|
Not a sword, but peace: the capitulation of Paris, 1814
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.[RedStar] March 31 marks the 210th anniversary of the surrender of Paris - the Russian army put an end to the ambitions of the French emperor, who intended to bring Russia to its knees. by Alexander Bondarenko On the night of March 19 (31), 1814, the guard adjutant of the Russian Emperor, Colonel Mikhail Fedorovich Orlov, drew up and signed the capitulation of Paris. On the same day, the troops of the allies - Russia, Prussia and Austria - entered the capital of the still French Empire (it will be abolished on April 6). The Parisians rejoiced when they met them... The Allied army of 110,000 bayonets and sabers approached Paris on the morning of March 18 (30); the city was defended by 42,000 people - small detachments of Marshals Marmont and Mortier, forces of the National Guard, students of the Polytechnic School, disabled gunners... Napoleon, who planned to go behind the rear of the allied armies, hurried to Paris from Saint-Dizier, but did not have time to approach. The battle for Paris has begun. At three o'clock in the afternoon, 12 guns of Colonel Taube's guards artillery battery, installed on the Chaumont Heights, opened fire on Paris itself. Their cannonballs, although they did not cause much harm, significantly shook the resolve of the Parisians, who were preparing to fight and die in the streets and boulevards of their capital. Meanwhile, Russian infantry began an assault on the city. An hour later, when Alexander I was already preparing to send his most reliable force, the guard, to the tsar, a French envoy arrived to the tsar, reporting that the garrison command was asking to stop shooting and was ready to enter into negotiations. To resolve the issue of starting negotiations, the sovereign sent his aide-de-camp, Colonel Orlov, to Marshal Marmont. Having galloped through a hail of rifle bullets and grapeshot, since no one had yet stopped firing, Orlov saw the marshal in a chain of French riflemen. Marmont approached the Russian officer: “I am the Duke of Ragusa! Who are you?” - Guard Colonel Orlov, aide-de-camp of the Russian Emperor, who wants to save Paris for France and for the world! “This is also our desire and our only hope, otherwise all of us would only have to die here!” After these beautiful phrases, the marshal asked what the Russians want. Orlov replied that a ceasefire should be held, the French troops should be withdrawn behind the city outposts and a commission should be appointed to negotiate the surrender of Paris. These were the demands of the victors, so Marmont could only set a time and place for a meeting with the Russian representatives. Then, by order of the marshal, the drums struck the all clear. The firefight began to subside and soon died out. Upon his return, the colonel reported to the emperor about his conversation with the marshal and received orders, together with the Secretary of State and Privy Councilor Count Nesselrode, accompanied by Russian and Austrian officers and a convoy, to go to accept the surrender of Paris, thereby putting the last point in that war. Addressing the parliamentarians, Alexander I said with pathos that “tonight Europe should spend the night in Paris.” ...But it’s unlikely that anyone, except Orlov, and even the emperor himself, could then remember that it was Mikhail who opened the first page of that war! In 1812, June 12, on the night of the 13th, the French began crossing the border river Neman. Early in the morning of the 14th, two horsemen, accompanied by a trumpeter and two Cossacks, rode out from Vilna (now Lithuanian Vilnius) in a western direction towards the advancing enemy. These were the Minister of Police, Lieutenant General Balashov, and Lieutenant of the Cavalry Regiment Orlov. The minister was carrying a letter from the Russian emperor to the French, which said: “If Your Majesty is not inclined to shed the blood of our subjects because of such a misunderstanding and if you agree to withdraw your troops from Russian possessions, then I will ignore everything that happened and an agreement between us will be possible...” Balashov’s conversation with Napoleon turned out to be empty: the French emperor blamed the Russian Tsar for everything and expected repentance from him. Upon returning to Headquarters, the minister briefly reported this to the emperor, who nodded and told him to go and rest. But Orlov was not only invited to a meeting of military leaders, where he modestly sat in the corner, but was also left by the sovereign for a personal conversation. Over the course of several days spent in the enemy’s rear, he was able to get an idea of the number of enemy corps, their routes of movement, the mood in the ranks of the army, problems with food, the death of horses that could not withstand the loads of marching, and much more... This