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Christophe Ena / AP
Napoleon's secret coded letter, shown here in this photo taken Nov. 28, declares his intentions "to blow up the Kremlin" during his ill-fated Russian campaign in 1812.
FONTAINEBLEAU, France -- The single line of Napoleon's secret code told Paris of his desperate, last order against the Russians: "At three o'clock in the morning, on the 22nd I am going to blow up the Kremlin."
By the time Paris received the letter three days later, the Russian czar's seat of power was in flames and the diminished French army was in retreat. Its elegantly calligraphic ciphers show history's famed general at one of his weakest moments.
"My cavalry is in tatters, many horses are dying," dictated Napoleon, the once-feared leader showing the strain of his calamitous Russian invasion, which halved his army.
The rare document -- dated Oct. 20, 1812, signed "Nap" in the emperor's hand and written in numeric code -- is up for auction Sunday at France's Fontainebleau Auction House.
The Napoleon code, used only for top-secret letters when the French emperor was far from home, aimed to stop enemies from intercepting French army orders. The code was regularly changed to prevent it from being cracked.
A 'different Napoleon'
Napoleon must have dispatched his strongest horses and riders to carry the news: It only took three days to reach France's interior ministry -- 1,540 miles across Europe.
"This letter is unique. Not only is it all in code, but it's the first time we see this different Napoleon. He went into Moscow in 1812 at the height of his power. He returned profoundly weakened. In Moscow, the Russians had fled days before and burnt down the city. There was no victory for Napoleon, nor were there any provisions for his starving, dying army," says Jean-Christophe Chataignier of the auction house.
The only thing left for the weakened leader was to give the order to burn Russia's government buildings -- coded in the letter as "449, 514, 451, 1365..."
'Incredible insight'
It is evidence of what historians call the beginning of the end of Napoleon's glorious empire, which started in Russia and ended at Waterloo three years later.
Experts: Unbreakable code message found on WWII carrier pigeon
In June 1812, Napoleon's "Grand Army" -- at 600,000 men one of the largest in human history -- confidently entered Russia. But they were woefully unprepared for the harsh weather, the strong Russian defense and the Russian scorched-earth tactics, which left nothing behind to sustain the hungry and freezing French troops.
"This letter is an incredible insight, we never see Napoleon emotively speaking in this way before," says Chataignier. "Only in letters to (his wife) Josephine did he ever express anything near to emotion. Moscow knocked him."
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In the text -- which announces that his commanders are evacuating Moscow -- Napoleon laments his army's plight, asking for assistance to replenish his forces and the ravaged cavalry, which saw thousands of horses die.
In September, 200 years after Russia's victory over Napoleon, the Kremlin held huge celebrations aimed at rousing patriotism among modern Russians. The highlight was a re-enactment of the battle of Borodino -- one of the most damaging clashes for Napoleon's troops -- which saw thousands in Russian and French military uniforms perform before several hundred thousand spectators.
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The 1812 victory played an important role in Russia's emergence as a major world power. Until World War I, Napoleon's Russian campaign and the ensuing wars were the largest European military face-off in history.
The letter, which is accompanied by a second decoded sheet, is estimated to fetch up to $19,500.
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1,540 miles in 3 days by horse. I'm not that gullible. Big homing pigeons maybe, homing goose or flying horses.
Not the same horse the entire way, messengers would change horses, often. And yes, if the message was important enough they'd ride the animals to their deaths.
I don't know if it is possible, but those horsemen averaged 21.38 miles an hour.
That's about the same time as Bagram to Kandahar - by jet.
Carl Lewis and any sprinter can run really fast......for a minute.
Quarter horses can top 50mph.... for a quater mile( which is faster than thoroughbreds)
average horse 20 mph over 10 miles, and nothing more. 154 horses, 10 miles each. Accidents, you bet. the night riding ? good luck. Snow? mud? probably.
Sounds like when money talk BS gallops fast.
Only 19000 dollars huh? I would have expected more. It would be nice if the owner would donate it to a museum also
Who cares what psychotic Napoleon wanted to do . Ancient history.
