Napoleon bloodiest Campaign. part 4- Fire of Moscow

The fire of Moscow (1812)

After entering Moscow, the Grande Armée, unhappy with military conditions and no sign of victory, began looting what little remained within Moscow. Already the same evening, the first fires began to break out in the city, spreading and reemerging over the next few days.
Moscow, comprised two thirds of wooden buildings at the time, burnt down almost completely (it was estimated that four-fifths of the city was destroyed), depriving the French of shelter in the city. French historians[who?] assume that the fires were due to Russian sabotage.
Tolstoy, in War and Peace, claimed that the fire was not deliberately set, either by the Russians or the French; the natural result of placing a wooden city in the hands of strangers in wintertime is that they will make small fires to stay warm, to cook their food and for other benign purposes and that some of the fires will get out of control. Without a Fire Department, house fires will spread to become neighborhood fires and ultimately a city-wide conflagration.

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