In the late 18th century, relations between France and Russia were uneasy. With Napoleon's assumption of Prime Consul and the onset of the Napoleonic Wars of conquest matters became further upset. Russia took part in the wars between Austria and France in 1805 and between Prussia and France in 1806-07. With the defeat of Prussia in 1806 and of Austria in 1805 and 1809, Russia alone remained outside of Napoleon's grip of the continent.
The Treaty of Tilsit, signed in 1807, forced a truce on Czar Alexander. It halted the war between Russia and France and put Russia within the French sphere of influence on trade.
Relations between France and Russia worsened as the Napoleon's Continental System ruined the economies of the Continent. The Continental System was a continent-wide blockade of British trade established to weaken the British economy. Its effect was to hurt the economies of France, its allies and dependents, together with the states under France's sphere of influence. Foreign trade decreased, currencies fell, and economies began to crumble.
Napoleon annexed German states all the way to the Elbe river. Among these was Oldenburg, whose duke was a relative of Alexander. Czar Alexander further resented the establishment of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, the revival of Poland as an independent state.
Napoleon angered the Czar by his failure to join Alexander in pushing the Turks out of southern Europe.
By the end of 1810, Napoleon began preparing an enormous army to finally put down the one holdout against him on the continent so he could concentrate on defeating Great Britain. The Grand Armée was created out of armies from France and France's allies, including Prussia, Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, Italy, Poland, and Spain. Of the estimated 610,000 soldiers, over half were not French.
Russia was able to concentrate its war preparation efforts by establishing a treaty with Turkey in Bucharest in May 1812.
England, sensing an opportunity to weaken Napoleon's eastern front, made overtures to Sweden and Russia and, in June 1812, signed treaties with both.
Alexander increased the Russian army by 23 infantry and ten cavalry regiments, with eight static artillery batteries and six horse-drawn artillery companies. The number of troops, including Cossack and militia irregulars, came to 900,000 men, with 500,000 being field troops. Because the armies were scattered in Moldavia, the Crimea, the Caucasus, Finland and internal regions, Russia was able to put only about 240,000 troops and 934 field guns on the western frontier by June 1812.
The Russian guard on the frontier consisted of three armies. General M. B. Barclay de Tolly (Prince Michael Andreas Bogdanovich) commanded the First Army of 127,000 men. The First Army was deployed on the northern edge of the border, toward St. Petersburg. The Second Army was under the command of General Prince P. I. Bagration. His 45,000 to 48,000 troops held the center of the Russian border, between the Neiman and Bug rivers north of the Pripet marshes. The Third Army, under General A. P. Tormasov, consisted of between 43,000 to 46,000 men, deployed in the south, toward Kiev.
The operational strategies of Napoleon principally consisted of the concentration of all his forces against the enemy at a critical point, the careful preparation and the uniting of forces before the action to deliver an overpowering weight of striking power in a shock attack, and the selection of battlegrounds advantageous to his forces. This strategy necessitated a thorough knowledge of the terrain of the theatre of war, especially as quick movement precluded adequate supplying of his armies without a large amount of requisitioning in the area of operations. The answer to this strategy for Napoleon's enemies was to maintain a threat while avoiding engagements until coordination could be achieved; relying on strong lines of supply, allied armies could await opportunity while Napoleon's troops, chasing them, began to suffer from overextension of their supply lines. This strategy was used first in the Peninsular Campaign of 1811 by the Duke of Wellington, who was able to open up Spain using supply lines through Portugal. [1]
The Russians were not blind to the trouble Napoleon was having in his war in Spain. By drawing out the conflict, the Spanish were able to take advantage of Napoleon's thin logistical support. Recognizing the tactics employed in the Peninsular War could offer even greater success in Russia, the generals of the Russian Army recommended to Czar Alexander that they employ a delaying strategy designed to sap the resources of the French army, so far from their bases. In addition to denying Napoleon the quick action he sought, they would also sap his resources by destroying supplies behind them and preventing the French from successfully foraging. The scorched earth policy had the Russians destroying crops to deny the invaders food, burning buildings to prohibit sheltering in them, dumping dead animals into wells to poison them, and destroying bridges, signs, and roads to confuse, confound and delay the French.
Napoleon assembled the French Grand Armée in Poland, just to the west of the Russian border on the Niemen (Neman) river between Kovno (Kaunas) and Grodno. The army consisted of ten army corps, the Austrian Secondary corps, and four reserved cavalry corps. With reserves it numbered approximately 678,000 men. Fewer than 200,000 of the troops were French. The remainder were troops from the armies of allied states (Poles, Austrians, Italians, Saxons, Prussians, Spanish, etc.). In addition to the infantry, the Grand Army consisted of 96,000 cavalry, 20,000 sappers, a siege contingent, and others. A reserve army of 160,000 was held in the rear between the Vistula and Oder rivers. The plan was launch war on a front reaching from the Pripet marshes to the Baltic Sea. The French would crush the Russian armies in swift encounters, march on Moscow, let Alexander sue for peace, then return to France with Napoleon as the undisputed power in Europe.
Napoleon's right flank to the south, where they faced the Russian Third Army, was covered by an Austrian army of from 32,500 to 40,000 under the command of Prince Karl Phillip von Schwarzenberg. The French left flank, to the north, was protected by Marshal Jack E. J. A. MacDonald's army of between 34,000 and 40,000 primarily Prussian troops.
The main French force, under Napoleon's direct command, consisted of a force of about 220,000 men. The lines of communication to the rear were protected by the armies of Eugène P. de Beauharnais, the Italian Viceroy and Napoleon's son-in-law, with about 82,000 troops and Jérôme Napoleon, the King of Westphalia and Napoleon's son, with about 78,000 men. These smaller armies were also to be used in enveloping and flanking tactics.
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Last Updated Saturday, October 4, 1997.