Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow

THERE are many versions of the quotation about forgetting history and being doomed to repeat it. It is attributed to the Spanish born philosopher, George Santayana who was reared and educated in the United States. His quote was that, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  Again that is simply a rewrite of Edmund Burke’s “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” Both men wrote long before Hitler’s great invasion of Russia but the Fuhrer did not learn from Napoleon’s invasion and was doomed to repeat it.
Both men wanted to totally control Europe. In both cases, each had a treaty with Russia; Hitler with Stalin and Napoleon with the Tsar. In both cases, the western leader choose to ignore their advisors and broke the treaties to suit their own purposes.
In June 1812, Napoleon expanded his Grand Army to almost half a million men and launched an invasion of Russia.
The Russians would not commit to a decisive engagement and apart from a brief battle in August they retreated further and further east. As they moved east, they destroyed everything in their path leaving no supplies which the French army might use. The further east Napoleon went, the more stretched his supply line. Eventually, a battle was fought at Borodino outside Moscow which resulted in almost 80,000 casualties and again the Russian army retreated, this time passing out Moscow.
Napoleon led his army into Moscow. He expected the authorities to surrender the city to him and to provide food and accommodation. Instead, he found an almost deserted city. Almost all of Moscow’s quarter of a million inhabitants had left and that night, fires broke out all over the city. Within three days, most of the city was destroyed and still the Tsar refused to surrender. After a month waiting for a surrender that never came and with no food left in Moscow, Napoleon was forced to lead his starving army back towards to France.
Almost immediately, the Russian army began to attack but, now, at times and places of their choosing. The French were little able to resist. The Russians  kept them from using a southerly escape route where they had hoped to get supplies. They were forced to return by their invasion route which had already been devastated. As well as a lack of food, they also faced the rigours of the harsh winter weather. The Russians continued their pursuit and harassment until the end of November but even after that, the French troops fell to exhaustion, hunger and the cold.
Reports arrived of an attempted coup in France so Napoleon abandoned his army and travelled incognito across Europe arriving in Paris on December 18. Six days later, on Christmas Eve the remnants of his Grand Army finally escaped from Russia with the loss of over 400,000 men.
Just as it would happen Hitler years later when his defeat at Stalingrad and retreat signalled the beginning of the end for the Third Reich, so it had been for Napoleon.
It was the end of his Russian campaign, his army was decimated and a coalition of nations gathered together to finally defeat him 18 months later at Waterloo.
Napoleon’s disastrous retreat from Moscow began on October 19, 1812, 199 years ago this week.
Michael Torpey