Seven things that shocked Napoleon in Russia Bashny.Net

August 15, 1769 on the island of Corsica, Napoleon Bonaparte was born. In 1812, the French emperor, a successful military leader, was a fiasco in the campaign against Russia. On the day of the birth of Napoleon remember 7 things that shocked him in Russia.

1.Taktika Russian army

Tactics of the Russian army, Napoleon was struck and literally and figuratively. Russian army led by General Barclay de Tolly was kept constant retreat tactics. Troops were withdrawing from Vitebsk, Smolensk and Moscow. Until castling Tolly and Kutuzov French given only two battles. The retreat of the Russian troops, Napoleon treated ambiguously. At the beginning of the campaign this behavior of the enemy was at hand the French emperor, he wanted to get to Smolensk with small losses. Smolensk, the French are not captured, and got a completely unpresentable form. Stop in the city proved pointless to move on was terrible. Army, hoping for a blitzkrieg, moving farther into the depths of the vast country. The soldiers entered the empty city, had finished the last reserves and panic. Bonaparte, sitting on the island of St. Helena, recalled: "My shelves, amazed that after so many difficult transitions and murderous fruits of their efforts are constantly removed from them, began to anxiously look to the distance separating them from France».

2.Tolstye wall

The story about the impenetrable walls of Smolensk Napoleon takes a whole page. From the description of the spectacular views of the city, Napoleon refers to senseless attempts to capture him, "I have used all the artillery reserve breached a curtain, but in vain - our core stuck in extremely thick walls, there is no activity. The only way you can make a break: direct all our fire against two round towers, but the difference in the thickness of the walls was unknown to us ».

3.Pozhary

If it were not published memories of Bonaparte, one would think that it was brought to French Russian ground fire. The movement was accompanied by Napoleon's troops fire - burning cities and roads. In Smolensk, Gzhatsk, Small Yaroslavets extinguished fires the French themselves. Russian burned everything - homes, shops, streets, crops. The middle of Moscow, Napoleon wondered - why is it burning? And then sad but beautifully wrote: "Moscow turned into a sea of ​​fire. The view from the balcony of the Kremlin would be worthy of Nero, burn Rome, and as for me, I've never been like that monster, and when you look at this terrible picture of my heart bled ».

4.Goroda

Art Russian architects admired Napoleon, in his memoirs, he described the tower of Smolensk, apart from the battering failures. Moscow and at all struck the French Emperor: "Built like Rome, on seven hills, Moscow is a very picturesque view. We must see the big picture, which is the city, half-European, poluvostochny, with its two hundred churches and thousands of colorful chapters, towering over them to understand the feeling we experienced when a height Poklonnaya Mountain saw in front of Moscow ».

5.Dorogi

Napoleon was a lot of Russian roads, and none of it was not satisfied. The reason is not the weather, it had the emperor separate opinion. In his memoirs, Bonaparte called Russian roads impassable exclusively: "The lack of information about the state of roads, incomplete and unreliable card edge, were the reason that I did not dare to put the body in different directions, because nothing proves the existence udoboprohodimyh roads».

6.Pogoda

Napoleon invaded Russia in the early summer, and get out of it is closer to spring. Emperor of the French had to lay down their opinion about the weather in Russia, for example, fall was "a lovely, unusual in these harsh lands." With severe cold Napoleon had to face in the most unfavorable time, on the way home: "Since November 7, the cold increased with alarming rapidity developed a degree of disorder the army, which began already at Vyazma».

7.Partizany

Nice to know that most of Napoleon shocked and delighted the behavior of the Russian people. On the people's war, Napoleon said: "The most formidable army can not successfully wage war against an entire people, who decided to conquer or die. We were dealing not with the people of Lithuania, indifferent spectators of great events that take place around them. The entire population, composed of natural Russian, at our approach to leave their homes. On our way we met only abandoned or burnt villages. Fleeing residents formed a gang that operated against our foragers. They never bothered themselves troops, but seized all marauders and stragglers ».

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