The French invasion of Russia, called the Patriotic War of 1812 in Russia, occurred in 1812 when the French emperor Napoleon's multinational Grande Armee invaded the Russian Empire with the goal of forcing Czar Alexander I of Russia to comply with the continental blockade of the United Kingdom. In just six months, nearly a million soldiers and civilians died as the result of scorched-earth warfare, bloody battles, disease, and winter attrition. Though the French burned the Russian capital of Moscow following the Battle of Borodino, they were unable to destroy the Russian army and were forced to retreat to Central Europe, and only 120,000 soldiers of the 450,000-strong invasion force survived Napoleon's catastrophic defeat.
Background[]
Following France's victory over Austria, Prussia, and Russia in the War of the Fourth Coalition in 1807, Russia signed the Treaty of Tilsit with Napoleon, and Russia formally allied itself with France and joined a continental blockade of Britain. However, the treaty imposed significant economic strain on Russia, prompting Tsar Alexander I of Russia to break away from the blockade on 31 December 1810. At the same time, the French-allied Duchy of Warsaw annexed Western Galicia from Austria in 1809 at the end of the War of the Fifth Coalition, threatening Russia's borders. As France and Austria deepened their ties through Napoleon's marriage to Marie Louise of Parma in 1812, France assumed an increasingly hostile stance towards Russia. In March 1811, Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout was ordered to deploy Dutch troops to Magdeburg and occupy the Baltic ports of Stettin and Danzig as a demonstration of military strength against Russia. In April 1812, Alexander I responded by issuing an ultimatum demanding the evacuation of French troops from Prussia and the Duchy of Warsaw. In June 1812, Napoleon traveled from Saint-Cloud to Torun in Poland, and, on 22 June 1812, he issued a proclamation declaring war on Russia in response to its breach of the Treaty of Tilsit. Napoleon called the conflict the "Second Polish War" to appeal to Polish nationalism, and he mobilized a multinational army for an invasion on 24 June 1812.
Marshal Etienne Jacques MacDonald's 30,000-strong X Corps (half of them Prussians) crossed the Niemen at Tilsit on 24 June, moving north in Courland before taking Dunaburg and besieging Riga. At the same time, Napoleon and his 47,000-strong Imperial Guard crossed the Niemen and followed Barclay de Tolly's Russian army to Drissa and Polotsk. Joachim Murat's cavalry corps advanced to Vilnius and Polotsk in the vanguard as Louis-Nicolas Davout and his I Corps occupied Minsk to cut off Pyotr Bagration from Barclay de Tolly. Nicolas Oudinot and his II Corps crossed the Niemen to combat Peter Wittgenstein, who protected the road to St. Petersburg. Michel Ney's II Corps moved on to Polotsk, while Eugene de Beauharnais' Italian IV Corps moved on Vitebsk and Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr's Bavarian VI Corps threw himself between the two Russian armies and attempted to cut off all communication between them. Jerome Bonaparte's right flank army of 62,000 troops moved towards Bagration's army, and Davout would later replace him in command due to the slow pace of his advance. The Austrian general Karl Philip Schwarzenberg led the 34,000-strong XII Corps across the Western Bug.
Napoleon and his main body reached Vilnius on 28 June, two days after Czar Alexander evacuated his headquarters in the city. Having lost his opportunity to force Alexander to make peace, and his advance slowed by a violent thunderstorm, Napoleon found himself mired down in barren and forested country. 50,000 stragglers and deserters came to battle the local peasantry in a guerrilla war, hindering supplies reaching the Grand Armee. The Russians began a strategic withdrawal towards Klaipeda, and, during the first two weeks of July, the French lost 100,000 men due to sickness and desertion. Napoleon lost half of his fighting force to disease and desertion in the first five weeks of the invasion, and, on 16 July, Napoleon left for Vilnius. On 19 July, the Czar headed back to Moscow, and the Russian commander-in-chief Barclay de Tolly continued to refuse to give battle. Instead, the Russians engaged in scorched-earth warfare, destroying all the horses, wagons, villages, and cities between Smolensk, Moshaisk, and Moscow. The French and Russians met at the Battle of Saltanovka near Mogilev on 23 July 1812 and the Battle of Vitebsk on 26-27 July 1812, but the Russians were able to slip away in the night. By late July, Napoleon's brother Jerome had resigned and returned to Westphalia, Russia made peace with the Ottoman Turks and redeployed General Pavel Chichagov's army, and Napoleon's ally Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte betrayed him and allied Sweden with Russia. On 4 August, Barclay and Bagration's corps reunited in Smolensk, and Napoleon lost his opportunity to destroy the Russian armies separately.
