One of the greatest and most fateful military campaigns in world history today marks its turning point. Hand September 15, 2026 end exactly 214 years since the day the Grand Army of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte reached the heart of the Russian Empire and entered the Moscow Kremlin. The event, which seemed like the culmination of the French triumph, actually became the beginning of the end for the era of the Napoleonic Wars.
Entering a deserted Moscow
After the bloody and exhausting Battle of Borodino, the Russian commander-in-chief Mikhail Kutuzov made the strategic and difficult decision to abandon Moscow without a fight in order to preserve the combat capability of his army. When Napoleon reached Poklonnaya Hill near the city on September 14, he waited in vain for a delegation of Russian nobles to hand him the keys to the city.
On the morning of September 15, 1812, Napoleon officially entered the Kremlin. The emperor found a ghost town. Above 90% of Moscow's population (about 250,000 people) was evacuated, and shops, warehouses and administrative buildings were completely emptied.
Count Rostopchin's fire trap
The joy of the French command was fleeting. On the very night of his arrival in the city, the first fires broke out, which quickly grew into a large-scale fire disaster. By order of the Moscow Governor-General, Count Fyodor Rostopchin, hundreds of saboteurs were left in the city, who deliberately set fire to key buildings, and fire pumps were removed or destroyed.
The fire raged for four days, burning down nearly three-quarters of Moscow, including vast warehouses of provisions. Napoleon himself was forced to temporarily leave the Kremlin due to the danger of suffocation and retreat to the Petrovsky Palace.
The emperor spent a little over a month in Moscow, making three unsuccessful attempts to offer peace to Tsar Alexander I. The lack of food, the approaching harsh Russian winter, and complete isolation forced the Grand Army to begin its disastrous retreat in October, which ended in its complete destruction.