is how the Patriotic War began for Orlov, and now, almost two years later, it was he who was supposed to officially complete the Foreign Campaign. At the Pantenskaya outpost, the Russian parliamentarians were met by Marshal Marmont, with whom they went to the Villettes outpost, where Marshal Mortier was waiting for them in a small, Parisian-style cozy tavern. The marshals immediately dismissed the Russian demand to surrender the city with its entire garrison, declaring that they would rather bury themselves under the ruins of Paris... The Russian representatives, realizing that the troops that would freely leave Paris would join Napoleon’s army, insisted on their own. The conversation threatened to drag on, but suddenly rifle and artillery fire was heard. The interlocutors jumped to their feet, looking at each other in bewilderment. The silence returned as suddenly as it had broken. Soon a French officer entered the tavern and reported to the marshals that the Russian General Langeron, one of the French emigrants who had not yet been notified of the truce due to his distance from the main forces, had taken the Montmartre Heights dominating Paris in battle. It became clear that the situation of besieged Paris was becoming significantly more complicated, but this did not shake the tenacity of the marshals. In the end, Count Nesselrode decided to return to the sovereign. The French general Lapointe also went with the parliamentarians, who, in addition to some official documents addressed to the allied monarchs, also carried Napoleon’s secret letter to Field Marshal Prince Schwarzenberg. The Emperor reported that secret peace negotiations were supposedly taking place between him and his father-in-law, the Austrian Emperor Franz, a treaty was almost signed, so it would be better to withdraw Austrian troops from Paris... Fortunately, in the nine years that passed after 1805, when the deceived Austrians surrendered without a fight, they became somewhat wiser, or perhaps the anticipation of a quick victory and the fear of not being present at the division of the “French pie” affected them. Schwarzenberg introduced the letter to Alexander I and Friedrich Wilhelm. At 7 p.m., the parliamentarians again arrived at the Villettes outpost and presented much more lenient demands: the troops were to leave Paris in parts and follow the Brittany road, that is, in the opposite direction from where Napoleon was staying. But the marshals again objected. An hour later it became clear that the negotiations had finally reached a dead end. Mortier announced that he was leaving for the troops to prepare the city for defense. Nesselrode, to whom Orlov declared that it was impossible to storm Paris at night, decided, accompanied by his entire retinue, to return to the outposts. Of course, the colonel was somewhat disingenuous: if the artillery had opened fire on Paris with firebrands and incendiary shells, then taking the city in the light of a gigantic fire would not have been so difficult. But what a nightmare this night assault would turn into!.. Orlov remained in the city as a hostage from a sudden attack by the Allies. Nesselrode promised Marmont: “The attack on Paris will not be resumed until Colonel Orlov crosses the Russian outposts.” Interestingly, this was not the first time during this war that Mikhail found himself in a similar position - alone among the French, protected only by the status of a parliamentarian. First, as we remember, this happened in June 1812, then in August, after the Battle of Smolensk, when he was sent to find out about the fate of General Tuchkov 3rd, who was captured, and in the end he even met and talked with Napoleon. There was another trip to the headquarters of the French army in January 1813, about which historians know nothing. ... Orlov was woken up at about two o'clock in the morning - a package was delivered from the Russian sovereign with an agreement to accept surrender on French terms, but with the condition that the allied army grants itself the right to pursue the retreating French along any road they choose. On the morning of March 31, Allied troops entered Paris. The first to follow was the Life Guards Cossack Regiment, followed by the regiments of the Guards Light Cavalry Division, then the other guard regiments; after the Russians came the Austrians, Prussians and Badenians... The people on the outskirts greeted the foreigners rather gloomily, but the prosperous center of Paris applauded and showered them with flowers. And this was not without reason, because Russian troops brought “not a sword, but peace” to the soil of France. They did not take revenge on Paris for the desecrated and burned Moscow - and thus reassured France, which was already quite tired of its warlike emperor and his exorbitant ambitions. Posted by: badanov 2024-03-31 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=695393 |