century, Bismarck only confirmed the conventional wisdom that it was impossible to conquer Russia. Although there has already been a shameful defeat in the Crimean war. Defeat, but not conquest! Crimea was not taken away from Russia. In addition, this defeat turned into a victory: in 1853, the old wooden fleet was flooded, and soon a navy of the latest steam ships appeared on the Black Sea.

A version slips in the history textbook. As if Napoleon was going to go to India through the territory of Russia, Central Asia and the Hindu Kush ... But how to overcome this route of a half-million army, in which the main means of transportation and draft power are horses? For such a mass of horses, it would be simply impossible to find fodder and water on many stretches of the journey. How did the Napoleonic foragers hope to supply the army hundreds of kilometers away?

In addition, all available forces were not needed to capture India. The British did not hold large forces in India, and detachments of sepoys, at the first appearance of the French, would have rushed into their arms with joyful cries. The reliability of the sepoy detachments is evidenced by at least the fact that in the middle of the enlightened nineteenth century the British shot the rebellious sepoys by tying them to the muzzles of cannons, for greater intimidation of the survivors. Yes, and there is nothing to go far for: Napoleon was the idol of all Russian officers and young nobles without exception. What can we say about the Indians who slept and saw how to get rid of the damned English! An expeditionary corps of ten to twenty thousand people was enough.

WHAT DID THE KINGS TALK ABOUT IN TILZIT?

Protocols, as you know, were not kept. We talked alone. Perhaps the clue to the "Russian campaign" in Tilsit? Maybe there was a primitive collusion? And then, when Napoleon invaded Russia, Alexander got scared of something and vulgarly “changed his mind”? Or maybe he was afraid earlier, and Napoleon, by his invasion, hoped to move him to some kind of joint action, which was agreed upon in Tilsit? It was not for nothing that, a couple of years before the invasion, when the French ambassador persuaded Alexander to join the continental blockade of England and threatened war, Alexander calmly said that he was not afraid of war, and would retreat even as far as Kamchatka. Napoleon could not help but know that it was impossible to defeat Russia, but he urgently needed it not defeated, but in the form of an ally. By the twelfth year, he realized that without Russia, England could not be defeated and put everything at stake. And lost. Most likely, Alexander's innate cunning played a role. It should not be discounted that he was a parricide. It says a lot about a person's character. Worthy of surprise is the fact of the assassination of Emperor Paul. Quite a few years have passed since the death of Catherine II, the division of warm places has ended, everything has settled down, and suddenly ... As usual in Russia, all the dogs were hung on the late emperor retroactively. And he was weak-minded, and an alcoholic, and a fan of Friedrich. First, aren't there too many imbecile emperors for long-suffering Russia? Peter the Third, it turns out, was also an idiot, an alcoholic, and an admirer of Frederick... And who, if not Friedrich, should be worshipped?! To the greatest general of the eighteenth century, who created the best army in Europe! In my opinion, if you take a closer look, behind the backs of the guards, who were strangling the emperor with a scarf and hitting him on the head with a snuffbox, someone with an English surname should loom, and English gold must have rang in the pockets of the guards. In fact, there were no objective reasons for the coup, they were later invented, retroactively. There was only one reason: Paul was the first to gravitate toward an alliance with Napoleon. Not such a crazy idea. If you think about it, Russia got a lot of benefits from the alliance with Napoleon. But as soon as she began to gravitate towards England, all sorts of misfortunes immediately fell on her. (The last and most cruel misfortune was the entry into the war of 1914 on the side of England and for British interests, and the revolution that followed.) And England's Russia was vital! Few people think about this, but at the end of the eighteenth, beginning of the nineteenth century, Russian wood was a strategic raw material for England; the entire English fleet from the keel to the tops of the masts was built from Russian pine! By the end of the eighteenth century, England had lost almost all of its sources of timber. The colony on the American continent became the United States, and became worst enemy its metropolis. And Canadian timber was not available for the same reason - Canada belonged entirely to France, the original enemy of England. The wood that grows in India is of little use for the construction of ship hulls. For this, conifers are needed. And conifers grow there in the inaccessible highlands of the Himalayas in very small quantities. So, not from a good life, it was in England that, for the first time in the world, ship hulls subsequently began to be made of steel. Thanks to this, England got rid of the need to buy timber in Russia for the construction of ships. That is why she dared to go to war with Russia in 1853. Now back to Napoleon.

