Essay On Napoleon's Invasion Of Russia

685 Words2 Pages

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, put 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). Napoleon Taking place 75 miles from Moscow, the French and Russians were just hitting each other very hard, each pounding the other with loads of artillery, charges, and countercharges, leaving the average rate of fire to be about 3 cannon booms and 7 musket shots a second. The casualties on each side were enormous, with the total amount of deaths on both sides being about 70,000, the Russians did not continue with the fighting on the second day, as they withdrew and left the road to Moscow wide open. On September 14th, the Grand Armée entered the Russian capital of Moscow, but to their surprise, by the time they arrived, it was nothing more than what was once a city, but was then completely covered in flames. Most of its residents had been long gone, but had left behind many bottles of liquor, but as much liquor as there was, there was hardly any food, so the French troops did what they could, they drank and looted until Napoleon got word that Alexander I wanted to negotiate for peace. No such offer ever came, and with the flusters of snow having already fallen, Napoleon had nothing else to do but lead his army out of Moscow on the 19th of October, as he realized that they could not survive a winter in

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