The French invasion of Russia, also known as the Russian campaign (), the Second Polish War, and in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 (), was initiated by
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...
with the aim of compelling the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
to comply with the
continental blockade of the United Kingdom. Widely studied, Napoleon's incursion into Russia stands as a focal point in
military history
Military history is the study of War, armed conflict in the Human history, history of humanity, and its impact on the societies, cultures and economies thereof, as well as the resulting changes to Politics, local and international relationship ...
, recognized as among the
most devastating military endeavors globally. In a span of fewer than six months, the campaign exacted a staggering toll, claiming the lives of nearly a million soldiers and civilians.
On 24 June 1812 and subsequent days, the initial wave of the multinational
Grande Armée
The (; ) was the primary field army of the French Imperial Army (1804–1815), French Imperial Army during the Napoleonic Wars. Commanded by Napoleon, from 1804 to 1808 it won a series of military victories that allowed the First French Empi ...
crossed the
Neman
Neman, Nemunas or Niemen is a river in Europe that rises in central Belarus and flows through Lithuania then forms Lithuania–Russia border, the northern border of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia's western exclave, which specifically follows its s ...
River, marking the entry from the
Duchy of Warsaw
The Duchy of Warsaw (; ; ), also known as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Napoleonic Poland, was a First French Empire, French client state established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars. It initially comprised the ethnical ...
into Russia. Employing extensive forced marches, Napoleon rapidly advanced his army of nearly half a million individuals through
Western Russia
European Russia is the western and most populated part of the Russian Federation. It is geographically situated in Europe, as opposed to the country's sparsely populated and vastly larger eastern part, Siberia, which is situated in Asia, encomp ...
, encompassing present-day
Belarus
Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...
, in a bid to dismantle the disparate Russian forces led by
Barclay de Tolly and
Pyotr Bagration
Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration (10 July 1765 – 24 September 1812) was a Russian general and prince of Georgians, Georgian origin, prominent during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Bagration, a member of the Bagrationi dynasty ...
totaling approximately 180,000–220,000 soldiers at that juncture. Despite losing half of his men within six weeks due to
extreme weather
Extreme weather includes unexpected, unusual, severe weather, severe, or unseasonal weather; weather at the extremes of the historical distribution—the range that has been seen in the past. Extreme events are based on a location's recorded weat ...
conditions, diseases and scarcity of provisions, Napoleon emerged victorious in the
Battle of Smolensk. However, the Russian Army, now commanded by
Mikhail Kutuzov
Prince Mikhail Illarionovich Golenishchev-Kutuzov-Smolensky (; – ) was a Field Marshal of the Russian Empire. He served as a military officer and a diplomat under the reign of three Romanov monarchs: Empress Catherine II, and Emperors Paul ...
, opted for a strategic retreat, employing
attrition warfare against Napoleon compelling the invaders to rely on an inadequate supply system, incapable of sustaining their vast army in the field.
In the fierce
Battle of Borodino
The Battle of Borodino ( ) or Battle of Moscow (), in popular literature also known as the Battle of the Generals, took place on the outskirts of Moscow near the village of Borodino on 7 September 1812 during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. ...
, located west of Moscow, Napoleon was not able to beat the Russian army and Kutuzov could not stop the French. At the
Council at Fili Kutuzov made the critical decision not to defend the city but to orchestrate a general withdrawal, prioritizing the preservation of the Russian army. On 14 September, Napoleon and his roughly 100,000-strong army
took control of Moscow, only to discover it deserted, and
set ablaze by its military governor
Fyodor Rostopchin. Remaining in Moscow for five weeks, Napoleon awaited a peace proposal that never materialized. Due to favorable weather conditions, Napoleon delayed his retreat and, hoping to secure supplies, began a different route westward than the one the army had devastated on the way there. However, after losing the
Battle of Maloyaroslavets, he was compelled to retrace his initial path.
As early November arrived, snowfall and frost complicated the retreat. Shortages of food and winter attire for the soldiers and provision for the horses, combined with
guerilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include recruited children, use ambushes, sabotage, terrorism ...
from Russian peasants and
Cossack
The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borders of Ukraine and Rus ...
s, resulted in significant losses. More than half of the soldiers perished from starvation, exhaustion,
typhus
Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposu ...
, and the unforgiving
continental climate
Continental climates often have a significant annual variation in temperature (warm to hot summers and cold winters). They tend to occur in central and eastern parts of the three northern-tier continents (North America, Europe, and Asia), typi ...
.
During the
Battle of Krasnoi, Napoleon faced a critical scarcity of cavalry and artillery due to severe snowfall and icy conditions. Employing a strategic maneuver, he deployed the
Old Guard against
Miloradovich, who obstructed the primary road to Krasny, effectively isolating him from the main army.
Davout successfully broke through,
Eugene de Beauharnais and
Michel Ney
Michel Ney, 1st Prince de la Moskowa, 1st Duke of Elchingen (; 10 January 1769 – 7 December 1815), was a French military commander and Marshal of the Empire who fought in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.
The son of ...
were forced to take a detour. Despite the consolidation of several retreating French corps with the main army, by the time they reached the
Berezina
The Berezina or Byarezina (, ; ) is a river in Belarus and a right tributary of the Dnieper. The river starts in the Berezinsky Biosphere Reserve. The length of the Berezina is . The width of the river is 15–20 m, the maximum is 60 m. The ba ...
, Napoleon commanded only around 49,000 troops alongside 40,000 stragglers of little military significance. On 5 December, Napoleon departed from the army at
Smorgonie in a sled and returned to Paris. Within a few days, an additional 20,000 people succumbed to the bitter cold and diseases carried by
lice
Louse (: lice) is the common name for any member of the infraorder Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera was previously recognized as an order, until a 2021 genetic study determined th ...
. Murat and Ney assumed command, pressing forward but leaving over 20,000 men in the hospitals of
Vilnius
Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...
. The remnants of the principal armies, disheartened, crossed the frozen Neman and the
Bug.
While exact figures remain elusive due to the absence of meticulous records, estimations varied and often included exaggerated counts, overlooking auxiliary troops. Napoleon's initial force upon entering Russia exceeded 450,000 men, accompanied by over 150,000 horses, approximately 25,000 wagons and nearly 1,400 artillery pieces. However, the surviving count dwindled to a mere 120,000 men (excluding early deserters); signifying a staggering loss of approximately 380,000 lives throughout the campaign, half of which resulted from diseases. This catastrophic outcome shattered Napoleon's once-untarnished reputation of invincibility.
Names
The French invasion is known as the Russian campaign, the Second Polish War, the Second Polish campaign, the Patriotic War of 1812, or the War of 1812. It should not be confused with the Soviet term for the German invasion
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along ...
during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. Stalin quickly the Soviet resistance to Barbarossa and following campaigns the ''
Great Patriotic War
The Eastern Front, also known as the Great Patriotic War (term), Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union and its successor states, and the German–Soviet War in modern Germany and Ukraine, was a Theater (warfare), theatre of World War II ...
'' (, ). The "''Patriotic War of 1812''" is also occasionally referred to as simply the "''War of 1812''", a term which should not be confused with the conflict between Great Britain and the United States, also known as the
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...
. In Russian literature written before the Russian revolution, the war was occasionally described as ''"the invasion of twelve languages"'' (). Napoleon termed this war the "Second Polish War" in an attempt to gain increased support from Polish nationalists and patriots. Though the stated goal of the war was the resurrection of the Polish state on the territories of the former
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, also referred to as Poland–Lithuania or the First Polish Republic (), was a federation, federative real union between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...
(modern territories of
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
,
Lithuania
Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
,
Latvia
Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...
,
Estonia
Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...
,
Belarus
Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...
and
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
), in fact, this issue was of no real concern to Napoleon.
Background

From 1792 onwards, France found itself frequently embroiled in conflicts with major European powers, a direct aftermath of the
French Revolution. Napoleon, rising to power in 1799 and assuming autocratic rule over France, orchestrated numerous military campaigns that led to the establishment of the
first French empire
The First French Empire or French Empire (; ), also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. It lasted from ...
. Starting in 1803, the
Napoleonic Wars
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Napoleonic Wars
, partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
, image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg
, caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...
served as a testament to Napoleon's military prowess. He secured victories in the
War of the Third Coalition
The War of the Third Coalition () was a European conflict lasting from 1805 to 1806 and was the first conflict of the Napoleonic Wars. During the war, First French Empire, France and French client republic, its client states under Napoleon I an ...
(18031806, leading to the dissolution of the thousand-year-old
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...
), the
War of the Fourth Coalition
The War of the Fourth Coalition () was a war spanning 1806–1807 that saw a multinational coalition fight against Napoleon's First French Empire, French Empire, subsequently being defeated. The main coalition partners were Kingdom of Prussia, ...
(18061807), and the
War of the Fifth Coalition
The War of the Fifth Coalition was a European conflict in 1809 that was part of the Napoleonic Wars and the Coalition Wars. The main conflict took place in Central Europe between the Austrian Empire of Francis I and Napoleon's French Emp ...
(1809).
In 1807, following a French triumph at
Friedland, Napoleon and
Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I (, ; – ), nicknamed "the Blessed", was Emperor of Russia from 1801, the first king of Congress Poland from 1815, and the grand duke of Finland from 1809 to his death in 1825. He ruled Russian Empire, Russia during the chaotic perio ...
signed the
Treaty of Tilsit
The Treaties of Tilsit (), also collectively known as the Peace of Tilsit (; ), were two peace treaties signed by French Emperor Napoleon in the town of Tilsit in July 1807 in the aftermath of his victory at Friedland, at the end of the War o ...
along the Neman River. These treaties progressively solidified Russia's alignment with France, allowing Napoleon to exert dominance over neighboring states. The accord rendered Russia an ally of France, leading to their adoption of the
Continental System
The Continental System or Continental Blockade () was a large-scale embargo by French emperor Napoleon I against the British Empire from 21 November 1806 until 11 April 1814, during the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon issued the Berlin Decree on 21 No ...
, a blockade aimed at the United Kingdom. However, the treaty imposed significant economic strain on Russia, prompting Tsar Alexander to break away from the Continental blockade on December 31, 1810. This decision left Napoleon without his primary foreign policy tool against the United Kingdom.
The
Treaty of Schönbrunn
The Treaty of Schönbrunn (; ), sometimes known as the Peace of Schönbrunn or the Treaty of Vienna, was signed between France and Austria at Schönbrunn Palace near Vienna on 14 October 1809. The treaty ended the Fifth Coalition during the N ...
, concluding the 1809 conflict between
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
and France included a clause that transferred
Western Galicia from Austria and annexing it to the
Grand Duchy of Warsaw. This move was seen unfavorably by Russia, perceiving the territory's annexation as a potential threat for a French invasion point. Russia's foreign Minister
Nikolay Rumyantsev advocated for a closer alliance with France in response.
In an attempt to secure greater cooperation from Russia, Napoleon initially pursued an alliance by proposing marriage to
Anna Pavlovna, the youngest sister of Alexander. However, he ultimately married
Marie Louise
Marie Louise or Marie-Louise is a French feminine given name, compound given name. In other languages, it may take one of several alternate forms:
* Maria Luiza (Bulgarian, Portuguese)
* Maria Luisa (Italian, Spanish)
* Maria Luise (German)
* Mari ...
