Ed 0:00

Hey everybody, this is Ed.

Kara 0:01

And this is Kara.

Ed 0:02

And this is your day's dumpster fire. This is when you say your part.

Kara 0:08

Oh, I thought you were gonna say it.

Ed 0:09

Oh, my bad. Okay.

Kara 0:10

Sorry.

Ed 0:11

We're a podcast that doesn't celebrate humanity's successes, but it's most fantastic failures.

Kara 0:18

I didn't have it memorized. I need to look this up.

Ed 0:20

Oh boy.

Kara 0:21

I need it in front of me, or else I'll forget.

unknown 0:23

I'm sorry.

Ed 0:24

Okay. I'll type it up.

Kara 0:25

Yeah, type type it up. I I know we have it typed in here. Sorry. Okay. I bought you.

Ed 0:31

And intro. Wow. We nailed that.

Kara 0:50

It was my fault.

Ed 0:53

You were probably still working on our on our website trying to de-jankify it.

Kara 0:58

I was actually going through the show notes trying to remember where we were, where we left off.

Ed 1:03

That's what I was doing. Well, you told me you were ready, so you just record.

Kara 1:09

It's okay. And I knew in the back of my mind because we talked about it, I was like, I I gotta find that that piece of intro because we have it typed, and I just I spaced. It's fine.

Ed 1:19

Yeah, um yes. And and for those of you who are joining us or seeing this for the first time or hearing us for the first time, uh, this is your podcast that you go to whenever you are feeling down on your life or just want to feel better about yourself. And um, yeah, you come here to understand that people have failed more hardcore than you can possibly imagine. So if you are in a state of mind where you're like, man, I really messed this up, right? I try to plan this out and I really messed it up. Uh, we are here to tell you stories in the past of people that really, really messed things up, and they thought they had everything planned out.

Kara 2:11

Like me trying to do this introduction.

Ed 2:14

Um, yes, or like me thinking that we were set on the introduction, or yeah, the the list goes on and on and on. And and it kind of ties into like our website, because I found out that our website wasn't SEO optimized and our show notes weren't optimized, so now I'm frantically running through everything and trying to make it easier so that when you guys type in the day's dumpster fire in the Googles, it takes you straight to us.

Kara 2:44

Anyway, it's fine.

Ed 2:46

We're here, it's we're doing our thing.

Kara 2:48

Yes. We're here, we're doing our thing, we're getting ready to talk more about Napoleon and his plans to take Russia.

Ed 2:57

Yeah, like this is one of the this is gonna be part two of a two-parter. Come listen to, I think it was episode 37. We talked about kind of like the rise of Napoleon, and 37 wasn't really designed to be the dumpster fire, but it it it kind of was because it was really funny, and and just do a quick recap here, it was really funny how the French Revolution took place, and that's where we have our two-party on King Louis. The French Revolution took place, and at first they wanted a constitutional monarchy, and then they got the crowd got so angry and so frustrated that they're like, Okay, we just want a constitutional democracy, no king. And a lot of people lost their heads, and it was a whole chaotic yeah, yeah, it was a great time if you weren't wealthy. Uh yeah, uh like as as soon as they found out that you had any money, they just assumed that you were a part of the aristocracy and you got your head cut off. So, or if you actually didn't know the king or whatnot, so like famous scientists were out there, you know, astronomers, philosophers. There was a lot of people that that died from that, all in the name of okay, we don't want this this monarchy thing going forward. But then comes Napoleon, and it's interesting because Napoleon obviously did not have any royal blood, he he was Italian for starters, and he he comes into the scene as a a rather insignificant artillery commander, and then he just has his meteoric rise. So from like 1800 to like 1812, it seemed like, man, there was nothing this guy could do wrong. Like he was winning every single battle, he was taking over countries left and right. Um, it was mostly Eastern Europe, so we start getting into like Germany, Prussia, Austria, Warsaw, and then even Russia. And he gets out that he went that way. He tried Spain, uh, but Spain was a dumpster fire in its own right. So uh he tried taking over Spain, that didn't work, and then he's like, okay, let's take out the east, and that's where he had the most success. And then he also quickly discovered that you you just can't take on Britain's navy. Yeah, yeah, he lost a massive portion of his fleet in a very, very short period of time. What was it, the Battle of Trafalgar? Uh yeah, Battle of Trafalgar. Um, that's where we're introduced to one of my heroes, um, Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson. Fortunately, he died during that battle, but he like destroyed it like every ship, and it was absolutely devastating because Nelson was like outgunned and outmanned and out-shipped and all that stuff. So, yeah, the eight the 1800s, early 1800s of it all really kind of established what direction Napoleon was gonna go in. And after like, you know, Austerlitz and Jen and Auerstadt and uh, you know, Battle of Friedland and all these other locations, it was just like, man, this guy is just dominating everybody. And in a lot of cases, he was outnumbered, but he just like say what you want about him politically. Definitely, women out there, speak your mind about how he treated women when he became an emperor and he kind of like redid all the laws and rights of man. Well, let's just say men had rights, women did not. And like you you could say whatever you want about him politically, but militarily wise, the guy was pretty sharp. Like he he really knew what he was doing, and so eventually he works his way to becoming emperor, and he does that by uh doing away with like a directory and setting up a consulate where there were three consuls, two of which were like puppets, and Napoleon would be the first consul in charge of you know just the military, which is where the power resides, anyways. And he he literally sets it up so that like all of France wanted him to be the emperor, and it's really, really kind of a shady way, it's a very like a how do I want to word this? It's like a um like a Vladimir Putin type of election. So you know how like Putin wins the election every term, and he has like a 99.998% approval rating, which isn't true in the slightest bit, but that's kind of what Napoleon did. And he he touted these fantastic numbers and how everybody wanted him to become emperor, and so yeah, the Pope flew out, or shouldn't say fly out, he rode out to crown him Emperor of France, and yes, it is true uh that he just took the crown from the Pope and put it on his own head, you know, and and and just like that, after a few battles and a little coup action here and there, um, a little bit of firing cannons into um royalists and stuff like that, he's now like unstoppable, and that's kind of where we're at now, and because in like the 1810-ish to 1812, like Europe was for the most part conquered, even even Russia was on board with Napoleon, and everything was about Britain, which is so funny because he never really had any direct fights with Britain other than Trafalgar, and then the time that he was down in Egypt, um, he had some stuff there, and then Toulon, where he took over that that I don't want to say stockade, but that that shipyard. But like in typical French format, he just had it in for Britain and what he wanted to do.

