Napoleon began the 1812 campaign by ordering his multinational Grande Armée to cross the Niemen (Neman) River into the Russian Empire. This move launched a high-risk effort to force Russia back into Napoleon’s European system through a fast, decisive campaign. The crossing also set up a long advance where supply lines would stretch farther with each day.
After the opening advance, French forces took Vilna (Vilnius) without a major battle. Napoleon hoped occupying a major center would pressure Russia into negotiations and allow his army to reorganize. Instead, the Russian armies continued withdrawing, avoiding the kind of decisive fight Napoleon wanted.
Near Vitebsk, Russian rear-guard actions helped the main Russian forces slip away again rather than be forced into a full battle. This pattern—retreat, scorched earth, and harassment—made it harder for the French to live off the land and slowed the campaign. Each delay increased the strain on French logistics and weakened the army before it reached Moscow.
At Smolensk, Napoleon finally fought a large-scale battle (August 16–18), capturing the city after heavy fighting. Although a French victory, it failed to destroy the Russian army, which withdrew again and kept the campaign alive. The burning and destruction around Smolensk also signaled how hard it would be for the French to find food and shelter as they advanced.
At Borodino, the two armies fought one of the bloodiest battles of the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon’s army won the field on September 7, but the Russian army was not destroyed and retreated in organized fashion. The outcome gave Napoleon access to Moscow, yet it did not produce the political surrender he needed to end the war.
Napoleon entered Moscow expecting that holding Russia’s historic capital would force Tsar Alexander I to negotiate. Instead, Moscow was largely evacuated, and fires broke out soon after the French arrived, destroying much of the city. With little food, few supplies, and no peace offer, Moscow became a trap rather than a prize.
Russian forces struck Napoleon’s forward elements at Tarutino, defeating troops under Marshal Murat. The action showed that the Russian army was no longer simply retreating—it was now attacking to speed up the French collapse. This helped push Napoleon deeper into a retreat where every day brought more losses from fighting, hunger, and exposure.
After waiting for negotiations that never came, Napoleon ordered the retreat from Moscow. The French army was already short of food, horses, and warm clothing, and its discipline was breaking down. From this point forward, the campaign’s focus shifted from conquest to survival under constant Russian pressure.
At Maloyaroslavets, hard fighting convinced Napoleon he could not safely retreat south into less-devastated territory toward Kaluga. Instead, he turned back toward the already ravaged Smolensk road—the same route used in the advance to Moscow. This decision sharply increased suffering on the retreat, because the countryside along that road had already been stripped of supplies.
At Vyazma, Russian forces attacked the stretched-out French column and inflicted heavy losses on the rear units. The fighting worsened disorder and showed how vulnerable the retreat had become to coordinated Russian strikes and Cossack raids. It also highlighted a key problem: the Grande Armée was no longer moving as a single, well-supplied force.
From November 15 to 18, a series of actions around Krasnoi allowed Russian forces to hit separated French corps as they struggled west. The fighting cost the French men, guns, and cohesion, even as Napoleon tried to keep the army together for the next major obstacle. Krasnoi was a turning point where “organized retreat” increasingly became “flight under pressure.”
At the Berezina River, Russian forces aimed to trap and destroy the remnants of Napoleon’s army. French engineers built pontoon bridges near Studyanka, allowing much of the army to cross between November 26 and 29, but at enormous human cost, including many stragglers and civilians. The crossing saved the core of the force, yet it became a symbol of catastrophe in French memory.
With the army still retreating in extreme cold, Napoleon handed command to Marshal Murat and left the front to reach Paris quickly. He departed near Smorgon (Smarhon) on December 5, aiming to manage political risks and raise new forces. His departure underscored how completely the campaign’s goals had shifted from victory to limiting the damage.
After reaching Vilnius on December 9, the shattered remains of the Grande Armée moved on toward Kovno (Kaunas) and crossed back over the Niemen River into safer territory. This marked the practical end of the 1812 Russian campaign as a fighting operation. The retreat’s losses weakened Napoleon’s power in Europe and encouraged his enemies to renew the war against France.
Russian Campaign and the Retreat from Moscow (June–Dec 1812)