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The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte

DIRECTIONS: Read each memoir written by Napoleon Bonaparte and answer the correlating
questions.

July 1st, 1810

“What does Russia want? Is it war? Why these continuous complaints? Why these insulting
doubts? Had I wished to restore Poland I would have said so, and I would not have withdrawn
my troops from Germany. Does Russia wish to prepare me for her defection? I shall be at war
with her the very day she makes peace with England.”

1) Under what circumstances does Napoleon state he would go to war with Russia?
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April 2nd, 1811

“The Emperor Alexander is already far from the ideas of Tilsit; every suggestion of war has its
origin in Russia. Unless the Emperor turns the current back very promptly, it will certainly
carry him away next year in spite of himself, in spite of the interests of France, and of those of
Russia; I have so often watched the process that my experience of the past unfolds the future to
me. It is all an opera setting with the English pulling the wires.”

2) What is Napoleon suggesting in this excerpt?

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June 22nd, 1812

(Proclamation to the Grand Army.) “Soldiers! The second Polish war has begun; the first ended
at Friedland and Tilsit. At Tilsit Russia pledged an eternal alliance with France, and war on
England! To-day her oath is broken. She refuses all explanations of her strange conduct unless
the French eagles recross the Rhine. Fate draws Russia on; her destiny must be accomplished!
Does she then think us degenerate? Are we no longer the soldiers of Austerlitz? She places us
between dishonor and war; can our choice be in doubt? Forward, then, across the Niemen, and
let us carry the war on to her own soil!”

3) According to Napoleon, what did Russia do that allowed him to go to war with them?
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September 20th, 1812

(To the Emperor Alexander.) “Monsieur mon Frère: The beautiful and splendid city of Moscow
no longer exists. Rostopchin has burnt it down. Four hundred incendiaries have been caught in
the act; all declared they were starting fires by order of the Governor and of the Chief of Police:
they were shot. The fire seems to have died out at last; three quarters of the houses have gone, a
quarter remains. Such conduct is atrocious and aimless. Was the object to deprive us of a few
resources? Well, those resources were in cellars that the fire did not reach.

Even then the destruction of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, the work of centuries,
for so slight an object, is inconceivable. If I supposed that such things were being done under
the orders of Your Majesty, I should not write this letter; but I hold it impossible that anyone
with the high principles of Your Majesty, such heart, such right feelings, could have authorized
these excesses, unworthy as they are of a great sovereign and a great nation.”

4) What were citizens of Moscow being ordered to do as the French Army arrived?

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5) Why did Napoleon say that burning the city was unsuccessful?
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November 18th, 1812

“(To Maret.) Since my last letter to you our situation has become worse. Ice and frost of near
zero (Fabr.) have killed off nearly all our horses, say 30,000. We have been compelled to burn
nearly 300 pieces of artillery, and an immense quantity of transport wagons. The cold has
greatly increased the number of stragglers. The Cossacks have turned to account our absolute
want of cavalry and of artillery to harass us and cut our communications, so that I am most
anxious about Marshal Ney, who stayed behind with 3000 men to blow up Smolensk.”

6) What are some of the things that have happened to Napoleon’s army? Why?

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November 29th, 1812

“The army is numerous but in a frightful state of disbandment. We need two weeks to reform
the men into regiments, and where can we get two weeks? Cold and privation have broken up
the army. We shall soon reach Vilna; can we stay there? Yes, if we can hold on for eight days;
but if we are attacked during the first eight days, it is doubtful whether we can stay there. Food!
food! food! Otherwise there are no horrors which this undisciplined mob is not capable of
wreaking on the city.”

7) What is the main shortage that Napoleon and his army are facing?
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January 14th, 1814

“My Brother: I have received your letter. It is too full of subtleties to fit my present situation.
Here is the question in two words. France is invaded, Europe is all in arms against France, but
especially against me. You are no longer King of Spain. What will you do? Will you, as a French
prince, support my throne? If so you must say so, write me a straightforward letter that I can
publish, receive the officials, and display zeal for my cause and for that of the King of Rome,
good-will”

8) What are two issues Napoleon is facing by 1814?

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March 3rd, 1816

”…I had made a landing possible; I had the finest army that ever existed, that of Austerlitz; what
more can be said? In four days I could have reached London; I would not have entered as a
conqueror but as a liberator; I would have acted the part of William III again, but with greater
generosity. The discipline of my army would have been perfect; and it would have behaved in
London as it might in Paris. From there I would have operated from south to north, under the
colors of the Republic, the European regeneration which later I was on the point of effecting
from north to south, under monarchical forms. The obstacles before which I failed did not
proceed from men but from the elements: in the south it was the sea destroyed me; and in the
north it was the fire of Moscow and the ice of winter; so there it is, water, air, fire, all nature
and nothing but nature; these were the opponents of a universal regeneration commanded by
Nature herself! The problems of Nature are insoluble!”

9) What did Napoleon see himself as when discussing his previous plan to invade
England?
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10) According to Napoleon, what was his biggest setbacks caused by?
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