Napoleon's Invasion of Russia

by George F Nafziger

  When the French Revolution erupted, the French military establishment found itself undergoing a major revolution itself. The logistical administration and its supply system rapidly decayed, proving incapable of providing the logistical support required by the newly raised French armies. As a result, the French armies were frequently on the verge of starvation. They lacked all logistical support, often going barefoot and in rags. By necessity they found themselves forced to fend for themselves, as their government had proven incapable of providing for them.

  What began initially as the simple pillaging of the countryside by starving soldiers rapidly evolved into a systematic requisitioning and amassing of supplies in a given area. A relatively sophisticated system evolved, where individual companies would detach eight to ten men under the direction of a corporal or a sergeant on a periodic basis. These squads operated independent of the main body for periods of a week or a day, collecting supplies and material necessary for sustaining their parent company. They would then return and distribute this material amongst their fellows.

  This organized “foraging” or “living off the land” should be distinguished from the actual marauding and pillaging committed by individuals and stragglers that followed the path of the advancing French armies like the tail of a comet. The latter case was often committed under threats of physical violence aimed at the long-suffering peasants. The former, however, was often controlled by treaties or other arrangements where the provision of such material was formally agreed to by the host nation. In this case the peasants were often paid in gold or paper that could theoretically be exchanged. There is, however, a period phrase, “Worthless as an assignat.” Payment not in gold was in paper assignats, Revolutionary I.O.U.s which were absolutely without value. In the case of the French moving through conquered territory, there was seldom any remuneration. However, only rarely were provisions forcefully taken.

  This system and the old system of supplying armies often stripped the countryside bare and caused serious problems for the local inhabitants, but it was nothing new to much of Europe. Though during the previous centuries armies had depended on magazines, starving armies had often moved through provinces, stripping them bare and wasting much of what they found. In contrast, the highly organized French system wasted little.

  The French quickly became expert at estimating the ability of an area to support an army and developed skills in locating supplies in areas where other armies would have quickly starved if forced to live off the land. These skills had permitted the French to execute the massive maneuvers that gave them smashing victories in 1800, 1805, 1806, and

  1809. It also led to the mystique that the French army could outmarch every other army in Europe.

  The ability to maneuver strategically had been seriously handicapped for years by the necessity to provide a wagon train for supplies. These wagon trains formed massive tails on every army, slowing them to a snail's crawl. The French, lacking this military train and having the ability to live off the land they were traversing, were able to march as fast as their soldiers' legs could carry them, instead of at the pace of the oxen pulling the wagons. The foraging bands would fan out across the countryside behind the vanguard of the advancing army, collecting provisions. Once that was done, they would close up to the main body and distribute what they had gathered.

  This often meant that the main bodies would reach their destination sadly depleted by these detachments and other stragglers that fell behind. It was not unusual, even in 1812, for a French army to stop to permit the foraging parties to catch up with the main body. Despite this, the French were capable of marches of up to fifty miles per day for short periods and sustained marches of thirty or more miles a day for a week or more.

  Napoleon has often been accused of being overly optimistic about the ability of his troops to provision themselves during the 1812 campaign. He is accused of setting out on an ill-conceived operation that led to a disastrous retreat and the destruction of the largest army seen to date. However, an examination of the documents and facts refutes this. It is highly unlikely that Napoleon was unaware of the Russian countryside. He most certainly read the account of Charles XIFs Russian campaign. Even the Frenchman Guibert had described Russia as a “wasteland” in his works. However, Napoleon most assuredly knew that it would not be impossible for his troops to live off the land as they had in so many previous campaigns.

  In 1811 the French Depot de Guerre was ordered to carefully collect all the information it could about Russia and to carefully examine all the information it could find on the Russian campaign of Charles XII. Their studies cannot have missed the Russian scorched earth tactic. This realization is what probably prompted Napoleon to mass 1,000,000 rations in Stettin and Kustrin in April 1811. This was also the period when Napoleon began a massive reorganization and expansion of his military train.

  By the end of 1811 the development of the French supply system in Poland had taken on a very offensive posture. His treaty with Prussia and the material provisions contained therein indicate a strong eastern orientation as early as February. If Napoleon had been defensively oriented, these supplies would have been deposited further away from the most probable areas of Russian advance. His supplies were positioned as far forward as the Vistula—not a defensive position.

  In January 1812 it was ordered that Danzig be provisioned for war. By March sufficient supplies had been acquired there to support 400,000 men and 50,000 horses for 50 days. More supplies were stockpiled all along the Oder River. In addition, the French military train was raised to a total of twenty-six battalions.

  Napoleon had begun in 1811 to expand his military train. He decided to concentrate on heavy wagons, despite warnings about the poor roads in Russia. In a letter dated 4 July 1811 he took the first steps. Prior to this period the supply wagons were drawn by four horses each and had a total capacity of one “miller” (one miller was approximately 1,000 French pounds, 489.6 kg, or 1,076 avoirdupoids) per horse drawing the wagon. In this letter Napoleon proposed adding two more horses to each wagon and increasing the load from four to six “millers” (4,304 avoirdupoids to 6,456 avoirdupoids). By this means he hoped to save one wagon in three, or thereby expand his existing cartage by one third. This had the one major drawback of increasing the load in each wagon and, as events were to show, this was a major problem vis-à-vis the Russian roads. During the first weeks of the invasion, as the French moved through Russian Lithuania, the skies poured rain on them, turning the roads into impassable morasses. Most of the wagons sank into the mud and were unable to move at any speed, let alone fast enough to feed the advancing French armies.

