Napoleon frees the serfs during the war with Russia

The Confederates cited this in the face of the Emancipation Proclamation:

Napoleon I. was never induced to issue a proclamation for the emancipation of the serfs in his war with Russia. He said: "I could have armed against her a part of her population, by proclaiming the liberty of the serfs. A great number of villages asked it of me, but I refused to avail myself of a measure which would have devoted to death thousands of families."

Ah, but what if he did?
 
Not going to work.

For one, this means his advance is necessarily slowed, meaning that the Russians have more time to mobilize their troops in areas he does take. The Grande Armee is not going to be sufficient to hold off the Russian counterattack; Napoleon's strategy revolved around beating the Russians in a pitched battle and destroying their formations before their reserves could be mobilized for a reason.

Second, this makes the war an existential one for Russia's nobility. Where before defeat meant disadvantageous trade restrictions and maybe some land to the Duchy of Warsaw now defeat means the collapse of their way of life. You can bet they're going to fight harder and be more accepting of sacrifices in support of their class, as opposed to their country.

Thirdly, I highly doubt it would succeed in mobilizing the serfs against the Russians. Remember, the French are still invaders, and invaders whose supply doctrine requires they steal from local populations to supplement their supply lines at that. The practical effect of this is a French officer coming into a village, proclaiming the freedom of the serfs, and then demanding food and shelter with the very same breath. Not exactly how you enamor yourself to them. War on the Chateau had been tried during the War of the First Coalition. It didn't work then and it wouldn't have worked in 1812.
 
The Confederates cited this in the face of the Emancipation Proclamation:



Ah, but what if he did?
How exactly would he do this in practical terms? As a minimum, he would need a network of the Russian-speaking agents all over Russia and these agents has to be trusted by the locals (aka, not look like the nobles, foreigners, or even city dwellers). Even then majority of the peasants would be quite hesitant and agitators would be apprehended and delivered to the authorities: French presence in Russia was limited to a narrow stretch of the territory. OTOH, in the friendly areas of Poland and Li5huania such an action would go against the interests of his support base, the local nobility.

Then, as was already mentioned, promise of freedom combined with looting is not very efficient.
 
Not going to work.

For one, this means his advance is necessarily slowed, meaning that the Russians have more time to mobilize their troops in areas he does take. The Grande Armee is not going to be sufficient to hold off the Russian counterattack; Napoleon's strategy revolved around beating the Russians in a pitched battle and destroying their formations before their reserves could be mobilized for a reason.

Second, this makes the war an existential one for Russia's nobility. Where before defeat meant disadvantageous trade restrictions and maybe some land to the Duchy of Warsaw now defeat means the collapse of their way of life. You can bet they're going to fight harder and be more accepting of sacrifices in support of their class, as opposed to their country.

Thirdly, I highly doubt it would succeed in mobilizing the serfs against the Russians. Remember, the French are still invaders, and invaders whose supply doctrine requires they steal from local populations to supplement their supply lines at that. The practical effect of this is a French officer coming into a village, proclaiming the freedom of the serfs, and then demanding food and shelter with the very same breath. Not exactly how you enamor yourself to them. War on the Chateau had been tried during the War of the First Coalition. It didn't work then and it wouldn't have worked in 1812.

A nitpicking: most of the serfs in question had been Russians so there was no need to mobilize them against the Russians. Probably you meant “nobility”. :)

Of course, it worth noticing that the Russian army (which mostly consisted of the former serfs) had been routinely used to crash the rebellions of the serfs so not too much of a class solidarity to be expected.
 
So assuming the quote wasn't even a fabrication, as I can't even find it outside of context of that Confederate speech, would Napoleon then have been lying about "a great number of villages asked it"?

Edit: the Confederates seemed to have embellished the quote

In the year 1813, before the Saxon campaign, Napoleon said : ' The war I am now entering upon is a political one. I would willingly have spared Russia all the trouble it has brought on itself. If I liked, I could have stirred up the mass of the people against the Tsar by proclaiming the emancipation of the serfs. But I avoided this weapon, as it would have brought misery to countless families and have caused endless massacres.'
 
So assuming the quote wasn't even a fabrication, as I can't even find it outside of context of that Confederate speech, would Napoleon then have been lying about "a great number of villages asked it"?

Edit: the Confederates seemed to have embellished the quote

Well, even the initial quote is somewhat “optimistic” in the terms of an amount of trouble he could realistically cause.

On a slightly cynical side, it seems that at least for the Russian serfs of that period the main “carrot” was not an abstract notion of “freedom” (1) but a land and even it within a very specific context of a communal ownership. Did the peasants really want a real “freedom” is a tricky question because majority of them preferred to stick to the traditional community system even after Stolypin reform (in Ukraine situation was different). Actually, the French had been getting some cooperation from the peasants here and there but it was not taking too much to deal with the issue. Denis Davidov, famous Russian partisan of 1812 (and a dashing poet-hussar) described in his memoirs how the issue was handled: his detachment of hussars and Cossacks arrived in a village and the “collaborationists” had been immediately delivered to them by the local peasants to be hanged or flogged, depending upon degree of their treachery. And in that village the French did not even did any serious looting.


(1) When one of the future Decembrists told his peasants that he is planning to make them free, their question was about the land. When he answered that the land remains his, their answer was “better we’ll remain yours and the land - ours”: they were talking about part of the owner’s land which they were traditionally allowed to use. Now, being a progressive person (who also knew his own interest) , he wanted to free peasants without land and to use more productive hired labor. If he persisted with his schema, he could easily get a revolt with a perverse purpose of not being emancipated. And this was a Russian estate owner. I doubt that Napoleon was ever interested in the nuances of the Russian system of a servitude.
 
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