Kara 9:40

Would it be safe to say that he had it in for Britain solely because of the economic situation that Britain was in?

Ed 9:48

Uh yeah, that's probably what it really was. It's just that because Britain controlled the seas, they kind of controlled They controlled everything.

Kara 9:58

They they so Britain's trade at the time was solely based off of imports and exports between the states, Africa and Europe. Um and that's how they were making South America. Some of South America, um, primarily like sugar cane.

Ed 10:15

Yeah.

Kara 10:15

That's how they were making all of their wealth, and that's why they were the richest country in Europe. Uh so I feel like France, or at least Napoleon wanted a piece of that, especially since he's probably starting to wonder where he's going to get all of this money when France was in major debt just before he took over. So I have a feeling that's the s one of the reasons why he went after Britain is he wanted some of that moolah.

Ed 10:43

So basically what you're saying is is Napoleon targeted um a country or a kingdom or whatever because that's where the money was, and he he wanted some of that, if not all of it.

Kara 10:59

That's my best guess.

Ed 11:01

Yeah, we kind of see that in 1900s Europe again, where there's a group of people that kind of run the banks and all that kind of stuff, and then they got blamed for everything and then targeted, and you know, next thing you know, we have you know the Holocaust. And I I don't I don't think Brita or our uh Napoleon wanted to enslave and destroy uh Britain. I think he had a lot of respect for them. Um, but he's just like, why should Britain have control of everything?

Kara 11:32

That and I think it was the fastest way to make money for France.

Ed 11:37

Yeah. Well, the really, really fast way to do it was to sell that Louisiana chunk of land. That was one way, so yeah, that he made a quick buck off of that. Uh boy, I bet he wish he held on to that for a little longer.

Kara 11:56

To be fair, the Louisiana purchase was pretty cheap.

Ed 11:59

Yeah. He was cheaper. Yeah, for America, yeah. For America, like Jefferson paid pennies to the dollar on that. Uh, but I mean, when you need millions of dollars real fast, you know, that's a great way to go. And at that time, America was fiscally like we will not do anything unless we know our books are balanced and we have a surplus of money. Uh vastly different mindset than today, where it's like, hey, we're only 40 trillion dollars in the hole. Look at us. You know, it's uh yeah, it was funny how how that worked back then. But yeah, Napoleon he wanted to get at France, or not France, he got France, he wanted to get at England, and there was no way he could deal with a navy. So the other way of doing it is to cut off all of Europe from England, and so that's where he came up with that continental system. And the continental system basically said, hey, all of us mainlanders, all of us Europeans and Russia, uh, we will trade with each other, we will have really, really good rates, we will make it really worth our while to just trade with ourselves and not deal with England, and which is okay, that that's a that's a sound approach. I I can totally see that that working. The problem is, and now we're getting into part two here. The problem is that like Europe, they didn't really treat Russia as like one of their own. So, like, you know, Napoleon would be hanging out with you know royalty from Austria or Prussia or you know, these dukes and whatnot of all these lands that would eventually become Germany. And like they would all be hanging out, and they were I'm doing air quotes as friends, even though Napoleon just conquered them horribly in a battle. Uh, but they had to be friends because, you know, treaties. Uh, they kind of left out Russia, and it didn't help that Russia was out in the middle of nowhere, like it was like the capital of Russia, St. Petersburg, is that's up there by like where like Norway is, isn't it?

Kara 14:30

I'm gonna look on a map real quick.

Ed 14:32

Yeah, like where it kind of you know who would know immediately?

Kara 14:36

My husband, but he's at work, so oh, he's a geography nerd.

Ed 14:42

Um, we gotta have him on the show sometime.

Kara 14:45

No, I agree. Doo doo doo.

Ed 14:47

Well, I found a St. Petersburg in Florida.

Kara 14:50

That's not the right one.

Ed 14:51

Yeah, that's a little off. Oh, it's up there by uh Finland.

Kara 14:55

Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

Ed 14:56

Yeah, okay. Oh, yeah, Finland and then Sweden.

Kara 14:59

Oh, yeah, I see it. So yeah, it's kind of adjacent. It's a little bit south of Finland and a little bit east of Estonia.

Ed 15:06

Yeah.

Kara 15:08

That makes sense.

