30. A Catastrophic Choice of Route
Napoleon’s catastrophic decision to wait in Moscow too was made worse by his catastrophic choice of a retreat route. He had two options, and ended up picking a route that was struck by severe winter storms. The one he didn’t take saw little snow that year. Most of his army starved or froze to death, or were killed by Cossacks who harried the rear and flanks of the retreating columns.
Napoleon 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. Reflecting upon the debacle, Napoleon commented: “From the sublime to the ridiculous, it is only one step“.
