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1812: How Napoleon and Paul I were about to conquer British India
When people speak about Napoleon Bonaparte they usually recall his military campaigns in Europe and do not pay attentions to the fact that the dream of all his life was the conquest of India.
His famous Egyptian campaign in 1798 was to become the first step towards the conquest of India. But after the catastrophe in Aboukir Bay when British admiral Nelson destroyed the French fleet and the failure of the Syrian campaign Napoleon returned to France where he took power. But even during his political struggle he continued to dream about the East.
In 1800, Napoleon signed a military and political alliance with the Russian Emperor Paul I, known as a hotheaded ruler. Napoleon managed to talk Paul I into the idea of a joint campaign against India. Bonaparte took active steps to make his dream come true. It was only the assassination of Paul I in March 1801 which ruined his Eastern plans. In this program we will tell you how it all happened and in particular how Russia made its first attempt to establish itself in Central Asia long before this region came under its influence.
Napoleon confessed that France had started the Egyptian campaign in order to conquer the British India. To establish itself in North Africa and the Middle East was the minor goal of that campaign. In fact France planned to turn the international basin of the Mediterranean Sea into the French Lake.
When Napoleon came to power and solved the main domestic affairs he focused on France's foreign policy. One of the first political tasks for France was to continue the French expansion in West Asia and to push the British fleet from the Mediterranean Sea. According to the official version, on returning from Egypt Napoleon left that country occupied by his troops and made Malta part of France. In Africa the French army was headed by of General Klebert.
He was in charge of 17,000 French soldiers and up to 5,000 Arabic and African mercenaries. On Malta the French garrison of 3,000 soldiers was led by General Vobois. These figures show that Napoleon was serious about the resumption of his expansion to the East. He was dreaming about the Eastern Empire of Alexander the Great and wanted to drive the Brits away from the Mediterranean Sea. But this task turned to be a hard nut to crack for Napoleon.
In late 18 century the Ottoman Empire was "falling apart at the seams", a light blow or a deliberate pressure from outside was enough for its collapse. Preparing for the Egyptian campaign Bonaparte held correspondence with Yanina Pasha and Scutari Pasha, governors of Greece, Albania and Macedonia, the Emir of Lebanon, the beys of Algeria and Tunisia. The governors of those provinces of the Ottoman Empire were almost monocrats on the territories they controlled. After the failure of his Egyptian campaign Napoleon lost touch with them.
When the Russian-Turkish troops under command of admiral Ushakov took Corfu and other Ionian Islands which were an important strategic base of the Adriatic Sea it was a serious blow on Napoleon's plans in the Mediterranean area.
Bonaparte wrote to his close associate Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord: "The Ionian Islands are more interesting for us than the whole Italy. I think if we had to choose it would be better to give Italy to the Emperor of Austria and to keep the islands for ourselves". The strategic positions in the Mediterranean Sea Napoleon hardly won in 1798 were lost by 1800-1801. The soldiers of the Egyptian army were left to shift for themselves, the fleet was destroyed by the Brits, Italy was regained by Austria and Russia, Malta was blocked by the fleet of admiral Nelson and the Ionian islands became the Russian-Turkish province.
In early 1801, when he was still in state of the war with the Ottoman Empire, Napoleon attempted to send the ships under command of Admiral Gantaume to Egypt to bring additional troops there. The admiral was emphatically told to gather all the ships which could sail and those which could float to bring additional troops to Egypt to help general Kleber.
But an outbreak of plaque onboard and the watch and ward of the British navy ruined the implementation of that plan. Great Britain was holding strong positions in the Mediterranean region. On trying every possible means to shell the Brits out, the First Consul decided "to sting Great Britain with the lance of the Russian Cossacks" in India, its most vulnerable point.
The Mediterranean region was not the only are Napoleon wanted to take under his control. He knew that commercial, economic and political interests of France and England would collide in all parts of the world. Describing this situation Russian historian Albert Manfred said "the Lion could not take the Whale in the sea, and the Whale could not defeat the Lion on land". The powerful fleet enabled Great Britain to redeploy its troops rather quickly throwing them from one part of the world to another.
France also wanted to establish itself on on other continents. That constant competition between the two powerful nations often led to armed conflicts. During the 18th century England and France fought against each other in America, in Asia and in Africa. England had an advantage thanks to its more powerful fleet. The duel between France and England could last endlessly but once Napoleon came across an interesting report written in 1799 by Gutten a French agent who was working in Russia.
