Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 99 - French Invasion of Russia Part 5: Moscow is Decadent and Depraved.

Episode Date: April 6, 2020

Moscow burns, Napoleon begins to lose his mind. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Follow us on Twitter @lions_by Join the subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/LionsLedByDonkeys/

Hello and welcome to yet another episode of the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe and with me live and in person for the first time in a while is Nick out of the cell out of fucking the plague ward into the somehow worst plague ward of our recording studio it's not too bad yeah it's

gonna be unfortunate we just do not have the healthcare infrastructure in this recording studio to take care of each other it's true Laika's a shitty nurse. She isn't doing shit. We got we're having a celebratory

probably three person serving of Old Crow a piece. And we are on part five of the French invasion of Russia. Out of how many parts? Six. We're wrapping it up in six. Mostly due to our schedules being

insane right now and me not wanting to write ten parts of the series. Also, our 100th episode is coming up and I did not plan ahead. I was like, oh, I'm ready to start a series. I didn't think of this has to be wrapped up within seven otherwise oh that

makes sense our 100th anniversary special will just be a part of the series yeah yeah as you can tell uh i do not plan well 100.2 yeah uh yeah that's like some podcasts have done that like this is 99.5 like no i'm not doing that uh so when we left you last week Napoleon his army had taken the smoking ruins of Moscow most people assumed Alexander would have to make peace with the French Emperor and the French assumed that the war was pretty much over the Russians

largely thought the same thing other than like the nobles and the high command the military most soldiers and civilians like huh guess it's over I mean normally when your capital is raised to the fucking ground, it's a hint, like, hmm, time to give it up. French soldiers ran into retreating Russian ones outside the capital as they were just not sure what to do.

And, well, they'd trade food with them. They'd treat their wounds. They didn't have food. They'd just let them leave. Like, bye. That do have food. They just let them leave. Bye! That guy gave me a biscuit. That's cool. I got to eat his toenails. I mean, most

people just thought that the fighting was over and everything else is just a formality. They just have to sign some paperwork or whatever. Nice. Napoleon was only disappointed about this whole thing because there's no official delegation waiting for him. I had to look up why he was mad about this uh so it's customary for civil authorities of a city that is captured to ceremoniously kind of present the keys to the city to the conquering officer yeah uh at which point the conqueror can then talk to the governor

or whatever um if you know if you remember from our last episode, Moscow's governor was a huge piece of shit. He's gone. Long gone. He's in St. Petersburg with the Tsar. Normally, the conquerors talk to the governor like, hey, this is how I'm going to run the city. I'm going to keep you in place. We're just going to be here a while.

The civil administration, how it will continue. The problem was the civil administration of the city will continue. But the problem was the civil administration of the city, like I just said, had ran days before and virtually every Russian of means had also run. The city was

pretty much just foreigners and peasants. Everybody that had any means to run had done so. I think I would have ran too. I definitely would have. When it became clear that the russians had no intention of being traditional napoleon simply dismissed them as barbarians he he also attempted to like find people to start his own version of the civil administration but everybody that was left behind was like not government workers they were mostly illiterate and like couldn't afford like there's a lot of sex workers and like criminals it's like well i can't make you a fucking governor

you gave me the keys from your taint i mean i would rather put i mean that to be fair uh uh muscovite street sex worker would probably be a better candidate than the last governor anyway so it's like fuck it why not uh also Also, the Imperial Guard of Napoleon's army was pretty upset that no Russians came out to listen to their band. Really? Yeah. He's like, not a single Russian came out to see us. We're wasting precious calories playing these instruments. We're hungry.

And people were, like, disappointed. Like, now, about a small section of the city had been burned. The major fires hadn't quite started yet oh there's more fires yeah yeah yeah and uh that people were like writing home to their own wives like i'm really disappointed as i had not seen any attractive women here really yeah like dude it's your wife what the fuck maybe she's in on it too well one of them was talking about i looked forward to having a mistress while i was away from you but now i see that's not a possibility wow fuck you

buddy jesus turns out marriages back then are a lot more fucked up than they are today yeah um there's another thing that the civil authorities were supposed to do um and that was fine billets and for the incoming soldiers as well as make arrangements as to how to feed them. Because, you know, officers try to pawn off as much work as they can on somebody else. Like, I don't need to find where my army needs to live and eat. You do that. That didn't happen. Since those were not in place, the French army just kind of went wild, trying to find houses to live in uh like anywhere with a roof and how

to feed themselves and napoleon issued a strict no looting order i imagine that got broken uh well that's the thing is it for now it was largely followed but the thing was is a lot of the city was abandoned and they're like well if nobody's here it's not looting. That's just burglary. That's different. So, like, some soldiers went door to door, like, begging people who still live there, like, please give us something. Other people just broke into fucking vacant houses and looted them and said, like, nope, semantics.

It's not looting if nobody's here. They didn't claim it as theirs. They said I could. It's their fucking house. Whatever. It doesn't matter. It's all about to be burned down anyway. To make matters worse, the city's new owner for the city's new owners the Russian governor, who we talked about before had ordered the police

superintendent to stay behind and continue setting fires. Really? Yeah. Anarchy. So like Russian cops were running around setting buildings on fire, like detonating powder charges and stuff like that. That's a game. Yeah.

That's a movie. That's awesome. The only cool cops ever. Yeah. And some of them had been set beforehand, but then as soon as the French thought they had them under control, they just pop up somewhere else. And like we talked about most most cities back then are wood.