, the daughter of the Austrian emperor. Subsequently, France and Austria solidified their relationship by signing an
alliance treaty on 14 March 1812.
In March 1811,
Marshal Davout
Louis-Nicolas d'Avout (; 10 May 1770 – 1 June 1823), better known as Davout, 1st Prince of Eckmühl, 1st Duke of Auerstaedt, was a French military commander and Marshal of the Empire who served during both the French Revolutionary Wars and t ...
received orders to clandestinely prepare for a demonstration of military strength aimed at impressing Russia. This plan involved deploying (Dutch) troops to
Magdeburg
Magdeburg (; ) is the Capital city, capital of the Germany, German States of Germany, state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is on the Elbe river.
Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archbishopric of Mag ...
and occupying the
Baltic
Baltic may refer to:
Peoples and languages
*Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian
*Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...
ports Stettin and Danzig. During this period, Napoleon's physical and mental condition underwent changes. He experienced weight gain and increasing susceptibility to various health issues. In May 1812 he left his
palace in Saint-Cloud; one month later he arrived in
Toruń
Toruń is a city on the Vistula River in north-central Poland and a World Heritage Sites of Poland, UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its population was 196,935 as of December 2021. Previously, it was the capital of the Toruń Voivodeship (1975–199 ...
.
Declaration of war
Committed to Catherine the Great's expansion policy, Alexander I issued an ultimatum in April 1812, demanding the evacuation of French troops from Prussia and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. When Napoleon chose war over retreat, between June 8 and 20, the troops remained in constant motion, enduring arduous marches amid intense heat. Napoleon's primary objective was to defeat the
Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army () was the army of the Russian Empire, active from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was organized into a standing army and a state militia. The standing army consisted of Regular army, regular troops and ...
and compel Czar Alexander I to rejoin to the Continental System. From 21 to 22 June 1812, Bonaparte stayed at
Vilkaviškis Manor
Vilkaviškis Manor is a former residential manor in Vilkaviškis, Vilkaviškis District Municipality, Lithuania. Currently it is partially reconstructed.
The manor was founded after 1744 - on 25 January 1776 in the list of taxpayers of the area ...
(in Polish: Wilkowiszky). There Napoleon announced the following proclamation:
Soldiers, the second Polish war is begun. The first terminated at Friedland, and at Tilsit, Russia vowed an eternal alliance with France, and war with the English. She now breaks her vows and refuses to give any explanation of her strange conduct until the French eagles have repassed the Rhine, and left our allies at her mercy. Russia is hurried away by a fatality: her destinies will be fulfilled. Does she think us degenerated? Are we no more the soldiers who fought at Austerlitz? She places us between dishonour and war—our choice cannot be difficult. Let us then march forward; let us cross the Neman and carry the war into her country. This second Polish war will be as glorious for the French arms as the first has been, but the peace we shall conclude shall carry with it its own guarantee, and will terminate the fatal influence which Russia for fifty years past has exercised in Europe.
Logistics

The invasion of Russia starkly highlights the pivotal role of
logistics in military strategy, particularly in situations where the available terrain cannot sustain the large number of deployed troops. Napoleon meticulously prepared for supplying his army, significantly surpassing the logistical efforts of previous campaigns.
To sustain the Grande Armée and its operations, twenty
train
A train (from Old French , from Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ... , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles th ...
battalions with 7,848 vehicles, were mobilized to provide a 40-day supply. Extensive magazines were strategically set up in towns and cities across Poland and East Prussia, while the
Vistula
The Vistula (; ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest in Europe, at in length. Its drainage basin, extending into three other countries apart from Poland, covers , of which is in Poland.
The Vistula rises at Barania Góra i ...
river valley was developed into a vital supply base in 1811–1812.
Intendant
An intendant (; ; ) was, and sometimes still is, a public official, especially in France, Spain, Portugal, and Latin America. The intendancy system was a centralizing administrative system developed in France. In the War of the Spanish Success ...
/
Quartermaster
Quartermaster is a military term, the meaning of which depends on the country and service. In land army, armies, a quartermaster is an officer who supervises military logistics, logistics and requisitions, manages stores or barracks, and distri ...
General
Dumas organized five supply lines from the Rhine to the Vistula, establishing administrative headquarters in three
arrondissement
An arrondissement (, , ) is any of various administrative divisions of France, Belgium, Haiti, and certain other Francophone countries, as well as the Netherlands.
Europe
France
The 101 French departments are divided into 342 ''arrondissem ...
s in French-controlled Germany and Poland. This logistical preparation served as a significant trial of Napoleon's administrative and logistical acumen, with his focus in the first half of 1812 dedicated mainly to provisioning his invading army.
Napoleon's study of Russian geography and history, including
Charles XII's invasion of 1708–1709, reinforced his understanding of the imperative to transport as many supplies as possible. The French Army's prior experience operating in the sparsely populated and underdeveloped regions of Poland and East Prussia during the War of the Fourth Coalition (1806–1807) also informed their approach.
However, nothing was to go as planned, because Napoleon had failed to take into account conditions that were totally different from what he had known so far.
Napoleon and the Grande Armée were accustomed to utilizing the method of living off the land, which proved successful in the densely populated and agriculturally prosperous regions of central Europe, characterized by a well-connected network of roads. Swift forced marches had disoriented the traditional Austrian and Prussian armies, relying extensively on foraging for sustenance. Colonel Pion documented the logistical challenges that this strategy imposed on the army:
There is no fodder for the horses; ''as usual'' there is no order or administration; the Army must live by the sword, and even on Prussian territory and with their allies, the troops pillage atrociously, as if they were in an enemy's country.
During the campaign, the widespread death and depletion of horses emerged as a significant issue.
Forced marches often forced troops to go without essential supplies, as supply wagons struggled to keep pace; The scarcity of roads, frequently turned to mud by rainstorms (''
rasputitsa
''Rasputitsa'' (from ; literally "season of bad roads") is the mud season that occurs in various rural areas of Eastern Europe, when the rapid snowmelt or thawing of frozen ground combined with wet weather in spring, or heavy rains in autumn lea ...
''), further impeded horse-drawn wagons and artillery.
In thinly populated and agriculturally sparse regions, the lack of food and water led to casualties among troops and their mounts, exposing them to waterborne diseases from drinking contaminated water and consuming spoiled food and forage. While the foremost sections of the army received whatever provisions could be supplied, formations behind them suffered from starvation. During the attack phase, Vilna stood as the most advanced magazine in the operational area. Beyond that point, the army had to rely solely on its own resources.
Provisions and transportation
Danzig contained enough provisions to feed 400,000 men for 50 days. Breslau,
Plock and
Wyszogród were turned into grain depots, milling vast quantities of flour for delivery to Thorn, where 60,000 biscuits were produced every day. A large bakery was established at Villenberg (
Braniewo County
__NOTOC__
Braniewo County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, northern Poland, on the border with Russia. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local ...
). 50,000 cattle were collected to follow the army. After the invasion began, large magazines were constructed at Kovno (
Kaunas
Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...
), Vilna (
Vilnius
Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...
), and
Minsk
Minsk (, ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administra ...
, with the Vilna base having enough rations to feed 100,000 men for 40 days. It also contained 27,000 muskets, 30,000 pairs of shoes along with brandy and wine. Medium-sized depots were established at
Vitebsk
Vitebsk or Vitsyebsk (, ; , ; ) is a city in northern Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Vitebsk Region and Vitebsk District, though it is administratively separated from the district. As of 2025, it has 358,927 inhabitants, m ...
,
Orsha
Orsha (; , ; ) is a city in Vitebsk Region, Belarus. It is situated on the fork of the Dnieper, Dnieper River and Arshytsa River, and it serves as the administrative center of Orsha District. As of 2025, it has a population of 101,662.
History
...
, and
Smolensk
Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow.
First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest cities in Russia. It has been a regional capital for most of ...
, and several small ones throughout the Russian interior. The French also captured numerous intact Russian supply dumps, which the Russians had failed to destroy or empty, and Moscow itself was filled with food.
The standard heavy wagons, well-suited for the dense and partially
paved road
A road surface (British English) or pavement (North American English) is the durable surface material laid down on an area intended to sustain vehicular or foot traffic, such as a road or walkway. In the past, gravel road surfaces, macadam, ho ...
networks of Germany and France, proved too cumbersome for the sparse and primitive Russian dirt tracks, further damaged by the unstable weather. Many horses also died during the march towards Vilnius through forests which lacked the necessary fodder, slowing even further the transport of supplies for Napoleon's troops. The supply route from Smolensk to Moscow was therefore entirely dependent on light wagons with small loads. Central to the problem were the expanding distances to supply magazines and the fact that no supply wagon could keep up with a forced marched infantry column. The weather itself became an issue, where, according to historian Richard K. Riehn:
reported:
Then on June 29th came a fresh and awful and extraordinary storm; such a terrible tempest had not been known in the memory of man.Thunder and lightning burst forth from every side of the horizon; soldiers were struck dead; torrents of rain flooded the bivouacs; the downpour lasted all the next day.
The heavy losses to disease, hunger and desertion in the early months of the campaign were in large part due to the inability to transport provisions quickly enough to the troops. The
intendance (central military administration) routinely failed to distribute with sufficient rigor the supplies that were built up or captured. These flaws meant that despite Napoleon's careful planning, the Grande Armée never attained complete self-sufficiency.
Inadequate supplies played a key role in the losses suffered by the army as well. Davidov and other Russian campaign participants record wholesale surrenders of starving members of the Grande Armée even before the onset of the frosts. Caulaincourt describes men swarming over and cutting up horses that slipped and fell, even before the horse had been killed. Other accounts describe eating the flesh of horses still walking, too cold to react in pain; drinking blood and preparing
black pudding
Black pudding is a distinct national type of blood sausage originating in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is made from pork or occasionally beef Blood as food, blood, with Lard, pork fat or Suet, beef suet, and a cereal, usually oatmeal, oat ...
was popular. The French were simply unable to feed their army. Starvation led to a general loss of cohesion and discipline. Constant harassment of the French Army by Cossacks added to the losses during the retreat.
Though starvation caused horrendous casualties in Napoleon's army, losses arose from other sources as well. The main body of Napoleon's Grande Armée diminished by a third in just the first eight weeks of the campaign, before the major battle was fought. This loss in strength was in part due to diseases such as
diphtheria
Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacteria, bacterium ''Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild Course (medicine), clinical course, but in some outbreaks, the mortality rate approaches 10%. Signs a ...
,
dysentery
Dysentery ( , ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications may include dehyd ...
and typhus and the need for garrison supply centres. There are eyewitness reports of cannibalism in November 1812.
Combat service and support and medicine
Nine
pontoon companies, three pontoon trains with 100 pontoons each, two companies of marines, nine
sapper
A sapper, also called a combat engineer, is a combatant or soldier who performs a variety of military engineering duties, such as breaching fortifications, demolitions, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, preparing field defenses ...
companies, six miner companies and an engineer park were deployed for the invasion force. Large-scale
military hospitals
A military hospital is a hospital owned or operated by a military. They are often reserved for the use of military personnel and their dependents, but in some countries are made available to civilians as well. They may or may not be located on a m ...
were created at
Breslau, Warsaw, Thorn, Marienburg,
Elbing and Danzig, while hospitals in East Prussia (
Königsberg
Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...
