The date of Napoleon's invasion of Russia is one of the dramatic dates in the history of our country. This event gave rise to many myths and points of view regarding the causes, plans of the parties, the number of troops and other important aspects. Let's try to understand this issue and objectively cover the invasion of Napoleon in Russia in 1812. And let's start with the background.
Background to the conflict
Napoleon's invasion of Russia was not an accidental and unexpected event. This is in the novel of L.N. Tolstoy's "War and Peace" it is presented as "treacherous and unexpected." In fact, everything was natural. Russia itself caused disaster by its military operations. First, Catherine II, fearing revolutionary events in Europe, helped the First Anti-French Coalition. Then Paul the First could not forgive Napoleon for the capture of Malta - an island that was under the personal protection of our emperor.
The main military confrontations between Russia and France began with the Second Anti-French Coalition (1798-1800), in which Russian troops, together with Turkish, British and Austrian, tried to defeat the Directory army in Europe. It was during these events that the famous Mediterranean campaign of Ushakov and the heroic passage of the many thousands of Russian army across the Alps under the command of Suvorov took place.
Our country then first became acquainted with the "loyalty" of the Austrian allies, thanks to which Russian army of many thousands fell into the environment. This, for example, happened with Rimsky-Korsakov in Switzerland, who lost about 20 thousand of his soldiers in an unequal battle against the French. It was the Austrian troops who left Switzerland and left the 30,000th Russian corps alone with the 70,000th French corps. And the famous campaign of Suvorov was also forced, since all the same Austrian advisers showed our commander in chief the wrong path in the direction where roads and passages were completely absent.
As a result, Suvorov was surrounded, but with decisive maneuvers he managed to get out of the stone trap and save the army. However, ten years passed between these events and World War II. And Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 would not have taken place, if not for further events.
Third and Fourth Anti-French Coalitions. Violation of the Tilsit Peace
Alexander the First also started a war with France. According to one version, thanks to the British there was a coup in Russia, which led to the throne of young Alexander. This circumstance, perhaps, forced the new emperor to fight for the British.
In 1805, the Third Anti-French Coalition was formed. It includes Russia, England, Sweden and Austria. Unlike the previous two, the new alliance was framed as defensive. No one was going to restore the Bourbon dynasty in France. England needed the union most of all, since 200,000 French soldiers were already standing under the English Channel, ready to land on Albion, but the Third Coalition prevented these plans.
The culmination point of the union was the āBattle of the Three Emperorsā on November 20, 1805. She got this name because all three emperors of the warring armies ā Napoleon, Alexander the First, and Franz II ā were present on the battlefield near Austerlitz. Military historians believe that it was the presence of "tall persons" that created the utter confusion of the allies. The battle ended in the complete defeat of the coalition forces.
We try to briefly explain all the circumstances without which Napoleonās invasion of Russia in 1812 would be incomprehensible.
In 1806, the Fourth Anti-French Coalition appeared. Austria no longer took part in the war against Napoleon. The new alliance includes England, Russia, Prussia, Saxony and Sweden. The whole severity of the fighting was to endure to our country, since England helped mainly only financially, as well as at sea, and the rest of the participants did not have strong ground armies. In one day, the entire Prussian army was destroyed at the Battle of Jena.
On June 2, 1807, our army was defeated at Friedland, and retreated beyond the Neman, a border river in the western possessions of the Russian Empire.
After that, Russia signed the Tilsit Peace with Napoleon on June 9, 1807 in the middle of the Neman River, which was officially interpreted as equality of the parties when signing the peace. It was a violation of the Tilsit peace that became the reason why Napoleon invaded Russia. We will analyze the contract itself in more detail so that the reasons for the events that occurred later are understood.
Tilsit Peace Terms
The Tilsit Peace Treaty envisaged Russia's accession to the so-called blockade of the British Isles. This decree was signed by Napoleon on November 21, 1806. The essence of the āblockadeā was that France creates a zone on the European continent where England was forbidden to trade. Napoleon could not physically block the island, since France did not even have a tenth of the fleet that the British had at their disposal. Therefore, the term āblockadeā is conditional. In fact, Napoleon came up with what is called economic sanctions today. England actively traded with Europe. She exported grain from Russia , so the āblockadeā threatened the food security of Misty Albion. In fact, Napoleon even helped England, as the latter urgently found new trading partners in Asia and Africa, making good money in the future.
Russia in the XIX century was an agricultural country that sold grain for export. England was the only major buyer of our products at that time. Those. the loss of the market completely ruined the ruling elite of the nobles in Russia. We observe something similar today in our country, when counter-sanctions and sanctions hit the oil and gas industry hard, as a result of which the ruling elite suffers huge losses.