So like once they sparked, it just ran out of control. And the governor also did one more dick move was take every water pump with him out of the city. So the French had no way to fight the fires. Yeah. Spit on it. Everybody's dehydrated, starving. Just dust comes out. They try to spit.

My lips are dry. They try to spit. Their cracked lips just break apart and blood flies out. All of these fires in the anarchy in the city eventually forced Napoleon to leave Moscow and move a couple of miles away. This place sucks. Imagine your general is like,

I'm out of here but like you guys go ahead and stay here because like the rest of the army still had to stay in moscow the fires will keep you warm he was mostly worried because um he was staying in the kremlin and the basement of the kremlin was a huge supply of powder chargers and stuff like it's only a matter of time for somebody blows blows this whole fucker up and kills you so he moved a few miles outside just to be safe all while his soldiers had to stay behind while the city burnt around

them and exploded he didn't warn anybody too about the powder charges he's just like I gotta go they'll probably figure it out one of the buildings that did blow up was a Russian army hospital that was treating the wounded from the Battle of Bortica

oh fuck we'll probably be alright what was that building? the Russian hospital just from a distance the boy is going this is bad this is real bad like I said the soldiers couldn't do anything to put the fires out

the cops are like this is working all too well. This is why everybody's criminals. This is way funner, guys. This is cool. So the French had another way to deal with it, and that was trying to track down the people starting the fires and arrest them,

which just turned into them shooting everybody that they found. What? The cop looking in a mirror? Arrested. They also began looting the fuck out of the city while Napoleon was gone. Emperor's gone. Law doesn't apply anymore. And then they were

aided in the looting by civilians and Russian soldiers themselves. They just look at each other. You're hungry too? Sometimes they actively helped one another. Imagine a cop setting a fire like wait sergey we can just steal this shit we don't have to set on fire like i didn't think of this but afterwards like the army pretty much dissolved uh soldiers and officers were drunk and riding stolen gilded chariots through the street while sold while other

soldiers killed each other over the best loot. What? This friend did redemption. Like, there was no, it wasn't like the French versus the Russians in the looting. It was like roving packs of soldiers from various different countries. Like, hey, fuck that guy.

He's got the piano. What street are you on? We're on this street. Motherfucker, what block are you from? Soldiers robbed one another and small roving hordes of bandits formed to prey upon the weak and the unarmed.

I'm trying to gloss over this so we can continue laughing, but they also did just awful shit to the women in the city that were still there that we won't go into. And they beat and mugged everybody else while literally stealing the clothes off of their back. And then there was other times

where they would rob somebody, and then they're like, you carry the stuff that I stole from you and follow me. They just pick up slaves and shit. You're my baggage. Yeah. The city burned,

and things kind of devolved into anarchy on the inside for three fucking days. It's the annual purge of Moscow. See, now the privates are in charge of the generals because the generals are on the lower rung of the gang. I mean, when you think about it, that's almost certainly what would happen because the generals are all old as shit. The private's like, no, no, look at me. I'm the captain now. Carry my shit. The private's like, no, no, look at me. I'm the captain now. Carry my shit.

Give me your hat. When the flames finally did die down, Napoleon re-entered the city and everybody stopped acting an ass. Like, oh, fuck, emperor, show back up.

Put this shit down! Stop looting! You just have a guy just holding shit? Do I have to put my slaves back? No, he's actually cool with that.

Okay. While murder, robbing, and raping free-for-all was all over, it still left Napoleon with a pretty serious problem. Not the fact that he commanded an army of psychopaths, but Alexander was still refusing to negotiate. His plan was to force Alexander's hand by turning Russian

society against him. You know how we've talked about before, how this would be really, really easy to do if you just freed the serfs? Still refuse to do that. Instead, he tried to find the disenchanted bougie fucks who already ran most of Russian society, like nobles, merchants, and liberal-leaning aristocrats. Did not work.

He couldn't even find a Russian willing to spy for him, regardless of how much money he gave them. What? He really underestimated how much people fucking hated him in Russiaussia i'll do a lot for a lot of money yeah i mean i don't know if i'm willing to like betray america for some money but like he really underestimates just how much russians hated napoleon and how much they like the czar because while all this is going on it while the nobles are the nobles are hating on the czar like this while all this is going on, while the nobles are hating on the Tsar, like, this guy's a fucking idiot,

he doesn't know what he's doing, everyone else in Russian society is like, we all must circle our wagons around the Tsar. He's coming to dethrone him. I don't know. Which is really weird, because, like, the dude has done nothing for you. What if this guy offered you lunch? Napoleon's like, I will just give you

food. The Tsar doesn't do that either all he had to do was free the serfs and arm them and that would have been done uh but he wouldn't do it and i mean that's why alexander he wanted to free the serfs and then he's like hmm if i do that they'll probably all just rise up against me uh nope nope slavery's cool yeah like the and and the other thing he could use, like, look, clearly I've defeated your czar. I've conquered Moscow.

But like the whole fucking thing was burnt to the ground. And like, so it offered no like political points, no propaganda value. Cause it's all ruined. So he just kind of sat there like pouting. He didn't want to, he,

what he did know is he did not want to stay in Moscow for very long. And so he started to make plans to leave Moscow to withdraw. That place sucks. So I would leave too. But the problem was he didn't have anywhere to withdraw to. Everything behind him was a burnt out hellscape of nothingness. And random roving gangs. Yeah, that were formerly his army.

