Is he a villain or a hero?
Soviet historians have worked hard on the biography of Count Benkendorf. The personality turned out to be gloomy, even sinister in some ways.
In the fire of battles
Alexander Khristoforovich is from the Baltic nobility, the son of a general from the infantry. According to family tradition, as a teenager he was assigned to the prestigious Semenovsky regiment.
The young man did not want to become a "parquet officer", to pursue a military career in St. Petersburg at the royal court. From an early age, he aspired to the thick of the battles. Participated in the war with France (1805-1807) and Turkey (1806-1812). In combat operations against the Turks, he distinguished himself in the very first days of his appearance in the theater of operations: With his flying squad, he defeated a large enemy group that had entered the rear of the Russian troops.
At the beginning of the Patriotic War of 1812, Benkendorf commanded the rearguard, covering the retreat of the main forces of the Russian army. But it was not in the character of the young veteran to only hold back the advancing French. Having joined two Cossack regiments to his squad, Alexander Khristoforovich swiftly advanced near Volokolamsk and literally defeated the enemy, who did not expect such a maneuver. Many French were captured.
For his participation in the Battle of Borodino, Benckendorf was awarded the Order of St. George and the rank of Major General.
When Napoleon was leaving Moscow, engulfed in fires, Emperor Alexander I appointed Alexander Khristoforovich commandant of the capital. The French had not yet managed to leave, but Benkendorf and his flying squad had already stormed into the city, captured 3,000 enemy soldiers and officers, and captured 30 guns.
The Liberator of Holland
In the autumn of 1813, A.H. Benkendorf was assigned a special task: to liberate Holland from Napoleon's troops. The Tula Infantry Regiment was included in his flying squad.
On October 24, at night, Tula residents crossed the Zuiderzee Bay in small vessels and the next morning, in front of the dumbfounded enemy, they found themselves at the walls of Amsterdam. Upon learning of this, the garrisons of the powerful forts of Mulden and Helwitz immediately capitulated.
The Prince of Orange greeted the liberators in the central square. Among the winners, an infantry regiment stood in the front ranks, with the coat of arms of Tula on its banner.
From the balcony of the Royal Palace, A.H. Benkendorf read a proclamation on the liberation of the country and the transfer of power to the legitimate King William I, who also bore the titles of Prince of Orange and Count of Nassau.
There is another significant circumstance, because of which the Tula Infantry Regiment, after the operation conceived by Benkendorf, was respected and glorified by the entire Russian army. The Tula people washed away the shame of the crushing defeat of the Russians in the 1799 campaign. At that time, the Anglo-Russian expeditionary force was already trying to liberate Holland. Even Generalissimo Suvorov himself predicted victory: "The operation in Holland ... will provide us with roses and lilies, as France is exhausted." The optimistic forecast of the great commander did not come true: the allied forces lost half of their personnel in unsuccessful attacks and, in the end, signed a humiliating truce with the French, giving up eight thousand prisoners unconditionally.
The Tula people completed the task with a much smaller composition in 1813. The glorious banner of the regiment was kept for a long time in the Assumption Cathedral of the Tula Kremlin.
Известный российский государственный деятель Александр Христофорович Бенкендорф по крайней мере два раза посещал Тулу. О городе можно найти несколько записей в его дневниках. Там же можно прочитать и о дерзкой военной операции 1813 года по освобождению столицы Голландии – города Амстердама от наполеоновских захватчиков, которую Бенкендорф совершил вместе с Тульским пехотным полком.
Кто он – злодей или герой?
Над биографией графа Бенкендорфа советские историки потрудились основательно. Личность получилась мрачная, в чём-то даже зловещая.
Что мы о нём знали? Главный начальник над доносчиками и шпионами; притеснитель поэта Александра Пушкина и других прогрессивных литераторов; один из самых жестоких членов Следственной комиссии по делу декабристов.
А ведь были и другие штрихи в жизни Александра Христофоровича, о которых почему-то исследователи умолчали. Блистательный офицер. Герой многих войн, отмеченный высшими российскими и иностранными орденами. Наконец, создатель первой в России государственной службы безопасности и службы внешней разведки.
В огне сражений
Александр Христофорович - из прибалтийских дворян, сын генерала от инфантерии. По семейной традиции ещё подростком его определили в престижный Семёновский полк.