), had beds for 28,000. The main hospital was in Vilnius,
[Four Men and a Woman: Remarkable Dutch Experiences during the Russian Campaign of Napoleon in 1812 by: Mariska Pool and Mark van Hattem of the Royal Netherlands Army and Arms Museum](_blank)
/ref> another was set up in Hlybokaye
Hlybokaye or Glubokoye (; ; ; ; ) is a town in Vitebsk Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Hlybokaye District. As of 2024, it has a population of 17,746.
The town is located on the international road from Polotsk to Vilniu ...
.
Ammunition
A significant arsenal
An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...
was established in Warsaw, forming a crucial part of the logistical infrastructure. The distribution of artillery was concentrated across strategic locations at Magdeburg
Magdeburg (; ) is the Capital city, capital of the Germany, German States of Germany, state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is on the Elbe river.
Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archbishopric of Mag ...
, Küstrin, Stettin
Szczecin ( , , ; ; ; or ) is the capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the German border, it is a major seaport, the largest city of northwestern Poland, and se ...
, Danzig and Glogau.
*Magdeburg contained a siege artillery train housing 100 heavy guns and storing 462 cannons, two million paper cartridge
A paper cartridge is one of various types of small arms ammunition used before the advent of the cartridge (firearms), metallic cartridge. These cartridges consisted of a paper cylinder or cone containing the bullet, gunpowder, and in some case ...
s and 300,000 pounds/135 tonne
The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the s ...
s of gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal (which is mostly carbon), and potassium nitrate, potassium ni ...
;
*Danzig had a siege train with 130 heavy guns and 300,000 pounds of gunpowder;
*Stettin contained 263 guns, a million cartridges and 200,000 pounds/90 tonnes of gunpowder;
*Küstrin contained 108 guns and a million cartridges;
*Glogau contained 108 guns, a million cartridges and 100,000 pounds/45 tonnes of gunpowder.
Modlin Fortress
Modlin Fortress () is one of the largest 19th-century fortresses in Poland. It is located in the town of Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki in district Modlin (village), Modlin on the Narew river, approximately 50 kilometers north of Warsaw. It was original ...
near Warsaw, Thorn and Malbork
Malbork (German: ''Marienburg'') is a town in the Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland. It is the seat of Malbork County and has a population of 36,709 people as of 2024. The town is located on the Nogat river, in the historical region of Pomerelia.
Fo ...
(Marienburg) served as vital ammunition and supply depots.
Troops gathered in Thorn, Königsberg
Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...
, Wehlau, Insterburg
Chernyakhovsk (; German language, German: Insterburg) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, town in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, and the administrative center of Chernyakhovsky District. Located at the confluence of the Instruch and Angrap ...
, and Gumbinnen
Gusev (; ; ; ) is a town and the administrative center of Gusevsky District of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Pissa and Krasnaya Rivers, near the border with Poland and Lithuania, east of Chernyakhovsk. It is p ...
, where Napoleon arrived on 18 June. Meanwhile, Davout had ordered his I corps to pillage the town. The corps coming from Warsaw used the Suwałki Gap. Several corps, except X Corps, passed Marijampolė
Marijampolė (; also known by Marijampolė#Names, several other names) is the Capital city, capital of Marijampolė County in the south of Lithuania, bordering Poland and Russian Kaliningrad Oblast, and Lake Vištytis. The city's population stood ...
before arriving at the river Neman. On 23 June Napoleon arrived at Naugardiškė near Kaunas
Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...
.
Invasion
Crossing the Russian border
After two days of preparation, the invasion commenced on Wednesday, with Napoleon's army crossing the border. The army was split up into five columns:
# The left wing under Macdonald with the X Corps of 30,000 men (half of them Prussians) crossed the Neman at Tilsit
Sovetsk (; ) is a town in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, located on the south bank of the Neman River which forms the border with Lithuania.
History Early history
Tilsit, which received civic rights from Albert, Duke of Prussia in 1552,''Sło ...
on the 24th. He moved north in Courland
Courland is one of the Historical Latvian Lands in western Latvia. Courland's largest city is Liepāja, which is the third largest city in Latvia. The regions of Semigallia and Selonia are sometimes considered as part of Courland as they were ...
but did not succeed in occupying Riga. Early August he occupied Dunaburg; early September he returned to Riga with his entire force. On 18 December, a few days after the French left the Russian Empire, he drew back to Königsberg, followed by Peter Wittgenstein
Louis Adolf Peter, 1st Prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Ludwigsburg-Berleburg (; ; ''Pyotr Christianovitch Wittgenstein''; – 11 June 1843), better known as Peter Wittgenstein in English, was a prince of the German dynasty of Sayn-Wittgenstein ...
. On 25 December one of his generals Yorck von Wartenburg found himself isolated because the Russian army blocked the road. After five days he was urged by his officers (and in the presence of Carl von Clausewitz
Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz ( , ; born Carl Philipp Gottlieb Clauswitz; 1 July 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Kingdom of Prussia, Prussian general and Military theory, military theorist who stressed the "moral" (in modern terms meani ...
), at least to neutralization of his troops and an armistice
An armistice is a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, as it may constitute only a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace. It is derived from t ...
. Yorck's resolution had enormous consequences.
# In the evening of June 23, Morand, accompanied by sappers
A sapper, also called a combat engineer, is a combatant or soldier who performs a variety of military engineering duties, such as breaching fortifications, demolitions, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, preparing field defenses, ...
, occupied the other side of the Neman. Around noon, the next morning, Napoleon, followed by the Imperial Guard
An imperial guard or palace guard is a special group of troops (or a member thereof) of an empire, typically closely associated directly with the emperor and/or empress. Usually these troops embody a more elite status than other imperial force ...
(47,000), crossed the river on one of the three pontoon bridges nearby Napoleon's Hill. Afterwards, Murat's cavalry and three corps crossed the river destined for Vilnius. Then they followed Barclay de Toll's First Army of the West to Drissa and Polotsk.
#* Cavalry corps of Murat
Murat may refer to:
Places Australia
* Murat Bay, a bay in South Australia
* Murat Marine Park, a marine protected area
France
* Murat, Allier, a commune in the department of Allier
* Murat, Cantal, a commune in the department of Cantal
Elsew ...
(32,000) advanced to Vilnius and Polotsk in the vanguard
The vanguard (sometimes abbreviated to van and also called the advance guard) is the leading part of an advancing military formation. It has a number of functions, including seeking out the enemy and securing ground in advance of the main force.
...
.
#* I Corps of Davout (72,000), the strongest corps, left Vilnius on 1 July and occupied Minsk a week later. His goal was to cut off Pyotr Bagration
Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration (10 July 1765 – 24 September 1812) was a Russian general and prince of Georgians, Georgian origin, prominent during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Bagration, a member of the Bagrationi dynasty ...
from Barclay de Tolly. He already had lost a third of his men but beat Bagration at Mogilev
Mogilev (; , ), also transliterated as Mahilyow (, ), is a city in eastern Belarus. It is located on the Dnieper, Dnieper River, about from the Belarus–Russia border, border with Russia's Smolensk Oblast and from Bryansk Oblast. As of 2024, ...
and then went to Smolensk, where he joined the main army.
#* II Corps of Oudinot (37,000) crossed the Neman and the Viliya to combat Peter Wittgenstein
Louis Adolf Peter, 1st Prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Ludwigsburg-Berleburg (; ; ''Pyotr Christianovitch Wittgenstein''; – 11 June 1843), better known as Peter Wittgenstein in English, was a prince of the German dynasty of Sayn-Wittgenstein ...
, who protected the road to St Petersburg. Oudinot didn't succeed in joining up with Macdonald and joined the VIth corps. For two months these corps kept Wittgenstein at a distance until the Second Battle of Polotsk.
#* III Corps of Ney (39,000) defended downstream the 4th pontoon bridge at Aleksotas
The Aleksotas Eldership () is an eldership in the southern section of the city of Kaunas, Lithuania, bordering the left bank of the Nemunas River. Its population in 2006 was 21,694. The elderate borders Vilijampolė and Centras in the north, ...
which could be used to escape; he then went to Polotsk. Second Central force crossed at Pilona 20 km upstream.
#* IV Corps of Beauharnais
The House of Beauharnais (or ''House of Leuchtenberg''; ) is a French noble family. It is now headed by the Duke of Leuchtenberg, descendant in male line of Eugène de Beauharnais.
History
Originating in Brittany, the Beauharnais (or Beau ...
(45,000 Italians) crossed the Neman near Piliuona.[Clausewitz (1843), p]
48
Napoleon's stepson had orders to avoid Vilnius on his way to Vitebsk.
#* VI Corps of St. Cyr (25,000 Bavarians) crossed at Pilona. He was to throw himself between the two Russian armies and cut off all communication between them.["1812" Napoleon I in Russia by V. Verestchagin] He followed the II Corps to Polotsk, forming the northern flank. Both corps never saw Moscow. With French forces moving through different routes in the direction of Polotsk and Vitebsk, the first major engagement took place on 25 July at the Battle of Ostrowno.
# Right flank force under Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte
Jérôme Bonaparte (born Girolamo Buonaparte; 15 November 1784 – 24 June 1860) was the youngest brother of Napoleon, Napoleon I and reigned as Jerome Napoleon I (formally Hieronymus Napoleon in German), Kingdom of Westphalia, King of Westphal ...
, King of Westphalia (62,000). He crossed the Neman near Grodno
Grodno, or Hrodna, is a city in western Belarus. It is one of the oldest cities in Belarus. The city is located on the Neman, Neman River, from Minsk, about from the Belarus–Poland border, border with Poland, and from the Belarus–Lithua ...
on 1 July,[ and moved towards Bagration's (second western) army. It seems he was advancing slowly so the stragglers could catch up. On the order of Napoleon Davout secretly took over the command on 6 July. The Battle of Mir was a tactical victory for the Russians; Jerome let Platov escape by deploying too few of ]Józef Poniatowski
Prince Józef Antoni Poniatowski (; 7 May 1763 – 19 October 1813) was a Polish general, minister of war and army chief, who became a Marshal of the French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars.
A nephew of the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lit ...
's troops. Jérôme left the army after being criticised by Davout. He went home at the end of July, taking a small battalion
A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of up to one thousand soldiers. A battalion is commanded by a lieutenant colonel and subdivided into several Company (military unit), companies, each typically commanded by a Major (rank), ...
of guards with him.[ Mustafa, S.A. (2017]
Napoleon's Paper Kingdom: The Life and Death of Westphalia, 1807–1813
, p. 252. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
#* IV Cavalry Corps of Latour Maubourg (8,000) joined Davout.
#* V Corps (36,000 (Polish) soldiers) under Poniatowski joined Davout and went to Mogilev and Smolensk. Polish legions, including Lithuanians formed the largest foreign contingent.
#* VIII Corps (17,000 Westphalians) under Vandamme who was sent home in early July. Jérôme Bonaparte took over but resigned on 15 July when he found out Davout had been secretly given the command. Early August the command was given to Junot. In the Battle of Smolensk (1812)
The Battle of Smolensk was the first major battle of the French invasion of Russia. It took place on 16–18 August 1812 and involved about 45,000 men of the under Emperor Napoleon I against about 30,000 Russian troops under General Barclay ...