In fact, Russia joined the anti-British sanctions in Europe, initiated by France. The latter itself was a major agricultural producer, so there was no opportunity to replace a trading partner for our country. Naturally, our ruling elite could not fulfill the conditions of the Tilsit peace, as this would lead to the complete destruction of the entire Russian economy. The only way to force Russia to fulfill the requirement of the āblockadeā was by force. Therefore, there was an invasion of the "Great Army" of Napoleon in Russia. The French emperor himself was not going to go deep into our country, just wanting to force Alexander to fulfill the Tilsit peace. However, our armies forced the French emperor to move farther from the western borders to Moscow.
date
The date of Napoleon's invasion of Russian territory is June 12, 1812. On this day, enemy troops crossed the border river Neman.
The invasion myth
There was a myth that Napoleon's invasion of Russia occurred unexpectedly. The emperor held a ball, and all the courtiers had fun. In fact, balls of all the European monarchs of that time took place very often, and they did not depend on the events of politics, but, on the contrary, were its integral part. This was an unchanging tradition of monarchical society. It was on them that the public hearings on critical issues actually took place. Even during the First World War, magnificent triumphs were held in the residences of the nobles. However, it is worth noting that Alexander the First Ball still left in Vilna and retired to Petersburg, where he stayed throughout the Patriotic War.
Forgotten Heroes
The Russian army was preparing for the French invasion long before that. War Minister Barclay de Tolly did everything possible to ensure that Napoleonās army approached Moscow at the limit of its capabilities and with huge losses. The Minister of War himself kept his army in full combat readiness. Unfortunately, the history of World War II unfairly treated Barclay de Tolly. Incidentally, it was he who actually created the conditions for the future French disaster, and Napoleonās army invasion of Russia ultimately ended in the complete defeat of the enemy.
Minister of War Tactics
Barclay de Tolly used the famous "Scythian tactics." The distance between the Neman and Moscow is huge. Without supplies of food, provisions for horses, and drinking water, the Great Army turned into a huge prisoner of war camp in which natural death was much higher than the losses from fighting. The French did not expect the horror that Barclay de Tolly created for them: the peasants went into the forests, taking their livestock and burning provisions, the wells were poisoned along the way of the army, as a result of which periodic epidemics flared up in the French army. Horses and people fell from starvation, mass desertion began, but there was nowhere to run in an unfamiliar area. In addition, partisan detachments from peasants destroyed individual French groups of soldiers. The year of Napoleonās invasion of Russia is the year of an unprecedented patriotic upsurge of all Russian people, united to destroy the aggressor. This moment was also reflected by L.N. Tolstoy in the novel āWar and Peaceā, in which his heroes defiantly refuse to speak French, as this is the language of the aggressor, and also donate all their savings to the needs of the army. For a long time, Russia did not know such an invasion. The last time before this, the Swedes attacked our country almost a hundred years ago. Shortly before this, the entire secular world of Russia admired the genius of Napoleon, considered him the greatest person on the planet. Now, this genius threatened our independence and turned into a sworn enemy.
The size and characteristics of the French army
The strength of Napoleonās army during the invasion of Russia was about 600 thousand people. Its feature was that it resembled a patchwork quilt. The composition of Napoleonās army during the invasion of Russia consisted of Polish lancers, Hungarian dragoons, Spanish cuirassiers, French dragoons and others. Napoleon gathered his āGreat Armyā from all over Europe. She was motley, speaking different languages. Sometimes, commanders and soldiers did not understand each other, did not want to shed blood for Greater France, so at the first sign of difficulty caused by our tactics of āscorched earthā, they deserted. However, there was a force that kept the entire Napoleonic army in awe - Napoleon's personal guard. This was the elite of the French troops, which went with all the difficulties from the first days with the genius commanders. Getting into it was very difficult. The guards were paid a huge salary, they got the best food supplies. Even during the famine of Moscow, these people received a good ration, when the rest were forced to look for dead rats for food. The guard was a bit of Napoleon's modern security service. She followed the signs of desertion, cleaned up the motley Napoleonic army. She was also thrown into battle in the most dangerous sectors of the front where the retreat of even one soldier could lead to tragic consequences for the entire army. The guardsmen never retreated and showed unprecedented stamina and heroism. However, they were too few in percentage terms.
In total, in the army of Napoleon there were about half of the French themselves, who showed themselves in battles in Europe. However, now this was a different army - an aggressive, occupying, which reflected on its morale.
