1 Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 was a calamitous event that shook the French Empire to its foundation and led to its eventual collapse just a year and half later. Much has been written about this subject and the recently held bicentennial celebrations once again showcased continued interest in this campaign. One of the widely used documents related to the Russian Campaign is Charles Joseph Minard’s famous 1869 flow map that graphically demonstrates Napoleon’s fiasco in Russia. Yet, as we follow the gradually shrinking band representing the Grande Armée, one cannot but wonder what had happened to tens of thousands of men (and women) who so “simply” disappeared from the graph. It is usually acknowledged that Napoleon had entered Russia with some half a million men and, loosing tens of thousands of men, fled six month later with less than 50,000. There is still no recent study in English or French exploring the fate of numerous prisoners of war that Napoleon left behind. The purpose of this paper is to offer a glimpse into what happened to them

2 Despite popular misperceptions, Russian treatment of prisoners was not markedly different from that of other European States but it was, nevertheless, characterized by certain peculiarities. Prior to the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Russia had conducted wars on three main fronts: against the Ottoman Turks, Crimean Tatars and other non-Christian peoples in south and southeast; Poles in the west; and Swedes in the Baltic region. These conflicts profoundly shaped Russian treatment of the prisoners of war. Dealing with non-Christian opponents, Russia, for example, adopted a practice of purchasing and retaining POWs who converted to Orthodox Christianity. Throughout 1770s and 1790s, the Russian government adopted laws that regulated

3 these practices, setting price tags on individual prisoners. Thus, the newly converted Turks and Tatars were rewarded with a one-off payment of eighteen rubles and were regarded as subjects of the Russian State, which meant they could no longer be exchanged as prisoners of war at the end of the war. [1] At the same time, in the wake of the Polish Partitions of the late-eighteenth century, Russia considered Polish prisoners of war as rebels and therefore treated them in a different manner. Such POWs (unless they converted to Orthodoxy) were exiled to distant parts of the empire. On the other hand, Swedish prisoners were treated much more leniently and were returned (without ransom) to their homeland at the end of the war. [2] In all of these cases, the Russian government accepted financial responsibility for the care of prisoners of war and allocated daily sums for the subsistence of officers and men.

4 The Napoleonic Wars posed many challenges to Russia and the treatment of prisoners of war proved one of them since none of Russia’s previous conflicts produced as many POWs as the wars against Napoleon. While not particularly successful against the French armies in 1805-1806, Russians still managed to captured several thousand prisoners of war during the 1805-1807 campaigns in Moravia and Poland. The issue of what to do with them prompted significant revision of Russian regulations on the prisoners of war. [3] On 10 December 1806, Minister of War, S. Vyazmitinov, outlined Emperor Alexander’s instructions on the upkeep of Napoleonic prisoners captured in previous campaigns. The new regulations called for prisoners to be transported first to Grodno and then separated into two groups: all officers were to be directed to Simbirsk, and the rank-and-file to the provinces of Kazan’, Vyatka, and Perm. Throughout their transportation, prisoners were quartered with private citizens in district and major towns under the supervision of the provincial police. Daily payments for subsistence were provided according to rank: three rubles per day for generals; 1,5 rubles for colonels and lieutenant colonels; and 50 kopecks for captains and other officer ranks; NCOs received 7 kopecks; and privates got 5 kopecks a day. Each person received the allowance one week at a time while soldiers also were given the ordinary soldiers’ food ration. The decree specified that local authorities were responsible for providing one horse per officer, one horse for every 12 soldiers, and one transport for every two seriously sick or wounded. Sick prisoners had to be attended at local hospitals while healthy prisoners were distributed among cities and towns, where they were quartered with private citizens. They were denied the right to correspond, and any attempt to escape was subject to harsh punishment. The decree in fact introduced collective punishment inasmuch as prisoners were held “responsible for audacious behavior any single of them.” Local authorities were required to maintain alphabetical lists and monthly rosters of prisoners and submit regular reports to the Ministry of War. [4]

