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One week after winning a bloody victory over
the Russian army at the Battle of Borodino, Napoleon Bonaparte's
Grande Armýe enters the city of Moscow, only to find the population
evacuated and the Russian army retreated again. Moscow was the goal
of the invasion, but the deserted city held no czarist officials to
sue for peace and no great stores of food or supplies to reward the
French soldiers for their long march. Then, just after midnight,
fires broke out across the city, apparently set by Russian patriots,
leaving Napoleon's massive army with no means to survive the coming
Russian winter.
In 1812, French Emperor Napoleon I was still at the height of his
fortunes. The Peninsular War against Britain was a thorn in the side
of his great European empire, but he was confident that his generals
would soon triumph in Spain. All that remained to complete his
"Continental System"--a unilateral European blockade designed to
economically isolate Britain and force its subjugation--was the
cooperation of Russia. After earlier conflict, Napoleon and
Alexander I kept a tenuous peace, but the Russian czar was unwilling
to submit to the Continental System, which was ruinous to the
Russian economy. To intimidate Alexander, Napoleon massed his forces
in Poland in the spring of 1812, but still the czar resisted.
On June 24, Napoleon ordered his Grande Armýe, the largest European
military force ever assembled to that date, into Russia. The
enormous army featured more than 500,000 soldiers and staff and
included contingents from Prussia, Austria, and other countries
under the sway of the French empire. Napoleon's military successes
lay in his ability to move his armies rapidly and strike quickly,
but in the opening months of his Russian invasion he was forced to
be content with a Russian army in perpetual retreat. The fleeing
Russian forces adopted a "scorched earth" strategy, seizing or
burning any supplies that the French might pillage from the
countryside. Meanwhile, Napoleon's supply lines became overextended
as he advanced deeper and deeper into the Russian expanse.
Many in the czarist government were critical of the Russian army's
refusal to engage Napoleon in a direct confrontation. Under public
pressure, Alexander named General Mikhail Kutuzov supreme commander
in August, but the veteran of earlier defeats against Napoleon
continued the retreat. Finally, Kutuzov agreed to halt at the town
of Borodino, about 70 miles west of Moscow, and engage the French.
The Russians built fortifications, and on September 7 the Grande
Armýe attacked. Napoleon was uncharacteristically cautious that day;
he didn't try to outflank the Russians, and he declined to send
much-needed reinforcements into the fray. The result was a bloody
and narrow victory and another retreat by the Russian army.
Although disturbed by the progress of the campaign, Napoleon was
sure that once Moscow was taken Alexander would be forced to
capitulate. On September 14, the French entered a deserted Moscow.
All but a few thousand of the city's 275,000 people were gone.
Napoleon retired to a house on the outskirts of the city for the
night, but two hours after midnight he was informed that a fire had
broken out in the city. He went to the Kremlin, where he watched the
flames continue to grow. Strange reports began to come in telling of
Russians starting the fires and stoking the flames. Suddenly a fire
broke out within the Kremlin, apparently set by a Russian military
policeman who was immediately executed. With the firestorm
spreading, Napoleon and his entourage were forced to flee down
burning streets to Moscow's outskirts and narrowly avoided being
asphyxiated. When the flames died down three days later, more than
two-thirds of the city was destroyed.
In the aftermath of the calamity, Napoleon still hoped Alexander
would ask for peace. In a letter to the czar he wrote: "My lord
Brother. Beautiful, magical Moscow exists no more. How could you
consign to destruction the loveliest city in the world, a city that
has taken hundreds of years to build?" The fire was allegedly set on
the orders of Moscow Governor-General Feodor Rostopchin; though
Rostopchin later denied the charge. Alexander said the burning of
Moscow "illuminated his soul," and he refused to negotiate with
Napoleon.
After waiting a month for a surrender that never came, Napoleon was
forced to lead his starving army out of the ruined city. Suddenly,
Kutuzov's army appeared and gave battle on October 19 at
Maloyaroslavets. The disintegrating Grande Armýe was forced to
abandon the fertile, southern route by which it hoped to retreat and
proceed back along the ravaged path over which it had originally
advanced. During the disastrous retreat, Napoleon's army suffered
continual harassment from the merciless Russian army. Stalked by
hunger, subzero temperatures, and the deadly lances of the Cossacks,
the decimated army reached the Berezina River late in November, near
the border with French-occupied Lithuania. However, the river was
unexpectedly thawed, and the Russians had destroyed the bridges at
Borisov.
Napoleon's engineers managed to construct two makeshift bridges at
Studienka, and on November 26 the bulk of his army began to cross
the river. On November 29, the Russians pressed from the east, and
the French were forced to burn the bridges, leaving some 10,000
stragglers on the other side. The Russians largely abandoned their
pursuit after that point, but thousands of French troops continued
to succumb to hunger, exhaustion, and the cold. In December,
Napoleon abandoned what remained of his army and raced back to
Paris, where people were saying he had died and a general had led an
unsuccessful coup. He traveled incognito across Europe with a few
cohorts and reached the capital of his empire on December 18. Six
days later, the Grande Armýe finally escaped Russia, having suffered
a loss of more than 400,000 men during the disastrous invasion.
With Europe emboldened by his catastrophic failure in Russia, an
allied force rose up to defeat Napoleon in 1814. Exiled to the
island of Elba, he escaped to France in early 1815 and raised a new
army that enjoyed fleeting success before its crushing defeat at
Waterloo in June 1815. Napoleon was then exiled to the remote island
of Saint Helena, where he died six years later.
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