Napoleon's Greatest Failure: A Winter Campaign In Russia

With the Peninsular War still raging, Napoleon made a fateful decision - in 1812, the Grand Armee began an invasion of Russia. Nothing could have prepared then for what lay ahead as they marched towards Moscow and little did they know that of the half a million men who crossed the Russian border, fewer than fifty thousand would ever see their homeland again.

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[HistoryfortheAges]

The story of Napoleon is remarkable. I would not say he was not the most important person in, but he may have had the most dramatic life. From Corisca to leader if France to Emperor to Elba back to France and then St Helena.

[msfsaint]

From what I've learned on this platform, and it makes sense to me, most of Napoleon's Grand Armee died on summer, and of summer diseases. The winter retreat was just the cherry on top. Empires were just too unwieldy without sea routes and friendly locals managing things on the ground

[calvinjenkins]

I believe Napolean shook the European aristocry to the core, by challenging and militarily defeating them time and again...they were all so frightened of losing their devine right of kings power that they had held for over a thousand years over the common people.

[franzxaverjosephconradgraf]

A slight correction: Napoleon married Marie Louise after a year of Russian prevarication as Alexander didn't want his sister to marry Napoleon

[geoffreydron]

Moscow wasn't the Russian capital, which was St Petersburg. So what had he achieved?

[Jayjay-qeum]

An event of epic proportions and momentous importance for European history, the French invasion of Russia has been the subject of much discussion among historians. The campaign's sustained role in Russian popular culture may be seen in Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, and the identification of it with the German invasion during World War II, which became known as the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union.

[mohammedsaysrashid]

It was informative and thrilled watching video about the greatest failures of Napoleon Bonaparte military 🪖 campaign against the Russian 🇷🇺 empire ...thank you for sharing

[sean.butterworth]

I wish I’d had content like this when I was at school. Our text books were so perfunctory. Just a collection of dates and significant events.

[ed]

great to see a military history documentary talking about logistics

[Dylan-toji]

You’ve got some weird high pitch background noise coming from your audio

[davidrouth]

Quite simply Napoleon was made great by ‘Ballistics’ and crushed by ‘Logistics.’🤓😂

[RonFilco.]

In a "old-colonialist" view of those days I admire Napoleon because he lived big and expected the world to act accordingly. His ego might have been to much to bare in a "face to face" situation but through history, I admire his tactics from a distance.

[lorimeyers]

I wish there was a video on river crossings over time in history. Methods used by armies to cross the many bodies of water that flow through the lands they conquer. How technologies changed in time.

[DressedForDrowning]

This Beethoven orchestral music fits perfectly to this documentary. (Coriolan Overture and 6th symphony.)
The blurred footage is from the movie "Waterloo" with Rod Steiger.

[randomdudefromearth]

The portrait in the thumbnail is actually of the 1813 campaign for the defense of France itself and not of the Russian winter retreat

[weirdshibainu]

This would be an excellent video for the big brains of today who think Western tanks belong in Red Square.

[JM-ukyb]

Thank you timeline much better than the repetitive ww2 stories. I read the great book 1812 by adam zmowski and was good to see a lot of visual in this doco.
One of the greatest campaigns of all time the invasion and retreat are epic

[byron]

Napoleon entered Russia to conquer it in 1812 with The Grand Armee about 600k soldiers came out of it retreated only 30k soldiers reached Paris! K

[JordanWallace-nbid]

Napoleon always doing that hidden hand, showing who he truly worships.

[BlackPantherFTW]

Give me a napoleonic wars mod for hearts of iron and I would play it into oblivion