  Somewhat in contrast to this, Napoleon also ordered the equipping of some train units “à la comtoise,” that is, with light wagons, each drawn by a single horse. However, these wagons were also destined to be overloaded to the point where their “lightness” became a title only.

  The provisioning of the army with artillery and munitions was undertaken on a massive scale. Magdeburg was the main distribution point and from there material was shipped down the Elbe into East Prussia. The munitions Napoleon gathered together for his 1812 campaign compare favorably with the efforts of the heavily industrialized nations during the First World War.

  Napoleon knew that however well organized his supply system was,it would depend on horses, which are not the most rapid transport system. In addition, the horses also consume much of what they transport, seriously limiting the range of a horse-drawn supply system. Napoleon knew this and realized that it would make supplying an army of 200,000 men at the distance from the Niemen to Moscow a near impossibility. Evidence strongly suggests that Napoleon had recognized this when developing his campaign plans and did not intend that his supply system would be asked to stretch that far.

  Indeed, it was Napoleon's plan to engage the Russian army quickly and destroy it near the Russian frontier. If pursuit became necessary, Napoleon intended to pursue the Russians only as far as Smolensk. When
Napoleon reached Smolensk, his initial reaction was to establish himself there and build a supply base for the next jump forward in the spring. Other considerations appear to have caused Napoleon to vary from this plan and to advance towards Moscow.

  By establishing his army in Smolensk, it is highly probable that Napoleon could have maintained his army with the supply system built there, if supplies had been supplemented by an organized foraging system of the surrounding countryside. This is substantiated by the actual situations of the wing army corps that did not advance so far into Russia and which were adequately supported by their supply arrangements. These armies, even that under Macdonald which operated on the extreme north, were in far better condition than the sad remnants of the main army falling back from Moscow. Their condition was so superior that the facts surrounding the conditions and the disaster that had befallen the main army were kept from them as long as possible. The truth was only revealed when the flanking forces finally merged with the main army between the Berezina and Smolensk.

  Napoleon's army entered Russia with twenty-four days' worth of supplies; four on the backs of the men and a further twenty days' supplies in the wagons following the army. This would have been sufficient to support the limited operations that Napoleon had envisioned in his initial plan to bring the Russians to battle quickly and defeat them.

  Though feeding the soldiers was reasonably well provided for, the provision of 250,000 horses with fodder was completely beyond the capabilities of every supply system in the world at that time. This single fact was probably more the cause of the destruction of the French cavalry than Murat's incessantly charging it around the countryside. That is not to say that Murat's actions did not make considerable contributions to the cavalry's destruction, as he often did not stop long enough to permit the proper care and maintenance of the horses. The reason for his actions is probably justifiably laid to his desire to bring the Russians to battle more than to the reckless stupidity he is often accused of by historians.

  The Russian plans for the defense of their country also depended on logistical considerations. General Phull, a Prussian in service to Russia, had laid plans for the erection of a fortified position on the Drissa. He hoped to recreate a Torres Vedras situation and draw the French into an area that he felt was exceedingly poor, in order to stretch the French supply system to the breaking point. Once the French had been sufficiently weakened by the distance traveled, lack of supplies, and weather, he intended to sally forth and engage the French with a fresh army. The only problem with this plan was that when the French finally overran Drissa, Murat reported that the area around Drissa was not a desert, as the Russians had thought, but that it was relatively well provisioned and could easily support the French operations.

  Once the French began their invasion, a number of supply problems quickly arose. First was the rains. Then came problems with the supply system's quality. It had been rapidly expanded, as had the rest of the army, and its ranks were filled with low-quality recruits and draftees. Their minimal training and professionalism was to tell; they simply couldn't cope with the situation.

  The massive expansion of the rest of the army had its impact as well. The veteran troops were sadly diluted by the influx of recent recruits and the demands of the Spanish campaign. A similar expansion had occurred in 1809 when the French army was largely composed of new recruits. In both instances the recruits lacked the discipline and savoir faire to be able to sustain themselves in a foraging situation, but as the 1809 campaign was fought in Austria, the impact of this indiscipline on supplies was minimal compared to what it was to be in 1812.

  As supplies became scarce in 1812, discipline broke down and the control over the troops diminished. They plundered indiscriminately instead of carefully requisitioning the supplies they found. Surprisingly, the officers refused to take part in these excesses and often suffered to a greater degree than the men they led.

  This lack of discipline forced the inhabitants of the region to flee and hide those supplies that might have assisted the French army. If they had remained, a carefully established administration could have tapped the regional resources and provided more than sufficient supplies to support the French army.

