Jurgen Heinrich Ludolph Meyer 1790 1877

Jurgen Meyer Captured during Russian Campaign

As mentioned in the obituary of Jurgen Meyer and in Merton Krug’s History of Reedsburg and the Upper Baraboo Valley, he was captured by Russian soldiers during the battle for Moscow in 1812. He was a prisoner of war for two years, and would have been treated as noted in the article below.

In early 1812, the Russian Ministry of War approved a new Statute on Commanding a Large Active Army that defined organization, structure and functions of the Russian military during the concluding years of the Napoleonic Wars.  According to the statute, the Duty Office of the Main Staff handled all issues related to the treatment of the prisoners of war (Article 134). Once enemy soldiers were captured, they were supposed to be delivered to the division headquarters, which then conveyed them to the corps headquarters and finally to the Main Staff (Articles 55, 60). The Second Section of the Duty Office was responsible for providing immediate accommodation for prisoners of war (Article 72) while Gewaltiger-General, who served as chief of military police, handled enemy deserters (Article 165). All prisoners of war were presented to the commandant of the Headquarters, who then considered where to dispatch them. Once decision was made, the convoy of the Headquarters escorted prisoners to transportation points (Article 287). The Statute contained specific provisions to prevent abuse of POWs. Articles 403-404 and 435, thus, prohibited depriving POWs of clothing or buying from them any items or impressing them into service.

The question of prisoners of war became a major issue for Russia during Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812. Just days into the conflict, Russians already began capturing prisoners of war (some of them deserters) who were treated in accordance with the Statute on Commanding a Large Active Army. The relevant Russian military authorities quickly processed prisoners and conveyed them to the nearby provinces – initially Kiev, Chernigov, Smolensk and Tver – for detention. However, as the Grande Armée penetrated deeper into Russia, the prisoners of war had to be evacuated further eastward, in some cases as far as Tambov.

Napoleon’s Grande Armée suffered tremendous losses during the campaign, and Russian military authorities struggled to deal with the ever-increasing number of prisoners. Aside from tens of thousands who perished on the battlefields or died of privation and cold weather, recent Russian studies show that Russians captured over 110,000 prisoners during the six-month long campaign. The harsh winter as well as popular violence, malnutrition, sickness and hardships during transportation meant that two-thirds of these men (and women) perished within weeks of captivity.

Source: Dans Napoleonica. La Revue 2014/3 (n° 21), pages 35 à 44

Russians didn’t really know what to do with all of those Frenchmen, as POW camps had not been invented yet. It was a major headache for the government and a catastrophe for the prisoners themselves. Many of them were killed by the Russian peasants who saw Frenchmen as the unholy bringers of the Apocalypse (basically, Mongol hordes). Peasants were even buying prisoners from soldiers to kill as many as possible, as they saw the eradication of the Frenchmen as their sacred Christian duty.

Many of the survivors died from illnesses and harsh climate, although the government tried to supply them with appropriate clothing and money for food. But they were sent to various regions of Russia to be guarded by local authorities, and Frenchmen were dying on the way en masse.

Source: Quora

French POWs during the War of 1812.