FACTS AND NUMBERS

In the history textbook recommended for the historical departments of pedagogical institutes - "The History of the USSR from Ancient Times to 1861" (Prosveshchenie Publishing House, 1983) - it is written in black and white that six hundred thousand Napoleonic soldiers and officers crossed the border of Russia. 130,000 - 135,000 reached Borodin. Losses amounted to about 150,000. After reading such a stunning message, I suspected that the gentlemen of historians were not good with arithmetic, and then I realized that historians did not think much about the meaning of the primary source that fell into their hands. So, adding up two numbers in a column, we get - 280,000 people. The question is, where did the rest of the 320,000 soldiers and officers go? Lost in the vastness of Russia?

It is well known that Napoleon did not leave large garrisons anywhere, simply, there was no need - all combat-ready Russian troops retreated to Moscow. There were garrisons in Jekabpils, Vilnius, Volokovysk, Minsk, Borisov, Mogilev, Orsha, Vitebsk and Smolensk, but not 320,000 people! If this were the case, then the retreating Napoleonic army, like a snowball, would wrap them around itself, and not 30,000 people, but all 300,000 would go to the Berezina! However, this did not happen. If all these disappeared, plus recorded losses, are the true losses of the Napoleonic army, then this means that the losses amounted to 80% of the personnel. For any army, this is a disaster, equivalent to a complete defeat. Yes, in general, and 60% loss is also tantamount to a disaster. Isn't it easier to assume that the number of Napoleon's army was 280,000 people? Or even less. Judging by the ratio of losses, it turns out two hundred and thirty thousand. The two active Russian armies had a total strength of 200,000 men. 120,000 people came to Borodin. (Some documents mention the figure - 157,000 people). Napoleon, of course, had to suffer heavy losses, because an advancing army always suffers heavy losses. Why was the size of the Napoleonic army more than doubled? And by whom? Perhaps even by Kutuzov himself. After all, it is believed that he was a diligent student of Suvorov. It is known that after the assault on Ishmael, one of the officers asked the commander how many dead Turks should be indicated in the report? To which Suvorov, with his usual humor, replied: “Basurmans have nothing to regret, write more ...” So such a perfect, so rounded number appeared to the world - 100,000. Although, perhaps this is taken from jokes about Suvorov - how could so many people be accommodated in Izmail ? Or maybe later, long after the war, someone, in order to stick out the genius of Kutuzov, exaggerated the size of the Napoleonic army? This mystery is among other mysteries associated with the personality of Kutuzov.

Further, in the same textbook we read that 50,000 Napoleonic soldiers died on the Borodino field. 130,000 minus 50,000 turns out to be 80,000. And suddenly we read further that 100,000 Frenchmen are already retreating from Moscow, and 40,000 wagons with looted goods are following them. Where did another 60,000 soldiers come from if Napoleon did not receive reinforcements from France, and the roads to Moscow were cut by Russian troops, assuming that the stragglers pulled up? Suppose that Russian prisoners were sitting on carts with looted goods, in which case it was still necessary to put at least one soldier with a gun on each wagon. Because the Russian charioteer, taking advantage of the confusion of the retreat, could at any suitable moment turn left, and after five or six miles be in the location of the Russian troops. Yes, yes ... It would not be bad for the gentlemen historians to decide on these wizards, Napoleonic soldiers ... Either they disappear in hundreds of thousands, they appear out of nowhere in tens of thousands ...

Most likely, forty thousand wagons with loot, the same myth as the six hundred thousand soldiers who crossed the border of Russia. Napoleonic soldiers simply would not have had time to loot anything. The fact is that there is a lot of evidence that Moscow caught fire from all over even before the French entered it. That is why they rushed to catch the arsonists; after all, these villains burned their winter apartments!