  This problem had yet another facet. A large part of the French army was composed of non-French, allied contingents that did not have the French skill at foraging. They lacked the skills necessary to find the supplies they required and had a bad tendency, when foraging, to think only of themselves. They tended to eat what they found when they found it and did not bring it back to their parent units. As a result, those men staying with the combat formations went hungry.

  There was also an inequity of supply distribution. Each corps considered itself and its own supply problems only, not sharing its bounty with the next corps, which might be starving. The actual historical sequence was that the vanguard corps stripped the countryside and lived reasonably well, while those corps following it had slim pickings.

  Despite this, once Lithuania and Belorussia were crossed, the countryside became richer and encouraged Napoleon's advance. Napoleon knew that the areas around Smolensk and Moscow were rich and could provide much of the needs of his army.

  The internal supply problems of the Grande Armée were exacerbated by the systematic destruction of those available supplies by the Russian army as it retreated. This entailed the destruction of magazines and other stockpiles of provisions, such as those maintained by the peasants. However, as in the rest of Europe, when a nation attempted to destroy the supplies held by its peasantry, the peasants would hide it as actively as they did if threatened by the invaders. These peasants often considered their own governments to be as hostile to their well-being as the invaders were. Also, it should be remembered that Lithuania had been part of the Kingdom of Poland not too many years before. The sympathies of those people were actually pro-Napoleon, as he had recreated the crushed Polish kingdom in the shadow form of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. This had revived their dreams of national identity and self-determination.

  The Lithuanians actually raised and fielded five infantry regiments, one light infantry regiment, and four cavalry regiments to support Napoleon. This would suggest that there would have been a serious degree of regional support for Napoleon's efforts. Cooperation with his supply needs would have been a foregone conclusion, had he remained in Smolensk.

  These attitudes should have mitigated much of the impact of the Russian army's effort to strip the Lithuanian countryside. Evidence sug-gests that it was only after the French left Lithuania that they faced “scorched earth.” The Russian peasantry in the Russian provinces east of Smolensk had been stirred by the Orthodox priests with the idea that the French were heretics sent by Satan to destroy their religion. With this fear firmly implanted, the Russian peasants not only assisted the Russian army by withdrawing food, but engaged in guerrilla actions against the French foraging teams and stragglers.

  Despite this cooperation, it is exceedingly unlikely that the peasants destroyed all the foodstuffs they held. A peasant who slaves in the fields and is barely able to feed himself was hardly likely to commit himself and his family to a winter of starvation simply because some Russian officer told him to do so. The peasants hid far more than they destroyed, in the hopes of it escaping the French. This meant that there was still a large volume of supplies for the French to utilize.

  Then what was the primary cause of the starvation of the Grande Armée? There are two basic causes, both of which have been mentioned. The first was the undisciplined troops, which resulted in poor utilization of the supplies found. This discouraged any cooperation, or tacit nonintervention, by the peasants, whose supplies were to be requisitioned. The second cause was the change in plans that caused Napoleon to advance beyond the effective limitations of his supply system. The problems of heavy wagons and bad roads were more symptomatic than causal. The limited experience of the train personnel was apparent in their lack of care for their equipment and horses, but this
too is a minor point. It contributed to, but did not cause, the collapse of the supply system.

  When Napoleon began the disastrous retreat, the supply system had finally collapsed. The two factors mentioned had taken their toll. This indiscipline became rampant, and the corps of the weaker disciplinarians rapidly collapsed into hordes of stragglers that hovered around those few units that retained their discipline and organization. The full extent of the disaster that befell these men because of their indiscipline became tragically visible when they reached the Berezina. A thoughtless, mindless horde, thinking solely of its survival, pushed and shoved, struggling to survive one more minute and then sank into despair and resignation to its death.

  The Russian Supply System

  The Russian supply system was both different and not different from the French system. It was different in that the Russians never developed a system of foraging like that used by the French. It was similar in that the Russians depended on a system of magazines. The Russian system in the beginning of the campaign was based on a series of major magazines positioned in Vilna, Swezinia, Koltiniani, Grodno, Slonim, Slutz, Pinsk, Mosir, Brest, Kowel, Luzk, Dubno, Saslawl, Staro-Kostan-tof, and Ostrog. There was a secondary line of magazines in Riga, Dinaburg, Drissa, Sebesch, Velisch, Bobruisk, Rogatschef, Jitomir, Kiev, Novgorod, Veliki-Luki, Kaluga, Trubtschewska, and Sossniza. These magazines were positioned along the major lines of supposed operations, those lines running from the Niemen to St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kiev. The Russians had positioned more than 1,200,000 bushels of meal, 112,000 bushels of barley, and 1,600,000 bushels of oats in them.

  Prior to 1812 the Russian army was maintained through this system of magazines. The basic concept of a magazine was a functional idea, but the Russian system failed because the magazines were too big and too widely spaced. These great distances between magazines proved an embarrassment when the Russian train system had to operate between them, and the loss of a magazine to the French was a major supply disaster. This system was incompatible with the Russian plan of a rapid withdrawal. In addition, the Russian commissariat was plagued with a lack of bakers to produce the bread for the armies.