A crucial problem for the militia in 1812 was lack of firearms. By the end of July Russia was facing an acute shortage of muskets. By now almost 350,000 of the 371,000 muskets held in store in the eighteen months before the war had been distributed. Current production of muskets depended almost entirely on state and private manufacturers in Tula. Between May and December 1812 Tula produced 127,000 muskets, at an average of just under 16,000 a month. After the fall of Moscow, however, many artisans fled from Tula back to their villages, which seriously affected production for many weeks and infuriated Alexander. Subsequently much effort had to be directed into manufacturing pistols for the cavalry reserves and for a time the main source of Russian muskets was the 101,000 imported from Britain and the many thousands captured from the French. Correctly, Kutuzov put top priority on arming the new recruits destined for the field army. The militia came at the back of the queue for firearms. The leftovers it received were usually of wretched quality and most militiamen in December 1812 were still armed with pikes.39
All of this was a big disappointment to Kutuzov. On appointment as commander-in-chief, one of his first concerns was to learn what reserve forces stood behind the armies in the field. The truth was discouraging. The last remnant of what had initially been seen as a second line of defence were Miloradovich’s battalions, most of which joined Kutuzov before Borodino. All that now remained were Lobanov and Kleinmichel’s regiments, and the militia. Even if Lobanov could arrive in time to defend Moscow, Alexander forbade Kutuzov to use his regiments. In the emperor’s opinion the men were insufficiently trained and, more importantly, it was crucial to retain a cadre around which the horde of new recruits could be formed into an effective army. Part of the Moscow and Smolensk militias did arrive in time to defend the city. After Borodino Kutuzov incorporated some of them into his regiments in order to make up for his enormous losses. With so many untrained and sometimes even unarmed men in the ranks, however, it is not at all surprising that he and Barclay rejected the idea of risking a battle on the outskirts of Moscow.40
As a result, the city was lost. Thanks to Miloradovich and Barclay, the army did not disintegrate as it retreated through Moscow but in the following days it came closer to doing so than on any previous occasion. For the first time Kutuzov was not greeted with cheers as he rode past his marching regiments. To exhaustion and enormous losses were now added the shame and despair of abandoning Moscow without a fight. As always, a thin line could divide official requisitioning from arbitrary theft. Discipline suffered and many soldiers began to plunder the countryside. The Cossacks took the lead here but they were by no means alone. An impromptu market for plunder – officially taken from the French – was established near the camp at Tarutino.41
Even a few junior officers joined in the plundering. Most felt deep gloom and a sense of betrayal at Moscow’s abandonment. Lieutenant Radozhitsky recalls that ‘superstitious people, unable to comprehend what was going on in front of their eyes, thought that Moscow’s fall meant the collapse of Russia, the triumph of the Antichrist and soon after a terrible judgement and the end of the world’. Far away with Tormasov’s army a despairing Major-General Prince Viazemsky asked God why he had allowed Moscow to fall: ‘This is to punish a nation that so loves thee!’ But Viazemsky had no lack of mundane villains on whom to blame disaster. They included ‘allowing foreigners to take root, enlightenment…Arakcheev and Kleinmichel and the degenerates of the court’. If this already came very close to blaming the emperor, the Grand Duchess Catherine was even more explicit in her letters to her brother. She told him that he was widely condemned for poor direction of the war and for dishonouring Russia by abandoning Moscow without a fight.42