WHY DID YOU FIGHT UNDER Borodino?

Before the arrival of Kutuzov in the army, the war went on without oddities, as usual - the three Russian armies, widely stretched along the border, gradually converged towards the direction of Napoleon's main attack.

By the way, where does the conclusion about mediocrity of Barclay de Tolly come from? The armies were scattered over a wide area not by his order, and with available forces he could only fight rearguard battles. As soon as enough strength was gathered for the battle, Barclay decided to give it to the Tsar's Zaimishch. What is Kutuzov doing? And he withdraws the army from the equipped positions of Tsarev Zaimishch and leads it to Borodino, arguing that there are not enough forces yet. During those few days that the army was marching towards Borodino, reinforcements still physically could not come up! After a grueling march, the army builds fortifications all night long before the battle. The full impression is that Kutuzov deliberately reduces the combat capability of his army!

Your will, gentlemen, but from the point of view of an infantry lieutenant, the Russian troops on the Borodino field are located in a very, very strange way! Firstly, what is Barclay's 40,000-strong corps doing, standing far behind the right flank, on the banks of the Kolocha River with steep banks? And does nothing! So he did not move anywhere for the entire duration of the battle. Also, the twenty-thousandth reserve, which was stationed near the village of Tatarinovo, did not move anywhere. Only episodically small detachments were sent either to Bagration's flushes or to Raevsky's battery. The main forces of the French were crushed only on the Raevsky battery! The inaction of Barclay's corps can be explained by only one thing: he covered Gorki, where Kutuzov's headquarters was, and had to cover the commander's possible flight. Nothing else can explain this strange and senseless standing of forty thousand Russian soldiers! A flank strike across the Kolocha River, not a single normal commander would inflict - for the cavalry, this river was a good trap, and the infantry attack would be ineffective: the defenders would simply drop the attacking chains with bayonets from the high bank.

The result of the Battle of Borodino was that the Russians and the French were equal in terms of manpower. But! The Russians have fifty more guns, and this is a tangible advantage. But Kutuzov decides to surrender Moscow. In that case, how can one explain the massacre he committed on the Borodino field? After all, his leitmotif - to save the army at any cost - is replicated in all textbooks and in all works of art about the twelfth year campaign. If he really wanted to save the army, there was no need to ruin forty-four thousand soldiers and officers. It was necessary to immediately surrender Moscow, cut the roads, especially in the surrounding cities there were already thousands of people's militia detachments (in the history textbook the figure slips - 300,000 people), and calmly wait. In a month Napoleon would have asked for peace, in two he would have surrendered unconditionally.

TACTICS OR CRIME?

In the entire campaign, the only logical maneuver was Kutuzov's Tarutinsky maneuver. But how did he know that Napoleon would not go to St. Petersburg, which was only a week away on horseback? The capital is covered by just a few regiments of the palace guard, snickering and decomposed for a long time, having not sniffed gunpowder for a hundred years!

So, Napoleon is sitting in Moscow, Kutuzov is in Tarutino. Only the Napoleonic soldiers are already starving, and reinforcements are constantly approaching Kutuzov, and by the end of September his army has 240,000 people. In that case, what are you waiting for? great commander?! With more than half a million soldiers available, even if half of them were peasants with axes, and landowners with hunting rifles, against eighty thousand Frenchmen, he could simply surround Moscow from all sides. In this situation, Napoleon would never have decided on a breakthrough.

The next oddity of the conduct of the war by Kutuzov: in the presence of numerous Cossack formations, for some reason Napoleonic couriers dart from Moscow and to Moscow without hindrance. Napoleon "secretly" comes out of Moscow and moves for six days to Maloyaroslavets, and Kutuzov does not even know about it! What is it? Poor intelligence? Ignorance, or criminal intent? This is followed by a tense battle for Maloyaroslavets. Kutuzov could not but understand the importance of Maloyaroslavets, and, nevertheless, sparingly sends small detachments to him, as a result of which the city changes hands seven times. What prevented Kutuzov, having a threefold numerical superiority, to immediately send a grouping to Maloyaroslavets sufficient to reliably block Napoleon's withdrawal route ?! What masks the heroism of Russian soldiers near Maloyaroslavets; mediocrity of the commander, or criminal intent?

