French invasion of Russia

French invasion of Russia, (June 24–December 5, 1812), invasion of the Russian Empire by Napoleon I’s Grande Armée. The Russians adopted a Fabian strategy, executing a prolonged withdrawal that largely denied Napoleon a conclusive battle. Although the French ultimately captured Moscow, they could not hold the city in the face of a looming winter. Between the invasion and subsequent retreat, the French suffered 500,000 casualties, including 300,000 killed; the overwhelming majority of these losses were due to disease or weather.

Napoleon’s preparations for the Russian campaign

For the campaign of 1812 Napoleon summoned the largest army that Europe had ever seen. Aware of the growing feeling against war in France, Napoleon had determined to make his allies not only bear the expenses of the Russian campaign but furnish the men as well. Of the more than 400,000 troops who would make up the initial invasion force, no fewer than two-thirds were Germans, Austrians, Poles, or Italians. Although their capabilities on the battlefield were sound, discipline displayed in camp and on the march was wanting, for the troops were not eager to reach the battlefield. The result was apparent in a sudden diminution in mobility and a general want of punctuality that would seriously influence the course of the campaign.

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A History of War

Napoleon had made unprecedented efforts to assemble supplies and transport, but these preparations were quite insufficient for an advance so far into Russia with such disproportionate forces. He wrongly supposed that the campaign would end within 30 days. Late in February the various elements of the Grande Armée set out on the long journeys that were to bring them to the frontier along the Neman in June.

The Russians, on the other hand, once their homeland had been invaded, became dominated by an ever-growing resolve. The infantry, which formed the bulk of the Russian army, were well inured to the hardships of campaigning. Fighting on their own territory, they were unlikely to lose their courage in a retreat.

Invasion of Russia

The main French army began to cross the Neman into Russia on June 24, 1812. The total invading force then numbered approximately 453,000; about 612,000 were to enter Russia during the campaign, and little more than 200,000 of them were French. The non-French contingents were destined for employment in secondary tasks, as the spearhead of the invasion force was composed of French troops. Napoleon divided his forces into armies, commanding the principal one himself and providing two auxiliary armies to protect the flanks and rear of his striking force. With him on the Neman were 227,000 men; to his right Eugène de Beauharnais led 80,000; on the right wing at Grodno (Hrodna) were Jérôme Bonaparte with 76,000 and, beyond him, Karl Philipp, Fürst (prince) zu Schwarzenberg’s Austrian contingent of nearly 30,000, charged with the observation of the southernmost of the dispersed Russian forces. On the extreme French left were Jacques Macdonald and Johann Yorck with the Prusso-Polish force of 40,000.

Behind the Neman the Russian commander Mikhail Bogdanovich, Prince Barclay de Tolly’s army numbered 118,000. Pyotr Ivanovich, Prince Bagration, commanded approximately 35,000 regular troops as well as several thousand Cossacks behind the Bug, while Alexander Tormasov, who was observing Schwarzenberg, led about 40,000. In the north Peter Wittgenstein was advancing westward with 25,000 to defend the Western Dvina. For reserves, the Russians could call on recruits under training and Cossack and militia formations, but, as these were not at once available, the Russian command decided to retreat before Napoleon’s greatly superior forces.

A forced march brought the French to Vilnius on June 28, 1812, but by then Barclay had moved toward the fortified camp of Drissa on the Dvina. Bagration, against whom Jérôme was making a lengthy march from the south, avoided Louis-Nicolas Davout’s attempt to cut his line of retreat by a thrust through Minsk with two divisions and was able to cross the Dnieper (July 25). Barclay meanwhile had abandoned Drissa and withdrawn first to Vitsyebsk (July 23) and then to Smolensk, where Bagration joined him on August 3, bringing their combined forces to 110,000.

Napoleon, whose march from Vilnius to Vitsyebsk had failed to separate the two Russian armies, now turned southeastward, crossing the Dnieper in the night of August 13–14, 1812. On August 14 an engagement at Krasnoe (Krasny) left Barclay in no doubt of his intentions. The French, 180,000 strong, appeared before Smolensk on August 16 and, despite the resistance of Barclay’s rear guard, entered the suburbs the next day. Early on August 18 the Russians withdrew, having destroyed the bridges and fired the town. Although their rear guard was defeated by Michel Ney and Joachim Murat at Valutina on August 19, the mass of the Russian army eluded pursuit. The French lost nearly 15,000 killed and wounded in the actions of August 16–19.

Meanwhile on August 17, 1812, Laurent, marquis de Gouvion-Saint-Cyr, replaced Nicolas-Charles Oudinot on Napoleon’s left flank and defeated Wittgenstein at Polotsk. A few days later Schwarzenberg won a success at Gorodechno. Although the French extreme left flank in this sector had been able to contain Tormasov, Pavel Chichagov’s approach from the south threatened to double the Russian numbers there. Napoleon halted at Smolensk until August 25, summoning Claude Victor-Perrin’s corps to Smolensk to protect his lines of communication and ordering Pierre-François-Charles Augereau’s from Germany to Vilnius.