Junot was sent to bypass the left flank of the Russian army, but he got lost and was unable to carry out this operation.[ Smith, Digby George. Napoleon against Russia: A Concise History of 1812. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2004.] Junot, a heavy drinker, was blamed for allowing the Russian army to retreat arriving too late at the Battle of Valutino. After the Battle of Borodino
The Battle of Borodino ( ) or Battle of Moscow (), in popular literature also known as the Battle of the Generals, took place on the outskirts of Moscow near the village of Borodino on 7 September 1812 during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. ...
he had only 2,000 men left. In July 1813, Junot jumped out of a window; he died a few days later.
# The right or southern wing under Schwarzenberg with the XII Corps of 34,000 men (Austrians) crossed the Western Bug
The Bug or Western Bug is a major river in Central Europe that flows through Belarus (border), Poland, and Ukraine, with a total length of .[Drohiczyn
Drohiczyn () (, ) is a town in Siemiatycze County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, Poland. The town has a population of 2,110 and is situated on the bank of the Bug River. Drohiczyn has a long and rich history, as in the past it was one of the most impo ...]
on 2 July. Tormasov's third army prevented him from joining up with Davout. When Tormasov occupied Brest (Belarus)
Brest, formerly Brest-Litovsk and Brest-on-the-Bug, is a city in south-western Belarus at the border with Poland opposite the Polish town of Terespol, where the Bug and Mukhavets rivers meet, making it a border town. It serves as the adminis ...
at the end of July, Schwarzenberg and Reynier were cut off from supplies. On 18 September the Austrians withdrew when Pavel Chichagov arrived from the south and seized Minsk on 18 November. On 14 December 1812 Schwarzenberg crossed the border.
#* VII Corps of Reynier (17,000 Saxons) stayed in the Grodno region and cooperated with Schwarzenberg to protect the Duchy of Warsaw
The Duchy of Warsaw (; ; ), also known as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Napoleonic Poland, was a First French Empire, French client state established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars. It initially comprised the ethnical ...
against Tormasov.
# During the campaign reinforcements of 80,000 and the baggage trains with 30,000 men were sent on different dates. In November, the division of Durutte assisted Reynier. In December Loison was sent to help extricate the remnants of the Grand Army in its retreat. Within a few days many of Loison's unexperienced soldiers died of the extreme cold.[Zamoyski (2004), 504–505] Napoleon arrested him for not marching with his division to the front.
#* IX Corps of Victor (33,000). The majority was sent to Smolensk in early September; he took over the command from St. Cyr. At the end of October, he retreated, losing significant supplies in Vitebsk to Wittgenstein. Victor and H.W. Daendels were ordered to cover the retreat to the Berezina.
#* XI Corps of Augereau was part of the reserve. It was created later in the late summer. It contained an entire division of reformed deserters. This corps, based in Poland did not participate in military operations in Russia until November/December. Augereau also had at his disposal a division of 10,000 Danes
Danes (, ), or Danish people, are an ethnic group and nationality native to Denmark and a modern nation identified with the country of Denmark. This connection may be ancestral, legal, historical, or cultural.
History
Early history
Denmark ...
under General Ewald
Ewald is a given name and surname used primarily in Germany and Scandinavia. It derives from the Germanic roots '' ewa'' meaning "law" and ''wald'' meaning "power, brightness". People and concepts with the name include:
Surnames
* Douglas Ewald ( ...
, which remained in Holstein
Holstein (; ; ; ; ) is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider (river), Eider. It is the southern half of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost States of Germany, state of Germany.
Holstein once existed as the German County of Holstein (; 8 ...
for the duration of the campaign. Augereau never left Berlin; his younger brother general and his troops were compelled to surrender to the partisans Aleksandr Figner and Denis Davydov on 9 November.
March on Vilna
Napoleon initially met little resistance and moved quickly into the enemy's territory in spite of the transport of more than 1,100 cannons, being opposed by the Russian armies with more than 900 cannons. But the roads in this area of Lithuania
Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
were actually small dirt tracks through areas of birched woodland and marshes. At the beginning of the war supply lines already simply could not keep up with the forced marches of the corps and rear formations always suffered the worst privations.
On the 25th of June Murat's reserve cavalry provided the vanguard with Napoleon, the Imperial guard and Davout's 1st Corps following behind. Napoleon spent the night and the next day in Kaunas, allowing only his guards, not even the generals to enter the city. The next day he rushed towards the capital Vilna, pushing the infantry forward in columns that suffered from stifling heat, heavy rain and more heat. The central group marched in two days. Ney's III Corps marched down the road to Sudervė, with Oudinot marching on the other side of the Viliya river.
Since the end of April, the Russian headquarters was centred in Vilna but on June 24 couriers rushed news about the crossing of the Neman to Barclay de Tolley. Before the night had passed, orders were sent out to Bagration and Platov, who commanded the Cossacks, to take the offensive. Alexander left Vilna on June 26 and Barclay assumed overall command.
Napoleon reached Vilna on 28 June with only light skirmishing but leaving more than 5,000 dead horses in his wake. These horses were vital to bringing up further supplies to an army in desperate need; he was forced to leave up to 100 guns and up to 500 artillery wagons. Napoleon had supposed that Alexander would sue for peace at this point and was to be disappointed; it would not be his last disappointment. Balashov demanded that the French return across the Neman before negotiations. Barclay continued to retreat to Drissa, deciding that the concentration of the 1st and 2nd armies was his first priority.
Several days after crossing the Neman, a number of soldiers began to develop high fevers and a red rash on their bodies. Typhus had made its appearance. On 29/30 June, a violent thunderstorm struck Lithuania during the night and continued for several hours or a day.
The foraging in Lithuania proved hard as the land was mostly barren and forested. The supplies of forage were less than that of Poland, and two days of forced marching made a bad supply situation worse. Some 50,000 stragglers and deserters became a lawless mob warring with the local peasantry in all-out guerrilla war
Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include recruited children, use ambushes, sabotage, terrorism ...
, which further hindered supplies reaching the Grande Armée. Central to the problem were the expanding distances to supply magazines and the fact that no supply wagon could keep up with a forced marched infantry column.
A Lieutenant Mertens—a Württemberger serving with Ney's III Corps—reported in his diary that oppressive heat followed by cold nights and rain left them with dead horses and camping in swamp-like conditions with dysentery and fever raging through the ranks with hundreds in a field hospital that had to be set up for the purpose. He reported the times, dates and places of events, reporting new thunderstorms on 6 July and men dying of sunstroke a few days later. Rapid forced marches quickly caused desertion, suicide and starvation, and exposed the troops to filthy water and disease, while the logistics trains lost horses by the thousands, further exacerbating the problems.
March on Vitebsk and Minsk
Although Barclay wanted to give battle, he assessed it as a hopeless situation and ordered Vilna's magazines burned and its bridge dismantled. Wittgenstein moved his command to Klaipėda
Klaipėda ( ; ) is a city in Lithuania on the Baltic Sea coast. It is the List of cities in Lithuania, third-largest city in Lithuania, the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, fifth-largest city in the Baltic States, and the capi ...
, passing beyond Macdonald and Oudinot's operations with Wittgenstein's rear guard clashing with Oudinout's forward elements. Barclay continued his retreat and, with the exception of the occasional rearguard clash, remained unhindered in his movements ever further east.
The operation intended to split Bagration's forces from Barclay's forces by driving to Vilna had cost the French forces 25,000 losses from all causes in a few days. Strong probing operations were advanced from Vilna towards Nemenčinė
Nemenčinė () is a city in Vilnius district municipality, Lithuania, it is located only about north-east of Vilnius. Close to Nemenčinė forest was planted which forms a sentence ''Žalgiris 600'' (commemorating the Battle of Grunwald) visibl ...
, Molėtai in the north and Ashmyany
Ashmyany or Oshmyany is a city in Grodno Region, Belarus. It is located from Vilnius in Lithuania, and serves as the administrative center of Ashmyany District. The river Ashmyanka passes through the city. As of 2025, it has a population of 16 ...
in the east, the location of Bagration on his way to Minsk. Bagration ordered Platov and Dokhturov to distract the enemy.
Murat advanced to Nemenčinė on July 1, running into elements of Dmitry Dokhturov
Dmitry Sergeyevich Dokhturov (; 1756 – November 14(26), 1816, Moscow) was a Russian infantry general and a prominent military leader during the Patriotic War of 1812.
General
During the War of the Third Coalition, he participated in the Bat ...
's III Russian Cavalry Corps. Napoleon assumed this was Bagration's 2nd Army and rushed out, before being told it was not. Napoleon then attempted to use Davout, Jerome, and Eugene out on his right in a hammer and anvil to catch Bagration and to destroy the 2nd Army in an operation before reaching Minsk. This operation had failed to produce results on his left.
Conflicting orders and lack of information had almost placed Bagration in a bind marching into Davout; however, Jerome could not arrive in time over the same mud tracks, supply problems, and weather, that had so badly affected the rest of the Grande Armée. Command disputes between Jerome, Vandamme and Davout would not help the situation.
In the first two weeks of July, the Grande Armée lost 100,000 men due to sickness and desertion. On 8 July Dirk van Hogendorp was appointed as Governor of Lithuania organizing hospitals for the wounded in Vilnius and supplies for the army; Louis Henri Loison was appointed in Königsberg
Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...
. The main problem was forage from East Prussia. For three weeks, the Dutch soldiers had hardly seen bread and only eaten soup.
Davout had lost 10,000 men marching to Minsk, which he reached on the 8th and would not attack Bagration without Jerome joining him. He ordered Polish cavalry to search for the thousands of looting soldiers who stayed behind. Davout left the city after four days where a Polish governor was appointed; Joseph Barbanègre had to organize the logistics. Davout crossed the Berezina and ran into the Battle of Mogilev with Bagration; he went to Orsha, and crossed the Dniepr on his way to Smolensk. Davout thought Bagration had some 60,000 men and Bagration thought Davout had 70,000. Bagration was getting orders from both Alexander's staff and Barclay (which Barclay didn't know) and left Bagration without a clear picture of what was expected of him and the general situation. This stream of confused orders to Bagration had him upset with Barclay, which would have repercussions later.
After five weeks, the loss of troops from disease and desertion had reduced Napoleon's effective fighting strength to about half. Ney and his corps were given ten days to recover and search for food. Jakob Walter
Jakob Walter (September 28, 1788 – August 3, 1864) was a German soldier and chronicler of the Napoleonic Wars. In his later years, he wrote an account of his service in the , including a detailed account of his participation in Napoleon's ...
describes his foraging experience during Russia's scorched earth
A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy of destroying everything that allows an enemy military force to be able to fight a war, including the deprivation and destruction of water, food, humans, animals, plants and any kind of tools and i ...
tactics:Finally we arrived at Polotsk, a large city on the other side of the Western Dvina
The Daugava ( ), also known as the Western Dvina or the Väina River, is a large river rising in the Valdai Hills of Russia that flows through Belarus and Latvia into the Gulf of Riga of the Baltic Sea. The Daugava rises close to the source of t ...
