Crossing Rivers

24 June 1812, Napoléon's Grande Armée crosses the Niemen River.
The Invasion of Russia begins.

On this date in 1812, an army under the command of Napoléon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, crossed the Niemen River into territory controlled by the Czar of all the Russias, the Emperor Alexander I.

Napoléon's army was made up of Frenchmen, Poles, Italians (Napoléon was also the King of Italy), Neapolitans (Naples was not part of the Kingdom of Italy at that time), Rhinelanders, Badeners, Bavarians, Bergers, Saxons, Westphalians, Swiss, and Spaniards (his brother Joseph was the titular King of Spain, some Spaniards actually recognized that, some).

Soldiers of nations allied with (read previously conquered by) the French Empire also entered Russia alongside Napoléon, Austrians and Prussians, reluctant allies at best. The Danes were along as well. They sided with the French because the British Royal Navy had seen fit to destroy their fleet in 1807, To prevent it from falling into Napoléon's hands. Which they succeeded in doing, but at the cost of the Danish army (such as it was) joining forces with Napoléon.

This Grande Armée numbered approximately 685,000 men, 1,393 guns, and some 180,000 to 200,000 horses. It was a vast army marching into the Russian wilderness. An army used to campaigning in milder climes where farms and crops were plentiful. The French noticed, as the Germans did some 129 years later, that Russia seems to stretch on forever. Vast forests, dirt roads, primitive villages inhabited by peasants who had not really changed much since Ivan the Terrible ruled from the Kremlin.

The Imperial Russian Army which faced Napoléon consisted of some 488,000 men and 1,372 guns near the border with Western Europe. That army would, over the next few months, grow to some 900,000 trained soldiers and militia. Napoléon's army began to shed troops almost from the moment they crossed the Niemen.

The brown line = the Grande Armée going in.
The black line = the Grande Armée going out.
The thickness of the line indicates the strength of the army.

At first it was the heat of the Russian summer which began to kill men and horses. Then the rains came, the humidity climbed, then it was dry again. The logistics began to break down almost immediately. While the Emperor had made detailed logistical plans for  the campaign, virtually all of his generals, save one, ignored them. Marshal Davout, the Iron Marshal, made sure that his troops carried every last item the Emperor had specified. His troops were better prepared.

But not even the genius of Napoléon nor the iron will of Davout could have prepared the army for the vastness of Russia.

A battle was fought at Smolensk, but the Russians melted away again, refusing to stand. Some say it was planned that way, that Kutusov Bagration* (who commanded one of the Russian armies) was a genius who knew that if he traded space for time, eventually the French would be worn down and then the Russian Army and General Winter would finish the invaders.

Some say that the reality was that the two generals, Bagration and Barclay de Tolly, refused to coordinate their efforts therefore they had no choice but to fall back.

Regardless of where the truth lies (and I think it lies somewhere between the two extremes, as it usually does), the Grande Armée was withering as they moved forward, shedding men and horses, especially horses, as they moved deeper into Russia.

Finally, in September, the Russians made a stand at a small crossroads west of Moscow, at a place called Borodino. It was a bloodbath. Thousands were in the fight, thousands died, but the Russians held. Though they withdrew during the night, allowing Napoléon to claim a "victory," in reality it had been a devastating blow to the French.

When the army moved into Moscow, abandoned by the Russians before the French arrived, the city was deserted. Winter was approaching, the French were no nearer to bringing the Czar to negotiations than they were in June. Then the city began to burn.

Five weeks after entering Moscow, Napoléon had no choice but to fall back to the west. While he thought that perhaps there was still a chance at forcing Alexander to negotiate, in reality it was over. It would not end until the Russian cavalry were watering their horses in the Seine, in Paris itself, some two years, and thousands more deaths later.

Of course, it really didn't end until June of 1815, on the slopes of Mont-St-Jean in Belgium, but that was just a bitter postscript. Napoléon was doomed from the moment the first French soldier stepped onto the Russian side of the Niemen River, on the 22nd of June, 1812.

The cost was steep.

French Empire and her allies -

• 340,000–400,000 dead
• 50,000 wounded
• 80,000 deserted

Russian Empire -

• 210,000 dead
• 150,000 wounded
• 50,000 deserted

All told, some one million soldiers and civilians died in the Russian campaign of 1812. Seems tiny compared to the millions who died on the Eastern Front in World War II, unless you or a loved on was one of those one million dead. Not to mention the untold thousands injured and uprooted from their homes.

Only a fool invades Russia.

Late November 1812, the shattered remains of Napoléon's Grande Armée crosses the Berezina River.
The Invasion of Russia ends.

* It was actually Bagration and Barclay de Tolly who didn't get along. Thanks Jenk!