Desperate to break through to the Kaluga road, Napoleon leaves the army, and, accompanied by several cavalrymen, rides freely through a hostile country to the border. Where is Denis Davydov? Where are the other three or four partisan detachments formed from soldiers and officers of the regular army? Where are the Cossacks who will follow the devil and with bare hands catch? However, another version dominates in the textbooks: that Napoleon left his army only near Vilna. It is doubtful... Most likely, this is a nod to Napoleon.

Indeed, what should the emperor do in a defeated, retreating army? Generals can also lead the retreat. Further, starving, deprived of ammunition, abandoning cannons because of eating horses, the French army drags itself to the border, and Kutuzov literally holds his generals by the pants, who are eager to capture the dying French, if only out of mercy. What happened to the diligent student of Suvorov? The ingenious Teacher, with his inherent laconism, said: “The environment is a victory!”

Kutuzov himself sends reports to St. Petersburg about bloody rearguard battles. Have mercy, gentlemen! Eyewitnesses claim that the French were chasing Russian officers by the thousands, with the sole purpose of surrendering! Because it was better for the partisan peasants not to get caught - they would chop them into cabbage with axes without any talk! The history textbook also talks about bloody battles. This statement could have flown there only from Kutuzov's reports! So, there were already 60,000 French near Smolensk. Have you forgotten that there were 240,000 Russians? And all the reinforcements fit? What awaits the great commander, having a fourfold superiority? 40,000 Frenchmen came out to the Berezina, and, nevertheless, thirty thousand of them managed to cross. And Russia got two more years of war in Europe. Because already two months later Napoleon was at the head of a three hundred thousandth army. Your will, gentlemen, but if I were in the place of Emperor Alexander, I would appoint a commission of inquiry, and subject Kutuzov to a military tribunal!

GENIUS KUTUZOV

However, Alexander did not appoint, and did not subject ... Why? For only one reason: such a clear unwillingness to defeat Napoleon was the will of the emperor himself! Alexander did not want to defeat Napoleon. And Kutuzov, as an experienced courtier, sensitively guessed the will of the emperor, and almost brilliantly fulfilled it; So much so that almost no one guessed about it. In gratitude, Alexander made him great and brilliant. But in fact, he was a good colonel under Suvorov, but he didn’t pull a field marshal with himself. Yes, and the generals did a great job with their heroism, they almost defeated Napoleon; all these Yermolovs, Raevskys, Dokhturovs, Bagrations, Miloradoviches ... It was not for nothing that they were later scattered to command provincial corps. Except Miloradovich. But Miloradovich was a simple dashing fighter, and in principle he could not shed light on the oddities of the campaign of the twelfth year. Perhaps Alexander saw his own benefit in having Europe endlessly at war with Napoleon, and Russia either joining the anti-Napoleonic coalition, or joining the continental blockade.