5 In early 1812, the Russian Ministry of War approved a new Statute on Commanding a Large Active Army (Uchrezhdenie dlya upravleniya Bolshoi Deistvuyushei Armii) that defined organization, structure and functions of the Russian military during the concluding years of the Napoleonic Wars. [5] According to the statute, the Duty Office (dezhurtsvo) of the Main Staff (Glavnyi shtab) handled all issued related to the treatment of the prisoners of war (Article 134). Once enemy soldiers were captured, they were supposed to be delivered to the division headquarters, which then conveyed them to the corps headquarters and finally to the Main Staff (Articles 55, 60). The Second Section of the Duty Office was responsible for providing immediate accommodation for prisoners of war (Article 72) while Gewaltiger-General, who served as chief of military police, handled enemy deserters (Article 165). All prisoners of war were presented to the commandant of the Headquarters (glavnaya kvartira), [6] who then considered where to dispatch them. Once decision was made, the convoy of the Headquarters escorted prisoners to transportation points (Article 287). The Statute contained specific provisions to prevent abuse of POWs. Articles 403-404 and 435, thus, prohibited depriving POWs of clothing or buying from them any items or impressing them into service.

6 The question of prisoners of war became a major issue for Russia during Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812. Just days into the conflict, Russians already began capturing prisoners of war (some of them deserters) who were treated in accordance with the Statute on Commanding a Large Active Army. The relevant Russian military authorities quickly processed prisoners and conveyed them to the nearby provinces – initially Kiev, Chernigov, Smolensk and Tver – for detention. However, as the Grande Armée penetrated deeper into Russia, the prisoners of war had to be evacuated further eastward, in some cases as far as Tambov. [7]

7 The Grande Armée suffered tremendous losses during the campaign, and Russian military authorities struggled to deal with the ever-increasing number of prisoners. Aside from tens of thousands who perished on the battlefields or died of privation and cold weather, recent Russian studies show that Russians captured over 110,000 prisoners during the six-month long campaign. [8] The harsh winter as well as popular violence, malnutrition, sickness and hardships during transportation meant that two-thirds of these men (and women) perished within weeks of captivity. Official reports from forty-eight Russian provinces reveal that 65,503 prisoners had died in Russia by February 1813. As it might be expected, the highest number of prisoners perished in provinces where military operations took place and little accommodation could be provided for the sick and wounded. Thus, over 6,500 POWs died in the Minsk province, 7,729 in the Smolensk province and 5,371 in the Vitebsk province. The same official reports reveal that 39 645 POWs – including 37 generals, 190 staff-officers, and 3,023 junior officers [9] – were still alive and held in detention throughout the empire while another 3,500 prisoners agreed to join the newly established Russo-German and Orel Legions to fight against Napoleon. The largest numbers were in the western provinces – the Vilna (3,672 men), Minsk (3,597), Vitebsk (3,134), Saratov (3,730) and Kiev (2,608) provinces, but there were also heavy concentrations of prisoners in the distant Vyatka (1,616), Orenburg (1,580), St Petersburg (1,377) and Pskov (1,322) provinces. The nationalities of the prisoners reflected the multi-ethnic composition of the Napoleonic armies. Thus, a party of prisoners passing through Kaluga included 1,053 Frenchmen, 622 Poles, 116 Italians, 100 Austrians, 92 Spaniards, 43 Dutchmen, 35 Portuguese, 9 Bavarians, and 7 Westphalians. Another list compiled on 13 December of the prisoners in Kaluga showed that two villages housed 25 Frenchmen, 18 Westphalians (including one female), 2 Greeks, 4 Bavarians, 2 Portuguese, 5 Italians, 10 Prussians (including one female), 9 Spaniards, 2 Saxons, and 337 Poles (including twelve women and a child). [10]

