For more than a century, the personality of Napoleon Bonaparte and everything connected with him has been of great interest to both lovers of world history and a huge number of people who are far from this science. According to statistics, much more literary works are devoted to this commander and politician than any other person.
The great army of Napoleon - a huge military force, which appeared as a result of numerous conquests led by a brilliant commander. It was on her that he had high hopes for the conquest of Russia, and then of England.
Conflict of France with Great Britain
The Patriotic War of 1812 entered the history of Russia forever as an example of the military courage of the soldiers of our country and the genius of strategic decisions of military leaders. The story of all this should be preceded by a consideration of the events preceding it.
In the first decade of the nineteenth century, Bonaparte, who did not dare to launch a military campaign against Great Britain, decided to influence the enemy by imposing an economic blockade on him. That is why the first skirmish of Russian troops with the army of the great commander, although it ended in the victory of the enemy, did not bring Russia territorial losses. This happened in 1805 at Austerlitz.
Russia then fought along with several allies in the anti-French coalition. Those French troops are called the First Great Army. Napoleon Bonaparte, who met with Emperor Alexander the First in the middle of the river on rafts, made a condition: Russia should not conduct any trade with Great Britain. It must be said that economic relations with this country were for our country at that time an important article for replenishing the budget.
Many goods produced in Russia were imported into England. Therefore, violating such a profitable relationship was not in the interests of our country. For this reason, Alexander the First soon ordered the resumption of trade with Great Britain.
Pretext for war
This event was one of the reasons for the outbreak of the war of 1812.
Sending his Great Army to fight with Russia, Napoleon took a rash and extremely short-sighted step, which became fatal for him. Bonaparte’s message to the Russian Tsar said that a violation of the treaty on maintaining Russia’s economic blockade of England sooner or later lead to war. After that, both sides began a hasty mobilization of the military forces of their states.
Napoleon's second great army
The newly assembled military force was not all called great. The French commander did not plan to send to Russia all the people who served in the Armed Forces of the empire. For this conflict, he allocated about half of the military staff. These corps received the name of the Great Army of Napoleon. Disputes in the circles of the scientific community still do not stop about this name. This chapter will present several points of view on the question of why Napoleon's army was called the great.
Some historians say that this adjective is used to designate the largest part of the personnel of the Armed Forces of the French Empire. Other experts, however, argue that the word "great" author of the name, and it is obvious that Bonaparte himself, wanted to emphasize the military power, brilliant training and invincibility of his subordinates. It is worth noting that the second version is the most popular.
Characteristics of the personality of the French emperor
The choice of such a catchy name can be explained by Napoleon's constant desire to emphasize his military and political successes. His career as a statesman developed extremely rapidly. He broke out into the higher echelons of power, although he came from a poor family belonging to the middle social class. Therefore, he had to defend his right to a place in the sun all his life.
He was born on the island of Corsica, which at that time was a province of the French Empire. His father had Italian roots, and the name of the future emperor initially sounded like Bonaparte. In Corsica, among the representatives of the merchants, prosperous artisans and other people belonging to the middle class, it was customary to acquire documents attesting that their bearer belongs to an ancient noble family.
Following this tradition, the father of the future emperor of France bought himself a similar paper, talking about the noble origin of their family name. It is not surprising that Bonaparte, who inherited this highly developed vanity from his parent, called his troops the Great Army of Napoleon.
The ruler comes from childhood
Another important detail in the life of this outstanding person is that he was brought up in a large family. Parents sometimes did not have enough money to provide all their offspring with decent food. It is known that children coming from such families are particularly lively.
An ardent temperament, combined with a constant desire for his goal - to stand at the head of a powerful empire - allowed him to subjugate many European states in a fairly short period of time.
Multinational army
These conquests of the European states allowed the replenishment of French troops at the expense of the male population of the occupied territories. If you look at the so-called "schedule of the Great Army of Napoleon" in 1812, you can see that it consists only half of the indigenous people of the state of France. The remaining fighters were recruited in Poland, Austria-Hungary, Germany and other countries. It is interesting that Napoleon, who had a natural ability for military-theoretical sciences, did not differ in his special talent for learning foreign languages.
One of his friends at the military academy recalled that once after studying in German, Bonaparte said: “I don’t understand how you can even learn to speak this difficult language?” Fate decreed that this man, who was never able to perfectly master German, subsequently conquered the country in which this language is considered the state language.
Strategic miss
It would seem that increasing the size of his army, Bonaparte should thereby clearly strengthen its military power. However, this advantage had a downside. Such a replenishment of personnel at the expense of citizens of other, subjugated by the power of states can be attributed to one of the minuses of managing the Great Army of Napoleon.
Going to fight not for their Fatherland, but for the glory of a foreign country, the soldiers could not have that fighting patriotic spirit, which was inherent not only to the Russian army, but to the whole people. On the contrary, even yielding to the enemy in numbers, our troops saw great meaning in their actions - they went to defend their country from uninvited guests.
Guerrilla warfare
The hot Corsican blood of Napoleon and his numerous military triumphs, with which the emperor was literally intoxicated, did not allow him to soberly assess the geographical features of the country where he sent his troops, as well as certain characteristics of the national mentality inherent in the local population.
