Thread by @2econd_crossing

#OTD 24 December, 1812, Tsar Alexander held a belated celebration of his birthday in Vilna.
Kutuzov, in return for his victory at Krasny, was accorded the Order of St. George of the First Class and the title of the Prince of Smolensk.
#Voicesfrom1812

The actual date of the Tsar's birth was 23 December, when he arrived in Vilna. But after observing the miserable condition of the field hospitals, Alexander refused any celebration, insisting that "dancing or even the sound of music could not be agreeable." (Wilson, Mikaberidze)

But Kutuzov shrewdly proposed that they make the best of the occasion to celebrate the Russian victory. After their successive victories, all festivities had been confined to singing Te Deums in St. Petersburg.
Alexander could not help but accede to his shifty request.

That morning, just an hour and a half before the beginning of his triumph, Alexander visited Sir Robert Wilson. Clearly bothered about his decision, he made "a few appropriate allusions to the festival" and complimented the Englishman for his service to the army:

"The consequences which have flowed from your devotion to my interests, when the conference was proposed at Tarutino, were of great benefit to them, and your communications have enabled me to prevent much other mischief.

You have always told me truth — truth I could not obtain through any other channel."
Then, the Tsar blurted out a confession:
"'I know that the Marshal [Kutuzov] has done nothing he ought to have done — nothing against the enemy that he could avoid;

all his successes have been forced (highlighted) upon him. He has been playing some of his old Turkish tricks,* but the nobility of Moscow support him, and insist on his presiding over the national glory of this war.

In half an hour I must therefore (and he paused for a minute) decorate this man with the great Order of S. George, and by so doing commit a trespass on its institution."
This view, to his relief, was far from being unpopular among the senior officers in the army.

Alexander allowed Wilson to be absent from the ceremony he was pressured to provide. And then he made an unofficial pledge:
"I will, however, not again leave my army, and there shall be no opportunity given for additional misdirection by the Marshal."
(Wilson, Narrative)

His show of magnanimity had to go on. Half an hour later, Alexander commenced the triumphal procession at the gate of the old Palace. In 25 degrees of frost, the Tsar "hung that happy Field Marshal the ribbon with military order of St. George around his neck." (W, Lowenstern)

Wearing an earnest countenance, he thanked the old man for "the glorious ending of the campaign"-which he still hoped to continue beyond the Vistula. (Lowenstern)
Along with the medal of highest caliber, Kutuzov's title was elevated to the Prince of Smolensk.

Now that a ceremony has been staged, Alexander could no longer find an excuse to let his birthday slip people's minds.
Countess Tisenhaus, who had been rejoicing "Ah...the angel of deliverance has come; we shall be saved!", received a visit from Count Ostermann-Tolstoy.

They conversed merrily about how the end of the calamity will bring about a happier future. Tolstoy was about to leave, but turned back after suddenly remembering the real purpose of his visit:
"I beg ten thousand pardons, but I had forgotten to say,

that his Majesty charged me to ask you, if he could come and see you this evening, if you would allow him that pleasure."
Her heart began to palpitate, for she had been longing to let the Emperor know of her passive resistance against Napoleon.

At the same time, she feared for the consequences of her father and brothers who, unlike her, had supported Napoleon's cause and fled from Vilna.
"What should I say to him? What would he say to me? How extremely embarrassing and perplexing!" she wrote in her diary.

"But," she continued, "the presence of Alexander, the kind expressions of that which he chose to call gratitude, and the thankfulness which I felt that he seemed pleased with a slight proof of devotion on my part, soon dissipated the doubts which had arisen in my mind..."

Her anxiety was immediately dissipated by Alexander's cordial words. Speaking "like a real sage," he reassured her that he "owe no grudge to the Lithuanians" who were "obliged to yield to force." As for Poland, he asserted that Napoleon never intended to grant it a statehood.

He admitted that the war had taken a toll on his stability, for the initial defeats bred discontents among the Petersburg officials.
"I have suffered much, I have felt great anxiety," he uttered, a sentiment which triggered his sympathy for the enemy soldiers stranded in Vilna.

Alexander's altruism, in the Countess' opinion, contrasted with Napoleon who "abandoned, in their distress, his own soldiers, the instruments of his fortune and glory."
Soon back to his affable self, the Tsar jokingly said:
"It has cost me the end of my nose to come to Vilna!"

Refusing to have his tea before his host takes her first sip, he said, "Although a Northern barbarian, I know what I owe to ladies."
Alexander repeatedly complimented her that she "had shown astonishing courage in not fearing him, before whom even men trembled."

Both agreed that the overall physique of Napoleon "had not corresponded with the expectation." But Alexander did acknowledge a single source of his fear:
"Did you notice his clear gray eyes, which are so piercing that you can hardly bear his look?"

Tisenhaus shared what Napoleon had told the Lithuanians at a ball in June, making the Tsar laugh out loud:
"The Emperor Alexander is very amiable. He has won you all here. Ladies, are you good Poles?"
Their banter oscillated between jokes and serious criticisms of Napoleon.

On Murat, Alexander commented that Napoleon "ought to have him shot, for it is to him he owes his ruin in having destroyed the French cavalry."
Indignant about the demanding tasks given to Caulaincourt, he exclaimed, "How could he thus degrade the person of an ambassador?"

After their intimate conversation, Alexander went to an evening banquet hosted by Kutuzov.
Wilson, despite his scorn for the Field Marshal, found that "the entertainment was splendid, and the coup d'oeil rare," and "feasted sumptuously."

It was followed by a ball where he "danced the Polonaise, Parade, Promenade, and one country dance" with beautiful Polish ladies. The slippery fellow, full of "satisfaction of finding old England high in favor with the Polish ladies," stayed well after Alexander left.

The atmosphere made a marked contrast to that of the St. Petersburg, where the only public reminder of the Emperor's birthday was "a petty illumination of the streets about two hours in the evening." (John Quincy Adams)

John Quincy Adams, who was reading a London Gazette article about the British defeat in Upper Canada, explained "that the Emperor himself has determined there should be no expensive festivities...and he particularly forbade the customary celebration of his birthday."

Napoleon, meanwhile, was already making every move to muster up a new army. He ordered Lacuee and Berthier to regroup the cavalry, mounted or dismounted, and requisition as many as 30,000 horses. He also dismissed Prefect Frochot for having failed to preempt Malet's coup.

-The End-

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