French invasion of Russia | Wikipedia audio article
Channel: wikipedia tts
Date: 2018-12-06

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
French invasion of Russia


00:04:08 1 Causes
00:06:43 2 Logistics
00:08:48 2.1 Organization
00:09:33 2.2 Ammunition
00:10:27 2.3 Provisions
00:11:44 2.4 Combat service and support and medicine
00:12:19 2.5 Transportation
00:13:26 2.6 Deficiencies
00:16:39 3 Opposing forces
00:16:48 3.1 Grande Armée
00:19:25 3.2 Russian Imperial Army
00:22:15 4 Invasion
00:22:23 4.1 Crossing the Niemen
00:23:48 4.2 March on Vilnius
00:31:12 4.3 March on Moscow
00:32:36 5 The Battle of Borodino
00:34:50 5.1 Retreat and rebuilding
00:35:58 6 Capture of Moscow
00:39:06 7 Retreat and losses
00:44:13 8 Weather as a factor
00:48:21 9 Historical assessment
00:48:31 9.1 Alternative names
00:49:50 9.2 Historiography
00:56:29 9.3 Aftermath
00:59:40 9.4 Historical echoes
00:59:48 9.4.1 Swedish invasion
01:01:25 9.4.2 German invasion
01:03:41 9.5 Cultural impact
01:04:16 10 See also



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SUMMARY
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The French invasion of Russia, known in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 (Russian: Отечественная война 1812 года, translit. Otečestvennaja Vojna 1812 goda) and in France as the Russian Campaign (French: Campagne de Russie), began on 24 June 1812 when Napoleon's Grande Armée crossed the Neman River in an attempt to engage and defeat the Russian army. Napoleon hoped to compel Tsar Alexander I of Russia to cease trading with British merchants through proxies in an effort to pressure the United Kingdom to sue for peace. The official political aim of the campaign was to liberate Poland from the threat of Russia. Napoleon named the campaign the Second Polish War to gain favor with the Poles and provide a political pretext for his actions.At the start of the invasion, the Grande Armée numbered 680,000 soldiers (including 300,000 soldiers from France). It was the largest army ever known to have been assembled in the history of warfare up to that point. Through a series of long marches Napoleon pushed the army rapidly through Western Russia in an attempt to engage and destroy the Russian army, winning a number of minor engagements and a major battle at Smolensk in August. Napoleon hoped the battle would win the war for him, but the Russian army slipped away and continued the retreat, leaving Smolensk to burn. As the Russian army fell back, scorched-earth tactics were employed, resulting in villages, towns and crops being destroyed and forcing the French to rely on a supply system that was incapable of feeding their large army in the field. On 7 September, the French caught up with the Russian army which had dug itself in on hillsides before a small town called Borodino, seventy miles west of Moscow. The battle that followed was the bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars, with 72,000 casualties, and a narrow French victory. The Russian army withdrew the following day, leaving the French again without the decisive victory Napoleon sought. A week later, Napoleon entered Moscow, which the Russians had abandoned and burned.The loss of Moscow did not compel Alexander I to enter into negotiations, and Napoleon stayed on in Moscow for a month, waiting for a peace offer that never came. On 19 October, Napoleon and his army left Moscow and marched southwest toward Kaluga, where Field Marshall Mikhail Kutuzov was encamped with the Russian army. After an inconclusive battle at Maloyaroslavets, Napoleon began to retreat back to the Polish border. In the following weeks, the Grande Armée suffered from the onset of the Russian Winter. Lack of food and fodder for the horses, hypothermia from the bitter cold and persistent attacks upon isolated troops from Russian peasants and Cossacks led to great losses in men, and a breakdown of discipline and cohesion in the army. More fighting at Vyazma and Krasnoi resulted in further losses for the French. When the remnants of Napoleon's main army crossed the Berezina River in late November, only 27,000 soldiers remained; the Grande Armée had lost some 380,000 men dead ...