One thing is certain - Alexander disguised some dirty political game of his with victorious fanfare. And having exalted Kutuzov, turning him into a kind of sacred cow, he finally obscured him. It is unlikely that we will ever know what kind of conspiracy it was, because of which Napoleon put everything on the line ... Although, an experienced historian who is good at working with documents, versed in the political realities of the first decade of the nineteenth century could have calculated. It is doubtful that anyone would undertake it; too much has been written about the war and the genius of Kutuzov. Although historians admit that Kutuzov was also a “brilliant” sycophant and sycophant, for some reason they do not doubt his genius as a commander. Although, it in itself is doubtful that the sycophant and sycophant was suddenly reborn and became a great commander. An indirect confirmation that Kutuzov is an exaggerated figure is at least the fact that neither his generals nor subsequent Russian officers, until 1917, said anything at all about Kutuzov! Neither good nor bad, and even more so, no one was stuffed into his disciples. Perhaps they knew something about Kutuzov that historians deny like hell from incense? (Not a bad expression; hell, and deny it ...) But the Russian officers kept quiet or keeping their officer honor; did not want to get dirty, or for some other reason. But personally, it’s not clear to me why a military officer, a participant in the Crimean War, Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, who undoubtedly knew about the dirty background of Kutuzov’s “genius”, took the official point of view, and Kutuzov was brought out by him as a sort of folk hero? .. However, psychologically explain this it is possible: already by the middle of the nineteenth century, a kind of global romantic epochal legend about the Great Victory was formed, and the highest patriotic impulse of the Russian people was also sung. Apparently, Tolstoy considered that he had no right to destroy such a grandiose and beautiful legend, but he considered himself and had no right not to write about the people in the war of the twelfth year. Now one can only guess about Tolstoy's motives ... If until 1917 the court chroniclers and biased historians were engaged in the exaltation of Kutuzov, and the military in general, kept proud silence, then after the seventeenth year, and especially during the years of the Great Patriotic War, the Bolsheviks took up the matter. Looks like I liked a sort of folk hero, written out by Leo Tolstoy, because the leaf image of Kutuzov does not at all resemble the real Kutuzov, as his contemporaries describe him.

BIG GAME, ALMOST KIPLING

Reflecting on the absurd gestures of the great Bonaparte, and the "brilliant" courtier Kutuzov, I came to the conclusion that from the point of view of official history it is impossible to explain the sudden insanity of the first and the obvious sabotage of the second. But everything falls into place, if we assume that Alexander, back in Tilsit, promised not to impede the passage of the expeditionary corps to India through the territory of Russia. But then the pro-English clique at court put pressure on him, and in order not to get hit on the head with a snuffbox, or something even heavier, he surrendered. By sending a burnt out courtier and a faithful Angloman to the troops, Alexander reliably ensured the observance of English interests. And he himself, in order not to lose face and not remain in history as an English lackey, retired from command of the army, but he managed to express his will to Kutuzov, or show, or hint: in any case, Napoleon must leave Russia alive.

Then the massacre on the Borodino field and other oddities become clear. Firstly, despite the clear threat of invasion, no one bothered to pull the Russian armies to the direction of Napoleon's main attack; they stood like that until the very invasion, stretching along the entire western border of Russia. Bonaparte, most likely, planned to quickly march to Moscow, and immediately send an expeditionary corps along the Ryazan road towards Astrakhan, and with the main forces to tie down the possible pursuit of this corps by Russian troops. Perhaps he did not even expect any resistance from the Russian troops. Remember Alexander's phrase? “I am not afraid of war, and I will retreat even to Kamchatka ...”

Napoleon invaded Russia with not too large forces, but not small ones either, so that the war would not look like an operetta. It is clear why Kutuzov did not bring almost half of his army into battle on the Borodino field - he wanted to exclude the slightest possibility of the passage of the expeditionary force. Moscow was burned, most likely on the direct orders of Kutuzov. After all, having rested in Moscow, Napoleon could either send an expeditionary force to the southeast, or break through there with all the remnants of the army. Apparently Kutuzov until the last moment was waiting for such a maneuver by Napoleon. Therefore, he settled in Tarutino, and not in Maloyaroslavets. Therefore, the movement of Napoleon's army to Maloyaroslavets was a complete surprise for Kutuzov.

Kutuzov's sitting in Tarutino is hardly explainable from the point of view of the generally accepted version, but if he expected Napoleon's breakthrough to the southeast, then this becomes quite logical. Kutuzov intended to let Napoleon's army pass him along the Ryazan road, and then destroy it with a blow from the rear. Well, if Napoleon had sent an expeditionary force, and he himself would have tried to tie down the Russian army with the main forces, it would have turned out even better: with a flank attack, Kutuzov would have cut off the expeditionary force from the main forces, fettered them, and even a couple would have coped with the expeditionary force Cossack divisions: they would be cut down gradually on a long journey through the steppes.

