FONTAINEBLEAU, FRANCE – This single line of Napoleon’s secret coded letter told Paris of his desperate order against the Russians, “At three o’clock in the morning, on the 22nd I am going to blow up the Kremlin.”
NBC News reports that by the time Paris received the letter, the Russian czar’s seat of power was in flames and the diminished French army was in retreat. This unique document shows history’s famed general at one of his weakest moments.
The once-feared leader, showing the strain of the Russian invasion, wrote “My cavalry is in tatters, many horses are dying.”
The rare document is dated October 20, 1812. The letter was also signed “Nap” in the emperor’s hand and written in numeric code.
The document is up for auction on Sunday at France’s Fontainebleau Auction House.
The Napoleon code, used only for top-secret letters when the French emperor was far from home. The code was used to stop enemies from intercepting French army orders and was regularly changed to prevent it from being cracked.
When Napoleon sent the letter, it only took three days to reach France’s interior ministry. This was a total of 1,540 miles across Europe.
Jean-Christophe Chataignier of the auction house said:
“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,”
The weakened leader had nothing left to do but give the order to burn Russia’s government buildings. It was coded in the letter as “449, 514, 451, 1365…”
In June 1812, Napoleon’s “Grand Army”- an army of 600,000 men, one of the largest in human history – confidently entered Russia. However, they were unprepared for Russia’s harsh weather, the strong Russian defense, and the Russian scorched-earth tactics. These left nothing behind to sustain the hungry and freezing French troops.
Chataignier said:
“This letter is an incredible insight, we never see Napoleon emotively speaking in this way before. Only in letters to (his wife) Josephine did he ever express anything near to emotion. Moscow knocked him.”
The letter, bundled with a second decoded sheet, is estimated to fetch up to $19,500.
