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Essays on the napoleonic wars
Napoleonic war and its impact
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If human beings did not use the lessons learned by the people before them, we would not have evolved as a species. The lessons of the past heed warning that lead us away from the mistakes our ancestors made. People who ignore these teaching are prone to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors and must therefore suffer that action’s grave consequences again. Napoleon Bonaparte held a reputation that made him a feared and respected military leader. Yet, his invasion of Moscow in June of 1812 became one of his most noted failures. Napoleon's army managed to take Moscow, but did not account for difficulties that slowed the progress along the way. The cold Russian winter approached the army quickly. Ill equipped to face freezing temperatures, only
Napoleon Bonaparte, an unparalleled military commander who conquered most of Europe around the early 1800’s, invaded Russia in 1812, who was under the rule of Tsar Alexander at the time, lost three quarters of his Grande Armee which was composed of soldiers from all over Europe totaling 600,000 soldiers. This part of history is the most talked about and studied military campaign even today by scholars and military school alike. Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 was a extraordinary expedition that shocked the French Empire to its foundation and led to its eventual collapse just a year later. This Historiographic comparative
One last mistake that most people could call Napoleon’s greatest, would be his invasion of Russia. When Czar Alexander I stopped complying with Napoleon’s demands with the Continental System, putting heavy taxes on French luxury products, and refusing to let Napoleon marry a sister of his, Napoleon thought that it was time to put Russia back in his place. With this idea in place, Napoleon gathered a huge amount of troops from all around Europe, which first entered Russia on June 24, 1812. A quote from Sutherland states that “It was the most diverse European army since the Crusades”. History experts expect that at least 450,000 Grand Armée soldiers and maybe even 650,000 ended up crossing the Niemen River to fight the Russians on the other side (approx. 200,000).
The lessons learned did not pass from the first generation to the next, and this was their downfall. The mistake of one generation soon became the mistake of many, and the snare transformed into a chain.
What more is the point of learning and understanding human history than obtaining the knowledge and structure between what is right and what is wrong? We continuously believe that we as humans have the ability and intellect to learn from the lessons taught in our past in order to enrich our future. In comparison to the time frame that is human history the one hundred year period of time we discussed in the second halve of this semester is nothing but a slight blimp on the map that we have traversed. Yet, throughout our recent readings we can easily assimilate into the idea that although time may pass, and that we may attempt to learn from our history it is simply in human nature to repeat the mistakes that we have
Napoleon Bonaparte was born on the island of Corsica in 1769. He was the third son and fourth
And because of the health of the French soldiers, there was little opposition for the Russian's attacks. Napoleon had returned to France to preserve his empire. With his desertion marking the end of the war. A lengthy bulletin had appeared in The Moniteur on the return of Napoleon. Until November 6, the weather was good, and the movement of the army was executed with success, but on the 7th the cold commenced.
In 1812, Napoleon invaded the country of Russia. Most of his advisors warned him against this, saying it would be a very bad decision, but Napoleon ignored them. His armies were heavily defeated and there were many reasons for this. I will be talking about some of these reasons in this chapter.
Napoleon Bonaparte was seemingly invincible. Under his command, the Grande Armee had conquered much of Europe, and was viewed by others as an austere foe. Though despite all this, Napoleon made a fatal mistake: he entered Russia. Of the 600,000 troops that reached the Russian border, only 100,000 made it out (Moore, Online). Through the Russian Campaign the seemingly indomitable man of Napoleon began to crumble at the base, and after numerous fatal errors, the foundation fell. Napoleon’s Russian Campaign of 1812 resulted in failure.
Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia in 1812 was a failure because of poor discipline, lack of food, diseases, and weather. The invasion began because Napoleon wanted access to India. Since England controlled the sea routes and have a better naval army than France, Napoleon’s only chance was to take it by land, and that meant taking on the Russian army. Napoleon failed because he underestimated the Russian army, disease, and weather.
His army won in moving into the outskirts of Moscow; but it was an empty victory. Cold and
In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia with about six-hundred-thousand men and over fifty-thousand horses. His plan was to end the war by fighting a final hard battle. Just in case his plans didn't succeed, he supplied 30 days of food. He soon discovered that he should have brought more. Due to his unexpected finding that Russia had a very poor road network, he was forced to travel in a narrow line. Even though he sent out a larger food supply than usual, food was mostly to be acquired by whatever the soldiers could find along the way. But all did not go to plan. The life was very poor and could not support the thousands of soldiers that would be living off the land. Since these men were basically using the same roads, the first troops got the most, best food that could easily be foraged. The second few troops got less, etc. If you were at the back, you wouldn't get much, or anything good. The Russians made the problem worse by destroying everything possible as they retreated before the French. As time went by, soldiers began to trail, due to having to search further away from the roads to get food, and weakness from the lack of it.
The Russian Revolution The Russian revolution can be broken up into short and long term causes. In March 1917 the Tsars regime was overthrown and that was the end of Russia’s monarchy, Tsar Nicolas’ inability to see the needs of the Russian people led to his collapse and eventually death. The long term causes can be broken into four main sections. Firstly the Russian middle class had lost all respect for the tsar, they no longer believed that Tsar Nicolas could restore law and order, demonstrations were being held regularly, his only known course of action to take was violence, like the horrific incident of bloody Sunday 1905, in which the tsar’s loyal Cossacks opened fire upon unarmed demonstrators. The Tsar could not see the unbelievably clear needs of his people, industrial development was at low, weapons and vital minerals were in short supply, workers began to strike, the average wage of a worker during 1917 would not have been enough to feed one mouth let alone a family.
Misused intelligence and underestimated opponents were at the heart of Napoleon?s downfall. This was clearly shown at Moscow when the Russians outwitted him by using their scorched earth policy and not meeting him in battle as they agreed. With careful planning, the Russian invasion could have gone a lot better and maybe not have led to Napoleon?s downfall.
Although he inspired new social, economic, and political ideas, Napoleon Bonaparte is better known for his military tactics. Even today, his battle plans are used and studied by many in the military. Napoleon, who started out as an extremely short and wimpy foreigner who rose to become Emperor of France, died in 1821 at St. Helena, a remote island in the South Atlantic. He was fifty-two years old. Th cause is uncertain: either he was poisoned or he died of a stomach ailment.
June of 1812, Napoleon began his fatal Russian campaign in a landmark in the history of the destructive potential of warfare. All of continental Europe was under his control the invasion of Russia was an attempt to force Tsar. Alexander I to submit once again to the terms of a treaty that Napoleon had imposed upon him four years earlier In June 24, 1812 when napoleon's grande armée crossed the neman river in an attempt to engage and defeat the Russian army.