River. In this region I once left the bivouac to seek provisions. There were eight of us, and we came to a very distant village. Here we searched all the houses. There were no peasants left. I later realized how heedless I had been, since each one ran into a house alone, broke open everything that was covered, and searched all the floors and still nothing was found. Finally, when we assembled and were ready to leave, I once more inspected a little hut somewhat removed from the village. Around it from top to bottom were heaped bundles of hemp and shives, which I tore down; and, as I worked my way to the ground, sacks full of flour appeared. Now I joyfully called all my comrades so that we might dispose of the booty. In the village we saw sieves; these we took to sift the flour mixed with chaff an inch long; and, after that, we refilled the sacks. ... Then the question of carrying and dividing the grain arose, but it occurred to me that I had seen a horse in one of the houses. Everyone immediately hurried to find the horse. We found two instead of one, but unfortunately they were both colts, and one could not be used at all. We took the largest, placed two sacks on it, and started out very slowly. While we were marching there, the Russians saw us from a distance with this booty; and at the same moment we saw a troop of peasants in the valley, about fifty. These ran toward us. What could we do but shoot at them?
March on Smolensk
Exactly at midnight, on July 16, Napoleon left Vilnius. On 19 July the Tsar left the army in Polotsk and headed for Moscow, taking the discredited Von Phull with him. Barclay, the Russian commander-in-chief, refused to fight despite Bagration's urgings. Several times he attempted to establish a strong defensive position, but each time the French advance was too quick for him to finish preparations and he was forced to retreat once more. When the French Army progressed further (under conditions of extreme heat and drought, rivers and wells filled with carrion
Carrion (), also known as a carcass, is the decaying flesh of dead animals.
Overview
Carrion is an important food source for large carnivores and omnivores in most ecosystems. Examples of carrion-eaters (or scavengers) include crows, vultures ...
) it encountered serious problems in foraging, aggravated by the scorched earth
A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy of destroying everything that allows an enemy military force to be able to fight a war, including the deprivation and destruction of water, food, humans, animals, plants and any kind of tools and i ...
tactics of the Russian forces.From Smolensk to Moshaisk the war displayed its horrible work of destruction: all the roads, fields, and woods lay as though sown with people, horses, wagons, burned villages and cities; everything looked like the complete ruin of all that lived. In particular, we saw ten dead Russians to one of our men, although every day our numbers fell off considerably. In order to pass through
After the battle of Vitebsk Napoleon discovered that the Russians were able to slip away during the night. The city, at the intersection of important trade routes, and the palace of Alexander of Württemberg would be his base for the next two weeks. His army needed to recover and rest, but Napoleon asked himself what to do next.
According to Antoine-Henri Jomini
Antoine-Henri Jomini (; 6 March 177922 March 1869) was a Swiss-French military officer who served as a General officer, general in First French Empire, French and later in Russian Empire, Russian service, and one of the most celebrated writers o ...
, Napoleon planned not to go further than Smolensk and make Vilnius his headquarters for the winter. However, he could not go back at the end of July. His position was unfavourable according to Adam Zamoyski
Adam Zamoyski (born 11 January 1949) is a British historian and author descended from the historically important Polish nobility. Personal life
Born in New York City in 1949, as Adam Stefan Zamoyski, the youngest son of Count Stefan Zamoyski ( ...
. There was the heat—also at night—and the lack of supplies. He had lost a third of his army due to sickness and straggling. The Russo-Turkish War (1806–1812) had come to an end as Kutuzov signed the Treaty of Bucharest and the Russian general Pavel Chichagov headed north-west. His former ally Bernadotte broke off relations with France and entered into an alliance with Russia ( Treaty of Örebro). Mid-July Napoleon's brother Jérome resigned and decided to go home. (For Napoleon he lost the opportunity to destroy the Russian armies separately.)
On 4 August the corps of Barclay and Bagration finally succeeded to unite in Smolensk. On 5 August they held a council of war. Under pressure, Barclay de Tolly decided to launch an offensive. (The French army arrived on Russian territory before the Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland were three partition (politics), partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place between 1772 and 1795, toward the end of the 18th century. They ended the existence of the state, resulting in the eli ...
). A Russian force was sent west. Napoleon hoped that the Russian advance would lead to the long-desired battle and the unification of the Russian armies forced Napoleon to change his plans. On 14 August, Ney crossed the Dniepr and won the first Battle of Krasnoi. The next day Napoleon celebrated his 43rd birthday with a review of the army. In the late afternoon, Murat's cavalry and Ney's infantry closed up to the western side of Smolensk. The main body of the army did not come up until late the next day.[Smith, Digby George. ''Napoleon against Russia: A Concise History of 1812''. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2004. ]
The Battle of Smolensk (1812)
The Battle of Smolensk was the first major battle of the French invasion of Russia. It took place on 16–18 August 1812 and involved about 45,000 men of the under Emperor Napoleon I against about 30,000 Russian troops under General Barclay ...
on August 16–18 became the first real confrontation. Napoleon surrounded the southern bank of the Dniepr, while the northern bank was guarded by Barclay's army. When Bagration moved further east, to prevent the French from crossing the river and attacking the Russians from behind, Napoleon began the attack on the Smolensk Kremlin
The Smolensk Kremlin () is a fortified complex (kremlin (fortification), kremlin) enclosing the center of the city of Smolensk in western Russia. The partially preserved fortress wall was built between 1595 and 1602, during the reigns of the tsars ...
in the evening. In the middle of the night Barclay de Tolly withdrew his troops from the burning city to avoid a big battle with no chance of victory. When the French army moved in the Russians left on the east side. Ney, Junot and Oudinot tried to halt their army. The Battle of Valutino could have been decisive but the Russians succeeded to escape via a diversion on the road to Moscow. The French discussed their options or prepare for a new attack after winter. Napoleon pressed his army on after the Russians. Murat implored him to stop, but Napoleon could see nothing but Moscow. After five or six days Napoleon invited the wounded Tuchkov to write the tsar his readiness for peace negotiations; then the general was sent to Paris as honorary prisoner. On 24 August, the Grande Armée marched out on the Old Smolensk Road, 30 feet wide; Eugene on the left, Poniatowski on the right and Murat in the centre, with the Emperor, the Guard, I Corps and III Corps in the second line. Joseph Barbanègre was appointed commander of the devastated city and had to organise new supplies.
; Kutuzov in command
Meanwhile, Wittgenstein was forced to retreat to the north after the First Battle of Polotsk. Bagration asked Aleksey Arakcheyev
Count Alexey Andreyevich Arakcheyev or Arakcheev (; b. in Garusovo – d. in Gruzino) was an Imperial Russian general and statesman during the reign of Tsar Alexander I.
He served under Tsars Paul I and Alexander I as an army commander an ...
to organize the militia, as Barclay had led the French right into the capital. Political pressure on Barclay to give battle and the general's continuing reluctance to do so led to his removal after the defeat. On 20 August he was replaced in his position as commander-in-chief by the popular veteran Mikhail Kutuzov. The former head of the St. Petersburg militia and a member of the State Council arrived on the 29th at Tsaryovo-Zaymishche, a border village. The weather was still unbearably hot and Kutuzov went on with Barclay's successful strategy, using attrition warfare
Attrition warfare is a form of military strategy in which one side attempts to gradually wear down its opponent to the point of collapse by inflicting continuous losses in personnel, materiel, and morale. The term ''attrition'' is derived fro ...
instead of risking the army in an open battle. Napoleon's superiority in numbers was almost eliminated. The Russian Army fell back ever deeper into Russia's empty and forested interior as Napoleon continued to move east. Unable because of political pressure to give up Moscow without a fight, Kutuzov took up a defensive position some before Moscow at Borodino
The Battle of Borodino ( ) or Battle of Moscow (), in popular literature also known as the Battle of the Generals, took place on the outskirts of Moscow near the village of Borodino on 7 September 1812 during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. T ...
.
The Battle of Borodino
The Battle of Borodino, fought on 7 September 1812, was the largest battle of the French invasion of Russia, involving more than 250,000 troops and resulting in at least 70,000 casualties. The Grande Armée
The (; ) was the primary field army of the French Imperial Army (1804–1815), French Imperial Army during the Napoleonic Wars. Commanded by Napoleon, from 1804 to 1808 it won a series of military victories that allowed the First French Empi ...
attacked the Imperial Russian Army near the village of Borodino
The Battle of Borodino ( ) or Battle of Moscow (), in popular literature also known as the Battle of the Generals, took place on the outskirts of Moscow near the village of Borodino on 7 September 1812 during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. T ...
, west of the town of Mozhaysk
MozhayskAlternative transliterations include ''Mozhaisk'', ''Mozhajsk'', ''Mozhaĭsk'', and ''Možajsk''. (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, town and the administrative center of Mozhaysky District, Moscow Oblast, Mozhaysky Distri ...
, and eventually captured the main positions on the battlefield but failed to destroy the Russian army. About a third of Napoleon's soldiers were killed or wounded; Russian losses, while heavier, could be replaced due to Russia's large population, since Napoleon's campaign took place on Russian soil.
The battle ended with the Russian Army, while out of position, still offering resistance. The state of exhaustion of the French forces and the lack of recognition of the state of the Russian Army led Napoleon to remain on the battlefield with his army, instead of engaging in the forced pursuit that had marked other campaigns that he had conducted. The entirety of the Guard was still available to Napoleon, and in refusing to use it he lost this singular chance to destroy the Russian Army. Borodino was a pivotal point in the campaign, as it was the last offensive action fought by Napoleon in Russia. By withdrawing, the Russian Army preserved its combat strength, eventually allowing it to force Napoleon out of the country.
Borodino was the bloodiest day of battle in the Napoleonic Wars. The Russian Army could only muster half of its strength on September 8. Kutuzov chose to act in accordance with his scorched earth tactics and retreat, leaving the road to Moscow open. Kutuzov also ordered the evacuation of the city.
By this point the Russians had managed to draft large numbers of reinforcements (volunteers) into the army, bringing the Russian army to their peak strength in 1812 of 904,000, with perhaps 100,000 in the vicinity of Moscow—the remnants of Kutuzov's army from Borodino partially reinforced.
Both armies began to move and rebuild. The Russian retreat was significant for two reasons: firstly, the move was to the south and not the east; secondly, the Russians immediately began operations that would continue to deplete the French forces. Platov, commanding the rear guard on September 8, offered such strong resistance that Napoleon remained on the Borodino field. On the following day, Miloradovich assumed command of the rear guard, adding his forces to the formation.
On 8 September the Russian army began retreating east from Borodino. They camped outside Mozhaysk. When the village of Mozhaysk was captured by the French on the 9th, the Grande Armée rested for two days to recover. Napoleon asked Berthier to send reinforcements from Smolensk to Moscow and from Minsk to Smolensk. The French Army began to move out on September 10 with the still ill Napoleon not leaving until the 12th. Some 18,000 men were ordered in from Smolensk, and Marshal Victor's corps supplied another 25,000.
Capture of Moscow
On 10 September the main quarter of the Russian army was situated at Bolshiye Vyazyomy. Kutuzov settled in a Vyazyomy Manor on the high road to Moscow. The owner was Dmitry Golitsyn
Prince Dmitry Vladimirovich Golitsyn (; 29 October 177127 March 1844, Paris) was an Imperial Russian cavalry general prominent during the Napoleonic Wars, statesman and military writer.
Biography
He was born in the Golitsyn family of Knyaz Vl ...
, who entered military service again. The next day Tsar Alexander signed a document that Kutuzov was promoted General Field Marshal, the highest military rank of the Imperial Russian Army. Russian sources suggest Kutuzov wrote a number of orders and letters to Rostopchin, the Moscow military governor, about saving the city or the army. On , the main forces of Kutuzov departed from the village, now Golitsyno and camped near Odintsovo
Odintsovo ( rus, Одинцово, , ɐdʲɪnˈtsovə) is a city and the administrative center of Odintsovsky District in Moscow Oblast, Russia. Western suburb of Moscow. Population:
History
The village of Odintsovo was established in the la ...
