Containing some of the largest and bloodiest battles of the wars, Napoleon’s Russian Campaign of 1812 represents the Napoleonic Wars at their most fierce, with men fighting for the existence of their nations, as Napoleon attempted to re-draw and re-shape the boundaries of Europe once again. Indeed, at the Battle of Borodino, the central clash within the campaign, roughly 250,000 troops assembled on the battlefield, in a day’s fighting that saw roughly a third become casualties, making it one of the largest and bloodiest battle of the entire Napoleonic Wars. It is this sense of scale which has motivated study of the campaign, but also makes it so interesting, inspiring, amongst other works, powerful music by Tchaikovsky in the 1812 Overture, and Tolstoy’s literary epic, War and Peace.

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The Russian Campaign however also represents one of the major turning points of the Napoleonic Wars, with Napoleon crossing the Neman River on 24th June 1812 with roughly 600,000 men in his Grand Armée, the largest army ever assembled in Europe up until that point, of which only roughly 22,000 (3.5%) returned. Despite initial French successes, and the capture of Moscow, the Russian Army, led by Mikhail Kutuzov, was able to retreat into the expanse of Russia, implementing a ‘scorched earth’ strategy, by burning all crops and sources of provisions for the French army, forcing Napoleon to overextend his supply lines and stall at the Russian Capital, as his army relied on foraging. Held at the capital, and unable to continue campaigning onward into Russia, Napoleon was forced to retreat at the onset of the perilous Russian winter, which made the difficult problem of supplying his army an impossible one. Equipped only for summer campaigning, too, his army suffered heavy attrition from the weather, and were then attacked by the advancing Russians, who began their counteroffensive and harried them as they retreated.