ABOVE: Napoleon witnessing the burning of Moscow after he and the Grande Armée finally reached the Russian capital on 14 September 1812. Russia's failure to adhere to Napoleon's Continental System made his invasion of them nearly inevitable. WikiCommons.

Napoleon generally held the whole of Russia in contempt from its highest official, Tsar Alexander I (1777-1825) down to the lowest peasant. Herein lies the rub. This disdain in many ways helped drive Napoleon to invade Russia, as he could not bear the embarrassment of them knowingly and willingly disobeying his edict as to the parameters of the Continental System. Even when presented with various reports and statements from his recalled ambassador to Russia as to their preparations, resolve, and improvements since their defeat at Friedland, Napoleon contemptuously replied “One good battle will put an end to all your friend Alexander’s excellent resolutions, and to all his fortifications built on sand.”[1]Therefore it was beyond Napoleon’s disposition to not beginning war preparations in 1810, even though allowing the Russians to remain status quo as they were at the time, would have been the better course. 

In allowing them to do so, this would have bought Napoleon time to focus on two very important situations to buffer against Russia. The first, to build on his creation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw (which was seen as a “splinter in the body of Russia” by Emperor Alexander already) by fully creating a polish nation-state.[2] In doing this, the newly created state of Poland would be deeply indebted and grateful to Napoleon and would be a perfect client-state of the French Empire to bolster politically, economically, and militarily as a buffer against any Russian aggressions. The second situation would have been for Napoleon to have sent advisers and all necessary materials to the Ottoman Empire in early 1811. This support expedition would have bolstered the flagging Turkish forces who were at war with Russia at the time and denied them potential access to the Dardanelles and eventually, the Mediterranean. In creating these strategic buffer zones to check potential Russian advancements, Napoleon could have forced their hand diplomatically as to their economic situation and potentially secured favorable concessions without direct military action. Additionally, France would not have been seen as the direct aggressor by other nations, thus putting even more pressure on Tsar Alexander to reach an accord with Napoleon.

ABOVE: Napoleon would invade Russia with over 600,000 troops in 1812, two-thirds of which were made up of non-French allied forces. The campaign proved a crippling disaster for Napoleon, where the bulk of his combat veterans and army were lost. Even the French retreat from Russia proved to be a bloodbath, such as the last stand of the Dutch 3rd Regiment Grenadiers of the Guard depicted here. WikiCommons.  

 The best situation of all-out war with Russia, if the previously mentioned approaches bore no fruit, would have been a course of action (at least initially) that was not in Napoleon’s playbook normally: a defensive war. The fault with Russia is its vast expanse of territory and seemingly endless reserves of manpower, therefore the best case would have been to have forced the Russians to come to him, where he could use his infantry blitzkrieg to pin down, then knock out the Russian armies. The establishment of a strong Poland and a secured Ottoman Empire, would have served as grand-strategic anchor points, securing his flanks, thus allowing for Napoleon to draw the Russians in and destroy them in turn. He would have secured supply lines, knowledge of the terrain, and maximum mobility from which to shape the battlefield and meet them on his terms, thus immensely increases his chances of delivering strong blows to the Russians that would have forced them to the negotiating table while preserving the integrity of the Grand Armée.

Notes

[1] “Franco-Russian Diplomacy, 1810-1812,” The Napoleon Series, accessed October 17, 2021, https://www.napoleon-series.org/research/government/diplomatic/c_rufrdip1.html.

[2] Alexander Mikaberidze, The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2020), 529.

Bibliography 

Castelot, Andre. Napoleon. Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1991. 

Chandler, David. The Campaigns of Napoleon. New York, NY: Macmillan Company, 1966. 

“Franco-Russian Diplomacy, 1810-1812.” The Napoleon Series. Accessed October 13, 2021. https://www.napoleon-series.org/research/government/diplomatic/c_rufrdip1.html. 

Mikaberidze, Alexander. The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Roberts, Andrew. Napoleon: A Life. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2014.