Bad Idea

Général de division Alexis Joseph Delzons at the Battle of Maloyaroslavets
24 October 1812
(Source)

Two-hundred and five years ago this month, La Grande Armée of the French Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte was busily trying to extricate itself from the depths of Russia. In the category of "Bad Ideas," invading Russia ranks near the top of the list.

• Charles XII of Sweden tried in 1707. Peter the Great and the Russian army kicked his ass.
• Napoléon I of France tried in 1812. The Russian army and the Russian weather kicked his ass.
• Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany tried in 1941. The Russian army and the Russian weather kicked his ass.

It seems that no matter how often it is attempted from the West, it doesn't work. It seems that Europeans can't quite grasp just how big Russia is. Or how primitive it can be in spots. And how terrible the weather can get in those vast forests in the North and those sprawling steppes in the South.

No one has ever successfully invaded Russia coming in through the front door. However, the Mongols did it twice, via the back door, in 1223 and again in 1236, Of course it wasn't really Russia in those days. More of a group of principalities, not always working in harmony with one another. (Which would lead me to surmise that in order to resist a foreign invasion, working together is a pretty damned good idea. Memo to Europe, your conquerors are already in place. You effed up. Big time. Read this.)

So rather than rant and rave about our current society, and the evils therein, I'm going to be getting all historical this week. It calms my soul and it's one of the few things I'm actually good at, though you readers are the true judges of that. So, off we go, into the Wayback Machine for, "The Invasion of Russia, Part Deux." (Not counting the Mongols mind you.)

La Grande Armée crossed the Nieman River on the 24th of June 1812. They were over 600,000 strong, only half of which (if that many) were soldiers from within the borders of France (to include areas which had been annexed to France, like Belgium and Holland). The others were a mixture of Poles, Italians, Westphalians, Saxons, Badeners, Bavarians, Bergers, Swiss, Austrians, Prussians, Danes, and Spaniards. (From what I recall there was even a Portuguese outfit present.) It was truly a European army.

The preparations had been extensive, the Emperor had ordered that 30 days worth of rations be carried along in the trains. In reality only one corps, that of Marshal Davout, came anywhere close to obeying the Emperor's orders to the letter. The remainder assumed they could "live off the land" the same way they had done in western Europe.

The weather started out hot, within the first few weeks the army had lost 10,ooo horses, a lot of it through the boneheadedness of Marshal Murat. A brilliant leader of cavalry on the battlefield, not the brightest bulb on the tree when it came to strategy and any tactic other than the headlong charge. Sort of a hey-diddle-diddle, straight up the middle kind of guy.

All the while the Russian generals fell back, not through any grand scheme but because the Russians had multiple armies facing Napoléon and in all honesty, the generals in command didn't like or trust each other very much. Also, they couldn't agree on a place to try and stop Napoléon. So they fell back.

So why did Napoléon invade Russia in the first place? Economics old boy (or girl), that and the fact that the French Navy sucked and couldn't defeat the British Royal Navy. Trafalgar was the last time the French (with their, at the time, Spanish allies) attempted to break the English blockade of the Continent. So Napoléon couldn't get at the English directly, so he decided to close the Continent to English trade.

One of the reasons for the invasion of Spain in 1808 was to get at Portugal, who were merrily trading away with their old English allies and giving the French the Portuguese version of the finger. No, the Emperor didn't like that. Nor did the Spanish when the French decided to throw their weight around and tell the Spaniards how to run their country.

While all that was going on, the Russians decided that they too would go ahead and trade with England. After all, Moscow and St. Petersburg are a long way from Paris, even further away than Lisbon. So the Czar and his advisers figured that Napoléon would be far too busy trying to subdue the Portuguese and the Spanish to bother with the Russians.

Well, the Emperor was a bit of a megalomaniac, the old saying that power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely is true. And Napoléon was the undisputed ruler of France, his power was more extensive than many, if no most, of his Bourbon predecessors.

So into Russia he plunged.

The French managed to catch a Russian army at Smolensk. Which was a French tactical victory (at the cost of 10,000 men) and the Russians had to retreat. Which they probably would have done anyway without a battle.