Prolonged and rapid marching and commissariat problems, not combat, had already taken heavy toll of Napoleon’s strength. The failure of the transport columns to supply the marching troops reduced the effectiveness of the infantry, but the cavalry, so essential to his methods of warfare, were particularly vulnerable. Forage was lacking for the 300,000 horses, and disease and excessive work increased their death rate.

Fruitful though Barclay’s cautious methods had been, he was replaced by the veteran Mikhail Kutuzov on August 17, 1812. The new commander was determined to fight a major battle before abandoning Moscow. The French arrived before his positions around the village of Borodino on September 5. The next day was spent in concentrating the army, reconnaissance, and preparations, and the inconclusive Battle of Borodino was fought on September 7. The Russians fell back southeastward to the Nara River, and Napoleon entered Moscow with 95,000 men on September 14. That night the city was fired, partly at least by the Russians themselves.

Retreat from Moscow

The Russians refused to come to terms, and both military and political dangers could be foreseen if the French were to winter in Moscow. After waiting for a month, Napoleon began his retreat, his army now 110,000 strong, on October 19, 1812. His first intention was to retire via Kaluga and thus to make a long detour through more fertile and unexhausted territory before regaining Smolensk, but after the successful combat of Maloyaroslavets (October 24), where he found Kutuzov in his path, he decided to return by the direct route.

At Vyazma, on November 12, 1812, Napoleon’s forces had already fallen to 55,000 men. It was not until November 6 that the first snowstorm overtook the army, to be followed by alternate thaws and frosts until early December, when bitter cold set in. Thus, the large majority of Napoleon’s losses occurred before the first snowfall. On leaving Smolensk, which had been ravaged in August and was now virtually destitute of supplies, the French found Kutuzov threatening their path at Krasnoe. Kutuzov, however, declined to bring on a general engagement, and in the intermittent fighting that ensued (November 15–17) the main French forces secured their retreat. Ney, trapped with the rear guard on November 18, was able to escape, with heavy losses, only by crossing the unreliable ice on the Dnieper.

The Grande Armée now numbered 8,000 combatants and 40,000 stragglers. Victor-Perrin’s corps, 15,000 men who had gone northwestward from Smolensk, and Oudinot’s, fewer still, rejoined the army west of Orsha. In their rear Wittgenstein had crossed the Western Dvina. The French approached the Berezina only to learn that the vital bridge at Borisov had been captured by Chichagov, whom Schwarzenberg had failed to pursue on his march from the south. Oudinot’s corps took Borisov, but the Russians burned the bridge before they withdrew. During the night of November 25–26, 1812, two bridges were constructed upstream at Studyanka while a feint to the south distracted the Russians’ attention. Oudinot’s 7,000 men crossed on November 26, the main body of the army next day. On November 28 the rear guard under Victor-Perrin held off Wittgenstein’s attacks along the east bank while Chichagov’s assaults on the west bank were contained by the rest of the army. At 9:00 am on November 29 Victor-Perrin’s men fired the bridges. From Smorgon (Smarhon) the French continued their march, now in extreme cold, to Vilnius (December 9) and thence to Kovno, where a few broken thousands crossed the Neman to find refuge at Königsberg. A further 40,000 men in isolated detachments subsequently made their way to the Vistula. From the north, Macdonald’s corps retired with 16,000 men, and in the south, Schwarzenberg and Jean Reynier fell back to the Bug with 40,000. The exhausted Russians, their own forces reduced to 40,000, suspended their advance at the Vistula. Their casualties had also been extremely high: fewer than 30 percent of the troops who began the pursuit at Maloyaroslavets reached Vilnius.

When the remnant of his army was 60 miles (roughly 100 km) east of Vilnius, on December 5, 1812, Napoleon had handed the command over to Murat and had hastened on ahead in order to reach Paris before the news of his disaster.

Casualties and consequences

It is estimated that of the 612,000 combatants who entered Russia only 112,000 returned to the frontier. Among the casualties, 100,000 are thought to have been killed in action, 200,000 to have died from other causes, 50,000 to have been left sick in hospitals, 50,000 to have deserted, and 100,000 to have been taken as prisoners of war. The French themselves lost 70,000 in action and 120,000 wounded, as against the non-French contingents’ 30,000 and 60,000. Russian casualties have been estimated at 200,000 killed, 50,000 dispersed or deserting, and 150,000 wounded. The dissolution of the Grande Armée meant that the French army could no longer absorb new recruits into well-established formations, nor could it find trained men and horses on a scale to replace the magnificent cavalry arm destroyed in Russia.

Tsar Alexander I said that the burning of Moscow had “illuminated his soul.” He intended to exploit his new opportunities and resolved to continue his pursuit of Napoleon’s battered forces. Napoleon hoped, mistakenly, that Austria and Prussia would send reinforcements to assist Murat in maintaining a front until he himself returned with a new army. As the news of the destruction of the Grande Armée spread and the appearance of countless stragglers convinced the Prussian people of the reality of the disaster, the spirit generated by years of French domination burst out. Yorck, at the head of the Prussian contingent, concluded a convention of neutrality with the Russians at Tauroggen on December 30, 1812. Prussian King Frederick William III signed the Treaty of Kalisch (February 28, 1813), which formally brought Prussia into the Allied camp against Napoleon.