All this ultimately contributed to the death of the Great Army of Napoleon. But only it did not happen instantly - the army was dying slowly. Moreover, the commander in chief and most of his subordinates for a very long time had the illusion that they were gradually moving towards their goal, step by step approaching Moscow.
Bonoparte failed to foresee that not only the soldiers of the Russian army, but also ordinary people would defend their country, forming numerous partisan detachments.
There are cases when even women not only participated in popular resistance, but also took command. Another fact from the history of the Patriotic War of 1812 is indicative. When near the Smolensk the French asked the peasant how to get to the nearest settlement, he refused to show them the way on the pretext that at this time of the year it was impossible to get there because of the numerous forest swamps. As a result, the soldiers of the enemy army had to independently look for a way. And it is not surprising that they chose the most difficult and long. The peasant deceived them: at that time all the swamps were just dried up due to the abnormally hot summer.
Also, history has preserved the memory of a simple peasant from the people who fought near Moscow in the detachment of the famous hussar and famous poet Denis Davydov. The commander called this brave man his best friend and warrior of unprecedented courage.
Moral decay
Few of Napoleon’s vast multinational army boasted such professional and spiritual qualities. On the contrary, Bonaparte, raising his morale in his subordinates, sought above all to play on their base desires and aspirations. Leading his army to Moscow, the emperor promised foreign soldiers who did not have any motivation for heroism to give the rich Russian city at their full disposal, that is, allowed him to be looted. He applied similar techniques to warriors who were demoralized as a result of a grueling campaign in harsh climatic conditions.
These actions of him had not the most favorable consequences. When the army of the French emperor turned out to be left to its own devices in winter Moscow, burned down by a fire set up by Russian subversive groups, the soldiers began to think not about the glory of their Fatherland. They did not even think about how best to retreat and return to France the remnants of the once great army. They were engaged in robberies. Everyone tried to take as many trophies as possible from the conquered enemy city. In this state of affairs, undoubtedly, there was a share of guilt of Napoleon Bonaparte, who provoked such behavior of soldiers with his speeches.
When there was an invasion of the Great Army of Napoleon in Russia, and this happened on June 24, 1812, the great commander himself, at the head of the corps, numbering about a quarter of a million people, crossed the Neman River. After some time, other armies invaded our state. They were commanded by such generals, already famous for this moment, as Eugene Beauharnais, MacDonald, Fat and others.
Grand plan
When was the invasion of the Great Army of Napoleon? It is necessary to repeat this date again, since such a question is often encountered in history exams at educational institutions of all levels. This happened in 1812, and this operation began on June 24. The strategy of the Great Army was to limit the concentration of attacks. Bonaparte believed that one should not attack the enemy, surrounding the regiments from different sides under the command of Russian generals.
He was a supporter of destroying the enemy according to a simpler and at the same time effective scheme. The numerous invasion of his first army at once was to bring the Russians such tangible losses as to prevent the regiments of Russian generals from joining forces, attacking the French army from different flanks. Such was the original plan of the Russian resistance.
Napoleon not without pride informed his generals that his brilliant military strategy would not allow Bagration (below in the photo) and Barclay to ever meet.
But the Great Army of Napoleon in 1812 met with the unexpected tactics of the Russian generals. They timely changed their intention to give a general battle as soon as possible. Instead, the Russian troops retreated farther inland, allowing the enemy to "enjoy" the harsh climate of the local territories and the courageous attacks against them that were carried out by partisan detachments.
Of course, the Russian army inflicted tangible damage to the combat power of the Napoleonic troops in rare clashes.
The victory of military ingenuity
The result of such actions planned by the Russian generals fully met all expectations.
The great army of Napoleon in the battle of Borodino consisted, according to approximate estimates, of 250,000 people. This figure indicates a major tragedy. More than half of the Great Army of Napoleon who invaded Russia (date - 1812) was lost.
A new look at history
The book "Following the Great Army of Napoleon", published several years ago, allows you to look at the events of those distant days from a new position. Its author believes that in studying this war one must rely primarily on documentary evidence and the latest findings of archaeologists. He personally visited the sites of all the largest battles, participating in excavations.
This book is much like an album with photographs of finds that have been made by scientists in recent decades. The pictures are accompanied by scientifically based conclusions, which will be useful and interesting to read to lovers of historical literature, as well as specialists in this field.
Conclusion
The personality of Napoleon and his art of military strategy still cause a lot of controversy. Some call him a tyrant and a despot, who spilled blood over many European countries, including Russia. Others consider him a fighter for peace, who made his many military campaigns, pursuing humane and noble goals. This point of view is also not without foundation, since Bonaparte himself said that he wants to unite the countries of Europe under his leadership in order to exclude the possibility of hostility between them in the future.
Therefore, the march of the Great Army of Napoleon and today many people perceive it as a hymn of freedom. But being a great commander, Bonaparte did not possess the same talents in the field of politics and diplomacy, which played a fateful role in his fate. He was betrayed by most generals of his own army after the Battle of Waterloo, where the final destruction of the Great Army of Napoleon took place.