On 5 August, Barclay de Tolly decided to launch a counteroffensive against the French. The French defeated the Russians at the First Battle of Krasnoi on 14 August, and, on 16-18 August 1812, the first real battle of the war, the Battle of Smolensk, was fought. The French defeated the Russians and continued their march on Moscow, even as Murat implored Napoleon to stop and rest for the winter. On 20 August 1812, the defeated Barclay was replaced as commander by Mikhail Kutuzov, who continued to employ attrition warfare rather than risk the army in an open battle. Napoleon's superiority in numbers was almost eliminated, but Kutuzov was not given permission to give up Moscow without a fight and was forced to assume defensive positions at Borodino, 75 miles from Moscow.
On 7 September 1812, the Grande Armee attacked the Imperial Russian Army at the Battle of Borodino, and a third of Napoleon's soldiers were killed or wounded. The heavier Russian losses were easily replaced due to Russia's large population. Napoleon's failure to order the entire Imperial Guard to attack the fleeing Russians cost him the opportunity to destroy the Russian army, which preserved its combat strength. On 8 September, Kutuzov ordered the evacuation of Moscow, although his army was partially reinforced to 100,000 troops. At the same time, the Russian Army's strength was boosted to 904,000 through conscription.
The French retreat from Russia
On 14 September 1812, the French entered Moscow, receiving no delegation from the city. Count Fyodor Rostopchin, the Russian governor of Moscow, organized arson attacks that burned three quarters of Moscow. Despite the loss of Russia's spiritual center, the Czar continued to refuse negotiations with Napoleon. On 18 October, Murat's cavalry was nearly destroyed at the Battle of Tarutino while pursuing Kutuzov's army. On 19 October, Napoleon's 108,000-strong army retreated from Moscow, seeking untouched, prosperous territories to plunder. The Russians attacked the French at the Battle of Maloyaroslavets, and Kutuzov employed partisan tactics to prevent the French from retreating to the south. Bands of Cossacks relentlessly attacked French foraging parties, preventing them from gathering supplies. The French army was ravaged by starvation and disease, as well as defeats at Vyazma, Polotsk and Krasny. Russian forces also seized the French supply depots at Polotsk, Vitebsk, and Minsk, dealing a severe blow to Napoleon's faltering campaign. The French suffered heavy losses at the 26-29 November 1812 Battle of Berezina while attempting to cross a thawing river back into Poland. The French still managed to escape, and, on 3 December, Napoleon informed the outside world of the catastrophic state of his army. On 5 December, he left Murat in command of his army as he returned home on a sled. On 14 December 1812, the Grande Armee left Russian territory.
Napoleon lost more than 500,000 men in Russia, and only 110,000 frostbitten and half-starved soldiers out of an original 615,000 returned to French territory. 300,000 French, 72,000 Poles, 50,000 Italians, 80,000 Germans, and 61,000 from 16 other nations were among the losses. The Prussians signed a treaty of neutrality with Russia, enabling most of their soldiers to survive, while almost the whole Austrian contingent withdrew successfully. In January 1813, the 23,000-strong French army regrouped behind the Vistula, and Prussia, Austria, and other former enemies of France took advantage of France's weakness to join Russia in forming a Sixth Coalition against Napoleon.