Ed 15:08

Yeah, so that's out there, and that's really, really far away compared to where Paris is. And and it's so funny, is like I'm I'm looking at a map of Europe now, and I can see like Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, uh Chechia, Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia. Like I can see all of these lands, Prague, you know, like all these capitals. And then when you go out to the east, there's like nothing, and then St. Petersburg. And then Moscow, which is like the religious hub of Russia at that time, uh, is just out in the middle of literally nowhere. And I can't blame people for not wanting to go all the way out there, especially when we didn't have like cell phones or a uh, you know, a transatlantic cable or a telegraph line, all that kind of stuff. Like Russia was kind of left out of everything. And this really put Russia in a tough spot. They were not allowed to trade with England, uh, they could only trade with mainlanders, and they could only like they could only work with people that was near them, but there's nobody around them. Like, to go in any direction, it's hundreds and hundreds of miles. So this put Russia in a really, really tough spot, and then eventually in 1812, Russia was like, screw it, we're gonna open up trade with England again. Like, we we have no choice, we we have to. Uh, where was it? I was reading somewhere that like their inflation went up like 1400 percent or something wacky, so they were just printing money left and right, yeah. They they were hungry, uh, taxes were going up, like Russia was in a tough spot, and even all the way through this 1812 uh campaign, Russia was always in a tough spot. There's this belief out there that when Napoleon attacked, Russia was like at its prime, and I've I and I've kind of read a few things out there like that where, oh yeah, you know, Napoleon was stupid to attack Russia because you know, one the winters, and we're gonna see that the winters weren't uh the main culprit for the destruction of most of Napoleon's army, but they were kind of like, oh yeah, Russia really knew how to fight a war in this winter, and Napoleon was out of his league. No, Napoleon was very much in the know on how to fight this war, and so Russia eventually it's just like okay, screw it. We're gonna start trading with England, and England's reaching out to Russia, like, hey, we've got all these ships full of food, FYI, and they were just sitting up there, and they basically Britain just basically waited till Russia got so hungry they had to start trading, which is exactly what Britain wanted to do. They wanted they they wanted this to happen where Russia starts trading with them because they knew that would be like the beginning of the downfall of this continental system. So this really upset Napoleon, as could be imagined. And what's really weird about this, and this is something that I had no idea happened, but Napoleon like announced that he was going to invade Russia like two years prior, and so that's this is like 1810, and Napoleon didn't attack until 1812, and Napoleon was kind of smart. Uh he he took this time to really build his uh military out. Uh, he knew that Russia was not going to be an easy kill. He knew that he uh he had to really work on speed, he had to get in super, super fast, get out. He did not want to be caught in the middle of a Russian winter. He knew that Russia's military, especially those Cossacks, uh, that's their cavalry, were a force to be reckoned with. And he also knew that it's going to take a monumental supply chain to make this work. And there's this myth out there that he went into Russia, you know, half-cocked and just kind of okay, let's just go take it willy-nilly. No, no, it was it was a very uh well-thought-out plan. Napoleon fully understood that just marching a bunch of men into Russia was gonna be a bad idea. He had to go in with a a very detailed plan. And the first thing he figured he would need to have was a massive army. So he called up his doing errors quotes again, friends, like Austria and Prussia.

Kara 20:52

Forced friends.

Ed 20:54

Yeah, yeah. His uh friends that he befriended by beating them in a in a humiliating way on the battlefield. He called up his so-called friends, and he also instigated or implemented a draft, and he put together an army of about 700,000 men. This is the largest army Europe had ever seen up to this point.

Kara 21:28

Yep, it's that's going to be the biggest army Europe has ever seen until we hit the first world war.

Ed 21:35

Yeah, because there we we start hitting millions, isn't it?

Kara 21:38

Yeah.

Ed 21:39

Yeah.

Kara 21:40

So just think about that for a minute. Like, think about Alexander the Great. His armies were like three, four thousand men. This is a lot more than that.

Ed 21:54

200 times more than that. Well, and I think 700,000 men, that would have been like The entire Roman military. Yeah. Like it, I mean, yeah, that that was like everybody here. Um, this was 700,000 men, most of it were French. Uh, there was a couple hundred thousand that were from like Austria and stuff like that. So yeah, he he generated this massive army. Now keep in mind, not that wasn't like the 700,000 men, they weren't all going to be fighting in Russia. Uh, he utilized a lot of these men. I would say about two to three hundred thousand men were going to be setting up supply depots and running the logistics side of things, and they're going to be reinforcements, and you know, these are going to be people that need to, hey, once they conquer a town, they've got to keep a force there to maintain that town being conquered. And there was a lot of men that were not going to be fighting. Uh, in terms of the fighting force, it was like 450,000, which is still still a lot. Yeah, that's that's just insane. Yeah. And the key was to just overwhelm what Napoleon's perception of Alexander the the uh the first was, and he and he just treated Alexander the first as like this little punk ass teenager, like he's just this kid who doesn't know what he's doing, and in a lot of respects, it's not too far wrong with that assumption, but uh we will look at the Russian side of things here in a little bit. But yeah, June 24th, 1812, Napoleon took 450,000 men into Russia, thus starting one of the biggest dumpster fires in all of human history. And prior to invading Russia, Napoleon did some homework. Uh, remember in the last episode, he was kind of nerdy. Like, unfortunately, he gives us nerds a bad reputation. Really, dude? Like, couldn't you be nerdy and like you know, like discover a longer-lasting light bulb or put man in the moon or something like that? No, make a steam engine, yeah, or a better cotton gin, you know, just whatever. No, invading other lands and uh treating women like crap. Cool. Uh, Hitler was kind of nerdy, and he read a lot, studied a lot, studied a lot of history. And uh again, I believe that you know, history should has shown that everybody is a complicated being, and there's good and bad, but you cannot justify any of the good. You can't even see any of the good when you've got this wall of Holocaust that you started in front of you, ruining it for any chance of having like, yeah, you lost the war, but he was a complicated being and he did do some good. No, whatever good you do, after six million Jews, you are officially public enemy number one in history.

Kara 25:23

Yeah, Hitler is I have a lot to say about Hitler that's not good. But this is not the episode for that. No, no, no, no.

Ed 25:36

But but what you just did though is what every historian, like World War II historian or whatnot, when they bring up Hitler, it's just oh boy. Okay.

Kara 25:49

There's a lot going on in there, not in a good way.

Ed 25:53

Yeah, yeah. And and and obviously Napoleon didn't try to eradicate an entire race of uh humanity, um, but still it's hard to look at the good stuff that he did when you know he's invading other countries.

Kara 26:08

Yeah, I have my I have my thoughts about Napoleon too.

Ed 26:12

Yeah, I know, I know you're not the biggest Napoleon fan out there. I have my thoughts on him. I I agree with everything uh on your perspective, but I also like like I try to put what I call the Game of Thrones lens on it. It's just like, man, everybody has their good points, and boy, do they have their bad points. And yeah, Napoleon was no detractor from that. And and he was nerdy, he did study a lot of history, and he knew in the early 1700s, uh Sweden uh tried to take Russia and failed horribly. So he knew about the Russian winter, he knew about the climate, and he knew how the food was dispersed and and all that stuff. So he knew that the Russians would continuously retreat. I always thought that that the Russia's policy of like scorched earth policy and strategic retreating and all that. I thought that they had gotten that inspiration from George Washington in the Revolutionary War. Because that's what Washington did, is he retreated a lot, wore down the British forces, and then attacked on his terms, and that was kind of the policy. And I always thought that maybe Russia had adopted that policy because of Washington. No, this was a strategy that they had going on for like over a hundred years.

