Alexander

Unlike most settlers in Norka, who arrived as part of Catherine II’s colonization program, Michael Alexander and Friedrich Palm's arrival was unique and unexpected. These two men, who had served in Napoleon Bonaparte’s Grand Armée during his invasion of Russia in 1812, arrived in Norka about 46 years after the first settlers in 1767.

Emperor Napoleon I invaded Russia with his Grande Armée on June 24, 1812. The enormous army, estimated at 600,000 soldiers and staff, was the most significant European military force ever assembled to that date. The army comprised troops from many nations, including France, Austria, Poland, Italy, the Netherlands, and various German states.

The invasion was triggered by the refusal of Tsar Alexander I to support Napoleon's continental blockade of Britain and Russian resistance to increasing French dominance in Europe.

During the opening months of the invasion, Napoleon was forced to battle with an outnumbered Russian army in perpetual retreat. Refusing to engage Napoleon’s superior army in a full-scale confrontation, the Russians under General Mikhail Kutuzov burned everything as they retreated deeper and deeper into the homeland. Despite their retreat, the Russians began capturing prisoners just days into the war (some were deserters). As the Grande Armée pushed deeper into Russia, the growing number of prisoners taken by the Russians had to be evacuated further east to the provinces of Astrakhan, Perm, Orenburg, Saratov, and Vyatka as early as September 1812.

On September 7, the Battle of Borodino was fought, and both sides suffered terrible losses. Napoleon’s army won the battle but failed to win a decisive victory over the Russians. On September 14, Napoleon arrived in Moscow intending to find supplies but instead found almost the entire population evacuated, and the Russian army retreated again. Early the following day, fires broke across the city set by Russian patriots, and the Grande Armée’s winter quarters were destroyed. After waiting a month for a surrender that never came, Napoleon faced the onset of the Russian winter and was forced to order his starving army out of Moscow. The Russian military, peasants, and Cossacks relentlessly pursued Napoleon’s forces as freezing temperatures and snowfall complicated their retreat. Maintaining a fully supplied army became an insurmountable challenge for the French due to the vast stretches of uninterrupted forests and towns previously devastated during their march toward Moscow. The absence of grazing fields and fodder took a heavy toll on the surviving horses, resulting in the demise of nearly all of them due to either starvation or their use as sustenance by starving soldiers.

The Russians likely captured Michael Alexander and Friedrich Palm before the end of December 1812. The first groups of prisoners began to arrive in Saratov in September 1812. The prisoners were placed under local civilian authorities and were distributed among cities and towns, where they were quartered with private citizens and monitored by the police.

Russian rulers had a long history of attracting skilled foreign workers to promote industry and agriculture. The Volga Germans were a prime example of this policy. The captured soldiers presented another opportunity to add people with needed skills. As a result, prisoners with technical abilities were directed to factories and industrial enterprises. French and German medical personnel were granted freedom and full pay. Prisoners with farm experience were offered the opportunity to work voluntarily in the German colonies of Saratov Province. Approximately 180 prisoners, about 10 percent of those held in Saratov, took advantage of this offer. Russian records show that this program was also designed to avoid state expenditures for maintaining prisoners and to provide them with better living conditions. The soldiers were first required to earn their living in “settler’s houses.” If they proved themselves, they could acquire legal status as a “colonist” and purchase plots of land. At the beginning of fieldwork in 1813, some German colonists traveled to Saratov to find and hire suitable prisoners who agreed to work on mutually agreeable terms. By August, about 171 such prisoners were working in the colonies. Michael Alexander was likely one of these men.