He could split his army in two two which is always a bad idea because like i said the czars in saint petersburg he's like well i could bring this shit right to the czar's doorstep uh but all of his plans were bad and his advisors openly told him that even the ones that were like we'll invade the moon if he told us to but they're like nah man we probably shouldn't attack saint petersburg and so the first time, this dissent actually made him doubt himself. Really? For maybe like the first and last time ever. He's like, hmm, I have fucked up.

Napoleon saw no military course to follow that would get him out of this problem, which is bad because military solutions are the only thing Napoleon's good at. So he went back to attempting negotiations he sent one delegation after another to saint petersburg uh each one telling him you know i just want peace also sometimes he'd snap at them and give him a letter um to hand to the czar that was like you're a fucking barbarian you burnt down your own capital you fucking piece of shit like just he'd fly into a rage and make the delegation write down what he was saying and that would follow the last letters like we just want to be friends i don't i don't think the czar is actually reading them but if he did this guy's

fucking bipolar bipolar as fuck yeah uh and and napoleon ignored get my last text? I sent you a picture of my penis. Please respond. It's just a shitty drawing. Napoleon ignored his aid, Kalancor, who told him, like, you know, every time you send one of these, it lets the Tsar know that we're kind of desperate. Like, maybe stop doing that. You're making us look weak. Foolish. Yeah. You don't know what you're talking about.

And he just kept making. Foolish. Yeah. You don't know what you're talking about. And he just kept making an ass of himself. This is like the one aid that stayed with him for the entire campaign. Everybody else would eventually just throw their hands up. Fuck this guy! I'm done! This guy cared. Or just get sent away. And he was

all the way back to episode one. He has been right every step of the way. If this guy was Emperor instead of Napoleon, the world would probably have been a better place fuck napoleon could have been the face and this guy could have just been orchestrating the whole thing yeah that would be cool to state kalam core yeah yeah i also didn't help that uh when he finally did enlist a russian uh to to be a delegation it'd be like see napoleon's treating the russians. He's immediately stopped, arrested, and tortured for being a French spy. And his whole family was killed. Oh, fuck.

Whoops. It's not good to work for Napoleon if you're Russian. And the thing is, I think the Russians knew that. Everybody's like, I'm good. I'm not patriotic. I just don't want to die. And the guy in the back who really didn't hear what was being said. I'll do it.

How much money again? Yeah, line them up. Let's do this. Now, despite knowing that he didn't want to stay in Moscow, Napoleon decided that they probably should stay in Moscow for the winter. A waiting word from Alexander. Yeah, there's fires there. It's warm. This is actually the best idea he had. While most of Moscow had burned,

a lot of its resources had actually survived underground cellars. So, I mean, it gave him like six months of food. Nice. Which is more months of food that they've had since day one. Score! Though there was virtually nothing left to feed horses. Don't need them. And you know how I said,

this is Napoleon's descent into madness have you ever um looked into like what hitler was doing in his bunker in the last days he was like no actually so he very obviously was falling into a a an endless pit of of insanity mixed with illusions and he was like ordering phantom divisions around to break through to berlin that just didn't exist so So looking at a wall. He was giving orders to several officers and field marshals and drawing on maps and stuff. And everybody's like, dude has lost his shit. You're drawing on a coloring book.

That is chutes and ladders, sir. Well, Napoleon started doing kind of the same thing. He didn't completely lose his mind, but he was drawing up massive requisition orders like for tens of thousands of horses and hundreds of pounds of food that just did not exist and like people like there is not this many horses left in the city of moscow he's like well bring them from paris do you not understand what happened when we came here and like there's these horses capable of mating? So people would just sigh and put his letter in the mail,

knowing that it would never be answered. And also, being in Moscow allowed his soldiers to rest, because remember, they were literally walking to death. So staying in Moscow short-term was the best plan that he had, even if it was still incredibly bad.

Because it's not good. But when every plan is shit, you have to pick the least shittiest. And this one at least keeps him alive for a couple months. Maybe. Get a chill. Probably not, but maybe. Napoleon also sent word back to everywhere throughout the empire for reinforcements. word back to everywhere throughout the empire for reinforcements um he was cut first he came up with a defensive strategy that would defend his gains through russia up until moscow um and it was

mostly to ensure his lines of communication back to the empire state of him because remember he's still running the entire french empire right um the problem was is remember how we said all the way back uh hours ago that the the formation of the grand army had pretty much already scraped the bottom of the barrel so these were getting whatever is below that i don't know what the saying is busting through the barrel yeah you're fit you're like punching through the barrel and pulling up dirt like look we found some more stuff in the barrel um the most were sick untrained and unmotivated and they pretty much deserted as soon as they could one unit made it was made up of spaniards which remember he's in the middle of a guerrilla war in spain at the time who immediately attempted to shoot their own commander and run away holy

shit that's pretty sweet i mean i always advocate for people doing that um the soldiers i haven't I mean I say that as a joke it is a parody I'm not wearing my uniform right now the soldiers who didn't desert outright saw the devastation of the original march as they marched down the same road and they too began to go hungry

and they soon fucking ran away fuck I'm hungry that's how I feel all the time. They see the first group of people deserting, like, ha, fucking pussies and then they take one step into Poland

and they're like, fuck this! For every fucking two mile run. Like, oh, fuck, I'm already tired. I'll see y'all in hell because I'm going to die on this run. And then the ones that made it even further than that were greeted by uh packs of dogs eating dead bodies in the street

of Smolensk that they never cleaned up it's like a bunch of healthy dogs can we kill and eat the dogs no they're stronger than us now they're leaders now will they share the bodies?

