an apoplectic blow (a snuffbox in the temple). Gold, saved during the expropriation of peasant stocks (it had enough in Bonaparte), the inclination to plunder churches and monasteries, arrogance, will subsequently turn into rivers of blood of French soldiers.
Napoleon’s army consists of: 20,000 Prussian soldiers-Prussia is offered some territories of the present Baltic states, 30,000 Austrians, 100,000 Poles, 21,000 Italians, 300,000 French, 8,000 former Russian prisoners of war who believe that they are liberating the country from serfdom, and also parts from other subordinate countries of the French Empire – only about 608,000 people (there are also large figures). The Russian army is divided into three parts, totaling 420,000 people.
Food stocks are calculated only for 50 days. Bonaparte expects to win a frontier general battle, after which his troops would almost seamlessly enter Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The invasion begins on the Neman river, near the city of Kaunas of present-day Lithuania, on the evening of June 23, 1812. In the north, the Prussian troops storm Riga. After the capture of this city, they would have to go to Petersburg, but the recent allies of Russia in the fighting are not particularly zealous.
The border battle is not impossible: on the eve of the war a huge fortified Drais camp is being built, in which Russian troops would have to restrain the 600,000th enemy army. Alexander the First declines to such a decision, but the higher officers urge the emperor to first abandon this plan, then leave the headquarters and go to St. Petersburg.
September 7 near the village of Borodino, 125 kilometers south of Moscow, there is a general battle. The number of the French army at this stage is 135,000 men, with 587 cannon, 15,000 non-combatants (helping to endure wounded, etc.) Russian – 120,000 people, 624 guns, plus 20,000 militias without firearms, usually performing a supporting role.
Napoleon’s plan is drawing a distracting blow to the center of enemy positions, an attack by the main forces on the left flank of the Russian army, its encirclement and destruction. M. Kutuzov, on the whole, all this foresees, and the troops on this site strengthens. The chief of staff, Bennigsen, somewhat distorts the commander’s intention, removing the reserve corps from the shelter too early, practically, under the fire of French artillery.
At noon, Russian troops on the left flank very successfully counterattack, while in the front ranks there is Marshal Bagration himself. A fragment of the core hurts the commander, the news of this instantly demoralizes the army. The retreat begins. The onslaught of the French is somewhat weakened after the raid on their rear by 2500 Cossacks General Platov. The troops regroup, Napoleon leaves the left flank of the Russians, rushes to the center, beats redoubts, at the cost of almost all the heavy cavalry, and stops. At seven o’clock in the evening the French emperor takes his troops from the battlefield.
At night, having collected almost all of his wounded, the Russian army departs to Mozhaisk, 105 kilometers west of Moscow.
Losses of the parties; Russian army 42 000 killed (30% of the composition), the army of Napoleon – 35 000 people (25%). Only in the autumn of 1812, after the exodus of the French from Moscow (who stayed there for 36 days), it becomes possible to bury, remaining until then unburied 54,000 bodies. Some of them are burned on huge bonfires. It is widely believed that the «General Frost» broke the colossal invasion army, but it should be noted that, at the beginning of the cold, only a third of the original composition remained from it.
After the battle of Maloyaroslavets, Napoleon realizes that he will not be able to gain a foothold in the south of Russia, and leaves the plundered by his troops, the Smolensk road. Only on November 14, evacuation begins for Berezina, but in a very inhospitable Vilna (modern Vilnius), several thousand soldiers and officers are killed from cold and hunger. About 30,000 people remain alive, including soldiers of the German corps of McDonald. Of the Imperial Guard, numbering at the beginning of the invasion 47 thousand people survive four hundred or five hundred. Prisoners and deserters more than 100 thousand, a significant part of them voluntarily remain in Russia after the fall of the empire of Bonaparte.
Pursuing the enemy, the Russian army occupies almost all the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. In 1815, according to the agreements of the Vienna Congress, it becomes part of Russia, the population is sworn in by the Russian sovereign. At the same time, some attributes of autonomy remain; so, for example, the Polish zloty will be replaced by the Russian ruble only in 1832. Formally neutral Dresden is seized, Leipzig and Berlin are liberated. In the battle of Lutzen, the troops of Napoleon fearlessly attack the Russian-Prussian troops, which are extremely full of artillery, bear twice the heavy losses (about 20,000), but force, as a result, the allies from Saxony to retreat. Two more such Pyrrhic victories followed, then Bonaparte calls for a truce. The Sixth Coalition, meanwhile, is being strengthened by Sweden, for its military services, Norway, which has bargained for itself (the Danish possession), and a number of other European monarchies. Under Leipzig, Napoleon offers peace in return for all the countries captured by his troops, with the condition only of the return of the French colonies. Numerous, confident allies reject such a decision and, on October 16, 1813, the grandiose multi-day battle of the Napoleonic wars, the Battle of the Nations, is boiling. Coalition forces – 300 thousand people, 1,400 guns, France – 200 thousand, 600 guns. The battle lasts until October 19, boiling down to a chain of fierce battles. German soldiers in the camp of Bonaparte are moving to the side of the Coalition, solving the outcome of the whole affair. Napoleon retreats, losing killed, wounded (who can not be evacuated) and captives 80,000 people, and 325 guns. The losses of the allies are 54,000, half of them are soldiers of the Russian expeditionary army. Six months later, on April 11, 1814, in the suburbs (captured) of Paris, Fonteblo, Napoleon signed a renunciation of the throne – for himself and his heirs.
…After a series of battles in the suburbs, which brought about an equal number of victims – 6—8 thousand people, and demonstrations of a formidable artillery battery, which had previously performed an unexpected maneuver, the Russian troops took Paris without a fight. There are almost no excesses with the civilian population. Officers pay for liquor through receipts, or put bottles under the table, thus deducing them from the field of view, writing out an account, not too picky waiters. Later for all this, the Russian emperor, or more precisely, the working people under his supervision, will pay.
Lower ranks go beyond the boundaries of the settlement, on the streets of the capital without the written permission of commanders is prohibited, under pain of arrest by the French National Guard, (with the filing of Alexander the First) and subsequent severe punishment. Nevertheless, (or even, including, for this reason) during the year and a half of the occupation, about 40,000 Russian soldiers desert, let’s say softer – leave their army, for the Victory has already been achieved, the French women at that time are very friendly, nice, well provided, local authorities welcome the emergence of new citizens; men, after the Napoleonic adventures, in France is not enough just catastrophically.
On the wave of successes in foreign policy Alexander the First believes that everything is fine in his state; does not in the least hurry with the abolition of serfdom and other major transformations. His opinion is shared by most of the Russian nobility.
In 1816 the Baltic peasants were liberated, however, without land allotments. As always, «lucky» only not completely loyal to Russia, the inhabitants of the outskirts of the empire. Initially free residents of the Russian Pomerania, the Caucasus, the Far East, Alaska, as well as parts of the Asian possessions, Finns and, to some extent, Cossacks.
Belarusian-Lithuanian (to modern Lithuania has no direct relationship), the Polonized nobility, counting on the restoration of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, is subjected to the so-called «dissembling the gentry.»