"The alliance with our neighbors is shaky and short life. ... We will seek for an alliance with a great power, which geographically would be invulnerable for us and would not feel any danger from our army and our policy - the diplomat wrote - Two powers acting as allies could dictate terms to the whole Europe... Russia with all its Asian lands would give the French army a helping hand in Egypt and acting together with France would carry the war to Bengal".
In the short term perspective Bonaparte was going to turn shy verbs "would" and "could" of that report into confident verbs "will" and "can". In his innermost dreams Napoleon saw the Russian Empire as a useful tool of its Foreign policy. He wanted to make Paul I believe that they were equal partners in this big game but in reality he wanted to be the only one to run the game on the global chessboard.
The departure of the Russian troops led by Alexander Suvorov from Switzerland in the end of 1799 did not mean that the Russian-French war was over. Though there were no military actions between the countries there were not any diplomatic contacts either. The parties kept silence thinking what to do next. The Russian Emperor Paul I lurched from one extreme to another. On the one hand he was concerned with the prospect Count Rastopchin described as follows: "France, England and Prussia will end the war of the second anti-French coalition with considerable benefits but Russia which lost 23,000 people will win nothing... " But the rapprochement with the republican France was not easy for Paul who was a vocal advocate of the absolute monarchy.
Napoleon was the first to take steps to revitalize the Russian-French relations. By discrediting England in the eyes of Paul I Napoleon was coming closer to the Russian Emperor. In early 1800, Napoleon asked Prussia to act as a mediator in talks with the Russian Empire.
But Berlin overestimated its role and coldly received Napoleon's ambassadors Duroc and Lavalette. Soon after that Prussia ceased to be one of the nations which defined the state of things in Europe.
The Russian Emperor realized that he had made a mistake when he entered the European conflict of 1799-1800. Being a very contradictory person, hotheaded and suspicious but also high-minded and chivalric Paul I had allowed his Austrian counterpart to talk him into acting as a defender of the legitimate monarchies. But this time it was different. No matter how hard Austria and England tried to talk Russia into resuming its participation in the coalition, no matter how Louis XVIII urged Paul I to crush "the revolutionary plague" in the egg, the Russian Emperor was getting ready to make the most significant and well considered step in a time of his short rule. He was preparing for an alliance with France.
Paul's contemporaries, who considered him to be hysterical and even insane, were grossly mistaken. When he was a child his mother czarina Catherine II was too busy with state affairs and paid little attention to her son. The crown prince of the Russian Empire became suspicious and unsociable but somehow he managed to learn how to rule the country from his antecedents.
In 1800, he managed to get over his conservatism and came to the conclusion that the alliance of Russia and France is the right thing to do. The two states did not have common frontiers, they could maintain friendly relations and be allies, dictating their conditions to Europe. The goals of the Russian and French rulers coincided and it led to an unprecedented rapprochement of the two states.
The events of the first three months of 1801 were about to change the course of the history. Russia's Foreign Minister Panin and his French counterpart Talleyrand and later Paul I and Napoleon exchanged diplomatic letters. For Paul I the word "honor" always had a medieval, romantic meaning. There were jokes and anecdotes in Europe about Paul's love of different symbolic ceremonies and friendly gestures. Bonaparte knew that if he played his political by the rules of Paul I the alliance between Russia and France would be made quite soon.
Talleyrand's first letter to the Russian government dated July 7, 1800, contained Napoleon's proposal to return 6,000 prisoners of war seized by the French army in 1799-1800 to Russia. Bonaparte proposed to send the Russian soldiers back dressed in the new uniform made by Lyonese tailors. Soon after that Paul received a gift from France - a sward Pope Leo X had presented to one of the Grand Masters of the Malthusian Order. In the following letter Talleyrand wrote about France's intention to protect Malta from the British siege. The gifts and proposals came together with Napoleon's political proposals to make an alliance and eventually it produced an effect. Without going into details of the Russian-French rapprochement in early 1801 it would be interesting to review the mutual colonial projects Napoleon and Paul I planned to carry out.
The alliance with the Russian Empire was very promising for France. After the glorious victories of the Russian army under command of Alexander Suvorov Russia had authority over Europe. Making friends with Russia Napoleon planned to use it as an irritant against England. At that time Great Britain fully controlled sea trade which was very unprofitable for other countries.
