Bell, a history professor at Princeton University and author of The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It. “Certainly, the scorched earth tactics were incredibly important in denying the French army sustenance,” said David A. Many peasants, meanwhile, burned their crops to prevent them from falling into French hands.

Then, in mid-August, they retreated from Smolensk and torched that city. In late July, the Russians similarly abandoned Vitebsk, setting fire to military stores and a bridge on their way out. They must be pushed back into their ice, so that for the next 25 years they no longer come to busy themselves with the affairs of civilized Europe.” “I have come once and for all to finish off these barbarians of the North,” he purportedly declared to his top military advisors. Nonetheless, Napoleon remained confident. To make matters worse, Grande Armée soldiers were already deserting in search of food and plunder. In an ominous sign of things to come, an electrical storm pouring down freezing rain, hail and sleet killed a number of troops and horses that very night. The Russians pulled back, however, and let the Grande Armée capture the city of Vilna on June 27 with barely a fight. Napoleon’s goal was to win a quick victory that forced Alexander to the negotiating table. By comparison, George Washington's army during the American Revolution rarely numbered more than 10,000 or 15,000 men, explained Sheperd Paine, president of the Napoleonic Historical Society.Ī brutally cold battle in Russia during the French invasion “It was the most diverse European army since the Crusades,” Sutherland said.Įstimates vary, but experts believe that at least 450,000 Grande Armée soldiers and perhaps as many as 650,000 ended up crossing the Niemen River to fight approximately 200,000 soldiers on the Russian side. In 1812 the French emperor raised a massive army of troops from all over Europe, the first of which entered Russia on June 24. Napoleon, who considered Russia a natural ally since it had no territorial conflicts with France, soon moved to teach Alexander a lesson. “Down to the present day, the love affair between the French and Polish is pretty permanent,” Sutherland said. Sutherland, a history professor at the University of Maryland who has authored two books on the Napoleonic era. Though Napoleon created that state from Prussian, not Russian, lands, Alexander worried that it would incite a hostile Polish nationalism, according to D.M.G. Exacerbating tensions was the 1807 formation of the Duchy of Warsaw.

Napoleonic war