A wild-eyed Frenchman comes up with the idea of traveling from Moscow to Paris, retracing the steps of the Napoleonic army as they retreat from the failed invasion of Russia in 1812 – 200 years later to the day, on a motorbike with a sidecar.
This is exactly the kind of idea that appeals to me, although I’m not sure why that is. I guess I have an adventurous streak that is fed somewhat by imbibing travel writing of trips done by others. I also like it when there are references to history mixed with current development – which is exactly what Tesson does in this short book. It retells the 13 days it took him and his friends to traverse a big stretch of continental Europe in old Soviet-era motorcycles (called Urals..).
Tesson, ever the adventurer, had ten years prior to this trip undertaken a ride on horseback from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan, and on foot from Yakutsk to Calcutta, so he is well acquianted with Russian and Russian-adjacent milieux. He is accompanied by Cédric, Thomas and two Russian guys, Vassily and Vitaly. There are some monuments for the fallen French along the way, but not much. The names of the towns they passed reminded me of the ravages of King Charles XII in the roughly the same area about a century before Napoleon. There is yet another connection between the two kings, or at least their countries, as strange coincidence had it that Napoleon’s brother-in-law became the king of Sweden in the early 19th century. The original wish of the Swedish ruling class was that Napoleon’s own brother would be sworn in, but he was deemed unfit. By the perspicacious efforts of a single Swedish nobleman, who nominated one of Napoleon’s generals, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte – who in the Swedish succession became king Charles XIV John. This idea was of course a move to geopolitically safeguard Sweden from invasion, and to proffer allegiance to the mighty Napoleon. Funnily enough, his great-grandchildren are at the top of Swedish nobility to this day, and Jean-Baptiste’s great-great-grandson has held the title of King of Sweden for nearly fifty years.
Digressions to questions of royal lineage in the Nordics aside, this little adventure was a fun read. Tesson muses on Russian customs, memorial culture, European road infrastructure. One of his companions is a geologist and mentions a theory of black soil that is interesting.
What if someone would do a similar journey following in the footsteps of the Carolingian army? It would probably be accused of being xenophobic, somehow. Or maybe it has already been done, in a way, by historian Peter Englund, I don’t know.
Kinship of all Species 