The change of Russia's political course meant the European blockade for England. Now Napoleon-Cesar and Paul-Don-Quixote were eying India, the center of the planet and the top of the world. The shadow of a global conflict was hanging over Great Britain and the British colonial empire was in danger.
Napoleon remembered the words from the report of the French spy: "Russia with all its Asian lands would give the French army a helping hand in Egypt and acting together with France would carry the war to Bengal". It was the reanimation of his Asian dreams. He still hoped to see his regiments in India and himself "sitting on a white elephant holding a new Qur'an in his hands". Bonaparte upheld the initiative of the Russian czar on the joint conquest of India. According to historical documents, the plan of the Indian campaign was the following. First Consul of the French Republic planned to take General Massen from Italy and give him 35,000 soldiers of the Rhine army led by General Moreau who had defeated Austrians in the battle of Hogenlinden.
Knowing about Massen's achievements in Genoa, Paul I personally chose him as the commander of the task force. Massen was expected to head his task force in May 1801. After that his troops were to go down the Danube River to Ismail, to cross the Black and Azov Seas and to reach the Russian city of Taganrog. The ships with the French troops onboard were to enter the estuary of the Don River and sailing upstream to reach the town of Tsaritsin.
From there they were to go down the Volga River to the port of Astrakhan. In Itil, the former capital of the Khazar Khaganate, which by the early 19th century had turned into a typical provincial town with watermelons, camels and the Kalmyk people, Massen's grenadiers were to join the Russian Cossacks under the command of hetman Orlov. After that the Russian-French 70,000 troops (in which Russia accounted for 35,000 people) were to cross the Caspian Sea onboard of the Russian ships and to debark in the Persian city of Astrabad.
According to the calculation of Napoleon's assistants the route from France to Astrabad would take 83 days. From Astrabad the army via Herat and Kandahar was to reach India in 50 days by September 1801. In India the Russian-French army were supposed to attack the British troops.
In January 1801, Paul I started the project known as the Orenburg or Indian campaign. On January 12 he sent a letter to hetman Orlov: "the Brits are preparing to attack me and my allies Swedes and Danes from land and sea. I am ready for these attacks but we also should find their most vulnerable place and to attack them there. Their Indian colony is the best place for the attack. Herein I entrust you to head this expedition and to lead your troops through Khiva and Bukhara to India. It will take only one month to reach India but the abundance of this land will be our reward ".
Orlov sent the captain of his Cossacks Denezhnikov to the governor of Orenburg to collect all necessary information about the future campaign. He took 22, 500 Cossacks and went to Orenburg where he was to receive reinforcements. In his writ dated January 12 the czar was too hasty - only the road from Kuban in the south of Russia to the town of Tsaritsin on the Volga River took one month and a half. In his letters to Paul I Orlov complained about the poor state of his troops. A horse ride across the Kalmyk steppes in winter was not a pleasant trip. The morning frost was usually followed by thaw in the afternoon. Melting snow made the roads impassable and Cossacks' clothes wet and heavy. There was a lack of food and fodder and the soldiers often were starving.
In his second letter Paul wrote: "Our goal is to destroy all British colonial institutions in India and to set Indian people free and treating them kindly make them dependable on Russia". Together with the second letter the czar sent the maps of India found in the Imperial headquarters in St. Petersburg. On looking through the letter and the maps the Cossacks' hetman groaned. India was still a long way to go. His troops had to cross the Kazakh and Turkmen steppes, to enter Persia to cover mountains and only than to reach India.
The expedition was badly organized. The rear of the Cossack troops was not protected but considering the strategy of the allies it was reasonbale. There were only 32,000 soldiers of the British Crown in India and only 2,000 of them were British.
The rest 30,000 were sepoys, aboriginal soldiers who were taught the European type of war. Their allegiance to the British Crown was shaky. While Britain's East Indian company was strengthening its position in India the army under command of General Harris was war-weary because of constant clashes with rebellious Indian princedoms. If the Russian campaign had been a success India would note have been the pearl of the British Crown anymore .
By mutual agreement Bonaparte signed peace with Persia the country Russia had difficult relations with. In his turn Paul I helped France to establish good relations with Turkey. And though some historians found the whole Indian campaign to be absurd others admit that it was a serious project. They are inclined to think that if India had been conquered Paul I would have reaped all the laurels. The expedition of hetman Orlov was to become the first stage of the conquest of India by Russia and France.
