WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The result was a disaster for the French. The Russian army refused to engage with Napoleon’s Grande Armée of more than 500, 000 European troops. They simply retreated into the Russian interior. The Grande Armée did not have the supplies or the distribution networks required for such a long march.

Detailed explanation-2: -French invasion of Russia, invasion of Russia by Napoleon I’s Grande Armée from October to December in 1812. The French army was forced to retreat after Russian forces refused to engage in battle with them, which resulted in the deaths of more than 400, 000 French soldiers, the vast majority from cold and starvation.

Detailed explanation-3: -The desperate Russians, however, adopted a “scorched-earth” policy: whenever they retreated, they burned the places they left behind. Napoleon’s army had trouble finding supplies, and it grew progressively weaker the farther it marched.

Detailed explanation-4: -With snow flurries having already fallen, Napoleon led his army out of Moscow on October 19, realizing that it could not survive the winter there. By this time, Napoleon was down to some 100, 000 troops, the rest having died, deserted or been wounded, captured or left along the supply line.

Detailed explanation-5: -They retreated, but not before enacted a “scorched earth” policy, one in which they burned all of the crops as they moved further away from the French. This left Napoleon’s troops with little to eat. All totalled, the French army would lose hundreds of thousands of men during the six-month invasion.