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.