The Grand Armée of France, which had started the campaign in the summer with over 400,000 troops, had been reduced to a rabble of 10,000 starving, freezing men. Napoleon, apprised of a coup plot in France, abandoned the army and sped home, leaving Murat in command.
The French army, reduced to between 10,000 and 30,000 men, only 1,000 in formation, crossed the Nieman river into Kovno. The Russians, too, had been weakened by the cold and lack of supplies and so abandoned the pursuit. Napoleon's invasion of Russia, called the "Patriotic War of 1812" by the Russians, was over.
French: 400,000 to 550,000 men, 175,000 horses, 1,000 cannons; Russian: 250,000 and as many as 50,000 Cossack irregulars.
Now that Napoleon had been weakened and was shown not to be invincible, the former allies were emboldened to rebel. Both the Prussians and the Austrians, whose forces had been used to protect the flanks of the French Grand Armée, revolted against Napoleonic domination and signed treaties with Russia.
Eugène replaced Murat as the commander of the French army. The French retreated across the Elbe in the face of rebellion by the Prussians and Austrians.
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Last Updated Saturday, October 4, 1997.