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military · 1812
The Grande Armee walked into a war of attrition against an opponent who refused to fight, and every exit ramp Napoleon passed made the next one more expensive.
Facts drawn from archival and scholarly records; troop figures from period sources vary widely and are labeled as modeled estimates.
In June 1812 Napoleon led his Grande Armee across the Niemen River into Russia, a multinational force of about 600,000 men by common scholarly estimates, though the figures vary by source and by what counts as the main body [MODELED]. It was the largest army Europe had ever assembled, and its plan required a short war: force the Russian army into a decisive battle near the frontier, dictate terms, and go home before logistics failed.
The Russians declined to cooperate. They withdrew east, burning depots and stripping the country, while heat, typhus, desertion, and strained supply lines shrank the French army week by week without a battle. At Vitebsk in late July, and again at Smolensk in August, Napoleon faced clean opportunities to halt for the season and consolidate; his own staff argued for stopping, and he pressed on both times. The one great battle came at Borodino on September 7, 1812, and it settled nothing [VERIFIED]. It was among the bloodiest single days of the Napoleonic era, with combined casualties commonly estimated near seventy thousand, and the Russian army withdrew intact rather than break [MODELED].