Kara 27:42

I was gonna say it's probably the opposite.

Ed 27:44

Yeah, I know that that that would it would make more sense looking back at it. Like, hey, look, America winning its freedom from England is a pretty big thing. But I'm sorry, the rest of the world didn't really care. It's not like America had made that much of an impact on the rest of the world, especially for like Russia. So it was probably reversed. Washington looked at probably how did Russia handle things and took that. Uh, one of the problems that that this Swedes ran into was supply and all that kind of stuff. So if you look at a map, and anybody who's ever played like civilization, because you know those are historically accurate video games that to be fair, they're fun.

Kara 28:33

I like civilization. Yeah, I love historical absorption. No, no, no, not at all. You don't play it for that.

Ed 28:38

Yeah, no, you you play it because you like simulations, and I'm a huge like SimCity nut. Whenever you are looking at a land and you start seeing towns and cities get further and further apart from each other, what you will see is you you'll still see some farms, but what happens is is that the people in those villages are living off the land more, meaning they're hunting wildlife and game and and all that kind of stuff. There is some crops, but you know, they're they're kind of as they get more and more spread out, they have to be more reliant off the land. And that was something that Sweden didn't take into consideration. They figured, okay, yeah, we could just go under Russia and we would just feed our army off the land. Bad idea. There was no food to go around, not enough to maintain an army. So Napoleon came up with a very intricate supply chain of setting up various depots along the way and funneling food in from Eastern Europe into uh Western Russia, and it was pretty impressive. It and and one of the things that uh we fail to look at in history is the importance of supply chain. Like when we think of like World War II, we think about like the you know, Battle of Coral Sea and Midway and Iojima and Pele Lu, and you know, we think about these really epic like D-Day invasions and and all that kind of stuff. We never focus on like how do you support all that? How do you get arms and bullets and food and all that stuff out to these men? I mean, uh look at uh Guadacanal. I mean, those Marines were stuck there for weeks before they could get any food in there, and they almost lost the island because of it. And we we don't focus a whole lot on supply chain management because it's not very sexy.

Kara 30:54

Well, historically speaking, there's a um a pattern of romanticizing the idea of war, and that goes back throughout all of human history where you have enough time between wars where you have this romantic idea of I'm gonna go out and be the hero and I'm gonna be the brave, honorable soldier, and that's the reputation that war has after some time has passed. And I think that's something that's really important to note, not just logistically speaking, but just like the idea of war in people's minds. But yeah, people I've heard some people recently who have been in the military say, I mean, I have stories that I'd rather not share, but for the most part, we just sat around. We we made some deliveries.

Ed 31:46

I knew uh a guy, he was kind of a goofy guy, and he never really talked about, you know, like his involvement in the Middle East because he said that he ran a dump truck or like a garbage truck, and that's what his job was. But you know, yes, your job may be to run a dump truck or a garbage truck, but you're also like trained in something else, like explosives, or um he was a machine gunner, and I didn't know this, but you know, he he was heading into a hot spot in the mid-I think it was in Afghanistan, and he drove right into the middle of a battle, and he was there for like four days with his machine gun, just trying to like work his way out and all that kind of stuff. Like, we all think, well, there, there, that you can make a movie out of, but for the most part, like 95% of what goes on is just sitting around waiting for stuff to happen. I had uh um, I knew a lot of World War II vets growing up, and most of them were like, Yeah, I would say we just sat around for most of the war, but then when the combat did happen, it was very intense. So it's like 10 minutes of pure insanity followed by days or weeks of just sheer boredom.

Kara 33:08

Yeah. So I think it's important to note two things that when when people romanticize war, it's been a long time since there's been a war, or maybe stories from generations are starting to get more blown out of proportion from those who want to talk about it. So the the touch with the violence and the reality and the fact that war is not a fun time, that kind of disappears because everything's being romanticized. So you have that aspect of it, but then you also have the aspect of people don't think about the logistical aspects of war at the same time. So war is a really interesting thing when you think about the um the general population or the public's view of it throughout history. And that's something historians love to talk about. Obviously, I love to talk about it is the um outlook of war during certain points in history.

Ed 34:01

It's really Yeah, and and it is cool to be like talking about how oh, after this battle, you know, the tide of the of the war changed, and you know, Gettysburg, and then this was the decline of the Confederate army from here on out and stuff like that. Uh but what we don't really talk about because it's not very exciting, is like, yes, we know that Gettysburg was a big deal, but that really messed a lot of things up for the Confederacy, supply chain-wise. And, you know, that that was something that Napoleon was very cognizant of going into Russia. He knew that his army would not be able to live off the land, uh like as opposed to saying, like, invading Italy, right? You invade Italy, there you don't need to worry about living off the land because there's so many villages and so many towns and cities in close proximity that it's easy to get supplies from one place to the next. Uh, with Russia, not so much. So he would actually have to create his own uh his own supply chain, which again isn't that sexy when you think about it, but it's you know a really, really important thing, especially when you look at Napoleon's strategy. Napoleon's strategy was speed, and he could position his men, large numbers of men, in very intricate locations at the drop of a hat and attack before anybody could even realize what was going on. That was kind of his overall take on things. Uh, when we study the Civil War, we see Robert E. Lee kind of do the same thing, uh, split his army up into smaller armies and just attack and then counter-attack and just really keep the pressure going on the defenders. And so that's why out of that 700,000 men, you know, two to three hundred thousand of them were set apart just for that supply chain. And believe it or not, that supply chain is kind of what saved the dregs of the army that was left after this whole fiasco. And uh Russia had this propensity of scorched earth. Napoleon knew that a reliable supply chain was going to be crucial. Napoleon knew that in order to win this fight, he would need to outmaneuver the Russians, uh, which plays into Napoleon's wheelhouse, but only if they pursue Napoleon. So the idea was that, hey, I'm gonna make it so that Russia wants to attack me, and then whatever that happens, and Napoleon could be on the defensive front, he stands a much, much higher chance of winning. The other thing, too, that he had to kind of base a lot of decision making on was where does he attack, right? The capital of Russia was St. Petersburg. That's where Tsar Alexander would be hanging out, but Moscow was like the religious hub. Moscow was like the center of morale for Russia. That was kind of like it's their oldest city, and uh Moscow was kind of like the symbol of Russia, whereas St. Petersburg was like the I don't know, the it's a newer city. I I think it was where like the image of the government would be. Which one do you attack? I kind of think he should have resorted to going after St. Petersburg, but you know, Russia was right. Russia knew that Napoleon would go from Moscow and they set things up accordingly. Remember, Napoleon had two years to prepare for this attack, and as we will see, Russia had two years to prepare for this attack as well. So Napoleon increased the draft uh to not uh only France, but for all of his conquered lands, like Austria, Poland, and what would become Germany and others. Uh, he looked at the area that was um that he was invading and he noticed that it was sparsely populated. So we're talking about a million people living in an area the size of France, as opposed to like a million people living in the area the size of Paris. He organized 26 logistical battalions to keep a steady supply chain going, or those who were not fit to fight, uh either like they were too heavy or they had a bad back or or whatever. Uh, this is where you would work. So you would, if if you weren't really set apart as a key fighting man, then you worked in the back as the supply chain guy, which was kind of uh oh, what's the word I want to say? It's like that's not what you want to be known for. Like you want to be known for fighting in a massive war and these epic battles and stuff like that, like, oh, I was Afro Barbino and and all that kind of stuff, instead of being like, Yeah. So the the romantic or like I ran a wagon that carried pork shops. I yeah, I I agree too, but when you look at the history books, who writes about what the most?