Only if we do weird hand stuff. Look, we have to negotiate now. Weird. The end of the French Empire is really interesting because three of that marshals of the Empire were actually just stray dogs from Smolensk. They had the fucking hat on and just

They had a fucking marshal baton in between their teeth. Marshall spot. What should I do here? You always say I should growl at them. So the episode of The Simpsons where he asked him like when he's trying to write the food

review. He's like, how should I describe the food? You always say that it's tough. Chewy? No, that won't work either. I remember that. the food like you you always say that it's tough but now sander's little helper is a fucking marshall uh and if you think that this would like be a really good time for the uh the russian empire to have its shit together to go in the counter-attack you would be right but also they did not uh alexander was in st petersburg and had no fucking idea what was going on katuzov had last told him that they defeated the french at borodino and everybody

else was celebrating like they had like parades in the street of st petersburg katuzov was promoted to marshal uh i was like he's the savior of moscow all meanwhile moscow is literally burning to the ground just asking how are the parades in Moscow going good they're fire sir nice uh yeah like he everybody could not did not have enough nice things to say about Kutuzov which is interesting because Kutuzov

probably also didn't know what zip code he was in because he's old and delirious he's the fucking Joe Biden of generals hash browns. That's not a battle plan. Marshall Kutuzov, what should we do about Moscow? Where are my shoes? Sir, they're on your feet.

Somebody get me my oatmeal. God damn it. That's the best plan I've heard. We can't plan anything after 5 p.m. because he starts sundowning. So the czar actually found out from his mother about the fall of Moscow in a letter weeks later. Yeah.

My Sunday home was burned down. Which is interesting because Kutuzov is sending him letters this whole time and neglecting to tell him about Moscow. And the last thing he remembered ordering Kutuzov to do was defend Moscow, which Kutuzov was like, nah. You think he's just trying to go around the world with that question? Like, oh, how's Moscow? Have you had the burritos down in St. Petersburg down the street? Moscow's great.

Let's talk about those dogs in Swolensk. I feel like they have great military capabilities. Heard they fucked up a bunch of French guys. Okay, but what about the Kremlin? Ah, the Kremlin in St. Petersburg. Oh, Kutuzov wandered off. Where's he going?

I mean, to be fair, there's a good... He's chasing down a small boy's Sunday trousers. He's just running around in circles trying to bite his own ass. And he had no, like, Alexander didn't know about any of that, but he also had no intentions of making peace. And he pretty much declared, I mean, remember before he said, there's never going to be negotiations as long as there's French soldiers on Russian soil.

But before, it wasn't a fight to the death. It was like, we'll talk when you leave. We'll talk. But now it's a fight to the death. He said, quote, Napoleon or me, him or me, we cannot reign together. One of us has to go. I mean, he'd end up being right. Cage match.

Yeah. You and me. Sunday. WrestleMania. For the whole, For the hardcore title! Napoleon would come out like, who's the fucking guy with the streamers on his arm? That would hit the fucking...

Ultimate warrior! On the fucking ropes! My fucking dad used to do that shit. The best part is, Alexander's still pretty young, and he has this weird multicolored bullet thing going on And Napoleon is in his late 40s And just fat as fuck and have hemorrhoids

And junky pants I would pay to watch this fight His fucking tassels would be shoelaces From the shoes that his soldiers don't have His tassels would be attached to his Flapping fucking wings of Extra skin They also double as floaties His tassels would be attached to his flapping fucking wings of extra skin. They also double as floaties.

So this is despite the fact that Alexander really didn't have much of an army left himself. I mean, they had kind of one Bordinio, but they took insane amounts of casualties. took insane amounts of casualties and the Russian soldiers had collapsed into a state of panic and looting and violence just like their French counterparts had because they assumed their government was falling apart when they watched the capital burn or when they

retreated. One of Kutuzov's aides, though, they didn't bother punishing him for this because they just simply couldn't punish that many people. They said, like, how are we going to punish a thousand people a day? It simply doesn't make sense. We'll just have to allow them to continue on as they're just like

destroying the countryside and killing their own people. They all had a lineup and everybody just Everybody line up and Kutuzov is going to smack you with his baton. It's not hard. Trust me. He's kind of weak. Yeah, he's real feeble. Various officers blamed each other for the situation

From the Tsar to Kutuzov to Barclay Who had managed to still not get murdered Despite absolutely everybody hating his guts Klosowitz said It was a good thing that the Tsar had left the army Seeing it in such a state would have lowered his resolve And made him surrender Though

Didn't really do anything to stop everyone from blaming him for the fall of the capital rumors began to spread that people were plotting his death and openly said they wanted his sister on the throne instead and his sister agreed sending a letter to alexander that she should be zarina how did he respond i don't think he did he's like fucking bitch fuck you i'll kill you like i killed dad uh but the nobles and the officers uh while the nobles and the officers were all shitting on one another like i said the regular russian population was motivated into a wave of patriotism and devotion to the czar kids ran away from school to enlist nobles who were still in school to become officers ditched and enlisted instead

yeah which is I'm sure they immediately regretted can I go back to school can I just desert and become cool again richmond grouped together to form their own gentleman's units and design their own uniforms and names kind of like the US Civil War like they had random states dressed

up as Zawabs like they had random states dressed up as zouaves oh like they designed their own uniform to call it like the assassins and the headhunters and were like all black and shit it's pretty awesome but then they just had a bunch of like smokers jackets and they were just yes sweet chairs that they all lined up on uh and most of those rich man units did their best to not see combat uh They just wanted to dress up and pretend to be the military, which, I mean, we don't know anybody like that at all. Not here in America. Now, these peasants were not running off to join.

