Napoleon in the Kremlin. (The picture by Vereshagin) Except for the palaces in the Kremlin, churches and several hundred houses belonging to rich noblemen, Moscow's buildings were all wooden. Even the bridges were all wood. Everything could easily catch fire so in summer, the Moscow police usually forbid lighting fires in wooden houses. But now the huge city, left by its inhabitants, was without any safeguards and could be a victim of the first spark. Moscow was declared a trophy (Napoleon had promised his troops all the treasures of Moscow early in the campaign). A form of order "controlled" the plundering of Moscow. Every unit had its day, time and place to plunder. Napoleon's order was called "aller a la maraude". "On the first day the Old Guards plundered," wrote a witness, "The next day, the Young Guard, on the third day, the Corps of Marshal Davout, and so on". (1) To justify the robbery, Napoleon said his army considered Moscow a large enemy camp left by the troops. Five days later, Napoleon ordered the plundering stopped, but it was too late. It was impossible to stop plundering soldiers, and officers. After two more days, the French Headquarters issued another order to to stop the plundering, now accompanied by massacres and fires. But it is possible to argue about the causes of the Moscow fires. On September 14th., when the Russian Army left Moscow, Kutuzov gave the order to blow up the powder and ammunition magazines. Also, Moscow Commander-in-Chief, Count Rostopchin, set free all prisoners from Moscow prisons and they, together with manor serfs left by their owners, began plundering the city even before the French arrived. Also by Rostopchin's orders, all fire-prevention equipment was taken out of the city. Evidently both sides had a hand in the ensuing fires. The Moscow Fire. (The picture by A.F.Smirnov) Soon all Moscow was enveloped in a firestorm. It was even dangerous to stay in the Kremlin. Napoleon had left it on September 16th., and moved into Peter's Palace where he stayed for 3 days. The burning of Moscow stunned all of Europe, and the French army was condemned for their barbarism. On September 17th. the wind blew from the South-West and then from the West. No part of the city was spared by the fire. Moscow was cloaked by such a thick pall of smoke that the sun could not be seen. On September 19th., the wind finally calmed, and rain fell. The fires went out at last, mainly because there was almost nothing to burn: the whole city was a heap of smoking ruin. Sometimes fires broke out again, but the Kremlin was saved by soldiers of the Imperial Guards with pails in their hands who formed a chain around it. In the same way the region of the Kuznetsky Bridge was saved by the grenadiers and the inhabitants of the French colony that lived there. The Great Army might take its quarters again. But how it was possible to make soldiers stop robbing on such an enormous scale? The allies of the French, especially the German troops, were the worst. Moscowers called them "the impudent troops" and marked them as being very different from "the real French". The Napoleonic Army in Moscow. (the picture by unknowm Austrian artist) In the Arkhangelsk Cathedral and in the Kremlin, the Wurtemberg soldiers defiled and plundered the graves of the ancient Russia tsars. The Blagoveshensk Cathedral where the tsar wedding ceremonies took place was turned into in a stable; horses stood near the sanctuary and ruined the mosaic floor with their hooves. Because the stone churches had been undamaged by the fire, soldiers of all nations settled in them and desecrated articles holy to the Russians; they used the ancient icons as tables and put on the garments of the Russian priests for fun, adding the element of masquerade to one the most terrible dramas of the century. The Central State Military History Archive, f.3771, p.30