Actually it is considered Modern History. Ancient History ends with the collapse of the Roman Empire.
Yes romilio, but for Ray and the rest of the current generation, anything from more than three years ago is ancient history.
Being french, I find that "Psychotic" is a bit strong. Yep, the guy certainly was not an angel.
But contrary to what has been continuously said in UK, and transmitted as general knowledge throught english influence, Napoleon wasn't as agressive as many would think.
According to Wikipedia, the napoleonic wars were "were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's french empire by opposing coalitions".
After the french revolutions, 7 wars took place. The two first were right away monarchies coalitions to stop the revolution and reinstall monarchy in France. Napoleon, victorious general of the second war, during the campaign of Italy, has simply been the answer that the french could have to avoid a forced change of regime back to a monarchy.
After the second war, new coalitions, under the impulse of UK mainly, formed, broke the peace treaty, and lost.... and reformed, rebroke the peace treaty and lost again, and again, and again.
So yes, the result is that by being victorious again and again, Napoleon took ownership of territories led by ennemies to install friendly local governments. Technically, the Empire wasnt under the direct control of the french administration (hence the term "empire"). It certainly wasnt fair to create an empire, but once more, against ennemies who anyway didnt accept the ideals promoting end of monarchy to spread, there wasnt much choices.
Napoleon certainly has done many questionable things, but find me one ruler of that time who was what you define as a "good guy". One the plus side, many of the ideals of the revolution have spread throughout continental europe, and he brought many improvements to the french administrative and educational system. Once more, many countries have used and some still use codes coming directly from the napoleonian system.
One the bad side, many wars, countless deaths, but once more the faulty ones for that are the monarchies of europe. The main looser was france itself at the end, a country which was the third most populated in the planet (after China and India) before the revolution, the fourth (after Russia) after the revolution, was by WW1 approximately twice less populated than Germany.
Once more, there are many tainted decisions made by Napoleon (Egypt is just an example), but at that time, that was standard... only the constant french bashing made by UK for two centuries (guys who named London main train station Waterloo, and say every time they hear about franco-british collaboration "Nelson must cry in his grave") make that the guy is known by so many as a "psychopath".
More specifically about Russia, few people know that Napoleon never wanted it. He was brought to it because he freed Poland from Russian, and Alexander I refused all the peace proposal made by Napoleon, before the beginning of the campaign as well as during it. In France, this war is by the way known as the second polish war, as it was in support of Poland nationalists.
Seems his plan came up a little short.
HA!
Can't believe no one else finds this funny.
Halved? According to Minard's drawing, when the French entered into present-day Lithuania they had 422,000 troops. When they returned back through that same way, they only had 10,000 troops. Instead of 1/2 its actually closer to 1/50th to the original troop size.
I agree (though I wasn't there lol). Everything I ever read, about Napoleon's Russia campaign, lined up with what you said. His army was all but annihilated.
To bad Napoleans campaign failed. Might've saved a lot of peoples lives later on!
How so?
He killed enough as it is. Napoleonic troops did line up and shot thousands of civilians wherever he was. Napoleon was more like than unlike Hitler, Hitler actually looked up to Napoleon. Short man syndrome...
Save the environment, you are exactly the kind of person I was speaking about in another post of this forum.
"Short man syndrom"... Napoleon was of average size actually, but at the time of the napoleonic wars, the press in London depicted him as a dwarf... and like all the BS propaganda has remained vivid, guys like you are probably sure that Napoleon was the bad guy, against the nice european monarchies who simply wanted, poors souls, to reinstall monarchy in France and stop revolutionaries ideas in Europe.
The fact that all those wars were started by the coalitions (after using the previous peace treaty as toilet paper) probably does not connect with your idea that Napoleon was the one responsible of all those deaths.
Napoleon really had it "in" for Russia. Egypt, too. What did he hope to accomplish, conquering so far from home? He could not realistically expect French to occupy Russia...not even in 1,000 years.
He wanted to force a peace treaty russia didnt want until it takes back Poland....
simple really