page_title: Imperial Russian Army
section_title: French invasion of Russia
hierarchical_section_title: Imperial Russian Army / Napoleonic Wars / French invasion of Russia
context_page_description: The Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian Army consisted of more than 900,000 regular soldiers and nearly 250,000 irregulars.
  The last living veteran of the Russian Imperial Army was Ukrainian supercentenarian Mikhail Krichevsky, who died in 2008.
context_section_description: In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia to compel Alexander I to remain in the Continental System and to remove the imminent threat of Russian invasion of Poland. The Grande Armée, 650,000 men (270,000 Frenchmen and many soldiers of allies or subject powers), crossed the Neman on 23 June 1812. Russia proclaimed a Patriotic War, while Napoleon proclaimed a Second Polish war, but against the expectations of the Poles who supplied almost 100,000 troops for the invasion force he avoided any concessions toward Poland, having in mind further negotiations with Russia.  Russia maintained a scorched earth policy of retreat, broken only by the Battle of Borodino on 7 September, when the Russians stood and fought. This was bloody and the Russians eventually retreated, opening the road to Moscow. Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov made the decision in order to preserve the army. By 14 September, the French captured Moscow. The Russian governor Prince Rastopchin ordered the city burnt to the ground and large parts of it were destroyed. Alexander I refused to capitulate, and with no sign of clear victory in sight, Napoleon was forced to withdraw from Moscow's ruins. So the disastrous Great Retreat began, with 370,000 casualties largely as a result of starvation and the freezing weather conditions, and 200,000 captured. Napoleon narrowly escaped total annihilation at the Battle of Berezina, but his army was wrecked nevertheless. By December only 20,000 fit soldiers from the main army were among those who recrossed the Neman at Kaunas. By this time Napoleon had abandoned his army to return to Paris and prepare a defence against the advancing Russians.
caption: General Yermolov leading the counterattack on the Great Redoubt during the Battle of Borodino
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