Materials from the Military-Academic Archive of the General Staff

 THE PATRIOTIC WAR OF 1812. 

Section I. Correspondence of Russian Government Officials and Institutions.

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Chapter XIII. Military Operations in 1812. (June.)

Main Directorate of the General Staff. St. Petersburg, 1910.

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(Pages 129-130. Military-Academic Archive, sect. II, No. 1875, pg. 449.)

118.

Colonel Anokhin to the Minister of War, 13 June 1812, from Brest-Litovsk, No. 19.

Secret.

To the Commander-in-Chief of the 1st Western Army, Minister of War and General of Infantry and Cavalry Barclay de-Tolly, report from the Brest Commandant, Colonel Anokhin.

 Through my use of secret espionage missions I have found out from across the border that persons living in Brest are sending the Terespol town commandant information about our troop dispositions. They are Sakovich (a secretary in the Brest customs office), Yezerskii, and Burzhinskii (both formerly mounted patrolmen of the same customs office). They are transmitting letters to the Terespol commandant, according to which Yezerskii supposedly personally met with the said Terespol town commandant. On the 8th of this month he delivered two letters to him via a certain peasant which informed him: firstly ¾ that guard posts are being set up in Brest, mounted patrols are being conducted and all horses are kept saddled, and which Brest Jews were used to spy out information about this place; as for the second letter ¾ it is unknown from whom it was and what it contained, only that it was sent on immediately by the commandant by courier. Although I took him into custody and he denied everything written above, I considered it my responsibility to send him personally to the Commander-in-Chief of the 2nd Western Army, General of Infantry Prince Bagration, to whom on the 12th of this month I sent by express messenger what I am now most respectfully reporting to your excellency. I also have the honor to report to your excellency that the first of them, Sakovich, was already arrested by chance before this and sent with hopeful expectations to the Commander-in-Chief of the 2nd Western Army, General of Infantry Prince Bagration; but Burzhinskii has disappeared and cannot be found anywhere. All three of these are joined in a family relationship.

Signature: Commandant Colonel Anokhin.

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