The composition of the army
The "Great Army" was deployed in two echelons. The main forces - about 500 thousand people and about 1 thousand guns - consisted of three groups. The right wing under the command of Jerome Bonaparte - 78 thousand people and 159 guns - was supposed to move to Grodno and distract the main forces of the Russians. The central group led by Beauharnais - 82 thousand people and 200 guns - was supposed to prevent the connection of the two main Russian armies of Barclay de Tolly and Bagration. Napoleon himself moved with new strength to Vilna. His task was to defeat the Russian armies separately, but he also allowed their combination. In the rear there was a reserve army of 170 thousand people and about 500 guns of Marshal Augereau. According to the calculations of the military historian Clausewitz, Napoleon involved up to 600 thousand people in the Russian campaign, of which less than 100 thousand people crossed the border river Neman back from Russia.
Napoleon planned to impose battles on the western borders of Russia. However, Baklai de Tolly forced him to play a cat and mouse game. The main Russian forces all the time evaded the battle and retreated into the interior of the country, dragging the French farther away from Polish reserves, and depriving him of food and provisions on their own territory. That is why the invasion of Napoleonās troops in Russia led to a further disaster for the Great Army.
Russian forces
At the time of the aggression, Russia had about 300 thousand people with 900 guns. However, the army was divided. The First Western Army was commanded by the Minister of War. Barclay de Tolly had about 130 thousand people with 500 guns. It stretched from Lithuania to Grodno in Belarus. Bagrationās second Western army numbered about 50 thousand people ā it occupied a line east of Bialystok. The third army of Tormasov ā also about 50 thousand people with 168 guns ā stood in Volyn. Large groups also stood in Finland - shortly before that there was a war with Sweden - and in the Caucasus, where Russia traditionally waged wars with Turkey and Iran. There was also a grouping of our troops on the Danube under the command of Admiral P.V. Chichagov in the amount of 57 thousand people with 200 guns.
Napoleon's invasion of Russia: the beginning
On the evening of June 11, 1812, a detachment of the Life Guards of the Cossack Regiment discovered suspicious movement on the Neman River. With the onset of darkness, enemy sappers began to build crossings three miles up the river from Kovno (modern Kaunas, Lithuania). Forcing the river of all forces took 4 days, but the vanguard of the French was already in Kovno on the morning of June 12. Alexander the First at that time was at a ball in Vilna, where he was informed of the attack.
From Neman to Smolensk
Back in May 1811, assuming a possible invasion of Napoleon in Russia, Alexander the First told the French ambassador something like this: āWeād better get to Kamchatka than sign a peace in our capitals. Frost and territory will fight for us.ā
This tactic was brought to life: the Russian troops were rapidly retreating from the Neman to Smolensk by two armies, unable to unite. Both armies were constantly pursued by the French. Several battles took place, in which the Russians openly sacrificed entire rear guard groups with the aim of holding the French main forces as long as possible so as not to let them catch up with our main forces.
On August 7, a battle took place near Valutina Mountain, which was called the Battle of Smolensk. Barclay de Tolly united by this time with Bagration and even made several attempts to counterattack. However, all these were only false maneuvers that made Napoleon think about the future general battle near Smolensk and regroup the columns from the camp system to the attacker. But the Russian commander in chief well remembered the emperorās order āI have no more armyā, and did not dare to give a general battle, fairly predicting a future defeat. Near Smolensk, the French suffered huge losses. Barclay de Tolly himself was a supporter of further retreat, but the whole Russian public unjustly considered him a coward and a traitor for his retreat. And only the Russian emperor, who had already run away once under Austerlitz from Napoleon, continued to trust the minister. While the armies were divided, Barclay de Tolly could still cope with the anger of the generals, but when the army was united near Smolensk, he still had to launch a counterattack on Muratās corps. This attack was needed more to reassure the Russian commanders than to give a decisive battle to the French. But, despite this, the minister was accused of indecision, procrastination, and cowardice. His final discord with Bagration was outlined, which was eagerly eager to attack, but could not give an order, since formally he obeyed Barkal-de-Tolly. Napoleon himself expressed with annoyance that the Russians did not give a general battle, since his ingenious roundabout maneuver by the main forces would lead to an attack on the rear of the Russians, as a result of which our army would be completely defeated.
Change of Commander
Under pressure from the public, Barkal de Tolly was still removed from the post of commander in chief. In August 1812, Russian generals openly sabotaged all his orders. However, the new commander in chief M.I. Kutuzov, whose authority was enormous in Russian society, also gave the order for further retreat. And only on August 26 - also under public pressure - did he give a general battle near Borodino, as a result of which the Russians were defeated and left Moscow.
Summary
To summarize. The date of Napoleon's invasion of Russia is one of the tragic in the history of our country. However, this event contributed to the patriotic upsurge in our society, its consolidation. Napoleon was mistaken in the fact that the Russian peasant would choose the abolition of serfdom in exchange for the support of the occupiers. It turned out that for our citizens, military aggression turned out to be much worse than internal socio-economic contradictions.