According to the czar's plan 22,500 Cossacks would create the first Russian base in Central Asia in Bukhara and Khiva for further conquest of India.
While supporting Paul's moves Napoleon was also preparing for a new Asian campaign. In his conversation with the Russian messenger Sprengporten Napoleon noted with enthusiasm: "Your sovereign agrees with me that if we take India away from England we will weaken England's might. India, this fairy land, this Oriental diamond, has given much more wisdom to the world than this drunken and vicious England with its shopkeepers". Saying so, Napoleon looked energetic again reminding himself in the times of the Egyptian campaign. Though the plans were dramatic they were just plans and once the Brits learnt about them they intensified the efforts of their military forces and spies.
On December 24, 1800 an assassination attempt on Napoleon was made. The British shareholders did not want to lose their dividends from the shares of the East-Indian Company and financed the conspiracy against the Russian czar.
As we know on the night from March 11 to March 12 1801, the conspirators killed Paul I strangling him to death in St. Michael's Palace in St. Petersburg.
One of the first decrees of the new Russian Emperor Alexander I was the order to halt the Indian campaign. The messenger of the new czar caught up with the troops of hetman Orlov on March 23 in the Saratov region. The hetman looked sadly at the messenger all of a sweat his clothes dirty with road dust. He expected to find the new instructions from Paul in the envelope but when he looked through the document he saw an unfamiliar handwriting and a signature by Alexander I. On reading through the decree he announced to his Cossacks that the new czar orders them to return home. The Cossacks rejoiced. The Indian campaign was over.
The assassination of Paul I had ruined the Asian plans of Bonaparte. His second attempt to conquer India had failed. The Indian campaign was not the only project Napoleon wanted to carry out together with the Russian czar. The letters in the archives of France's Foreign Ministry prove that there were plans of joint expeditions to Ireland, Brazil and Africa and the division of the Ottoman Empire. The murder of Paul I also halted Russia's conquest of Central Asia which was about to start in 1801. It was shifted for 50 years.
Audio
__
how different things would have been had they succeeded..
@Azlan Haider @Oscar @FaujHistorian @Joe Shearer @AUSTERLITZ @vostok
When people speak about Napoleon Bonaparte they usually recall his military campaigns in Europe and do not pay attentions to the fact that the dream of all his life was the conquest of India.
His famous Egyptian campaign in 1798 was to become the first step towards the conquest of India. But after the catastrophe in Aboukir Bay when British admiral Nelson destroyed the French fleet and the failure of the Syrian campaign Napoleon returned to France where he took power. But even during his political struggle he continued to dream about the East.
In 1800, Napoleon signed a military and political alliance with the Russian Emperor Paul I, known as a hotheaded ruler. Napoleon managed to talk Paul I into the idea of a joint campaign against India. Bonaparte took active steps to make his dream come true. It was only the assassination of Paul I in March 1801 which ruined his Eastern plans. In this program we will tell you how it all happened and in particular how Russia made its first attempt to establish itself in Central Asia long before this region came under its influence.
Napoleon confessed that France had started the Egyptian campaign in order to conquer the British India. To establish itself in North Africa and the Middle East was the minor goal of that campaign. In fact France planned to turn the international basin of the Mediterranean Sea into the French Lake.
When Napoleon came to power and solved the main domestic affairs he focused on France's foreign policy. One of the first political tasks for France was to continue the French expansion in West Asia and to push the British fleet from the Mediterranean Sea. According to the official version, on returning from Egypt Napoleon left that country occupied by his troops and made Malta part of France. In Africa the French army was headed by of General Klebert.
He was in charge of 17,000 French soldiers and up to 5,000 Arabic and African mercenaries. On Malta the French garrison of 3,000 soldiers was led by General Vobois. These figures show that Napoleon was serious about the resumption of his expansion to the East. He was dreaming about the Eastern Empire of Alexander the Great and wanted to drive the Brits away from the Mediterranean Sea. But this task turned to be a hard nut to crack for Napoleon.
In late 18 century the Ottoman Empire was "falling apart at the seams", a light blow or a deliberate pressure from outside was enough for its collapse. Preparing for the Egyptian campaign Bonaparte held correspondence with Yanina Pasha and Scutari Pasha, governors of Greece, Albania and Macedonia, the Emir of Lebanon, the beys of Algeria and Tunisia. The governors of those provinces of the Ottoman Empire were almost monocrats on the territories they controlled. After the failure of his Egyptian campaign Napoleon lost touch with them.