, 20 km to the west, followed by Mortier and Joachim Murat
Joachim Murat ( , also ; ; ; 25 March 1767 – 13 October 1815) was a French Army officer and statesman who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Under the French Empire he received the military titles of Marshal of the ...
's vanguard. Napoleon, who suffered from a cold and lost his voice, spent the night at Vyazyomy Manor (on the same sofa in the library) within 24 hours. On Sunday afternoon the Russian military council at Fili discussed the risks and agreed to abandon Moscow without fighting. Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...
wrote Fyodor Rostopchin was invited also and explained the difficult decision in quite a few remarkable chapters in his book War and Peace
''War and Peace'' (; pre-reform Russian: ; ) is a literary work by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the work comprises both a fictional narrative and chapters in which Tolstoy discusses history and philosophy. An ...
. This came at the price of losing Moscow, whose population was evacuated. Miloradovich would not give up his rearguard duties until September 14, allowing Moscow to be evacuated. Miloradovich finally retreated under a flag of truce. Kutuzov withdrew to the southeast of Moscow.
On September 14, 1812, Napoleon moved into Moscow. However, he was surprised to have received no delegation from the city. Before the order was received to evacuate Moscow, the city had a population of approximately 270,000 people. 48 hours later three quarters of Moscow was reduced to ashes by arson. A French Army foot soldier recalled:
On the march into the city or rather on the march toward it, from a hill in a forest an hour and a half away, we saw the huge city lying before us. Clouds of fire, red smoke, great gilded crosses of the church towers glittered, shimmered, and billowed up toward us from the city... there were broad streets, long straight alleys, tall buildings massively built of brick, church towers with burned roofs and half-melted bells, and copper roofs which had rolled from the buildings; everything was uninhabited and uninhabitable.
Although Saint Petersburg was the political capital at that time, Napoleon had occupied Moscow, the spiritual capital of Russia, but Alexander I decided that there could not be peaceful coexistence with Napoleon. There would be no appeasement. On 19 September Murat lost sight of Kutuzov who changed direction and turned west to Podolsk
Podolsk ( rus, Подольск, p=pɐˈdolʲsk) is an industrial city, center of Podolsk Urban Okrug, Moscow Oblast, Russia, located on the Pakhra River (a tributary of the Moskva River). Population:
History
The first mentions of the vill ...
and Tarutino where he would be more protected by the surrounding hills and the Nara river. On 3 October Kutuzov and his entire staff arrived at Tarutino and camped there for two weeks. He controlled the three-pronged roads from Obninsk
Obninsk () is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the bank of the Protva River southwest of Moscow and northeast of Kaluga. Its population is 125,376 at the 2021 census.
History
The history of ...
to Kaluga and Medyn so that Napoleon could not turn south or southwest. This position not only allowed him to harass the French lines of communication but also stay in contact with the Russian forces under Tormasov and Chichagov, commander of the Army of the Danube. He was also well placed to watch over the workshops and arms factories in nearby Tula and Briansk. Kutuzov avoided frontal battles involving large masses of troops in order to reinforce his army and to wait there for Napoleon's retreat. This tactic was sharply criticised by Chief of Staff Bennigsen and others, but also by Tsar Alexander. Barclay de Tolly interrupted his service for five months and settled in Nizhny Novgorod
Nizhny Novgorod ( ; rus, links=no, Нижний Новгород, a=Ru-Nizhny Novgorod.ogg, p=ˈnʲiʐnʲɪj ˈnovɡərət, t=Lower Newtown; colloquially shortened to Nizhny) is a city and the administrative centre of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast an ...
. Each side avoided the other and seemed no longer to wish to get into a fight. On 5 October, on order of Napoleon, the French ambassador Jacques Lauriston left Moscow to meet Kutuzov at his headquarters. Kutuzov agreed to meet, despite the orders of the Tsar. On 10 October Murat complained to Belliard about the lack of food and fodder; each day he lost 200 men captured by Russians. On 18 October, at dawn during breakfast, Murat's camp in a forest was surprised by an attack by forces led by Bennigsen, known as Battle of Winkovo. Bennigsen was supported by Kutuzov from his headquarters at distance. Bennigsen asked Kutuzov to provide troops for the pursuit. However, Kutuzov refused.
Retreat
As the Tsar remained unresponsive and Napoleon took advantage of the unusually fine and warm weather lasting into October, he lingered in Moscow beyond his welcome. After five weeks, the French Army finally left the city on 19 October, a rainy day. With them came circa 40,000 wagons and carts full of loot. Despite still numbering 108,000 strong, Napoleon's forces suffered a significant blow with the near-destruction of Murat's cavalry in the Battle of Tarutino
The Battle of Tarutino () was a part of Napoleon's invasion of Russia. In the battle, Russian troops under the general command of Bennigsen (as part of Kutuzov's army), on instructions from Kutuzov, launched an attack and defeated French tro ...
. Lacking clear direction or adequate supplies, the army began its retreat from the region, facing the prospect of even worse disasters ahead. Napoleon traveled along the Old Kaluga road, heading south in search of untouched, prosperous territories. His goal was to avoid the destruction caused on the previous eastward march, opting instead for alternative routes, particularly the westward path through Medyn
Medyn () is a town and the administrative center of Medynsky District in Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Medynka River ( Oka basin), northwest of Kaluga, the administrative center of the oblast. Population:
History
It was first mentione ...
. Evading Kutuzov became Napoleon's main priority, but he encountered an obstacle in his progress.
The Battle of Maloyaroslavets, a testament to Kutuzov's strategic acumen, forced the French Army to retrace its steps along the Old Smolensk road, reversing their previous eastward advance. Kutuzov's tactical brilliance extended further as he employed partisan
Partisan(s) or The Partisan(s) may refer to:
Military
* Partisan (military), paramilitary forces engaged behind the front line
** Francs-tireurs et partisans, communist-led French anti-fascist resistance against Nazi Germany during WWII
** Ital ...
tactics, repeatedly striking at vulnerable points to prevent any potential southern retreat. As the French retreat devolved into chaos, bands of Cossacks (under , Vasily Orlov-Denisov and Denis Davydov) along with agile Russian cavalry, launched relentless assaults on isolated French units foraging for supplies. Maintaining a fully supplied army became an insurmountable challenge due to the vast stretches of uninterrupted forests. 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. Depleted of their mounts, the French cavalry faced dissolution, compelling generals and troopers alike to proceed on foot. The scarcity of horses also forced the abandonment of numerous cannons, limbers and caissons
A limber is a two-wheeled cart designed to support the trail of an artillery piece, or the stock of a field carriage such as a caisson or traveling forge, allowing it to be towed. The trail is the hinder end of the stock of a gun-carriage, whi ...
, a loss that significantly weakened Napoleon's forces in subsequent campaigns. A wagon or a piece of artillery could not be transported across even the smallest ravine
A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys. Ravines may also be called a cleuch, dell, ...
without the loss of 12 to 15 horses. Starvation and disease ravaged the troops, exacerbating their already dire circumstances. Defeats at Vyazma
Vyazma () is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, town and the administrative center of Vyazemsky District, Smolensk Oblast, Vyazemsky District in Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Vyazma River, about halfway between Smolensk, the ...
, Polotsk
Polotsk () or Polatsk () is a town in Vitebsk Region, Belarus. It is situated on the Dvina River and serves as the administrative center of Polotsk District. Polotsk is served by Polotsk Airport and Borovitsy air base. As of 2025, it has a pop ...
and Krasny further diminished the strength of the Grande Armée. In a letter to Emperor Francis I of Austria
Francis II and I (; 12 February 1768 – 2 March 1835) was the last Holy Roman Emperor as Francis II from 1792 to 1806, and the first Emperor of Austria as Francis I from 1804 to 1835. He was also King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and served ...
, his father-in-law, Napoleon would later lament these setbacks:
Russian forces also seized control of the French supply depots at Polotsk, Vitebsk and Minsk, dealing a severe blow to Napoleon's already faltering campaign. However, the convergence of forces led by Victor, Oudinot and Dombrowski at the Bobr bolstered the numerical strength of the Grande Armée back up to approximately 49,000 French combatants alongside some 40,000 stragglers. Despite this reinforcement, as all French corps advanced towards Borisov, they encountered another critical obstacle: the strategic bridge needed to cross the Berezina River had been destroyed by the Russian army. The ensuing Battle of Berezina
The Battle of (the) Berezina (or Beresina) took place from 26 to 29 November 1812, between Napoleon's and the Imperial Russian Army under Field Marshal Peter Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein and Admiral Pavel Chichagov, Chichagov. Napoleon was retre ...
, marked the campaign's final significant engagement, and proved to be a disastrous culmination for the French. Compounding their plight, the onset of thaw caused the ice to melt, necessitating the construction of two bridges. From a military standpoint, the subsequent escape could be deemed a strategic victory for the French, albeit amidst substantial losses. However, it also represented a missed opportunity for the Russians, who laid blame on Pavel Chichagov for his failure to fully capitalize on the situation.
On 3 December Napoleon published the 29th Bulletin in which he informed the outside world for the first time of the catastrophic state of his army. He abandoned the army on 5 December and returned home on a sled
A sled, skid, sledge, or sleigh is a land vehicle that slides across a surface, usually of ice or snow. It is built with either a smooth underside or a separate body supported by two or more smooth, relatively narrow, longitudinal runners ...
, leaving the sick Murat in command. In the following weeks, the Grande Armée shrank further, and on 14 December 1812, it left Russian territory.
Cold weather
Following the campaign, a saying arose that "General Winter" defeated Napoleon, alluding to the Russian Winter. Minard's map shows that the opposite is true, as the French losses were highest in the summer and autumn due to inadequate preparation of logistics resulting in insufficient supplies, while many troops were also killed by disease. Thus, the outcome of the campaign was decided long before the cold weather became a factor.
When winter arrived on 6 November with a blizzard
A blizzard is a severe Winter storm, snowstorm characterized by strong sustained winds and low visibility, lasting for a prolonged period of time—typically at least three or four hours. A ground blizzard is a weather condition where snow th ...
, the army was still equipped with summer clothing and did not have the means to protect themselves from the cold or snow. It had also failed to forge caulkin
A caulkin is a blunt projection on a horseshoe or oxshoe that is often forged, welded or brazed onto the shoe. The term may also refer to traction devices screwed into the bottom of a horseshoe, also commonly called shoe studs or screw-in c ...
shoes for the horses to enable them to traverse roads that had become iced over. The most devastating effect of the cold weather upon Napoleon's forces occurred during their retreat. Starvation and gangrene
Gangrene is a type of tissue death caused by a lack of blood supply. Symptoms may include a change in skin color to red or black, numbness, swelling, pain, skin breakdown, and coolness. The feet and hands are most commonly affected. If the ga ...
coupled with hypothermia
Hypothermia is defined as a body core temperature below in humans. Symptoms depend on the temperature. In mild hypothermia, there is shivering and mental confusion. In moderate hypothermia, shivering stops and confusion increases. In severe ...
led to the loss of tens of thousands of men. Heavy artillery pieces, loot, and wagons were abandoned as irreplaceable draft animals perished. The intense cold enfeebled the brains of those whose health had already suffered, especially of those who had had dysentery, but soon, while the cold increased daily, its pernicious effect was noticed in all.