Oh, good shot. These peasants were not running off to join the regular Russian army, but instead local militias. They'd get no training uniforms and sometimes even guns. Because, like we said, the Tsar was pretty worried about arming the masses that weren't in the military

because they finally decided they were sick of his shit and probably start the Russian Revolution about 100 years too soon. So like... Don't want that. Yeah. Most of the local defense forces were like, have a stick with a sharpened end or something,

or like a scythe. Like they talked about women who attacked French foragers with scythes and axes and shit, which is pretty awesome. That's terrifying. Yeah, just imagine you're like, oh, excuse me, miss, do you have anywhere we can...

Oh, fuck! Ma'am, I just need some water. Oh, I have some water. And by water, I mean this fucking axe. Shink, shink, shink. So they, like I said, they would kind of be given pikes and farm tools

and sent off against the French troops. And the... Formation of pikes. That'd be awesome. It happened. That actually happened a little bit during

the French Revolution as well. But it had an obvious outcome. Most of these militias were... If they weren't used properly, which was in like a huge group and like just throw them into in a regular battle which we'll talk about next episode um they didn't they didn't work really well they weren't going to stand in the line and exchange gunfire with the french they weren't going to take volleys and not

run away just like the movie the patriot not disciplined those damn militiamen uh now when militia numbers weren't high enough they began conscripting people so like people who weren't patriotic enough to enlist and then saw what the people who enlisted were sent off to do they're like well i'm not going to be forced to do that either they'd hack off their toes or their feet and to escape cool you're still good good news you only need one hand to use a machete fuck many serfs ran from their land to enlist but were quickly turned back over to their masters who beat them and sometimes killed them uh because even the most motivating times of history history is still a fucking bastard oh you want to help the

cause now those same landowners uh ignored orders to destroy their crops that could be used to feed the enemy and instead sold those same goods to the French. Yep. They were bastards. It's weird. Slave masters are all kind of bad. Yeah. Weird how that works.

Not heroic at all. It makes me want to feel better. There are numerous accounts of serfs rising up and murdering their masters so they could run off and join the army. That's fucking awesome. Which gave me a warm and fuzzy. It's like that Dave Chappelle episode where

he rewound shooting a slave master like 10 times yeah I whenever I was researching this in the book I'm like I'm gonna read back over that this is the only part of the book where I'm just like nice everybody else like people dying of dysentery and like trying to like I

said inbred idiots beefing over turf, but like serfs murdering their masters or something that always just keeps me warm at night. Though the peasant devotion to the Tsar absolutely did not extend to the military. The general populace blame the officers of the Russian army and sometimes high ranking soldiers for the defeats. And kind of rightly so, maybe. They weren't great. And mobs have pissed off civilians, courted officers, accused them of being spies, and lynched a few on occasion. Which, again, Holy shit.

You know, if we had that kind of military oversight, or civilian oversight of the United States military, things might be different. I don't know how you guys would get past the gate. You gotta beep in. I was once smuggled onto Fort Knox in a trunk. If you haven't been smuggled onto a base,

what'd you do with your career? Yeah. Also, another time I got on with a set of dog tags. What? Nope, no picture ID. Nope. Yep. Still other groups of Russian civilians

welcomed the French as liberators as generally the French military did treat them pretty well when they weren't falling into an orgy of violence there's also a rumor that the emperor is going to free the serfs so a lot of people were like oh if we cozy up

to him now when the new Russian order gets built under the guise of the French Empire like it'll be us who is on top and also a lot of the people who worked with the French just like the Russian military want nothing to do with them they're sex workers criminals

smugglers stuff like that they weren't treated well by the Russians and I mean admittedly they probably weren't treated great by the French either but I didn't kill him sometimes it's all it takes. Survival. This happened so often that the Tsar's aides were worried that the population might actually leave the Tsar and side with the emperor. So it was a pretty big deal.

I mean, that didn't really work. Because of aides? No. Everybody has aides. I don't know what you're talking about. These feelings gradually went away. It became clear that the French had no plans to free them, and those feelings were replaced by scenes of the French army pillaging and looting the countryside

and freely massacring people along the way. Soon, instead of welcoming the French soldiers, groups of peasants would skulk around at night, catch them alone, and beat them to death or pour boiling tar on them. Oh, fuck. Hearts and minds, Napoleon. I can imagine the French, where'd you get tar from?

Is this a commodity right here? We all just have, it's Russia, there's this fucking bowls of boiling tar ready to go. This whole place allows you a boiling tar. The French slaps the city you know how much

tar can fit in this bad boy smack a french officer you know how much tar i can found this motherfucker get the feathers that whole thing i always thought was kind of funny like haha they got tarred and feathered and i didn't realize it like how awful it would be body wide third degree burns

yeah like oh and how the movies or shows make it look oh they're just gonna dump cold oil on you and then I didn't realize how awful it would be. It's like body-wide third-degree burns. Yeah, like, oh. And how the movies or shows make it look, oh, they're just going to dump cold oil on you. Nope. Nope. I'm going to plaster you to the ground. And the French responded to this by being cruel and seeking out revenge, causing an escalating spiral of violence

between them and the people they occupied. Never heard of that before. Regardless of what caused it, the overlying unity of society against the French was all but 100%. Remember, it is our great unifying historical theory of, fuck those guys. Every series, fuck those guys. Like, you and me, we fucking hate each other. But fuck that guy.