Receives a logical explanation and the only decisive gesture of Kutuzov for the entire time of sitting in Tarutino is an order to defeat Murat's cavalry. And even then the generals persuaded Kutuzov for a long time and stubbornly, proving the need to defeat the cavalry. Why's that? Is it the cavalry? And not the whole army? And most of all fussed someone Benigsen. Very much his surname looks like an English one ... (By the way, he later smashed Murat's corps.) Yes, without cavalry, a raid on India became absolutely impossible!

By the way, on the Berezina, the Napoleonic army was nevertheless surrounded by two corps, and the third corps, which was late, was supposed to close the encirclement, which the French took advantage of. And the great commander Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov personally commanded the late corps!

Having come to these conclusions, I must admit that I began to respect Kutuzov! Well, what a trickster you have to be in order to make such a pirouette: he observed the interests of England, did not let the expeditionary corps go to India, and fulfilled the secret will of the emperor!

It is with regret that we have to state that the Patriotic War of the twelfth year was not at all domestic, and rivers of Russian blood were shed for the English interest. Because only England received all the benefits from the defeat of Napoleon, while Europe and Russia remained in their interest. Napoleon would not have invaded Russia at all if Alexander had kept a firm and clear position. But he twisted and turned, wriggled and maneuvered, played a dirty political game, and then created a gigantic exaggerated figure of the "great" commander and was shielded by it for centuries.

Despite the relative proximity of these events to us, history does not give an exact answer why the Napoleon cake is called that. The most popular version indicates that the name appeared as a result of a distortion of the original name of the dessert.

The cake itself, with a recipe similar to the modern Napoleon cake, existed before Bonaparte and before the celebrations in honor of the centenary of the victory over him. The original name of the dessert is "mille-feuille", which can be translated as "yarrow", which hints at the abundance of layers in the delicacy. Under it, the cake is known in England.

Recipes for similar desserts can be found in cookbooks created in the 16th century. For the first time, the name "mille-feuille" can be found in a cookbook created in 1733. Its author was the French chef Vincent La Chapelle, who worked in England. In his recipe, instead of cream (as in the modern "Napoleon"), there were marmalade and jam.

Sixteen years later, the mille-feuille recipe was printed on French. It was one of the cookbooks created by a certain connoisseur of cuisine, hiding from his contemporaries and descendants under the pseudonym "Menon".

There are no more references to this cake in the literature of the 18th century. But it is known that "mille-feuille" could be found in the pastry shops of the era of Napoleon Bonaparte. In the 19th century culinary literature, recipes for jam treats continued to be published. Only one recipe from 1876 suggested Bavarian cream instead of jam.

Today at different countries the recipe for "Napoleon" has its own characteristics:

The name of the cake "Napoleon"

In English-language literature, the dessert appears under the name "mille-feuille", but the authors do not forget to mention its Russian name, which can be found for the first time in 1833. The famous prose writer Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky mentions a "sweet pie" with that name. But the writer does not give any more information about the dessert, so it cannot be said whether the “Napoleon” he mentioned is the famous cake.

It is believed that the name "Napoleon" comes from the French adjective "napolitain" ("Neapolitan"). In France, the name of the French emperor is called "mille-feuille" almond paste.

The popularity of the cake in Russia grew after 1912, when the centenary of the victory in the war against Bonaparte was widely celebrated in the empire. In the year of the celebration, the cake was baked in the shape of the cocked hat of the French emperor. The layers of "Napoleon" symbolized " Great Army"invader, and the cookies that were sprinkled on top of the cake were reminiscent of the Russian winter that finished off the French. In the USSR, "Napoleon" was one of the most popular desserts in the country and remains so today.

The history of culinary recipes and their names gives food for thought and informs the era. The story of why the Napoleon cake is so called shows how the original name and historical associations made one of the most colorful recipes of modern cuisine popular.