In his memoir, Napoleon's close adviser Armand de Caulaincourt recounted scenes of massive loss, and offered a vivid description of mass death through hypothermia:
This befell a Grande Armée that was ill-equipped for cold weather. The French deficiencies in equipment caused by the assumption that their campaign would be concluded before the cold weather set in were a large factor in the number of casualties they suffered. After a few days of thaw, the temperature dropped again 23 November. From the Berezina, the retreat was nothing but utter flight. The preservation of war materiel and military positions was no longer considered. When the night-time temperature dropped to minus 35 degrees Celsius it proved catastrophic for Loison's untried soldiers. Some suffered from snow blindness
Photokeratitis or ultraviolet keratitis is a painful eye condition caused by exposure of insufficiently protected Human eye, eyes to the ultraviolet (UV) rays from either natural (e.g. intense direct or reflected sunlight) or artificial (e.g. t ...
. Within three days, his division of 15,000 soldiers lost 12,000 men without a battle.
Summary
In ''Napoleon's Russian Campaign'', Riehn sums up the limitations of Napoleon's logistics as follows:
The military machine Napoleon the artilleryman had created was perfectly suited to fight short, violent campaigns, but whenever a long-term sustained effort was in the offing, it tended to expose feet of clay. ..In the end, the logistics of the French military machine proved wholly inadequate. The experiences of short campaigns had left the French supply services completed unprepared for .Russia, and this was despite the precautions Napoleon had taken. There was no quick remedy that might have repaired these inadequacies from one campaign to the next. ..The limitations of horse-drawn transport and the road networks to support it were simply not up to the task. Indeed, modern militaries have long been in agreement that Napoleon's military machine at its apex, and the scale on which he attempted to operate with it in 1812 and 1813, had become an anachronism that could succeed only with the use of railroads and the telegraph. And these had not yet been invented.
Napoleon lacked the apparatus to efficiently move so many troops across such large distances of hostile territory. The French supply depots established in the Russian interior failed in their purpose as supplies could not be distributed quickly enough. The French train battalions did their best, but the distances, the speed required, and the poor conditions they labored under meant that the demands Napoleon placed on them were too great. Napoleon's demand of a speedy advance by the Grande Armée over a network of dirt roads that dissolved into deep mires further broke down his logistical network as weakened draft animals collapsed from overwork and vehicles that could not be repaired broke down. As the graph of Charles Joseph Minard
Charles Joseph Minard (; ; 27 March 1781 – 24 October 1870) was a French civil engineer recognized for his significant contribution in the field of information graphics in civil engineering and statistics. Minard was, among other things, noted ...
, given below, shows, the Grande Armée incurred the majority of its losses during the march to Moscow during the summer and autumn.
Historical assessment
Grande Armée
On 24 June 1812, around 400,000–500,000 men of the Grande Armée, the largest army assembled up to that point in European history, crossed the border into Russia and headed towards Moscow. Anthony Joes wrote in the ''Journal of Conflict Studies'' that figures on how many men Napoleon took into Russia and how many eventually came out vary widely. Georges Lefebvre
Georges Lefebvre (; 6 August 1874 – 28 August 1959) was a French historian, best known for his work on the French Revolution and peasant life. He is considered one of the pioneers of " history from below". He coined the phrase th ...
says that Napoleon crossed the Neman with over 600,000 soldiers, only half of whom were from France, the others being mainly Poles and Germans. Felix Markham thinks that 450,000 crossed the Neman on 25 June 1812. When Ney and the rearguard recrossed the Neman on December 14, he had barely a thousand men fit for action. James Marshall-Cornwall says 510,000 Imperial troops entered Russia. Eugene Tarle believes that 420,000 crossed with Napoleon and 150,000 eventually followed, for a grand total of 570,000. Richard K. Riehn provides the following figures: 685,000 men marched into Russia in 1812, of whom around 355,000 were French; 31,000 soldiers marched out again in some sort of military formation, with perhaps another 35,000 stragglers, for a total of fewer than 70,000 known survivors. Adam Zamoyski estimated that between 550,000 and 600,000 French and allied troops (including reinforcements) operated beyond the Neman, of which as many as 400,000 troops died but this includes deaths of prisoners during captivity.
Minard's famous infographic (see below) depicts the march ingeniously by showing the size of the advancing army, overlaid on a rough map, as well as the retreating soldiers together with temperatures recorded (as much as 30 below zero on the Réaumur scale
__NOTOC__
The Réaumur scale (; °Ré, °Re, °r), also known as the "octogesimal division", is a temperature scale for which the melting point, melting and boiling points of water are defined as 0 and 80 degrees respectively. The scale is nam ...
()) on their return. The numbers on this chart have 422,000 crossing the Neman with Napoleon, 22,000 taking a side trip early on in the campaign, 100,000 surviving the battles en route to Moscow and returning from there; only 4,000 survive the march back, to be joined by 6,000 that survived from that initial 22,000 in the feint attack northward; in the end, only 10,000 crossed the Neman back out of the initial 422,000.
Imperial Russian Army
Barclay de Tolly the Minister of War
A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...
and field commander of the First Western Army and General of Infantry served as the Commander in Chief of the Russian Armies. According to Tolstoy in ''War and Peace'' (Book X) he was unpopular and regarded as a foreigner by Bagration who was higher in rank but had to follow his orders. Kutuzov replaced Barclay and acted as Commander-in-chief during the retreat following the Battle of Smolensk.
These forces, however, could count on reinforcements from the second line, which totalled 129,000 men and 8,000 Cossacks with 434 guns and 433 rounds of ammunition.
Of these, about 105,000 men were actually available for the defence against the invasion. In the third line were the 36 recruit depots and militias, which came to a total of approximately 161,000 men of various and highly disparate military values, of which about 133,000 actually took part in the defence.
Thus, the grand total of all the forces was 488,000 men, of which about 428,000 gradually came into action against the Grande Armee. This bottom line, however, includes more than 80,000 Cossacks and militiamen, as well as about 20,000 men who garrisoned the fortresses in the operational area. The majority of the officer corps came from the aristocracy. About 7% of the officer corps came from the Baltic German
Baltic Germans ( or , later ) are Germans, ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950), their resettlement in 1945 after the end ...
nobility from the governorates of Estonia
Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...
and Livonia
Livonia, known in earlier records as Livland, is a historical region on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. It is named after the Livonians, who lived on the shores of present-day Latvia.
By the end of the 13th century, the name was extende ...
. Because the Baltic German nobles tended to be better educated than the ethnic Russian nobility, the Baltic Germans were often favoured with positions in high command and various technical positions. The Russian Empire had no universal educational system, and those who could afford it had to hire tutors or send their children to private schools. The educational level of the Russian nobility and gentry varied enormously depending on the quality of the tutors and private schools, with some Russian nobles being extremely well educated while others were just barely literate. The Baltic German nobility was more inclined to invest in their children's education than the ethnic Russian nobility, which led to the government favouring them when granting officers' commissions. Of the 800 doctors in the Russian Army in 1812, almost all of them were Baltic Germans. The British historian Dominic Lieven
Dominic Lieven (born 19 January 1952) is an English research professor at Cambridge University (Senior Research Fellow, Trinity College) and a Fellow of the British Academy and of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Education
Lieven was educated at ...
noted that, at the time, the Russian elite defined Russianness in terms of loyalty to the House of Romanov rather in terms of language or culture, and as the Baltic German aristocrats were very loyal, they were considered and considered themselves to be Russian despite speaking German as their first language.
Sweden, Russia's only ally, did not send supporting troops, but the alliance made it possible to withdraw the 45,000-man Russian corps Steinheil from Finland and use it in the later battles (20,000 men were sent to Riga and Polotsk).
Losses
Napoleon lost more than 500,000 men in Russia. Out of an original force of 615,000, only 110,000 frostbitten and half-starved survivors stumbled back. Desgenettes took care of wounded. Marshall Lefebvre arrived with Louise Fusil who was one of the few women who survived the retreat. It is questionable if Ida Saint Elme, ‘Courtisane de la Grande Armée’, was another one.
Hay has argued that the destruction of the Dutch contingent (15,000) of the Grande Armée was not a result of the death of most of its members. Rather, its various units disintegrated and the troops scattered. Later, some of its personnel were collected and reorganised into the new Dutch army.
Most of the Prussian contingent survived thanks to the Convention of Tauroggen and almost the whole Austrian contingent under Schwarzenberg withdrew successfully. The Russians formed the Russian-German Legion from other German prisoners and deserters.
Russian casualties in the few open battles are comparable to the French losses, but civilian losses along the devastating campaign route were much higher than the military casualties. In total, despite earlier estimates giving figures of several million dead, around one million were killed, including civilians—fairly evenly split between the French and Russians. Military losses amounted to 300,000 French, about 72,000 Poles, 50,000 Italians, 80,000 Germans, and 61,000 from 16 other nations. As well as the loss of human life, the French also lost some 150,000 horses and between 1,000 to 1,300 artillery pieces, 875 of which were collected and recorded in Moscow in November 1814.
The losses of the Russian armies are difficult to assess. The 19th-century historian Michael Bogdanovich assessed reinforcements of the Russian armies during the war using the Military Registry archives of the General Staff. According to this, the reinforcements totalled 134,000 men. The main army at the time of capture of Vilna in December had 70,000 men, whereas its number at the start of the invasion had been about 150,000. Thus, total losses would come to 210,000 men. Of these, about 40,000 returned to duty. Losses of the formations operating in secondary areas of operations as well as losses in militia units were about 40,000. Thus, he came up with the number of 210,000 men and militiamen. According to Dominic Lieven
Dominic Lieven (born 19 January 1952) is an English research professor at Cambridge University (Senior Research Fellow, Trinity College) and a Fellow of the British Academy and of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Education
Lieven was educated at ...
Russian espionage (Alexander Chernyshyov
Prince Alexander Ivanovich Chernyshyov (; 1786, Moscow – 1857, Castellammare di Stabia), General of Cavalry (1827), was a Russian military leader, diplomat and statesman, whose career began in the Napoleonic Wars. After the Battle of Auster ...
, Karl Nesselrode
Karl Robert Reichsgraf von Nesselrode-Ehreshoven, also known as Charles de Nesselrode (; 14 December 1780 – 23 March 1862), was a Foreign policy of the Russian Empire, Russian diplomat of German nobility, German noble descent. For 40 years ( ...
) was well organized. The Russian light cavalry
Light cavalry comprised lightly armed and body armor, armored cavalry troops mounted on fast horses, as opposed to heavy cavalry, where the mounted riders (and sometimes the warhorses) were heavily armored. The purpose of light cavalry was p ...
was superior from the start with a good supply of horses; the musketeers were not.[D. Lieven (2009), pp. 80–81, 290]
Aftermath
The Russian victory over the French Army in 1812 was a significant blow to Napoleon's ambitions of European dominance. His army was shattered and morale was low, both for French troops still in Russia, fighting battles just before the campaign ended, and for the troops on other fronts. Napoleon alone was able to maintain any semblance of order; with his absence, Murat and the other officers lost all authority.