It always comes up. Works. Meanwhile in Moscow, Napoleon was playing pool and just kind of hanging around. Swear to God, he was playing billiards for hours. I imagine it was probably a really nice table just around a charred building. People commented like normally he doesn't like billiards, but he's been playing for hours because

he just did not know what to do uh tell me something that i don't know table tell me your secrets uh he attempted to set up some kind of civilian government with his own people in place and he tried to encourage peasants to come sell their wares in the city so his soldiers could buy stuff from him it would i mean they didn't have a whole lot of supplies, but this would alleviate some of the pressures on the supply line. Also, it could maybe spur some loyalty in the population because there's

an exchange of goods. The problem was as soon as the peasants showed up, the soldiers fucking robbed them. Your soldiers took everything. Is everybody forgetting to tell the emperor, like, sir, we literally just have 90,000 fucking criminals. They're all looting and raping people. Don't bring the peasants around.

They're hiding. Though he did manage to get the mail system working again, so congrats on that, I guess. You can run your government again. He distracted himself with letters from home and small details around the office, mostly so he wouldn't have to face up to the reality that he and his

entire army were fucked. He was so detached, he stopped visiting or even reviewing his army, which was new for him. People were shocked that they hadn't had any parades or anything, leading him to have no idea of the real state of mind or the morale, other than briefings

from his generals, and we all know how that worked out. even when someone did try to tell him things were bad he would dismiss them in one case Miran formed his force was so badly wasted and need reinforcement or relief of some kind he said in one case one of his brigades only had five

horses left remember oh he's in charge of the cavalry yeah Napoleon told him it didn't matter because the Russians were weak too weird in truth the soldiers despite having a ton of wine in charge of the cavalry. Napoleon told them it didn't matter because the Russians were weak too. Weird. In truth, the soldiers, despite having a ton of wine and various other things, were still kind of just as bad off as they had been. Though they were resting,

there was a shortage of things like bread and meat, but they could drink their wine out of fine cups made out of gold that they looted from a Russian noble's house. The few horses that remained had saddle sores so deep one person commented he could see their entrails. Despite all of this, nearly

every letter homesung the praises of Napoleon. And I'm not talking about propaganda or anything like that. They weren't forced to write these things. They literally said yeah, I might be starving to death but Napoleon is here so everything will be okay. Like writing letters home to their family. Like, don't worry, I can't die. Napoleon's in charge everything will be okay. Like writing letters home to their family.

Don't worry, I can't die. Napoleon's in charge. Just hallucinating. But Napoleon is finally starting to see that he was fucked. But he actively took efforts to talk himself out of accepting that and acting upon it. His aides know that he had the ability to convince himself of something simply because he said it. I want a dragon

brigade. Dragons everywhere. Get me 20,000 dragons. Somebody just put on Game of Thrones again. himself of something simply because he said it i want a dragon brigade dragons everywhere get me 20 000 dragons somebody just put on game of thrones again uh like for instance he saw a chart that said it normally got cold in december so he said it's all oh yeah so he said that that's all he needed to know ignoring the fact that there's a lot more to climate than just temperature like that asshole who makes climate change jokes because it's snowing. That was Napoleon. He literally fucking did that. Even though everybody pointed out like,

this is just unseasonable. This is going to turn on us because it's October and it's not that cold yet. Everybody's like, this is going to be bad. It sounds like a joke, but it's kind of true. The weather in October was unseasonably good. So he just pointed out why could it how could

it possibly get cold if it's this nice now the man is kind of a fucking idiot yeah uh and he actually made fun of people who said anything otherwise he said that people exaggerated how bad the russian winter really was and it was a little more than stories invented by frightened children now remember a lot of his army is polish they They're like, no, man, it gets cold as fuck. No, look at these charts I have. It just says, good. Yeah. And the Polish units would end up fearing the best

because they knew how to survive the winter and were prepared for it. The forces he ordered into Russia were redirected to reinforce his position around Moscow rather than to shore up those defenses around a planned line of retreat. So he was effectively cutting himself off. It was only when it finally began snowing

that he realized this may have been a bad choice, so he ordered no more soldiers should be sent to Moscow. This is a few weeks apart. But I wonder if he also realized when the snow was falling, he's like, hmm, now they'll have water. But my chart.

He also formed the now horseless cavalry into infantry units, despite the fact they had no idea how to fight his lion infantry and no training was given to them. We'll be giving you broomsticks with horse heads on it. And someone will run behind you with coconuts. Now, another general pointed out that his worst infantry unit was a better infantry unit than the best cavalry unit was when it was used as infantry. What? So he's like, don't bother. The gymnastics.

Other generals sent their cavalry units back home to France without telling Napoleon because it was literally a waste of their life to make them be infantry. Fuck, that's awesome. Most of them wouldn't make it, but it's a thought that counts, I guess. If I was cavalry, I'd be, fuck yeah, dude. I'm on my way back. Hit those coconuts. Some units took it upon themselves

to start acquiring winter jackets. Though, since this was either paid for by everyone individually or their generals. Now, it's super individual here. Some colonels and generals were like, I'm going to buy everybody coats. Most didn't.