Молодой человек не захотел стать «паркетным офицером», делать военную карьеру в Петербурге при царском дворе. С ранних лет он стремился в гущу сражений. Участвовал в войне с Францией (1805 – 1807) и Турцией (1806 – 1812). В боевых операциях против турок отличился в первые же дни своего появления на театре военных действий: со своим летучим отрядом разбил крупную группировку неприятеля, зашедшую в тыл русским войскам.
В начале Отечественной войны 1812 года Бенкендорф командовал арьергардом – прикрывал отступление основных сил русской армии. Но не в характере молодого ветерана было только сдерживать наступавших французов. Присоединив к своему отряду два казачьих полка, Александр Христофорович стремительно выдвинулся под Волоколамск и буквально разгромил противника, не ожидавшего такого манёвра. В плен попало много французов.
За участие в Бородинском сражении Бенкендорфу были пожалованы орден Святого Георгия и чин генерал-майора.
Когда Наполеон покидал охваченную пожарами Москву, император Александр I назначил Александра Христофоровича комендантом первопрестольной столицы. Французы ещё не успели уйти, а Бенкендорф с летучим отрядом уже ворвался в город, взял в плен 3000 вражеских солдат и офицеров, захватил 30 орудий.
Освободитель Голландии
Осенью 1813 года А.Х. Бенкендорфу было поручено особое задание: освободить от наполеоновских войск Голландию. В состав его летучего отряда включили Тульский пехотный полк.
24 октября ночью тульцы на маломерных судах пересекли залив Зюдерзее и утром следующего дня на глазах оторопевшего противника оказались у стен Амстердама. Узнав об этом, гарнизоны мощных фортов Мюльден и Гельвиц тут же капитулировали.
На центральной площади освободителей приветствовал принц Оранский. Среди победителей в первых рядах стоял пехотный полк, на знамени которого алел герб Тулы.
С балкона Королевского дворца А.Х. Бенкендорф прочитал прокламацию об освобождении страны и передаче власти законному королю Вильгельму I, носившему также титулы принца Оранского и графа Нассауского.
В память о разгроме французских оккупантов голландский монарх пожаловал Тульскому пехотному полку серебряные трубы с надписью «Amsterdam. 24 November 1813» (день вступления полка в голландскую столицу).
Тульцы были единственной частью в российской армии, которая имела серебряные трубы от иностранного монарха.
Есть еще одно весомое обстоятельство, из-за которого Тульский пехотный полк после операции, задуманной Бенкендорфом, уважала и славила вся российская армия. Тульцы смыли позор за сокрушительное поражение русских в кампании 1799 года. Тогда англо-российский экспедиционный корпус уже пытался освободить Голландию. Даже сам генералиссимус Суворов предрекал победу: «Операция в Голландии… преуготовит нам розы и лилеи, как Франция изнуряется». Оптимистичный прогноз великого полководца не сбылся: союзные войска в безуспешных атаках потеряли половину личного состава и, в конце концов, подписали с французами унизительное перемирие, отдав без всяких условий восемь тысяч пленных.
Тульцы значительно меньшим составом в 1813 году задачу выполнили. Овеянное славой знамя полка долгое время хранилось в Успенском соборе Тульского кремля.
A.H. Benkendorf returned from foreign campaigns, hung with awards: he received another St. George and the Order of St. Peter. Anne, a golden sword with diamonds, Swedish, Prussian, and English orders. But he did not see himself at the peak of glory, but only at the beginning of glorious deeds.
Friends are enemies
Back in 1810, A.H. Benkendorf joined the United Friends Masonic Lodge. Among his comrades in this society were Pestel, Volkonsky and other future leaders of the Decembrists. They all dreamed of rebuilding Russia. It was only after the war with Napoleon that Benckendorf parted ways with them.
The Decembrist S.G. Volkonsky recalled:
"Benkendorf returned from Paris at the embassy and, as a thoughtful and impressionable person, saw the benefits of the gendarmerie in France. He believed that on an honest basis, with the election of honest, intelligent people, the introduction of this branch of spies could be useful to both the tsar and the fatherland, prepared a draft on the establishment of this department and invited us, many of his comrades, to join this cohort, as he called it, the good-minded, and me among them. "
Benckendorf's friends dismissed the project. They were preparing a military coup. But the emperor appreciated the idea, although he postponed its implementation for the future. In 1824, Alexander I honored Benckendorf with the appointment of military governor of Vasilyevsky Island.
