Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why Napoleon's apparent victory turned to defeat in 1812.
In Our Time · BBC Radio 4
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Show Notes
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how, in September 1812, Napoleon captured Moscow and waited a month for the Russians to meet him, to surrender and why, to his dismay, no-one came. Soon his triumph was revealed as a great defeat; winter was coming, supplies were low; he ordered his Grande Armée of six hundred thousand to retreat and, by the time he crossed back over the border, desertion, disease, capture, Cossacks and cold had reduced that to twenty thousand. Napoleon had shown his weakness; his Prussian allies changed sides and, within eighteen months they, the Russians and Austrians had captured Paris and the Emperor was exiled to Elba.
With
Janet Hartley Professor Emeritus of International History, LSE
Michael Rowe Reader in European History, King’s College London
And
Michael Rapport Reader in Modern European History, University of Glasgow
Producer: Simon Tillotson