Polish Eyewitnesses to Napoleon's 1812 Campaign

Polish Eyewitnesses to Napoleon's 1812 Campaign PDF

Author: Marek Tadeusz Lalowski

Publisher: Pen and Sword Military

Published: 2020-12-14

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1526782626

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The drama of Napoleon’s ill-fated invasion of Russia is captured through the letters and diaries of Polish soldiers who fought with the French. Napoleon’s invasion of Russia cost hundreds of thousands lives and changed the course of history. Europe had never seen an army like the one gathering in Poland in 1812—half a million men in brilliant uniforms and shimmering helmets. Six months later, it was the ghost of an army, frozen and horrified, retreating home. This illuminating volume tells the story of this epic military disaster from the viewpoint of the tens of thousands of Polish soldiers who took part. Some of them were patriots eager to regain independence for their country. Others were charmed by the glory of Napoleonic warfare or were professional soldiers who were simply doing their jobs. They all tell an unrivaled tale of ruthless battles, burning villages, numbing hunger, and biting cold. By the end the great army had been reduced to a pitiless mob and the Polish soldiers, who had set out with such hope, recalled it with horror.

1812--Napoleon's Invasion of Russia

1812--Napoleon's Invasion of Russia PDF

Author: Paul Britten Austin

Publisher:

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 1188

ISBN-13: 9781853674150

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This volume brings together Austin's atmospheric trilogy on Napoleon's Russian campaign, allowing the reader to trace the course of Napoleon's doomed soldiers from the crossing of the Niemen in 1812 to the finale in the depths of a Russian winter.

1812: Napoleon in Moscow

1812: Napoleon in Moscow PDF

Author: Paul Britten Austin

Publisher: Frontline Books

Published: 2012-12-03

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 1473811392

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This account of Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of Russia, in the words of those who experienced it, offers “a brilliant insight into men at war” (David G. Chandler, author of The Campaigns of Napoleon). Hundreds of thousands of men set out on that midsummer day of 1812. None could have imagined the terrors and hardships to come. They’d been lured all the way to Moscow without having achieved the decisive battle Napoleon sought—and by the time they reached the city, their numbers had already dwindled by more than a third. One of the greatest disasters in military history was in the making. The fruit of more than twenty years of research, this superbly crafted work skillfully blends the memoirs and diaries of more than a hundred eyewitnesses, all of whom took part in the Grand Army’s doomed march on Moscow, to reveal the inside story of this landmark military campaign. The result is a uniquely authentic account in which the reader sees and experiences the campaign through the eyes of participants in enthralling day-by-day, sometimes hour-by-hour detail.

Napoleon's Russian Campaign of 1812

Napoleon's Russian Campaign of 1812 PDF

Author: Edward Foord

Publisher: e-artnow

Published: 2021-11-02

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13:

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Napoleon's Russian Campaign of 1812 is a historical account of the French invasion of Russia which was undertaken by Napoleon to force Russia back into the Continental blockade of the United Kingdom. On 24 June 1812 and the following days, the first wave of the multinational Grande Armée crossed the border into Russia with somewhere around 600,000 soldiers, the opposing Russian field forces amounted to around 180,000–200,000 at this time. Through a series of long forced marches, Napoleon pushed his army rapidly through Western Russia in a futile attempt to destroy the retreating Russian Army of Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly, winning just the Battle of Smolensk in August. Under its new Commander in Chief Mikhail Kutuzov, the Russian Army continued to retreat employing attrition warfare against Napoleon forcing the invaders to rely on a supply system that was incapable of feeding their large army in the field. The fierce Battle of Borodino, seventy miles west of Moscow, was a narrow French victory that resulted in a Russian general withdrawal to the south of Moscow near Kaluga. On 14 September, Napoleon and his army of about 100,000 men occupied Moscow, only to find it abandoned, and the city was soon ablaze. Napoleon stayed in Moscow for 5 weeks, waiting for a peace offer that never came. Lack of food for the men and fodder for the horses, hypothermia from the bitter cold and guerilla warfare from Russian peasants and Cossacks led to great losses. Three days after the Battle of Berezina, only around 10,000 soldiers of the main army remained. On 5 December, Napoleon left the army and returned to Paris.

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