8 In early September, with the influx of thousands of POWs, Russian authorities decided to introduce certain changes in the system to resolve two fundamental problems – removing prisoners of war from the theater of war and providing them with necessary accommodation for the duration of war. At the core of this system lay the shift of responsibility from the military to civilian authorities. According to a decree approved by the Emperor Alexander and carried out through the Ministry of Police that had authority over provinces – the distant provinces of Astrakhan, Perm, Orenburg, Saratov and Vyatka were designated as the place of settlement for prisoners, and they had to be transported as part of armed convoys provided by the Internal Guard Corps. [11] Each convoy commander was required to keep a meticulous account of all expenses incurred during transportation of the prisoners. The decree also specified that “the prisoners must not be mistreated in any shape or form, but they must be required to behave humbly and obediently. They must be informed that they would bear collective responsibility for any transgression”. Once a convoy passed through a province, each convoy commander was required to obtain a letter from the province governor stating that the convoy had passed “quietly and in good faith”. Civilian authorities in every province were made responsible for providing clothing, shoes, and provisions as well as placing sick prisoners at local hospitals and providing all necessary care for them; once they recovered, prisoners were then conveyed to rejoin their comrades in detention centers. Upon arriving at the designated province, prisoners were distributed among cities and towns, where they were quartered with private citizens and were closely monitored by local police. In July 1813, rank-and-file prisoners were allowed to become Russian subjects by taking an oath of loyalty to the Russian sovereign but were restricted in the areas they could settle (i.e., they could not settle in Poland, Finland, or in St Petersburg or Moscow). [12] Once pledging allegiance, the ‘newly minted’ Russian subjects had nine months to decide what profession they would pursue. [13] The Russian government no longer required conversions to Orthodoxy amongst prisoners, although the Synod continued to demand conversion for marriages between prisoners and Orthodox Russians. [14] Although POWs were initially denied the right to correspondence, these restrictions were later relaxed, however, tight censorship was maintained. Prisoners were required to deliver their unsealed letters to local police official who reviewed their contents before giving permission to mail them. In the spring of 1814, the remaining prisoners, except for the Poles, were allowed to conduct legal affairs involving their estates back home.

9 The transportation and accommodation of prisoners placed considerable strain on the local population. Although instructions to police and city officials specified that accommodation had to be provided “without inconvenience” to local populace, the very nature of this enterprise caused considerable tension and conflict. Prisoners were quartered with private citizens who grumbled about extra expenses they had to bear in the upkeep of the “accursed invaders”. Furthermore, locals were particularly concerned about the spread of contagious diseases that many prisoners of war carried. In late December 1812, the Ministry of Police was compelled to send out a new circular letter to the provincial authorities demanding the quarantine of newly arriving prisoners and the immediate burial or cremation of the bodies of prisoners who had died during transportation. The cold weather, which wrought such a havoc on the Grande Armée in December, proved to be a blessing for the Russian authorities since it prevented thousands of bodies from rapidly decomposing and potentially causing a deadly outbreak of disease.

10 As required by the regulations of 1806, POWs received financial support from the Russian government. Payments to officer and soldiers were, in fact, initially increased but then fell back to the 1806 levels. [15] These monies were allocated from the funds of local and provincial authorities, who also had to contribute provisions and clothing. Consequently, some provinces found themselves shouldering heavy financial burdens. Thus, in the month of August 1813 alone the fiscal chamber in Sloboda-Ukraine province had to allocate 12,450 rubles for POWs, while the Kaluga authorities had to spend 700 rubles to transport a party of 577 prisoners. [16] They were also obliged to acquire 208 sheepskin coats, 333 hats, 329 shirts, 618 pairs of stockings, 61 pairs of boots and 570 pairs of peasant bast shoes to meet POW needs, costing thousands of rubles. [17] In October 1813, in order to reduce expenses related to the up-keep of POWs, the Ministry of Police declared that the rank-and-file prisoners were required to buy their own clothing and shoes while officers were provided a subsidy of 100 rubles to acquire proper clothes.

