MOSCOW BURNING DRIVES BACK BESIEGERS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 122, 17 December 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

MOSCOW BURNING DRIVES BACK BESIEGERS.

On Monday, September 14, 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte the First and his French army entered Moscow, the ancient capital of Russia, and still regarded by that country's peasants as retaining that position, though from 1703 it has been taken by St. Petersburg, or Petrograd, as it is called in 1915, so named after Peter the Great, who founded the new capital. The older city was on September 15 Bet on Are, which was said to have been done by order of Rostopchin, the Governor, though even then this was doubtful, and it would have probably been the only instance of an invader thus resisted. It was a very costly one, for 11,840 houses were thus destroyed, besides palaces and churches. As a result the French evacuated or deserted Moscow, and in turn Russia entirely, retreating homewards across Europe with the greatest misery to themselves-. Five times Moscow had previously suffered by disastrous fires, from 1547 till 1753, but after that of 1812 it revived, ond now ranks next to Petrograd as an industrial centre, and as the chief commercial city of Russia, with about 1,200,000 inhabitants. This* final fire was really caused through the carelessness of some of the inhabitants, and stores of wine, spirits, and chemical stuffs became ignited and thus rapidly and widely spread. But the burning of the city caused a general rising of the peasants against the French, who were continually attacked by them an-! by the Cossacks, that remarkable tribe oi' wonderful military horsemen. And so, though the invading troops pillaged and plundered by the inhabitant?, they were, by want of supplies and hi impossibility* of wintering in a ruined city, compelled to leave Moscow and retire homewards with their Emperor.