Skip over navigation

Timeline: The Russian Campaign and Napoleon's Defeat

Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, eternalized in Tolstoy's War and Peace, has become a byword for the nemesis of overreaching power. Like Charles XII of Sweden before him and Adolf Hitler in the 20th Century, Napoleon was to face destruction in the endless reaches of the Russian Empire. Contrary to one popular misconception, Napoleon's Russian campaign was well planned and supplied. Preparations began in January of 1811, just after Tsar Alexander I withdrew from the Continental System on December 31, 1810, and began openly trading with Britain. Napoleon rapidly moved his Grand Army, consisting of roughly 700,000 men, into Poland, along Russia's border, to retaliate this breach in loyalty. Russia, however, did not attack, instead choosing to form the Sixth Coalition, cemented by a secret alliance between Russia and Sweden in March 1812, and also included Britain and rebel Spain. In May 1812 Napoleon took command of the multinational Grande Armee assembled in POland and on 24-25 June crossed the Niemen into Russian territory. Although presented to the French people in grand terms as motivated by the desire to destroy the permanent threat to Europe posed by Russian power, Napoleon's vast enterprise was above all meant to punish the tsar for leaving the continental blockade. It was far from being the crazy or impossible enterprise it may appear with the benefit of hindsight. But the refusal of the Russian army to engage in the one big battle Napoleon always sought rendered all his plans worthless. The only major battle of the campaign, at Borodino on 7 September 1812, ended with a territorial gain for Napoleon but at a very high cost. Napoleon's army eventually reached a Moscow abandoned and destroyed by the Russian army based on the scorched-earth policy. As the French occupied the city, the Russian winter began, and the Tsar's refusal to negotiate a peace forced Napoleon to retreat from Moscow, less than a month after his occupation of the city began. Despite the retreat, the Russian winter still decimated the Grande Armee, so badly that only 100,000 of the original army returned from Russia.

As Napoleon realized the full extent of the disaster in Russia, his vulnerability was exposed to the world, leading his relucant allies, e.g. Prussia and the Confederation of the Rhine, to quickly abandon him. In December 1812 Napoleon sensed trouble. He left his army in Russia, as he had previously abandoned his army in Egypt, to rush back to Paris, where the conspiracy led by the half-mad General Malet, which threatened to overthrow Napoleon, had spread the news of his death in Russia. In the early months of 1812, Prussia broke from its alliance with Napoleon and joined Russia against him; northern Germany rose against Napoleonic rule; Sweden, ruled by Marshal Bernadotte, reinforced the coalition; Austria broke the French alliance but remained neutral until August; and the French finally evacuated Madrid. All Europe was now united against Napoleon. The final Grand Alliance was completed in August 1813 when Austria abandoned its neutrality to take part in driving Napoleon's forces from Germany. Although he showed all his old expertise and daring in the campaigns of Germany in 1813 and France in 1814, even by his marshals and French legislators that Napoleon's cause was lost. The 'Battle of the Nations' at Leipzig on 16-19 October 1813 led to the collapse of the Confederation of the Rhine and the Kingdom of Westphalia and Napoleon's retreat from Germany. With Wellington's advance through northern Spain to the Pyrenees, Napoleon was having to fight on two fronts at once. As the Allies crossed the Rhine in January 1814 and Murat, king of Naples, defected in a desperate attempt to retain his throne, Napoleon stubbornly refused all offers of peace. Even his brilliant series of actions in eastern France in February could not stop the Allied advances from east and south.

Wellington entered Bordeaux on 12 March; Marshals Marmont and Mortier surrendered Paris to the Allies on 31 March; and after a final attempt to preserve the dynasty by abdicating in favor of his son, Napoleon abdicated unconditionally on 11 April 1814, by the Treaty of Fontainebleau. Napoleon's family was placed in the custody of Francis I of Austria, and Louis XVIII became king of a France restored to its frontiers of 1792. Napoleon began his exile on the island of Elba on 4 May.

After Napoleon's fall was clear, following his defeat at Leipzig, the victorious powers began to fight amongst themselves over what to do with France. Alexander I wanted to put his own puppet king on the throne and the British wanted a Bourbon back on the throne. In November of 1813, Metternich announced the "Frankfurt Proposals", proposing that Napoleon should continue to rule a weakened France (Metternich knew Napoleon would be indebted to Austria for this). Napoleon rejected the offer. Britain, frightened of such a possibility, immediately dispatched Viscount Castlereagh to the continent to negotiate for England, and to advocate putting a Bourbon on the French throne. Metternich and Castlereagh immediately teamed up, secretly agreeing to prevent Russia from becoming to strong. The four powers signed the Treaty of Chaumont, promising to remain as allies for 20 years to stop France if it ever became too powerful.

The Treaty of Paris, which restored France to its 1792 borders, was surprisingly mild. Instead of destroying France, the great powers of Europe wanted a stable, normal France that could help preserve the delicate balance of power that European peace depended on. In terms of land power, the Treaty was a great success, establishing such a balance that no war broke out in Europe for a century. Even so, with its dominance of the seas, a growing industrial economy, and a vibrant colonial network, Britain emerged from the Treaty first among equals.

Interestingly, at the same time France was fighting with Russia, Britain became embroiled in war with the US. With the Continental System and British blockade competing to shut down trade in enemy countries, the United States found itself unable to trade with either France or Britain. Napoleon lifted the ban on US shipping, in exchange for a promise not to trade with Britain. Britain retaliated against the US in the War of 1812. The war ended in a standoff, effectively establishing the United States' sovereignty in the Western Hemisphere, as eventually articulated in the 1823 Monroe doctrine. Yet though the war certainly sapped British strength, it did not have nearly the staggering affect on the British that the Russian campaign took on the French. In fact, it is perhaps because of the events in Europe that the British did not fully commit themselves to war against the US, and the US was able to achieve the result it did.