War & conflict
Napoleon's march on Moscow: how Europe's greatest army destroyed itself
11 min
Napoleon took half a million men into Russia and brought a fraction home, undone not by a decisive battle but by distance, scorched earth, and the brutal cold.
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Show notes
Napoleon lost eighty thousand men to disease and exhaustion within the first three weeks of the campaign.
Russian forces burned three-quarters of Moscow to deny the French army shelter and a formal surrender.
The Grande Armée lost one thousand horses every day because they were forced to eat unripe rye.
Napoleon waited thirty-six days in the ruins of Moscow for a peace offer that never arrived.
Dutch pontooniers sacrificed their lives in freezing water to build bridges for the retreat at the Berezina River.
The invasion ended with over five hundred thousand total casualties from an original force of six hundred fifteen thousand.
In this episode
- 1Intro1 min
- 2The Logistics of Hubris2 min
- 3The Scorched Earth Trap3 min
- 4The Burning of Moscow2 min
- 5The Frozen Rout3 min
- 6Outro1 min
Sources
- Napoleon's Invasion of Russia - World History Encyclopedia
- Napoleon's Russian Campaign of 1812
- BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow
- What destroyed Napoleon’s army? Scientists uncover new clues. | National Geographic
- Napoleon's Invasion of Russia: A Detailed Summary - History Crunch
- Timeline: The Russian Campaign and Napoleon's Defeat
- Napoleon's Russian campaign: From the Niemen to Moscow
- Faq#10: Why did Napoleon Fail in Russia in 1812?
- French invasion of Russia - Wikiwand
- Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon Invades Russia 1812
- French invasion of Russia | Napoleon, Battles, & Casualties
- Failing at Echelon: Napoleon in the 1812 Russia Campaign » Wavell Room
- Napoleon's Invasion of Russia - World History Encyclopedia
- Napoleon's Invasion of Russia
- French invasion of Russia
- The Russian Campaign 1812: Ultimate Chance for Peace? - WarHistory.org
- The Book of War is Written By Chance: Napoleon’s 1812 March and the Challenge of Using History as a Guide for Strategy
- Napoleon's Russian Campaign: The Retreat - napoleon.org
- Napoleon Logistics Failure Caused by the 1812 Throughput Trap - Business Lessons From History
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