Kara 39:30

I don't know. To me, equally important. I I don't know. I just think about what I was literally just talking about in the romanticism of it all.

SPEAKER_02 39:38

Yeah.

Kara 39:38

And that's that's also like in the lens of 2024. If you're looking at it in the lens of the 1800s, then yeah, you want to be in the front. You want your your titles and your hero and all of that. Yeah.

Ed 39:52

So whereas like if it was 2024, me and I was recruited to go fight in this campaign, I'd be like, I'll be the supply guy. Yeah, I'll cook. I'll cook. Keep me in the back. I I will be delivering food because no matter what, I know I won't starve to death, and I will always be where it's comfortable. So let's take a look at the Russian side of things. So, as I said before, Napoleon had two years to prepare for this, and he announced it. Okay, Russia, I'm coming for you because you opened up trade with Britain, and then Russia's like, all right, well, we'll catch you in two years. So Russia, uh, they came up with a lot of plans and a lot of strategy to receive the French. So the attack on Russia wasn't a huge surprise to Alexander I. Napoleon announced his intent in 1810, and it took a long time to amass what Napoleon would call the Grande Armee, or literally it translates to the big army.

Kara 41:03

But I I think an army that is great.

Ed 41:06

I think a grande armée is a little more elegant, but when you translate it to English, it's like cool. Um, you had a lot of people. That's great. Uh Russia knew that France was going to make up the largest single contribution to the attack, and up to 200,000 men were allocated to the Spanish front in an ongoing fiasco in its own right. So Napoleon in 1810, he had like a solid half of his army in Spain that he was going to have to pull out. Or if he kept it there, he knew that there was be no way that these guys would be worth anything attacking Russia because you're literally going from one end of Europe to the far end of Europe, which might as well be the other side of the world. Uh, this meant France was going to need the assistance of allies and lots of them. You know, Russia knew that those allies were very tenuously aligned with Napoleon. Uh, these weren't people that necessarily wanted to die for France. It was like you humiliated us so that we had to join your little coalition. We will go, but we're not really gonna put our hearts into it.

Kara 42:26

It's kind of like the argument of, would you rather rule by fear or by love?

Ed 42:30

Yes.

Kara 42:30

Essentially. Yeah, yeah. In simple terms.

Ed 42:33

Yeah, and and that's kind of what and well, and I would probably say Napoleon took a third route where it was he ruled by humiliation. Because, like, once they surrendered and they signed a treaty with France, Napoleon was like, All right, cool, welcome aboard. Here is some trade, we'll get some food going to you guys. Like, he was cool with them after that, but still, it's like to these leaders that have egos like I guess we'll go send some men out to this fight for no reason. So, uh, therefore, it is in Russia's best interest to drag the conflict out as long as possible because they knew that Napoleon would want to attack during the summer so he could beat the winter. The idea was to drag it out for as long as possible and demoralize the Grande Armee. This would make it so that the vassals wouldn't stick around or fight as hard. So basically, you draw it out, they're getting hungry, they're getting tired, they're getting fed up, and once ever you have a starving army that just really isn't invested into this, then they're just gonna like put down their guns and walk away. So during this two year prep time, as I called it, Russia used uses to clean up the relationships with Finland and Sweden uh to the north, and the Turks, now that I'm in the south. They went to these countries, which kind of were to the north and to the south, they were like, hey, whatever. Whatever conflict we're in, let's just we want to end it. Let's be cool. And awesome. They're like, cool, let's stop the fighting, man. So they contracted a lot of men that way. This freed up tens of thousands of men, and they were much needed because they knew the Russians knew that this was going to be a massive invasion. I don't think they knew like it was going to be 700,000 strong, but it was going to be massive. So this was a two to one ratio, right? Napoleon outnumbered Russia two to one. Uh, I think uh for the most part, the Russians had about 200,000 men, and they were broken up into like very, very small armies of like 10,000 here, 20,000 there. Uh, I think there was like a 30,000 army. Uh, they were spread out and they were much smaller, whereas Napoleon was like, I'm going to invade with one massive, unimpregnable wall of troops. And that is where we kind of see, you know, the first foundations of this dumpster fire taking place. The commander-in-chief or field marshal for the Russians was Prince Michael. Uh, what was it? Andreas Barclay Detolli. It's really interesting. Uh, the Russian army was split into two. You had Russian leaders and you had or like Russian generals and Russian men and all that. But then there was another contingent that were like German, like they were Eastern European, and they were, you know, like imagine having a guy running your army that wasn't even Russian. I don't even think the Tolkien even spoke Russian when I really think about it.