11 Russian rulers had long made efforts to attract skilled foreigners to promote industry and agriculture in Russia. The capture of tens of thousands of enemy soldiers offered a golden opportunity to attract the most skilled and industrious of them. Already in December 1812, Minister of Police Vyazmitinov instructed provincial governors to interrogate prisoners and identify any with expertise in textile industry. On January 26, the Ministry of Police issued a detailed instruction that called for the classification of all prisoners into four categories. The first category included Poles, who as treasonous rebels, were condemned to exile to the Caucasus, Georgia and the Siberian Line, where they were required to join in local regiments, effectively performing active service in the imperial armed forces. “This measure would not only reduce the expenses our treasury accrues for maintaining [the Polish prisoners] but it will also free up recruits to reinforce armies fighting against France.” In the second category were those prisoners who demonstrated their technical abilities could be used “to advantage in our factories and industrial enterprises.” [18] Such workers were to be selected, dispatched to factories and paid at the same rate as Russians. In the third category, soldiers who were from a farming background were to be encouraged to settle as colonists in Saratov and Ekaterinburg provinces. And finally, in the fourth category, those showing a skill either in industry or agriculture were to be used to restore Moscow and other ruined towns. [19] Although not mentioned in this instruction, Russian authorities placed captured medical personnel into a separate category as well. With thousands of sick and wounded troops and lacking sufficient medical personnel, Russian authorities offered very generous terms to French and German physicians, including freedom and full pay. [20]

12 Russian attitudes were frequently shaped by the nationality of the prisoners. It must be noted however that the Russian authorities determined nationality not by the place of birth but rather based on origin of unit where prisoner served. The long-standing tradition of admiration for French culture meant that the French prisoners of war, especially officers, were in fact treated leniently. Yuri Arnold, writing from the province of Mogilev, noted that the obsession with all things French led to the situation when “it was rare at that time to find a noble residence in which one did not meet a French prisoner. To have at home ‘one’s own’ Frenchman had become an established practice for every ‘respectable home.’ My family, consequently, found ‘our Frenchman’ as well.” [21] Interestingly, Spanish and Portuguese prisoners were also treated well. They were all dispatched to St. Petersburg where their rank-and-file received higher daily allowances than any other nationality. Such leniency was the result of both the existing Treaty of Velikie Luki (20 July 1812) that established Russo-Spanish alliance against France, and the Russian desire to recruit these prisoners into one of foreign legions that were formed in the spring of 1813. Dutch, Hessian, Hanoverian and Italian prisoners were also offered opportunity to enlist in foreign legions. [22] On the other hands, the Poles were regarded as traitors and rebels and subjected to harsher treatment. As we had seen, they were denied the right to correspond or conduct legal affairs and were condemned to military service on the periphery of the empire. [23]

13 The first prisoners of war were released in January 1813 when, in the wake of the Convention of Tauroggen (30 December 1812), Russian government began releasing captured Prussian troops. In April, as the War of German Liberation got underway, the Ministry of Police released prisoners from various Germanic states, starting with officers from Mecklenburg and Anhalt-Dessau. In early May, it was the Saxon turn, but due to administrative and logistical difficulties, their release was delayed until November 1813, when they joined prisoners from Wurttemberg, Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Coburg on their way home. Meanwhile, in June 1813, as it became clear that Austria would turn its back on Napoleon, Russia began freeing Austrian POWs as well. In late October, Bavarian prisoners received their freedom, soon to be followed by troops Wurzburg and Saxe-Meiningen in November. Finally, on 10 December 1813, Alexander agreed to release all prisoners from the Confederation of the Rhine. The remaining Allied prisoners – from Dalmatia, Croatia, Friuli, Istria, Trieste, Hamburg, Naples, etc. – were repatriated in the spring of 1814, with the Poles being the last to be released on 18 April 1814. Finally, on 25 May 1814, Minister of Police Vyazmitinov announced complete repatriation of any remaining prisoners of war except those who committed crimes. [24]

14 All prisoner releases were carefully organized and monitored. Prisoners were moved in groups of no more than 200 men (with at least 3 officers per 100 men), released at regular intervals and accompanied by local officials; prisoners were once again provided with basic essentials and daily needs at state expense. These groups assembled at three main concentration points – Radziwilow, Riga and Byelostock – before crossing the Russian imperial border on their way home.

15 Despite their experiences in captivity, some POWs did choose to stay in Russia, finding prospects of staying in the foreign land more attractive than returning to homeland. After pledging allegiance to the Russian sovereign, a few of them enlisted in the Russian army but most settled in various towns and villages, working in industry and farming and gradually assimilating into the Russian society.