response on his return was to make Marie-Louise regent (with an
advisory council of princes of the blood and grand dignitaries) against his
likely future absences on campaign.
1812 was the beginning of the end for Napoleon. The miracle was that
he was able to rally a reluctant French people at all after such a
catastrophe. The total loss of human life on this campaign has been
disputed and almost certainly underestimated. 37o,ooo French troops
perished on the battlefield, of cold and exposure or disease. 20o,ooo more
were taken prisoner or deserted and, in the light of what has been said
about partisan atrocities, there need be no serious debate about their
probable fate. The fr ightful loss of life can be gauged fr om one single
statistic: the Guard, 47,000 strong, had not been involved in the heaviest
fighting, but returned with just 1,500 men alive. Additionally, the French
lost 2oo,ooo horses - a loss that could never be made good and was to
have devastating military consequences. The Russians lost at least
150,000 dead in battle, plus a huge but unknown number of civilians.
Given the propensity of historians seriously to underrate casualties in
Russian warfare (now apparent from the significant upward revisions in
total fatalities for the 'Great Patriotic War' of 1941-45), it is not
improbable that a million people died during the six-month campaign of
r8r2.
In retrospect, it seems that Napoleon made virtually every mistake in
the book: failure to keep Sweden and Turkey in play as allies against
Russia, failure to set out in May, to grant Polish independence, to fr ee the
serfs, to reach Moscow by early August if he was to go there at all. Then
there were sins of commission: wasting time in Vilna, Vitebsk and
Moscow, not sending in the Guard at Borodino, losing his nerve at
Maloyaroslavets. But the worst mistake was the failure to think through
logistical problems, admittedly almost insurmountable in an army of
6oo,ooo. Everything was underestimated: the speed at which armies could
march, the amount of food that could be obtained en route, the poor state
of the roads. The supply dumps at Danzig and Konigsberg were too far
behind the army and the mud roads could not take the convoy traffic,
while those at Minsk and Vitebsk were not well enough guarded, so that
they fell into Russian hands. There was no absolute shortage of supplies,
but no proper infrastructure to get them where they were needed.
Additionally, by his gambler's ploy of doubling his bets each time the
original wager failed, Napoleon ended up in Moscow when he had never
considered this as a possibility in his original plans. If he was to invade
Russia at all - a serious error while he was bogged down in Spain - he
should have wintered in Smolensk. By marching so far into the heart of
marcin
(Marcin)
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