Last Days of Napoleon’s Army in Russia (According to French Documents)

Abstract

The author of this article turns to the events of the last period of the retreat of Napoleon’s Grande Armйe from Russia, starting from the French emperor’s final decision to leave for Paris on December 3 and ending with Marshal M. Ney’s rearguard crossing the River Neman on December 13, 1812. The author reconstructs the events with reference to a significant number of French documents, many of which, stored in the archives of the Historical Service of the Ministry of Defense and the National Archives of France, have never been an object of scholarly research previously. The data proposed by the author confirm the fact of the most difficult conditions in which the troops of the central grouping of Napoleon’s army left the Russian territory. The situation was aggravated by the fact that leaving the army, Napoleon was overly optimistic about the prospects for completing the Russian campaign, counting on the possibility of the troops occupying winter apartments soon in Vilna region. At the same time, his assessment of the possibilities of conducting offensive operations by the Russian army turned out to be excessively underestimated. In any case, the last days of their stay in Russia, disastrous for the central grouping of the Grande Armйe, did not lead to a complete paralysis of the functioning of Napoleon’s military machine. The prospects for restoring the combat capability of the Napoleonic army were quite real. This circumstance speaks of the correctness of the decision taken by the Russian state and military leadership regarding the need to continue active hostilities.

Keywords

• отечественная война 1812 г.
• армия наполеона
• французские архивные документы
• военно-историческая антропология