Why Did Napoleon Win The Revolutionary War

The war that ensued with Napoleon would be known in Russian history as the Patriotic War of 1812. As soon as Napoleon declared war, the Russians began making preparations for the French invasion. However, Napoleon’s progress was so rapid at first that they were unable to assemble a large force to counter the threat in time, and resorted to hit-and-run tactics against small flanks of the French army, causing minor casualties in small engagements. Initially, the Russian army was under the command of General of Infantry Mikhail Bogdanovich Barclay de Tolly, who had a total of 105,000 men to defend against the invasion, along with 200 artillery guns and 8,000 Cossacks. As irregular cavalry, the Cossack were horseback soldiers of the Russian steppes,

But the majority of these men were assembled in reserve, far from the front line, which meant that Barclay only had his initial 105,000 soldiers to call upon. At first, Barclay followed orders to engage the French forces, but as he was met with defeat time after time, he ignored orders and retreated east, hoping buy time to gather a greater army with the 400,000 strong from the reserve to match the French in numbers. Several times he attempted to establish strong defensive lines at key strategic locations, but each time Napoleon’s advance was too quick for the Russian army to finish preparations. Thus to save his few men, Barclay was forced to retreat before the French advance. In doing so, Barclay ordered his army to scorch the land; eliminating resources he knew the French force would need to maintain their fighting capability. But although he was successful in saving his troops from annihilation and inflicted considerable casualties among Napoleon’s army with the scorched-earth policy, Barclay’s refusal to engage his soldiers in battle despite pressure from his generals and the Tsar wounded his