page_title: French invasion of Russia
section_title: Causes
hierarchical_section_title: French invasion of Russia / Causes
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Europa 1812. Politische Ausgangslage vor Napeoleons Russlandfelzug.English: Europe in 1812. Political situation before Napoleon's Russian Campaign.
context_page_description: The French invasion of Russia, known in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 and in France as the Russian campaign, 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 the Emperor of All Russia, Alexander I, 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 to provide a political pretext for his actions.
  At the start of the invasion, the Grande Armée numbered around 685,000 soldiers. It was the largest army ever known to have been assembled in the history of European warfare up to that point. Through a series of long marches Napoleon pushed his army rapidly through Western Russia in an attempt to destroy the Russian Army, winning a number of minor engagements and a major battle, the Battle of Smolensk in August.
context_section_description: Although the French Empire seemed to be at its peak in 1810 and 1811, it had in fact already declined somewhat from its apogee in 1806–1809. Although most of Western and Central Europe lay under his control—either directly or indirectly through various protectorates, allies, and countries defeated by his empire and under treaties favorable for France—Napoleon had embroiled his armies in the costly and drawn-out Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal. France's economy, army morale, and political support at home had also declined. But most importantly, Napoleon himself was not in the same physical and mental state as in years past. He had become overweight and increasingly prone to various maladies. Nevertheless, despite his troubles in Spain, with the exception of British expeditionary forces to that country, no European power dared to oppose him.
  The Treaty of Schönbrunn, which ended the 1809 war between Austria and France, had a clause removing Western Galicia from Austria and annexing it to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Russia viewed this as against its interests and as a potential launching point for an invasion of Russia. In 1811 the Russian general staff developed a plan of an offensive war, assuming a Russian assault on Warsaw and on Danzig.
  In an attempt to gain increased support from Polish nationalists and patriots, Napoleon in his own words termed this war the Second Polish War. Napoleon coined the War of the Fourth Coalition as the "first" Polish war because one of the officials declared goals of this war was the resurrection of the Polish state on territories of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
  Tsar Alexander I found Russia in an economic bind as his country had little in the way of manufacturing, yet was rich in raw materials and relied heavily on trade with Napoleon's continental system for both money and manufactured goods. Russia's withdrawal from the system was a further incentive to Napoleon to force a decision.
caption: The French Empire in 1812
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