About one year later, in a list compiled by the Saratov authorities and sent to officials in St. Petersburg on September 21, 1814, Michael Alexander and Friedrich Palm were among 175 prisoners who had sworn an oath of allegiance to Russia and requested permission to settle in the German colonies. The list provided detailed information about each prisoner. It was noted that Michael Alexander was single, 23 years old, and a Lutheran from Alsace. His only immediate family members were three sisters living in Strasbourg. Michael had served in the French Army for 4 years as an ordinary soldier of the 25^th Regiment of the Mounted Chasseur à Cheval of the Imperial Guard. He could read and write and had farming skills, which allowed him to request placement in a settler colony. A separate document dated October 12, 1814, shows that Alexander and Palm had been awarded colonist status about one month earlier, on August 11, 1814. Both men wanted to settle in Norka, where they had likely worked during the past year. Being designated as a colonist meant they now had the same legal privileges as those who arrived under Catherine II’s Manifesto of 1763.

Michael Alexander married Anna Maria Loreÿ, the daughter of Johannes Loreÿ and Anna Margaretha Weigandt, on February 24, 1816. Anna Maria was born in Norka on November 4, 1795. Johannes Loreÿ had two daughters and no sons. He likely needed help with household and farm labor and probably offered Michael work in 1813 when the captured soldiers became available as laborers. In Norka, Michael would get to know the Loreÿ family, including his future bride, who was about 18 years old when he arrived.

Michael Alexander was recorded in the 1816 and 1834 censuses taken in Norka (Household No. 119).

The Norka 1834-45 Reformed Church Personalbuch (church membership register) lists the Alexander family members in Household No. 125. Michael’s hometown was recorded as “Merkweiler in Elsas” [sic]. The register also notes he became part of the community of Norka in 1814.

Based on the census and church register, we know that Michael and Anna Maria became parents to seven children: Christina (1816), Johannes (1818), Anna Catharina (1821), Peter (1825), Wilhelm (1828), Elisabeth Catharina (1831), and Georg (1835).

Michael was not listed in the 1857 census and is presumed to have died before this date. His death date is not shown in the 1846-60 church register. His last communion was recorded in 1844, which may indicate that he died about this time. Anna Maria is shown in the 1857 census living with her sons Johannes, Peter, Wilhelm, and Georg and their families in Household No. 141. According to the church register, she died on March 17, 1860.

The Russian prisoner of war records and the Norka church register provided vital information that led to the parish register confirming Michael Alexander's birth on February 11, 1789, in the hamlet of Mitschdorf, in the Bas-Rhin department of Alsace, France. Michael was the son of Johannes Alexander (French: Jean Alexandre) and Catharina Barbara Steudler (French: Steidler or Stitler)]. He was baptized in the adjacent parish church at Preuschdorf on February 13, 1789. 

Michael was the youngest of Johannes and Catharina Barbara Alexander's seven known children. His siblings include Maria Margaretha, born September 30, 1774, in Mitschdorf; Maria Salome, born March 30, 1777; Maria Barbara, born November 5, 1779, in Lampertsloch (she died on April 30, 1783); Johann Georg, born May 9, 1782, in Lampertsloch; Georg Heinrich, born December 31, 1784, in Lampertsloch; Johann Michael, born May 10, 1787 (died May 18, 1787) in Lampertsloch.

Mitschdorf, Lampertsloch, and Preuschdorf are less than three miles from Merkwiller (German: Merkweiler, and now Merkwiller-Pechelbronn). Johannes Alexander was a herder and day laborer, which probably explains the different birth locations of his children.

Michael Alexander’s French compatriot, Friedrich Palm, was born about 1770, a Roman Catholic from Toul, a city in the Lorraine region of Northeastern France. He had served in the 111^th French infantry for 20 years when he was captured. He stated that he was single and had no close relatives at home. He could read and write in German and had skills as a tailor. Friedrich was recorded in the 1834 Norka Census (Household No. 404) with a notation that he died in 1829. No other household members were listed, and Friedrich has no known descendants.

In hindsight, Michael Alexander and Friedrich Palm were fortunate to be captured and allowed to settle in Norka as colonists. Over 90 percent of Napoleon's soldiers did not survive the invasion of Russia and their disastrous retreat.