When the Russian-Turkish troops under command of admiral Ushakov took Corfu and other Ionian Islands which were an important strategic base of the Adriatic Sea it was a serious blow on Napoleon's plans in the Mediterranean area.
Bonaparte wrote to his close associate Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord: "The Ionian Islands are more interesting for us than the whole Italy. I think if we had to choose it would be better to give Italy to the Emperor of Austria and to keep the islands for ourselves". The strategic positions in the Mediterranean Sea Napoleon hardly won in 1798 were lost by 1800-1801. The soldiers of the Egyptian army were left to shift for themselves, the fleet was destroyed by the Brits, Italy was regained by Austria and Russia, Malta was blocked by the fleet of admiral Nelson and the Ionian islands became the Russian-Turkish province.
In early 1801, when he was still in state of the war with the Ottoman Empire, Napoleon attempted to send the ships under command of Admiral Gantaume to Egypt to bring additional troops there. The admiral was emphatically told to gather all the ships which could sail and those which could float to bring additional troops to Egypt to help general Kleber.
But an outbreak of plaque onboard and the watch and ward of the British navy ruined the implementation of that plan. Great Britain was holding strong positions in the Mediterranean region. On trying every possible means to shell the Brits out, the First Consul decided "to sting Great Britain with the lance of the Russian Cossacks" in India, its most vulnerable point.
The Mediterranean region was not the only are Napoleon wanted to take under his control. He knew that commercial, economic and political interests of France and England would collide in all parts of the world. Describing this situation Russian historian Albert Manfred said "the Lion could not take the Whale in the sea, and the Whale could not defeat the Lion on land". The powerful fleet enabled Great Britain to redeploy its troops rather quickly throwing them from one part of the world to another.
France also wanted to establish itself on on other continents. That constant competition between the two powerful nations often led to armed conflicts. During the 18th century England and France fought against each other in America, in Asia and in Africa. England had an advantage thanks to its more powerful fleet. The duel between France and England could last endlessly but once Napoleon came across an interesting report written in 1799 by Gutten a French agent who was working in Russia.
"The alliance with our neighbors is shaky and short life. ... We will seek for an alliance with a great power, which geographically would be invulnerable for us and would not feel any danger from our army and our policy - the diplomat wrote - Two powers acting as allies could dictate terms to the whole Europe... Russia with all its Asian lands would give the French army a helping hand in Egypt and acting together with France would carry the war to Bengal".
In the short term perspective Bonaparte was going to turn shy verbs "would" and "could" of that report into confident verbs "will" and "can". In his innermost dreams Napoleon saw the Russian Empire as a useful tool of its Foreign policy. He wanted to make Paul I believe that they were equal partners in this big game but in reality he wanted to be the only one to run the game on the global chessboard.
The departure of the Russian troops led by Alexander Suvorov from Switzerland in the end of 1799 did not mean that the Russian-French war was over. Though there were no military actions between the countries there were not any diplomatic contacts either. The parties kept silence thinking what to do next. The Russian Emperor Paul I lurched from one extreme to another. On the one hand he was concerned with the prospect Count Rastopchin described as follows: "France, England and Prussia will end the war of the second anti-French coalition with considerable benefits but Russia which lost 23,000 people will win nothing... " But the rapprochement with the republican France was not easy for Paul who was a vocal advocate of the absolute monarchy.
Napoleon was the first to take steps to revitalize the Russian-French relations. By discrediting England in the eyes of Paul I Napoleon was coming closer to the Russian Emperor. In early 1800, Napoleon asked Prussia to act as a mediator in talks with the Russian Empire.
But Berlin overestimated its role and coldly received Napoleon's ambassadors Duroc and Lavalette. Soon after that Prussia ceased to be one of the nations which defined the state of things in Europe.
The Russian Emperor realized that he had made a mistake when he entered the European conflict of 1799-1800. Being a very contradictory person, hotheaded and suspicious but also high-minded and chivalric Paul I had allowed his Austrian counterpart to talk him into acting as a defender of the legitimate monarchies. But this time it was different. No matter how hard Austria and England tried to talk Russia into resuming its participation in the coalition, no matter how Louis XVIII urged Paul I to crush "the revolutionary plague" in the egg, the Russian Emperor was getting ready to make the most significant and well considered step in a time of his short rule. He was preparing for an alliance with France.
