French invasion of Russia

22 June 1812: a handwritten note in Saint Petersburg

In Saint Petersburg on 22 June 1812, the French ambassador Jacques Lauriston delivered a handwritten diplomatic note to Alexander Saltykov, the Russian official managing foreign affairs.

The note said that the Russian ambassador Alexander Kurakin had requested his passports three times, that the request constituted a rupture, and that Napoleon henceforth considered himself at war with Russia.

Lauriston asked for passports for himself because his diplomatic mission was at an end, making the note both a declaration of the state of war and a severance of relations.

A second message, the same day

At Vilkaviškis on that same date, Napoleon issued a separate proclamation telling the Grande Armée that the "second Polish war" had begun and ordering it toward the Neman.

The two documents are distinct, though older accounts sometimes treat the military proclamation as the declaration. Napoleon's main forces crossed the Neman near Kovno on 24 June, two days after both.

Two calendars and a disputed "undeclared" war

The Russian archive catalogues the same note under two dates — 10 June in the Julian calendar and 22 June in the Gregorian calendar used by France.

The note explicitly says Napoleon considered himself at war. Part of Russian historiography nevertheless calls the invasion undeclared, because Alexander I received the communication only after French troops had crossed the Neman and because the note framed Kurakin's passport request as the prior rupture.