Kara 45:55

Well, you have to remember too that Germany was not a unified country at this point.

Ed 45:59

That is correct. Yeah, it was a collection of like territories and whatnot.

Kara 46:04

Yeah.

Ed 46:04

So I imagine that it wouldn't be very uncommon for parts of what would become Germany. Parts of it would maybe side with France, other parts of it would side with Russia. Yep. But Detoli was kind of a unique guy. He was a German-born, turned Russian commander, and he was a big proprietor of the Scorched Earth policy. So this strategy comprises of a large series of calculated retreats. However, before retreating, um, the defending forces they just burn everything to the ground. So if France was going to go take over this town, and if Russia can hold it, that is fine. You hold them off as long as possible, but do not waste uh too many resources. Basically, when you retreat, make sure you leave some people behind to burn the entire city to the ground. Even if you don't have enough manpower to pull the resources out, like the food and ammunition and stuff like that. Fine. If you can't even get that out, then just burn it. Like it's a very, very hardcore way of fighting. Uh, it's kind of a uh disgraceful form of fighting in in like Napoleon's eyes. But hey, it's one of those things you gotta do what you gotta do. And and we're gonna quickly see here that Napoleon and Russia were fighting two different wars, which is kind of weird when we think about it, but we'll get into it. De Toly knew that for Napoleon to feed his massive army, he was going to need more from the land than what could have been hunted. Therefore, by retreating, DeToly was straining Napoleon's supply chain, thus crippling the invasion. So basically, the Russian strategy was like, okay, screw the 450,000 men. That sounds weird. Don't worry about the 450,000 men. Instead, tax that supply chain, tax that, you know, the support structure of it, and eventually France would starve itself out to totally embrace the strategy of just staying out of harm's reach, and any large open field battle would have to be carefully chosen.

Kara 48:24

You know, when you're playing with your cat or your dog with a laser pointer, and you put it like just in front of their face, and then you move it real quick, and then like you know, like a pet follows it and you move it again. That's kind of what I imagine when what the Russians are doing.

Ed 48:38

Yeah, Napoleon's like this cat, just like Yeah.

Kara 48:42

Trying to chase the laser that he's not gonna catch.

Ed 48:45

I like that. Actually, I think Napoleon would be a good name for a cat.

Kara 48:48

That is a good name for a cat. I I kind of kind of like that.

Ed 48:52

So so basically, out of the six months that the Grand Armee spent in Russia, just keep in mind they started attacking in what was it, like July? During the summer. I'm gonna say I think it was June 24th, and they got out in like six months. So what's really funny is when you look at the this war, it only lasted for six months, and there was like three battles. There were no super massive, like a chain of massive battles. There was just three. Uh, you've got the battle of Smolensk, so that was August 16th through the 18th of 1812. Uh, the battle of uh Borodino, I think that's actually how it's supposed to be pronounced. Borodino, that was a few weeks later, September 7th. We will talk about this battle a little bit, but it was the largest and bloodiest battle in all of European history up to this point. 70,000 men died in the course of like two days. Yeah, the battle of Borodino was was scary to say the least. And the funny thing is that Napoleon won Smolinsk, and Napoleon won Borodino, and then there was like the Battle of Moscow, so September 14th, 1812. So there was all sorts of smaller conflicts. Uh, this is precisely what uh the Russians wanted to do was spread out the French forces over a large area, thus putting more strain on the supply chain. And every smaller battle and whatnot, they they all ended in one of two ways. So uh one way is that the Russians would put up a formidable defense in an open battle and then quickly retreat. So like the Russians could look like they were doing okay, and then suddenly, boom, horns go off and they're retreating. In the process of retreating, Russian soldiers would destroy the infrastructure, so they would destroy the buildings, the roads, they would destroy warehouses, they would burn even churches, and like they would just make it so that if you did take over this city, there was no city left to really take. The other strategy was to make Napoleon think an area was set for a battle, but by the time he arrived, the Russians were gone and so are the lands, buildings, and resources. So one approach was let us be attacked, and then we're just gonna retreat out of nowhere and thus confuse the French, or we're gonna set up a huge battle, and by the time it takes France to get there, they're gone. And Robert E. Lee in the Civil War made a comment that yes, the Union had like 200,000 men, and the Confederate Army was like 70,000 at its strongest, but Robert E. Lee said that we have the advantage of small numbers, which you're thinking like, okay, that's a a a weird statement to take into a war. We have the advantage of small numbers. Well, the less mouths to feed, faster, easier to move. Yes, exactly. I mean, you look at the Battle of Fredericksburg, right? The entire Union army attacked uh Lee, and but Lee was set up behind a stone wall, and it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Yeah, the small numbers meant that the Russian forces could get around quicker, and they could also counterattack if necessary, and it's just easier to manage all that. And they were just like all Russian.

Kara 52:45

Yeah, we're well in military history, we're starting to see that transition from organized warfare. So you have one side versus the other side, and they're all organized in their and their things, and they meet head-on. Um I I'd say starting in the closer to the Revolutionary War here in America, and then throughout the rest of the world, we're starting to see more guerrilla warfare and tactics. So smaller armies that are easier to maneuver. We're not going to see those giant armies one side versus the other over land anymore, at least not as much.

Ed 53:20

Yeah, yeah. And and we really see like army scoring up to army, like up to the American Civil War. And then after that, it it petered out. And I don't want to say it turned into like guerrilla warfare, but it really turned into you know, like a platoon can do a lot. Like a platoon could do as much as like a battalion could in a lot of respects, uh, because that you just train for smaller, smaller scenarios, like in the war uh like in all of America's you know conflicts in the Middle East, you we've never heard of a day where like a thousand Americans were lost. It was like one or two here or there a day. So, as I mentioned before, Napoleon thought that this type of strategy was shameful to like never face your enemy and burn your own lands was pathetic. And he wrote home to uh Josephine like this isn't really a fair fight. Like, I'm coming in here and they are giving up before I even have a chance to do anything. And this is where we start to see the difference between Russia and France. They were fighting two different wars. Okay, Napoleon was coming in expecting to fight like what he had seen all the years prior to this.