Most soldiers were left up to their own devices. This meant a huge amount of French soldiers only had the clothes on their back as the Russian winter began to dump snow on them. No coordinated effort was made by Napoleon to provide his soldiers with winter clothing. Napoleon wasn't alone in his negligence. Virtually nobody did.

The furthest one of his marshals went, the highest commander in his military than himself, was de Vau, who made sure his soldiers simply had their boots repaired. Something. I guess. Now you'll be able to walk even further before you starve to death. Polish soldiers were used to the brutal winters of the east and made crampons for their horses and their boots and begged their French counterparts to do the same. Are you familiar with what crampons are? Yes. They're kind of like for people who are unaware, they're

you attach them to your boots. I want a pair of crampons. Yeah, I used to. I don't need more. Most people know for mountain climbing and stuff, but you can use them to walk on ice and stuff. So it's effectively spikes that you can put on them. The French blew them off saying they didn't need them. One man who didn't was Napoleon's aide,

Calancourt. He made sure the emperor's horses were all well prepared for the winter, and he suggested, quite vigorously, that we should probably do this for everybody, and Napoleon told them not to bother. Again, Emperor Calancourt. Emperor Calancourt.

So, there's a bit of an argument here between historians, and I would be maybe incorrect into telling this story black and white when it came to what the Russian side at the time was doing. The popular narrative is that the Russians purposely dragged out negotiations. The idea was they would force Napoleon to wait until Moscow until winter rolled in. That's kind of what most people learn when they hear about this war. That's not for certain.

That makes the Russian high command look cold, calculating, and brilliant. But I believe that is giving Kutuzov, a guy who, remember, had a fucking picnic, and won the largest battles in European history until World War I, rather than actually command in it. Too much credit.

Much like the purposeful retreat and scorched earth policy that Barclay pulled out of his ass and the Tsar fucking hated it. He had this too. Tsar wanted to attack and everybody just kind of didn't. But it was a plan born of Russian commanders just not knowing what to do. Kutuzov's aides thought the man was either confused or was afraid of doing the wrong thing so he simply did nothing, causing them to just wait. But, so like,

how Napoleon, Napoleon was waiting for word from Alexander, but I don't have a lot of evidence that suggests that it was like a coordinated effort on the side of the Russians, like, ha ha, they can sit there and wait. Everybody's telling Kutuzov to

attack, but he's just not. I think it's maybe somewhere in the middle where Napoleon tricked himself into staying into Moscow and Kutuzov was just bad enough at his job where it all kind of worked out. He was bad in the right way. I don't know. Some stuff aligned here.

Every once in a while, you don't have to do anything. I mean, fuck those Napoleon saying, don't interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake. Napoleon got Napoleon'd. He Napoleon'd himself. Congratulations, you just played yourself. He was proud of himself. He's like, I never Napoleon'd myself.

To quote the Marshall the marshall dj collin congratulations you just played you just played yourself yeah i mean that's pretty much what happened uh the worst thing russia could have done at the time was attack so like everybody was like it's cold yeah i mean it's cold for them too most of these guys don't have winter coats either no um now but katuzov was camped in the city of Tartino, which is not that far away from Moscow. He got reinforced every single- Maybe that's where they get all the tar from.

It's their main export, is boiling tar on people's heads. His army was reinforced every single day and growing stronger, which was the opposite of the Grand Army. To make things worse for the French, Kutuzov, or at least someone in the Russian command, we don't know if it was Kutuzov or at least someone in the Russian command we don't

know if it was Kutuzov or not made sure the Cossacks constantly attacked and raided the French swooping in and killing or capturing foraging parties and harassing dirty dwindling supply line and mail in the five weeks that the French were held up in Moscow these raids would cost them 15,000

soldiers fuck yeah and we'll talk a little bit more about the the cossacks in the next episode because they they pretty much defeat the grand army really yeah um but the the french had absolutely no respect for them uh well we'll talk about that later uh and it was now that barclay finally resigned uh barclay detali our poor boy who had managed to keep the russians together through all this time resigned after saving the day at borodino uh he which he was not given credit for he and everybody constantly accusing him of being a spy or a traitor and having rocks thrown at him by his own soldiers shit he finally threw his hands up and said fuck russia i'm out though it

would only be temporary he would eventually be made a count like we talked about before he was made nobility become commander of the russian army again after katuzov had died after the war and personally commanded the taking of paris in 1814 ending napoleon's time on the throne and the french empire so i guess barclay has a hell of a redemption story depending on which side of this whole thing that you're on. Barclay's a good guy. I think, I mean, without Barclay, the Russians would have lost immediately. Czar had no idea what he was doing.

Kutuzov's a fucking idiot. And Barclay is what got them to the point that they're in. Could he have done it better? I don't fucking know. But yeah, he kind of wasn't given the credit he was due until years later. Yeah. But the Czar, as much like he had always done, was demanding Kutuzov to attack.

Kutuzov knew that they weren't quite ready, and he wasn't really willing to risk his career in telling the Tsar to fuck off. So he attacked, but he did it how he always did it. Order his army on short notice to random orders not passed down to the normal chain of command, and straight up missing some units. So parts of his army left before others and left behind entire divisions who had no idea they were supposed to be marching. Private attack. This included Kutuzov himself, who just never left the camp. He's like me on a weekend where it's too cold and you got the window open,

but you're snuggled up with your blanket. I'm not getting up, I'm just going to deal with it. I think he forgot there was an attack. Why is everybody marching? Weird. It's loud. I'm going back to my picnic. Now, instead of an

easy route of the starving French soldiers who they had actually caught in their tents and asleep, they were stomped into the dirt. With no overall command and really no unified chain of command, each Russian commander just tried to throw his men against the French independently. And the French, under

the strong leadership of Mira, held them off each and every time. Can you think of something worse to wake up to? And a whole bunch of screaming Russians. Literally just waking up without the screaming Russians and being in Russia in the winter. Like, fuck, I'm still alive. Why would I die?

