An infantry soldier under Napoleon

World history is written with the blood of the terrific losses Napoleons coalition. It least half a million coalition soldiers never returned home. Also the costs for the Russian army as well as the Russian population was shocking.

Together with the loss of his soldiers, the Tsar had to accept a loss in human lives of at least 500.000 of his countrymen, so that the total cost of this failed adventure was more than one million casualties.

The campaign was doomed from the first phase.The logistical support of this size of an army was unsustainable.

Napoleon had at least three major chances to win the entire campaign but failed to rely on his normal strongly developed attitude of aggressive war gaming. By deciding that the returning army should use the same roads as during the advance, he gave the death blow for the Grande Armée. Claims, made by the Russians that the Russian military command had planned for a retreat so they could “lure” Napoleon further into the Russian countryside is a chauvinistic bogus. Napoleon has won all military confrontations with the Russians, including the major battle of Borodino. Even the escape of the Army at Studjenko was a Russian failure.