506 Ch. 13 • Napoleon and Europe

The retreat of the Grand Army in Russia, November 1812.

the Grand Duchy of Warsaw (Napoleon's defeat ended the hopes of Polish

nationalists for independence), only about 40,000 returned to France in

December. (Indeed, a mass grave of frozen soldiers of the Grand Army was

discovered in Lithuania in 2003.) After racing ahead of the groans of the

dying and the frozen corpses, Napoleon issued a famous bulletin that was

sent back to Paris: ‘The health of the emperor has never been better.”

Napoleon arrived at the Tuileries Palace in December 1812. In the wake

of a military disaster of such dimensions that press censorship and duplici­

tous official bulletins (the expression “to lie like a military bulletin” became

current) could not gloss over it, the mood of the French people soured.

Undaunted, Napoleon demanded a new levy of 350,000 ijiore troops.

This call, coming at a time of great economic hardship, was greeted with

massive resentment and resistance. Instead of negotiating a peace that could

have left France with the left bank of the Rhine River, Napoleon planned

new campaigns and further expansion.

The Defeat of Napoleon

Napoleon now faced allies encouraged by his devastating defeat. In Febru­

ary 1813, Russia and Prussia signed an alliance, agreeing to fight Napoleon

until the independence of the states of Europe was restored. Napoleon

earned two costly victories over Russian and Prussian troops in the spring of

1813, but his casualties were high. Great Britain, still fighting the French in

Spain, formally joined the coalition in June. Napoleon rejected Austrian

conditions for peace, which included the dissolution of the Confederation

of the Rhine, and Austria joined the coalition in August 1813. Napoleon's