When the Russian commander, who had actually shown up to the battle, asked for reinforcements, Kutuzov sent them off in a different direction. I got them right where I want them. Go left. Sir, where is the rest of the army? South, north-ish.

Just march that way. Grandma's house. Last time I saw them, they were marching towards Hawaii. Fuck. God damn it. But it was this time that the French, it was the one that made the tactical withdrawal. Now, they fought the Russians,

and the Russians kept throwing units haphazardly into battle, but they did keep fighting. But eventually they're like, time to withdraw to better positions, tragically leaving behind their brothel that they had with them. Tragically. Pour one out.

It's actually not that ancient. This is 1812, but the French Foreign Legion had brothels until like 20 years ago? I was about to say like a few months ago. I mean, officially, they probably still kind of exist. I don't know. The Russians were unable to score a victory that they wanted, but Kutuzov showed up long after the battle was over

and sent a letter to the Tsar saying that they had routed the French in a glorious victory. He didn't write that. His aide did. He's probably saying nonsense. His handler at this point yeah saint petersburg uh honored them by two days of ceremonies in katuzov's honor again like he was asleep through most of it what happened the french got away sir we won we did hmm fly the banner it's like being a lions fan and you and like you make it to the playoffs and lose by 30.

Like, but we made it to the playoffs! Kutuzov is the ultimate Lions fan. Drunk. Doesn't really know where he is. Probably not wearing shoes. Where are my loafers? Obviously, everyone in the immediate vicinity knew that none of this was true,

but it was probably as confused as everybody else that these lies were working. Kutuzov's like, Tsar isn't on to me yet? Hell yeah. After the not-so-glorious victory, the Russians once again sat on their asses and did nothing. Commanders of all ranks screamed at Kutuzov to do something, but he just wouldn't.

He couldn't hear him. He has to bring up that huge comical horn. What? After the battle on the outskirts of Moscow, Napoleon began to draw up plans for his evacuation of the city. This is done without consulting anyone else. His marshals, if not tending to the troops, literally just sat outside his office and waited to be told something. I hope his plans were just like a giant circle,

like, we are here, arrow that way. Arrow back to France? Yeah. Careful now, I'm working on a genius strategy, and it's just like a crayon map of France. Now, eventually word was passed down for the soldiers to prepare to go, and most were happy to do so.

But a sudden fear gripped the population of the city that stayed behind. Suddenly realizing that when the Russian army showed back up, they would definitely be lynched for working with the French, so they too began to pack their bags to leave with the French. Many soldiers dumped their things that they would need on the march in order to

transport more looted goods and hope to sell them when they got back home. One soldier had no food or replacement clothes, but brought tens of pounds of fineoted goods, and hoped to sell them when they got back home. One soldier had no food or replacement clothes, but brought tens of pounds of fine dining dishes and an entire vase. If I live, this is worth something. Other soldiers dumped out musket

cleaning kits and cartridges and stuff so they could carry all silver and gold. One person had an entire silver cross that was ripped from a church, stuffed into his bag. Fuck. Where's your rifle, son? I sold it. Pierre, don't you need some bread?

Like, nah, man, I got a whole backpack full of stolen dresses, which one guy did have. Stolen silk dresses, yep. Artillery crews dumped out shells and charges to make room for their booty, while the company's smiths would leave behind anvils horseshoes and nails so they could bring around more loot one officer remarked that he could not believe his eyes as the ragged column made their way out of the city soldiers were not wearing any uniforms or carrying weapons dragged

along by skinny horses that were hooked up to wagons with so many looted bags on them it was really forcing them to a bunch of naked guys and the horses kill me. All while crowds of Russian sex workers followed them out of the city in various stages of dress. Someone commented that it looked more like a mass migration than an army on the

march. The Grand Army was now down to around 95,000 men, but probably less. Is this the migration or the army? The armies over there were the migration. They were joined by 50,000 camp followers and civilians, almost all of whom came

out of Moscow. Amongst them was 40,000 non-military wagons that were brought out of the city, most of them being pulled by hand. Fuck. Because there's no fucking horses. I would leave yeah like you know what and to be fair a lot of soldiers made it a couple miles out of the city were like fuck this and just left all their loot on the side of the road but then the the camp followers and stuff would just pick it up and throw out their wagons trickle down economics napoleon planned to withdraw to the polish border and set up his winter quarters

his army would never make it that far and that is where we'll pick up and end next week yep and oh man if you're interested in hearing about the various ways that French soldiers froze to death and ate their friends, do I have an episode for you? I am. Cause I read into the Donner party. So now I'm interested. This is like the Napoleon's retreat from Moscow is like the Donner party.

If the Donner party had 95,000 people. Yeah. It was awful reading. It's not good. Um, did I laugh a few times absolutely yes yeah so that is part five nice and thanks everybody for tuning in thank you Nick for clawing your way out

of army prison to join us here again today thank you everybody for supporting the show I hope what we do is continues to be worth your time and money. We will talk to you next week. Later.