Kara 54:47

Um traditional, very all of your forces up front and lined up with your drummer boy and your flags. And yes, that's what they have that's what I was talking about is this transition.

Ed 55:01

Yeah, yeah. So like Napoleon would have like battalions and divisions and corps and armies, and they would all attack in a very specific way. Whereas Russia's like, okay, we'll do what we can, but the emphasis is to just get the hell out of Dodge and burn everything down in the process. So like Napoleon would see like, woo-hoo, I just took Smolensk, where he destroyed 70% of that town. So not only did the Russians destroy a lot and leaving, but Napoleon was so angry that he destroyed even more of it. And out of like the 30,000 buildings or something like that, there was only like four or five thousand that were left. And there's a lot of history in in Smolensk was lost as a result. So yeah, uh De Tully was a big proprietor of the smaller forces, meant faster responses, easier to feed, like you mentioned before, and an improved uh maneuverability. Ditali also split his army into three. He got the largest section, I think it was um like 30, 40,000. And then Bagration got uh the second largest. I think he was in the 20, 30,000s, and then the smallest section marched south to Kiev. Uh Datali stayed north ish with 127,000 men. So he had him and then like three or four other generals that hung out up there. Uh Bagration uh was a little south with 48,000 men, and then a small contingent of men were pulled from Bagration's forces uh to head further south because they knew that there was an Austrian contingency coming down through the south. Uh the idea was we're gonna attack uh Moscow from you know like the west and then have the contingency come up from the bottom like a pincher maneuver or a pincer maneuver. So when de Tulli spread everybody up like north to south, that spread all of Napoleon's forces out on the western front because he had to protect the flanks. By doing so, that really, really put a lot of strain on the supply chain because now it had to be spread out, and instead of having uh like say 50 wagons feeding this one like two-mile stretch of uh battlefront, it's now like having to do like 40-50 miles of battlefront, and that's really hard to maintain for Napoleon and his supply chain issues. Things were compounded even more by the fact that all the roads, which were never really maintained to begin with, even the major thoroughfares that led into Eastern Europe, uh, they were just muddy falling apart, and it was just a swamp trying to get through this. And there was also a heat wave, so there was it was hot, which is again when we're thinking of the invasion of Russia, we're like, really? Heat? Okay, but yeah, like what was it? Napoleon only had 185,000 men left, so he lost 90,000 men to just strategic costs, and that was just from starvation, uh, mostly his exhaustion. Uh, they had um like yellow fever, stuff like that running around. Um, like he lost like almost half of his army, or at least a third of his army, just in the process of trying to just get over these stupid roads, and then whatever towns he did take, he had to leave some people behind to hold it and all that kind of stuff. And he also left uh pockets of men that's of substantial numbers, like 10,000, 15,000. Uh, he left them uh behind, you know, just to maintain things. So yeah, he lost 90,000 men to just what is known as strategic costs. Lastly, due to De Tali's strategy, Napoleon's forces needed to perform uh long, hard marches, meaning, hey, your typical army could do like 10-15 miles in a day. Uh Napoleon had to force his men to go about 25 to 30 miles in a day. That's pretty tough. By the time of the Battle of Sum uh Smolensk, so we're talking like a month and a half into this conflict, 20% of the Grand Army were either sick, exhausted, or straight up dead. And uh, we haven't had any major battles yet. So, yeah, I had a note here off to the side when we get to Smolensk, France had 45,000 men in fighting condition. This smaller numbers was more into Napoleon's wheelhouse. So, yeah, Napoleon actually worked better when he had less men. I don't think he was really a commander, he wasn't like a uh Ike Eisenhower. Okay, Eisenhower was a general that's like, okay, I'm used to dealing with 10 million men, right? I'm good with that. Uh, Napoleon was more like a field commander. He's like, yeah, anything above 60, 70,000 men, and I have a tough time organizing that, or I have a tough time maintaining that, if that makes sense. By August of 1812, Napoleon realized that he needed some sort of victory. Okay, every single conflict that they got into with de Tolly, uh, it was just a retreat, and it was really, really, really wearing on Napoleon. And De Tolli was getting pressure too. Like, yeah, the strategy of you know, the scorched earth policy and the constant retreating and stuff like that. Yeah, sure. Like, that's all fine and dandy, but when that's all you're doing, the publicity or the optics of it look really, really bad in St. Petersburg, especially to the czar. So De Tolli knew that getting into an open slug fest against Apollo would be a disaster. So he dragged the conflict further and further into Russia, where the hunting gets worse, uh, the roads get worse, the supplies run thin, and the morale just declines. He also knew that he can't retreat himself to victories. But the two conflicts that they had, uh, Smolensk and Borodino, those were two major conflicts that date they were gonna lose uh pretty bad. So the actual battle is really complicated, so I'm not gonna get into the details of that. Napoleon was tactically superior and was able to push out Bagration. So Bagration was the guy that had to hold Smolensk. Poline lost 10,000 out of a contingency of 45,000. Uh Russia lost 14,000 out of a contingency of 30,000. Due to uh Russian inflating, uh Smolensk was precisely the battle Napoleon was looking for. Meaning, uh Holi and pressure from St. Petersburg. Hey, we need a big battle, we need a big conflict, we need something uh going for us here. And Napoleon was like, cool, this is what I can do. You need me to square up and tee off on 30,000 men, that I can do. He did. So Russia Nationals, including the Tsar, wanted an all-out attack on Napoleon. T'Tolly wanted to play the retreat game and wear Napoleon's army out. Titoly's second command Bagraton agreed with the nationals and disobeyed Titolli's orders. So Bagration actively and purposely disobeyed orders, which caused even more people to die. The degree of separation was seized upon by Napoleon when he saw like they the Russian front was not unified. That's where like Napoleon would strike. And that was the other thing, too, is that he could go on top of a hill and he could look at the opposing forces and he could tell when they were disorganized, he could tell when they weren't going to be firing in all cylinders, and he could just figure out a way to attack in that sort of a situation. Militarily wise, Napoleon was kind of a genius. Out of 4,000 buildings, only a few hundred remained. So Napoleon really made a statement out of this, but it also really infuriated Russia. The population was like, really, bro, did you really have to like destroy even more of this city? And so like that kind of actually worked to the Russians' advantages. After the Battle of Somolensk, uh Detoli took a lot of the blame for that whole city falling, and basically he didn't get in too much trouble, like, hey, we're we're firing you. It's more like we are gonna send in a new guy by the name of Mikhail Kutuzov. He was he was a Russian nationalist and a bit of a war hero. Uh, I mentioned before he was a part of uh the contingency in Austerlitz, so he had um a lot of familiarity with France and how they fought. But what's interesting is that Kutzov literally saw eye to eye with the Tali. Like, seriously, eye to eye. He only had one eye, so he saw eye to eye with Itali, uh, he he agreed that the plan of strategic retreats is the way to go, but he was also put on pressure from on high to attack, just like Datali was. Kuduzov was like, Okay, I'm making Datolly my second in command, and it was a very peaceful change of command, which I thought was really interesting. Kudasov took over, and he's like, Okay, Moscow is going to be the prize. This is going to be the thing that will set us up for a kind of Attack. And before he just didn't retreat straight to Moscow. Like, that's not what the plan was. Don't just give up and go straight to Moscow. Uh, he instead went out west a little bit and he put up a defensive front in the town of Borodino. So if Napoleon wanted Moscow, he was going to have to go through Borodino and pay a huge price. So Kutzov used Borodino to stall Napoleon and evacuate Moscow as well as emptying the larders. So it it's like that uh what was that scene in like the final season of Game of Thrones where um the what was it the north attacked um Castrele Rock and when they got there it was empty, like the whole city was emptied out, and they took everything out of the larders. So like Tyrion is like, this whole city is empty. What the f uh that was exactly what Zuduk uh um Kuduzov wanted to do was use Bardino to stall Napoleon, and then while he was doing that, yeah, and this like couple day-long adventure, he evacuated all of Moscow and basically set it up so the whole city could be burned to the ground. As I mentioned earlier, the Battle of Bardino was the largest fight in European history um up to this point, and again, just like Smolensk, it is an extremely complicated battle to get into. There's all sorts of YouTube channels out there that go over it. I think like Epic History had a really, really nice, like 30, 40-minute long documentary just on the battle, which is pretty cool. So both sides involved over 100,000 men each, including massive cavalry and artillery attacks. So this was another one of these cases. This is a fight that Napoleon was looking for. This is the large-scale battle that Napoleon wanted that he's good at, and this was the large-scale fight that St. Petersburg was looking for. The thing that stood out to me was that this battle took place only a few weeks after Smolensk. So it's not like either side had a lot of time to rest and recuperate after this, but after the battle, even though France or Napoleon was victorious, he lost a third of his men, including nearly 2,000 officers and 49 generals. That's a lot of command lost right there. So, yay, for de Tali, he got his revenge, I guess. Um, because remember, Bagraton kind of screwed over De Talley in Smolensk. Uh, historian was it, Gwyn Dyer wrote that the battle was equivalent to a fully loaded 747 crashing in a field every five minutes for eight hours straight.