In January 1813 the French army gathered behind the Vistula some 23,000 strong. The Austrian and Prussian troops mustered some 35,000 men in addition. The number of deserters and stragglers having left Russia alive is unknown by definition. The number of new inhabitants of Russia is unknown. The number of prisoners is estimated at 100,000, of whom more than 50,000 died in captivity.
The War of the Sixth Coalition
In the War of the Sixth Coalition () (December 1812 – May 1814), sometimes known in Germany as the Wars of Liberation (), a coalition of Austrian Empire, Austria, Kingdom of Prussia, Prussia, Russian Empire, Russia, History of Spain (1808– ...
started in 1813 as the Russian campaign was decisive for the Napoleonic Wars and led to Napoleon's defeat and exile on the island of Elba
Elba (, ; ) is a Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean island in Tuscany, Italy, from the coastal town of Piombino on the Italian mainland, and the largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago. It is also part of the Arcipelago Toscano National Park, a ...
. For Russia, the term ''Patriotic War'' (an English rendition of the Russian Отечественная война) became a symbol for a strengthened national identity that had a great effect on Russian patriotism in the 19th century. A series of revolutions followed, starting with the Decembrist revolt
The Decembrist revolt () was a failed coup d'état led by liberal military and political dissidents against the Russian Empire. It took place in Saint Petersburg on , following the death of Emperor Alexander I.
Alexander's brother and heir ...
of 1825 and ending with the February Revolution
The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...
of 1917.
Historiography
Dominic Lieven wrote that much of the historiography about the campaign for various reasons distorts the story of the Russian war against France in 1812–14. The number of Western historians who are fluent in French or German vastly outnumbers those who are fluent in Russian, which has the effect that many Western historians simply ignore Russian language sources when writing about the campaign because they cannot read them.
According to von Lieven, memoirs written by French veterans of the campaign together with much of the work done by French historians
This is a list of French historians limited to those with a biographical entry in either English or French Wikipedia. Other major French chroniclers, annalists, philosophers, or other writers are included if they have important historical output.
...
show the influence of "orientalism
In art history, literature, and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects of the Eastern world (or "Orient") by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. Orientalist painting, particularly of the Middle ...
", which depicted Russia as a strange, backward, exotic and barbaric "Asian" nation that was intrinsically inferior to the West, especially France. The picture drawn by the French is that of a vastly superior army being defeated by geography, the climate and just plain bad fortune. German-language sources are not as hostile to the Russians as French sources, but many of the Prussian officers such as Carl von Clausewitz (who did not speak Russian) who joined the Russian Army to fight against the French found service with a foreign army both frustrating and strange, and their accounts reflected these experiences. Lieven compared those historians who use Clausewitz's account of his time in Russian service as their main source for the 1812 campaign to those historians who might use an account written by a Free French officer who did not speak English who served with the British Army in World War II as their main source for the British war effort in the Second World War.
In Russia, the official historical line until 1917 was that the peoples of the Russian Empire had rallied together in defence of the throne against a foreign invader. Because many of the younger Russian officers in the 1812 campaign took part in the Decembrist uprising of 1825, their roles in history were erased at the order of Emperor Nicholas I
Nicholas I, group=pron (Russian language, Russian: Николай I Павлович; – ) was Emperor of Russia, List of rulers of Partitioned Poland#Kings of the Kingdom of Poland, King of Congress Poland, and Grand Duke of Finland from 18 ...
. Likewise, because many of the officers who were also veterans who stayed loyal during the Decembrist uprising went on to become ministers in the tyrannical regime of Emperor Nicholas I, they had a negative reputation among the radical intelligentsia of 19th century Russia. For example, Count Alexander von Benckendorff is thought by von Lieven to have achieved good results militarily in 1812 commanding a Cossack company, but because he later become the Chief of the Third Section Of His Imperial Majesty's Chancellery as the secret police were called, was one of the closest friends of Nicholas I and is infamous for his persecution of Russia's national poet Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin () was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era.Basker, Michael. Pushkin and Romanticism. In Ferber, Michael, ed., ''A Companion to European Romanticism''. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. He is consid ...
, he is not well remembered in Russia and his role in 1812 is usually ignored.
Furthermore, the 19th century was a great age of nationalism and there was a tendency by historians in the Allied nations to give the lion's share of the credit for defeating France to their own respective nation with British historians claiming that it was the United Kingdom that played the most important role in defeating Napoleon; Austrian historians giving that honour to their nation; Russian historians writing that it was Russia that played the greatest role in the victory, and Prussian and later German historians writing that it was Prussia that made the difference. In such a context, various historians liked to diminish the contributions of their allies. Von Lieven's account doesn't mention the influence of Polish national feeling on convictions concerning the war, which were also significant, also in the aftermath.
Leo Tolstoy was not a historian, but his popular 1869 historical novel ''War and Peace'', which depicted the war as a triumph of what Lieven called the "moral strength, courage and patriotism of ordinary Russians" with military leadership a negligible factor, has shaped the popular understanding of the war in both Russia and abroad from the 19th century onward. A recurring theme of ''War and Peace'' is that certain events are just fated to happen, and there is nothing that a leader can do to challenge destiny, a view of history that dramatically discounts leadership as a factor in history. During the Soviet period, historians engaged in what Lieven called huge distortions to make history fit with Communist ideology, with Marshal Kutuzov and Prince Bagration transformed into peasant generals, Alexander I alternatively ignored or vilified, and the war becoming a massive "People's War" fought by the ordinary people of Russia with almost no involvement on the part of the government. During the Cold War, many Western historians were inclined to see Russia as "the enemy", and there was a tendency to downplay and dismiss Russia's contributions to the defeat of Napoleon. As such, Napoleon's claim that the Russians did not defeat him and he was just the victim of fate in 1812 was very appealing to many Western historians.
Russian historians tended to focus on the French invasion of Russia in 1812 and ignore the campaigns in 1813–1814 fought in Germany and France, because a campaign fought on Russian soil was regarded as more important than campaigns abroad and because in 1812 the Russians were commanded by the ethnic Russian Kutuzov while in the campaigns in 1813–1814 the senior Russian commanders were mostly ethnic Germans, being either Baltic German
Baltic Germans ( or , later ) are Germans, ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950), their resettlement in 1945 after the end ...
nobility
Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally appointed by and ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. T ...
or Germans who had entered Russian service. At the time the conception held by the Russian elite was that the Russian empire was a multi-ethnic entity, in which the Baltic German aristocrats in service to the House of Romanov were considered part of that elite—an understanding of what it meant to be Russian defined in terms of dynastic loyalty rather than language, ethnicity, and culture that does not appeal to those later Russians who wanted to see the war as purely a triumph of ethnic Russians.
One consequence of this is that many Russian historians liked to disparage the officer corps of the Imperial Russian Army because of the high proportion of Baltic Germans serving as officers, which further reinforces the popular stereotype that the Russians won despite their officers rather than because of them. Furthermore, Emperor Alexander I often gave the impression at the time that he found Russia a place that was not worthy of his ideals, and he cared more about Europe as a whole than about Russia. Alexander's conception of a war to free Europe from Napoleon lacked appeal to many nationalist-minded Russian historians, who preferred to focus on a campaign in defence of the homeland rather than what Lieven called Alexander's rather "murky" mystical ideas about European brotherhood and security. Lieven observed that for every book written in Russia on the campaigns of 1813–1814, there are a hundred books on the campaign of 1812 and that the most recent Russian grand history of the war of 1812–1814 gave 490 pages to the campaign of 1812 and 50 pages to the campaigns of 1813–1814. Lieven noted that Tolstoy ended ''War and Peace'' in December 1812 and that many Russian historians have followed Tolstoy in focusing on the campaign of 1812 while ignoring the greater achievements of campaigns of 1813–1814 that ended with the Russians marching into Paris.
Napoleon did not touch serfdom in Russia
In tsarist Russia, the term ''serf'' () meant an unfree peasant who, unlike a slave, historically could be sold only together with the land to which they were "attached". However, this stopped being a requirement by the 19th century, and serfs we ...
. What the reaction of the Russian peasantry would have been if he had lived up to the traditions of the French Revolution, bringing liberty to the serfs, is an intriguing question.
German invasion
Academics have drawn parallels between the French invasion of Russia and Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along ...
, the German invasion of 1941. David Stahel
David Stahel (born 1975 in Wellington, New Zealand) is a historian, author and senior lecturer in history at the University of New South Wales. He specialises in German military history of World War II. Stahel has authored several books on the mi ...
writes:
The invasion by Germany was called the Great Patriotic War by the Soviet government, to evoke comparisons with the victory by Alexander I over Napoleon's invading army. In addition, the Germans, like the French, took solace from the notion they had been defeated by the Russian winter, rather than the Russians themselves or their own mistakes.
Cultural impact
An event of epic proportions and momentous importance for European history, the French invasion of Russia has been the subject of much discussion among historians. The campaign's sustained role in Russian popular culture may be seen in Leo Tolstoy's ''War and Peace'', Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer during the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popula ...
's ''1812 Overture
''The Year 1812, Solemn Overture'', Op. 49, popularly known as the ''1812 Overture'', is a concert overture in E major written in 1880 by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The piece commemorates Russia's successful defense against the ...
'', and the identification of it with the German invasion during World War II, which became known as the ''Great Patriotic War'' in the Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
.
See also
* ''1812 Overture
''The Year 1812, Solemn Overture'', Op. 49, popularly known as the ''1812 Overture'', is a concert overture in E major written in 1880 by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The piece commemorates Russia's successful defense against the ...
'', a piece of music written in 1882 (seventy years after the fact) by the Russian composer Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer during the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular ...
to commemorate the victory over Napoleon.
* Antony's Parthian War, a Roman invasion of Parthian Empire, which is widely compared to Napoleon's invasion of Russia
* Arches of Triumph in Novocherkassk, a monument built in 1817 to commemorate the victory over the French
* General Confederation of Kingdom of Poland
* Kutuzov (film)
''Kutuzov'' () is a 1943 Soviet drama film directed by Vladimir Petrov.
Plot
The film of 1943 shows the Russian view of the main events of the Patriotic War of 1812.
The main points are Kutuzov's character and warfare, the major battles, the ...
* List of battles of the French invasion of Russia
* List of ''In Our Time'' programmes, including "Napoleon's retreat from Moscow"
* Nadezhda Durova
* Vasilisa Kozhina
* War and Peace (film series)
''War and Peace'' () is a 1966–1967 Soviet epic war drama film co-written and directed by Sergei Bondarchuk, adapted from Leo Tolstoy's 1869 novel. Released in four installments throughout 1966 and 1967, the film starred Bondarchuk in the l ...
* ''War and Peace'' (opera), an opera by Prokofiev
Notes
References
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* And at Google Books her
The Campaign of 1812 in Russia: Translated from the German ... With a Map
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External links
* When Europe Invaded Russia: 1812 Napoleon Documentary by Jesse Alexander on YouTube
La Grande Armée de 1812, organisation à l'entrée en campagne par François Houdecek
{{DEFAULTSORT:French Invasion Of Russia
1812 in France
1812 in the Russian Empire
19th-century conflicts
19th century in the Russian Empire
Campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars
Conflicts in 1812
France–Russia military relations
Invasions by France
Invasions of Russia
Wars involving France
Wars involving the Russian Empire
Wars involving Prussia