Deeper into Russia went La Grande Armée, bleeding men and horses along the way. Detachments to guard supply depots and the like were necessary as the French had discovered that there was no "living off the land" in Russia. The serfs barely managed to support themselves, let alone multiple large armies running about the landscape.

On the banks of the Moscow River, at the little village of Borodino, some 80 miles from Moscow, the Russians finally stopped retreating. Here was the big battle that the Emperor preferred. Destroy the Russian army and the rest would fall into his hands like an overripe plum. After all, it had been that way in Austria (twice) and in Prussia. Here was the chance to impose his economic policies on these untrustworthy Muscovites.

The battle was massive, 250,000 men engaged, 70,000 casualties inflicted. What's more, the Russians really outfought the French, held their line and damaged the Emperor's army grievously. Of course, the Russians had also been badly hurt. So the night after the struggle, the Russians slipped away into the night.

The Emperor declared victory and captured Moscow. Expecting the Czar to surrender, he was prepared to camp out in the Russian capital until the Czar came to his senses.

Well, in those days Russia had two capitals. Moscow and St. Petersburg. While the seizure of Moscow didn't really help the Russians, it didn't really harm them either. Russia is not like Western Europe. Seizing the capital, or even both capitals, wasn't enough to get the Russians to throw in the towel. After all, it was October. One of Mother Russia's most fearsome allies was about to make an appearance.

Winter.

While the Emperor knew that, he was a bit nonplussed as to his next move. Things were particularly bad as fires had broken out in multiple districts in the city, destroying many supplies. (Russian histories claim that it was deliberate, which may not have been the case. Then, as now, the Russians will take credit for events fortuitous to them whether they were coincidental or not. No big deal, the end result was the same.)

On the 19th of October, Napoléon got the heck out of Dodge, er, Moscow. Rather than retreat back the way they had come (which had been stripped of all forage and supplies), the French went further south. Where they ran into a Russian army at Maloyaroslavets.

That chap in the opening painting commanded a division of Italian troops in the corps commanded by Napoléon's step-son, Eugene de Beauharnais (son of Josephine, yes, that Josephine). He fought like a tiger at that battle as did his Italians. They covered themselves in glory. Their general fell to a Russian musket, as did his brother, a major in the same unit, who rushed forward to drag his brother to safety. He too was shot down.

While the French were initially checked, the Russians had already decided to retreat if the French pushed forward again, the Emperor lost his nerve. He commanded the army to fall back to the north and retrace their steps over the way they entered Moscow. Over the battlefield of Borodino, where to the horror of the French and their allies they discovered a charnel house of unburied bodies, human and horse, and where one regiment actually recovered their lost eagle. (Each regiment had an eagle, much like in Roman times, to lose one was a disgrace.) Seems that the standard bearer, while dying, had shoved the flag up the anus of a dead horse rather than let the Russians capture it.

The eagle was still intact, in the skeleton of the horse.

Horror upon horror followed as the Emperor's army fell back, harassed by the Russians and the weather the entire way. First it froze and snowed, then there was a thaw, reducing the primitive roads to a sea of mud. Most of the cannon were abandoned. Then it got cold. Really cold, the kind of cold that even Russians barely tolerate.Then it began to snow.

Napoléon ordered the bridge train destroyed to enable the army to move faster. Of course, the head engineer managed to "forget" to destroy everything, he kep a few wagon loads of tools. (You can build a bridge out of any available wood, can't cut it or pound nails with your bare hands though. And you can read more about that here.)

When the army finally left Russian territory in December, only 120,000 were left of the original 600,000. Of the main army under Napoléon at the Berezina, scarcely 30,000 remained.

Some have called the invasion of Russia the death knell of the Napoleonic Empire, and it was in one sense, Napoléon never again was able to put together such a large army of veterans. His armies, until Waterloo, were mostly young conscripts and some of the battered and weary survivors from the Russia campaign. So yes, Russia crippled the French.

But they were already being bled white in Spain. With the help of a small British army under Wellington. Napoléon never understood the English, and only defeated then once, at Corunna. But that, mes enfants, is a story for another time.

Night Bivouac of La Grande Armée - Vasily Vereshchagin
(Source)

Yeah, invading Russia. Bad idea. (Damn but that looks cold!)