French historians have attributed Napoleon's disaster to the burning of Moscow. This is not true. It was not fire, but hunger, which faced the French army. All the machinery of the city had disappeared. Its markets were empty and there was no food to be had, but the burning of Moscow, which has figured as such a dramatic episode in history, is in fact a French myth. It is true there was fire and plenty of it, but the city was not destroyed and stands to-day practically as it stood before Napoleon ever saw it.
It is not the province of this work to trace the retreat and destruction of the Grand Army upon its return, amid the snow-covered wastes of Russia, in the midst of the storms and freezing cold of the dark days of 1812. The flower of France perished and Napoleon's ambition at Moscow found its ruin, but not by fire.
On joining his army in February, 1813, in Poland, Alexander published the famous manifesto which served as a basis of the new coalition of the European powers against the French Emperor and hereafter Germany, and then France, became the scene of hostilities, culminating in the capture of Paris, April 30, 1814. This was followed by the abdication of Bonaparte and the conclusion of peace.
Alexander visited England in the company of the King of Prussia, and on his return to his own dominions he again busied himself in ameliorating the conditions of his empire. He obtained the duchy of Warsaw and was recognized as the King of Poland by the Congress of Vienna. In November, 1815, he visited Warsaw and there published a constitution for the new kingdom and next to his empire.
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From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
