The French Invasion of Russia

Napoleon, the emperor of France, was a power hunger leader and wanted to conqueror all of Europe. The Austrians, who were in an alliance with France at the time, were annexing the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. The Russians thought they were going to try and invade Russia. The Russian’s were also trading with England, which angered Napoleon. Russia invades Poland, so Napoleon tries to take Russia. This is the beginning of the end in the Napoleonic Wars.

The French overextended themselves. Napoleon thought that he was going to engage Russia in a couple battles, but the Russian’s fought skirmishes and move back. Napoleon had to leave men behind, so that they could guard the supply routes and protect their land.

Napoleon started invading in the fall, then he could avoid the winter. When the fall came it was the harvest season. That meant they didn’t have to guard there supply routes as carefully, because they could just take the food from the farmers. The Russians burned their field’s as they retreated, so then the French couldn’t eat from the local fields, and would keep having to bring their supplies through a supply line.

Their army was weakening very badly, but they made to Moscow after a very bloody battle called Battle of Borodino. Napoleon was able to win that battle, but had thirty-five thousand casualties, and Russia had forty-four thousand death’s. France did end up with the victory. The French made it to Moscow expecting to eat there food, and restock on there supplies. When they arrived the city was deserted, all the food and supplies had been taken. The city was on fire too.

The French army had to retreat, because they were deprived of resource. They weakened even more as Russia attacked them with different forces. The forces were from peasants to organized units of soldiers. They final attack on the French was when the Russia attacked them while they were trying to cross the Berezina River. When the army returned back to France, four hundred-forty thousand French soldiers had died.

That wasn’t the end of Napoleon. The United Kingom, and Austria had joined the Coalition. France lost the battle in the War of the Sixth Coalition. Napoleon was captured and exiled to the island of Elba. This was one of the most important wars of the Napoleonic Wars. This was the turning point of the war, the undefeated French army was defeated, and started the War of the Six Coalition.             

(Charles Minard's graph. This show's how many people Napoleon had and lost. The yellow is the size of Napoleons army when he started and the black is when he ended)

Khan, Salman. "French Invasion of Russia." YouTube. YouTube, 23 Apr. 2010. Web. 26 Feb. 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_ySQvjtAxQ>.

"French Invasion of Russia." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Feb. 2012. Web. 26 Feb. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_invasion_of_Russia>.