Due to growing disagreements in the foreign policy of Russia and its actual refusal to support the continental trade blockade of England, the Emperor Napoleon made, as it seemed to him, the only possible solution - to unleash military operations on Russian territory and force her to unconditionally follow the French course towards England.
The number of combined forces of the French army for the campaign against Russia was 685, 000, the border with Russia crossed 420, 000. It included troops of Prussia, Austria, Poland and the countries of the Rhine Union.
As a result of the military campaign, Poland was supposed to get the territory of modern Ukraine, Belarus and part of Lithuania. Prussia departed the territory of present-day Latvia, partly Lithuania and Estonia. In addition, France wanted Russia to help in the campaign against India, which at that time was the largest English colony.
On the night of June 24, in a new style, the advanced units of the Great Army crossed the Russian border in the Neman River region. The Cossack watchdogs retreated. Alexander I made his last attempt to conclude a peace agreement with the French. In the personal message of the Russian emperor to Napoleon there was a demand to cleanse the Russian territory. Napoleon answered the emperor with a categorical refusal in an insulting form.
At the beginning of the campaign, the French had their first difficulties - interruptions in forage, which led to a massive death of horses. The Russian army, led by the generals Barclay de Tolly and Bagration, due to the great numerical superiority of the enemy, was forced to retreat inland, not giving a general battle. Near Smolensk 1 and 2, the Russian armies united and stopped. On August 16, Napoleon ordered the assault on Smolensk to begin. After a fierce battle, which lasted 2 days, the Russians blew up the powder cellars, set fire to Smolensk and retreated east.
The fall of Smolensk gave rise to a murmur of the whole of Russian society against Commander-in-Chief Barclay de Tolly. He was accused of treason, surrender of the city: “The Minister leads the guest straight to Moscow” - they wrote angrily from Bagration’s headquarters to St. Petersburg. Emperor Alexander decided to replace Commander-in-Chief General Barclay with Kutuzov. Arriving in the army on August 29, Kutuzov, to the surprise of the entire army, gave the order to move further east. Taking this step, Kutuzov knew that Barclay was right, Napoleon would be ruined by a long campaign, the remoteness of troops from supply bases, etc., but he knew that the people would not allow him to give Moscow away without a fight. Therefore, on September 4, the Russian army stopped near the village of Borodino. Now the ratio of the Russian and French army was almost equal: 120, 000 people and 640 guns at Kutuzov and 135, 000 soldiers and 587 guns at Napoleon.
August 26 (September 7), 1812, according to historians, a turning point in the entire Napoleonic campaign. The battle of Borodino lasted about 12 hours, losses on both sides were colossal: Napoleon’s army lost about 40, 000 soldiers, Kutuzov’s army about 45, 000. Despite the fact that the French managed to push back the Russian troops and Kutuzov was forced to retreat to Moscow, the battle of Borodino was actually lost did not have.
On September 1, 1812, a military council was held in Fili, at which Kutuzov took responsibility and ordered the generals to leave Moscow without a fight and retreat along the Ryazan road. The next day, the French army entered empty Moscow. At night, Russian saboteurs set fire to the city. Napoleon had to leave the Kremlin and give the order to partially withdraw troops from the city. For several days, Moscow burned down almost to the ground.
Partisan detachments, led by commanders Davydov, Figner and others, destroyed food depots, intercepted carts with fodder in the way of the French. In the Napoleonic army, famine began. The Kutuzov army turned from the Ryazan direction and blocked the approach to the Old Kaluga road, which Napoleon hoped to follow. So Kutuzov’s brilliant plan “to make the Frenchman retreat along the Old Smolensk Road” worked.
Exhausted by the coming winter, hunger, and the loss of guns and horses, the Great Army suffered a crushing defeat near Vyazma on November 3, during which the French lost about 20 thousand more people. In the Battle of Berezina that followed on November 26, the Napoleonic army was reduced by another 22, 000. On December 14, 1812, the remnants of the Great Army crossed the Neman and then retreated to Prussia. Thus, the Patriotic War of 1812 ended in a crushing defeat for the army of Napoleon Bonaparte.
