What if Napoleon declared a general emancipation of the serfs when he invaded Russia?
- Thread starter Sirius
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Of course, in his "Napoleon" (written in 1936) Tarle was following the "classic" (or "vulgar", depending upon the point of view
) Marxism of Pokrovsky school with a heavy emphasis upon the class struggle and economy (as a part of it) viewing Napoleon as a product of the Revolution. Small wonder that immediately after his book was published, it was severely criticized both by the Soviet historians and by the emigres abroad. In the speedily written " Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia, 1812" (1938) he remedied his earlier "errors" by stressing patriotism, nationalism, "people's war", genius of Kutuzov, and other rubbish. So the reference in your post is probably to the 1st book. However, the problem with the initial approach was that Pokrovsky was 100% Marxist, meaning that he could not see anything besides the class struggle and ignored the existing complicated social, diplomatic and economic relations, religion, contemporary views, organizational issues, etc.. It seems that the modern Russian historians adopted a measured approach by mentioning the numerous cases of the cooperation with the invaders both by the peasants and the nobility and not making too much our of the "patriotism of the masses". Actually, such references could be found in the contemporary memoirs, for example those left by Denis Davidov.
However, all that starts making sense only if one assumes that Napoleon's goal was conquest of Russia (which was an underlying assumption of at least the 2nd book). But it was not. The "only" thing he wanted was to force Alexander to abide to the CS and he planned to achieve this by winning a major victory close to the Russian border. When this failed, the rest of campaign was improvisation without any clear military or diplomatic plan but putting himself upon the throne of Russia clearly was not his idea at any point just because it was completely void of any practicality. Cooperation of the local peasants and nobles could be achieved much easier by the generous payment for supplies in gold instead of the counterfeited paper money (most of the Russian peasants never saw the paper money and had no idea what to do with them) or a straightforward looting.
Could he issue any specific proclamation? Yes, he could. How far and wide would it go without him having a network of the agents all over Russia? Not too far. The religious sectarians were neither numerous enough nor powerful enough to make a critical difference and most of the peasants simply would not know about such a proclamation or be able to read it.
Would they rebel at the news? Some would but the suppression apparatus was there and quite effective and the Russian peasants had been lacking any organization beyond the village level so how would they launch a rebellion capable of overthrowing the Tsar? Don't forget that at that time soldiers served for 20-25 years and by the end of the service they were personally free and well before that all their ties with the peasants had been broken so there would be absolutely no reason for them to rebel. Davidov described arrival of his raiding party into one "pro-French" village. A handful of the hussars and Cossacks was enough for the peasants not to try any resistance and upon demand produce the "ringleaders" who had been promptly hanged. Few of those less guilty had been flogged and that was it.
Then, proclamation or not, on its way into Russia the Great Army was extensively looting and while gaining a personal freedom could sound nice, this bright future was more than compensated by an unpleasant reality of being deprived of livestock and supplies right now.
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He might have, perhaps.
But as far as I am aware, Napoleon thought that the Czar was held "hostage" by radical anti-Bonapartist elements of the army and the nobility and that he only needed to make a grand show of force, which the Czar, grateful for the opportunity, would send the anti-Bonapartist elements of the army to fight him in the western parts of Russia/Old Ruthenia/Old Lithuania, where Napoleon could crush them and "free" the Czar of their influence, after which peace could be made and Russia re-join the continental system. It was only after the Russians denied him a decisive battle in the west that he realised this was not the case and he was in for the long haul.
Causing massive social upheaval in Russia was not part of this plan.