Napoleon’s Biggest Blunder
When he reached Moscow, Napoleon assumed that the Russians would sue for peace. In his biggest blunder of the Russian invasion, he waited for their peace feelers while winter drew near. The Russians strung him along. No more, however, than he strung himself along with dreams of peace negotiations, long after it became obvious that the Russians were not interested. By the time Napoleon gave up and marched back to Smolensk, it was too late. His unprepared army was caught by winter during the retreat. That was exacerbated by his choice of route. Napoleon had two options, and he picked a route that was struck by severe winter storms. The route he didn’t take saw little snow that year.
Most of Napoleon’s army starved or froze to death, or perished at the hands of Cossacks who harried its rear and flanks. The French emperor had marched into Russia with 685,000 men – at the time, the largest army the world had ever seen. He came out with only 35,000 Frenchmen still under his command. The rest had died (over 400,000), deserted, or switched sides. When he reflected upon the debacle, Napoleon commented: “From the sublime to the ridiculous, it is only one step“.