The attempted coup on December 14, 1825, after the death of Alexander I, better known as the "Decembrist uprising," finally divorced the comrades in the Masonic lodge. Benkendorf was on the side of Nicholas, who claimed the throne, and made such a decision at a time when the future emperor was supported by a minority.
When the fate of Russia was being decided on the Senate Square, Nikolai told Alexander Khristoforovich:
"Tonight, perhaps, both of us will no longer be in the world, but at least we will die, having fulfilled our duty."
The ubiquitous agency
The new department was not only concerned with politics. And not only secretly. Five expeditions were created, each of which specialized in its own field. The most important was the first expedition, which monitored the implementation of the laws of the Russian Empire.
"There is no punishment for an official who abuses his title," Benckendorf constantly told his staff. And the subordinates acted aggressively and boldly. Thanks to them, many facts of embezzlement in St. Petersburg and other provinces were revealed.
Every year, the emperor compiled detailed reviews of public opinion and the political life of the country.
Benckendorf attached special importance to the participation of employees in conducting "beneficial cases," that is, as they would say now, in reviewing complaints and suggestions from citizens. "It is precisely by these deeds," wrote Alexander Khristoforovich, "that the moral strength of the gendarmerie corps is acquired, and they give my subordinates a wide range of acquaintances in all classes and a means to attract well-meaning people to their side."
Benckendorf's subordinates could interfere in any case, make a report on any grandee of the state.
Nevertheless, in addition to its noble functions, the department was an ideal apparatus for suppressing dissidents, whom Emperor Nicholas I feared and hated until the end of his life.
The example given in A.I. Koshelev's "Notes" about the poet, friend of poet A. Pushkin, Tula nobleman Anton Delvig is typical:
"Baron Delvig was a smart and very nice man. He used to relate with particular pleasure an incident that had happened to him as a newspaper publisher. The head of the Third Department of His Majesty's own chancellery, Mr. Benkendorf, calls him in and strongly, even rudely, reprimands him for putting one liberal article in the newspaper: Baron Delvig, with his usual equanimity, calmly remarks to him that, on the basis of the law, the publisher does not respond when the article is censored, and His Excellency's reproaches should They should not be addressed to him, the publisher, but to the censor. Then the head of Department III becomes enraged and tells Delvig: "Laws are written for subordinates, not for superiors, and you have no right to refer to them in explanations with me and justify yourself with them."
Immorality and healthy cynicism have always been at the core of any successful security service. Alexander Khristoforovich's views did not escape transformation either: from romanticism and purity of thought, he came to a rigid formula – "the boss is always right."
Interestingly, the poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, known for his sharp, bilious and accurate characteristics of his contemporaries, called Zhzhenka "Benkendorf". It was such a popular alcoholic blend. Russian burnt bread, unlike grog or punch, was distinguished by its simplicity and speed of manufacture: rum was slightly diluted with wine, sometimes sugar was added to taste – that's all. Considering that the drink was set on fire before consumption, the mixture was stronger than its foreign counterparts. Downing another glass of burnt vodka, Pushkin explained to his fellow diners that Benkendorf has a policing, calming and tidying effect on the stomach."
Soviet historians clearly exaggerated the hatred of writers for the all-powerful Benkendorf. Some of the major prose writers and poets did not even shy away from carrying out certain secret assignments of Alexander Khristoforovich. And the poet Fyodor Tyutchev even offered cooperation himself. From September 15 to September 19, 1843, he stayed at the estate of A.H. Benkendorf - Fall, near Reval, and proposed starting a "guerrilla war in the rear of the European press" - using foreign publications to promote the views desired by the Russian government, attracting well-known European journalists for this. The author of the idea himself had to coordinate the project. Alexander Khristoforovich Tyutchev supported. He offered to prepare the ground abroad for the implementation of the plan. But reality has made adjustments. On September 23, 1844, Count Benkendorf died on board a warship.
The emperor wept and repeated in despair: "For all the time we've known each other, he hasn't quarreled with anyone, but has reconciled me with many." Nikolai understood that it was Benkendorf who owed peace and order in Russia.
Benckendorf is gone, but many of his developments are still in use today.
The fate of Alexander Khristoforovich's descendants is curious. His daughter married the head of Russian artists in Rome, Prince Grigory Volkonsky. Through this marriage, the Benckendorfs became related to the ancient Durnovo family and Tula gunsmiths Demidov. And Alexander Khristoforovich's great-grandson, the artist Peter Volkonsky, married the daughter of the great Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Amazing genealogical combinations sometimes add up to life.