Paul's contemporaries, who considered him to be hysterical and even insane, were grossly mistaken. When he was a child his mother czarina Catherine II was too busy with state affairs and paid little attention to her son. The crown prince of the Russian Empire became suspicious and unsociable but somehow he managed to learn how to rule the country from his antecedents.
In 1800, he managed to get over his conservatism and came to the conclusion that the alliance of Russia and France is the right thing to do. The two states did not have common frontiers, they could maintain friendly relations and be allies, dictating their conditions to Europe. The goals of the Russian and French rulers coincided and it led to an unprecedented rapprochement of the two states.
The events of the first three months of 1801 were about to change the course of the history. Russia's Foreign Minister Panin and his French counterpart Talleyrand and later Paul I and Napoleon exchanged diplomatic letters. For Paul I the word "honor" always had a medieval, romantic meaning. There were jokes and anecdotes in Europe about Paul's love of different symbolic ceremonies and friendly gestures. Bonaparte knew that if he played his political by the rules of Paul I the alliance between Russia and France would be made quite soon.
Talleyrand's first letter to the Russian government dated July 7, 1800, contained Napoleon's proposal to return 6,000 prisoners of war seized by the French army in 1799-1800 to Russia. Bonaparte proposed to send the Russian soldiers back dressed in the new uniform made by Lyonese tailors. Soon after that Paul received a gift from France - a sward Pope Leo X had presented to one of the Grand Masters of the Malthusian Order. In the following letter Talleyrand wrote about France's intention to protect Malta from the British siege. The gifts and proposals came together with Napoleon's political proposals to make an alliance and eventually it produced an effect. Without going into details of the Russian-French rapprochement in early 1801 it would be interesting to review the mutual colonial projects Napoleon and Paul I planned to carry out.
The alliance with the Russian Empire was very promising for France. After the glorious victories of the Russian army under command of Alexander Suvorov Russia had authority over Europe. Making friends with Russia Napoleon planned to use it as an irritant against England. At that time Great Britain fully controlled sea trade which was very unprofitable for other countries.
The change of Russia's political course meant the European blockade for England. Now Napoleon-Cesar and Paul-Don-Quixote were eying India, the center of the planet and the top of the world. The shadow of a global conflict was hanging over Great Britain and the British colonial empire was in danger.
Napoleon remembered the words from the report of the French spy: "Russia with all its Asian lands would give the French army a helping hand in Egypt and acting together with France would carry the war to Bengal". It was the reanimation of his Asian dreams. He still hoped to see his regiments in India and himself "sitting on a white elephant holding a new Qur'an in his hands". Bonaparte upheld the initiative of the Russian czar on the joint conquest of India. According to historical documents, the plan of the Indian campaign was the following. First Consul of the French Republic planned to take General Massen from Italy and give him 35,000 soldiers of the Rhine army led by General Moreau who had defeated Austrians in the battle of Hogenlinden.
Knowing about Massen's achievements in Genoa, Paul I personally chose him as the commander of the task force. Massen was expected to head his task force in May 1801. After that his troops were to go down the Danube River to Ismail, to cross the Black and Azov Seas and to reach the Russian city of Taganrog. The ships with the French troops onboard were to enter the estuary of the Don River and sailing upstream to reach the town of Tsaritsin.
From there they were to go down the Volga River to the port of Astrakhan. In Itil, the former capital of the Khazar Khaganate, which by the early 19th century had turned into a typical provincial town with watermelons, camels and the Kalmyk people, Massen's grenadiers were to join the Russian Cossacks under the command of hetman Orlov. After that the Russian-French 70,000 troops (in which Russia accounted for 35,000 people) were to cross the Caspian Sea onboard of the Russian ships and to debark in the Persian city of Astrabad.
According to the calculation of Napoleon's assistants the route from France to Astrabad would take 83 days. From Astrabad the army via Herat and Kandahar was to reach India in 50 days by September 1801. In India the Russian-French army were supposed to attack the British troops.
In January 1801, Paul I started the project known as the Orenburg or Indian campaign. On January 12 he sent a letter to hetman Orlov: "the Brits are preparing to attack me and my allies Swedes and Danes from land and sea. I am ready for these attacks but we also should find their most vulnerable place and to attack them there. Their Indian colony is the best place for the attack. Herein I entrust you to head this expedition and to lead your troops through Khiva and Bukhara to India. It will take only one month to reach India but the abundance of this land will be our reward ".
Orlov sent the captain of his Cossacks Denezhnikov to the governor of Orenburg to collect all necessary information about the future campaign. He took 22, 500 Cossacks and went to Orenburg where he was to receive reinforcements. In his writ dated January 12 the czar was too hasty - only the road from Kuban in the south of Russia to the town of Tsaritsin on the Volga River took one month and a half. In his letters to Paul I Orlov complained about the poor state of his troops. A horse ride across the Kalmyk steppes in winter was not a pleasant trip. The morning frost was usually followed by thaw in the afternoon. Melting snow made the roads impassable and Cossacks' clothes wet and heavy. There was a lack of food and fodder and the soldiers often were starving.
In his second letter Paul wrote: "Our goal is to destroy all British colonial institutions in India and to set Indian people free and treating them kindly make them dependable on Russia". Together with the second letter the czar sent the maps of India found in the Imperial headquarters in St. Petersburg. On looking through the letter and the maps the Cossacks' hetman groaned. India was still a long way to go. His troops had to cross the Kazakh and Turkmen steppes, to enter Persia to cover mountains and only than to reach India.
The expedition was badly organized. The rear of the Cossack troops was not protected but considering the strategy of the allies it was reasonbale. There were only 32,000 soldiers of the British Crown in India and only 2,000 of them were British.
The rest 30,000 were sepoys, aboriginal soldiers who were taught the European type of war. Their allegiance to the British Crown was shaky. While Britain's East Indian company was strengthening its position in India the army under command of General Harris was war-weary because of constant clashes with rebellious Indian princedoms. If the Russian campaign had been a success India would note have been the pearl of the British Crown anymore .
By mutual agreement Bonaparte signed peace with Persia the country Russia had difficult relations with. In his turn Paul I helped France to establish good relations with Turkey. And though some historians found the whole Indian campaign to be absurd others admit that it was a serious project. They are inclined to think that if India had been conquered Paul I would have reaped all the laurels. The expedition of hetman Orlov was to become the first stage of the conquest of India by Russia and France.
According to the czar's plan 22,500 Cossacks would create the first Russian base in Central Asia in Bukhara and Khiva for further conquest of India.
While supporting Paul's moves Napoleon was also preparing for a new Asian campaign. In his conversation with the Russian messenger Sprengporten Napoleon noted with enthusiasm: "Your sovereign agrees with me that if we take India away from England we will weaken England's might. India, this fairy land, this Oriental diamond, has given much more wisdom to the world than this drunken and vicious England with its shopkeepers". Saying so, Napoleon looked energetic again reminding himself in the times of the Egyptian campaign. Though the plans were dramatic they were just plans and once the Brits learnt about them they intensified the efforts of their military forces and spies.
On December 24, 1800 an assassination attempt on Napoleon was made. The British shareholders did not want to lose their dividends from the shares of the East-Indian Company and financed the conspiracy against the Russian czar.
As we know on the night from March 11 to March 12 1801, the conspirators killed Paul I strangling him to death in St. Michael's Palace in St. Petersburg.
One of the first decrees of the new Russian Emperor Alexander I was the order to halt the Indian campaign. The messenger of the new czar caught up with the troops of hetman Orlov on March 23 in the Saratov region. The hetman looked sadly at the messenger all of a sweat his clothes dirty with road dust. He expected to find the new instructions from Paul in the envelope but when he looked through the document he saw an unfamiliar handwriting and a signature by Alexander I. On reading through the decree he announced to his Cossacks that the new czar orders them to return home. The Cossacks rejoiced. The Indian campaign was over.
The assassination of Paul I had ruined the Asian plans of Bonaparte. His second attempt to conquer India had failed. The Indian campaign was not the only project Napoleon wanted to carry out together with the Russian czar. The letters in the archives of France's Foreign Ministry prove that there were plans of joint expeditions to Ireland, Brazil and Africa and the division of the Ottoman Empire. The murder of Paul I also halted Russia's conquest of Central Asia which was about to start in 1801. It was shifted for 50 years.
Audio
__
how different things would have been had they succeeded..
@Azlan Haider @Oscar @FaujHistorian @Joe Shearer @AUSTERLITZ @vostok