Kara 1:09:30

Yikes.

Ed 1:09:33

That is wild when you think about it. Like it was up to 70,000 people died in like a course of a day or two. Kuduzov was like, cool, the plan worked. Uh, Napoleon lost a lot of men taking Bardino, which was a huge morale booster for Russia. And then Napoleon was able to take Moscow, but found the city empty. Uh, in the movie Napoleon with Joaquin Phoenix, there's a scene where he goes into Moscow and it's empty. No one is in sight. And he's like, What the heck? And then he goes to uh Tsar Alexander's palace. He's like, it's been stripped clean. There's not even pictures on the wall, like it's all gone. And then it shows like that night he was sleeping in Tsar Alexander's bed when he woke up to uh like a fire flickering, and he looked outside and he saw like all of Moscow in the middle of the night was ablaze. Yeah, that that that would have to be an interesting sight because in the movie was kind of interesting. He's just standing out there like in his underwear, like, what in the world is going on? And his generals are just standing there, like all nervous, like, uh, is Napoleon gonna lose it here? Like, this was not what he was hoping for. After this, Napoleon sent a letter to Alexander telling him to surrender. Like, hey bro, I just defeated you guys. I have Moscow. Like, let's surrender and let's get a peace treaty going. That backfired because he sent that out in September and he sat there for like a month waiting. And for that entire month that he was waiting in Moscow, uh, he was ghosted. A letter never came. And now this is where the fight is going to turn. So instead of Russia being the one to retreat, now Napoleon was the one that was gonna have to retreat. So Napoleon waited for weeks for a letter that never came, and it had finally occurred to him, like in October 14th, that there was two different wars being fought. Napoleon was trying to defeat Russia with the traditional European tactics, but Russia was trying to stall his advancements to spread out the grande arme, and the no reply from Alexander now put Napoleon in great danger because winter is coming. And I hate to sound like Ned Stark, but yeah, winter is coming. And keep in mind, Napoleon lost already a third of his army just getting to like just getting to Moscow. And now he's got an army that is not equipped for a Russian winter. And a lot of people will say, like, like whenever you you search up, like on Google and you type in, why did Napoleon lose the invasion of Russia? And one of the first things that comes up with like the AI response is like, Oh, I lost because of the Russian winter. No, no, the the Russian winter just made it that much worse for Napoleon. And in the process of waiting, and this is exactly what the Russians wanted to do, is that they were never going to respond to Napoleon. They were never ever gonna say anything. The yeah, the intent was never to reply to Napoleon and just make him wait and wait and wait until it's too late. Now Napoleon's armies, like all the core and everything was spread out all over. Like the main road that went into Moscow going all the way to Eastern uh Europe, everybody was spread out, uh, supply chains spread too thin. And even even if they weren't being attacked on the way back, they would still lose a lot just trying to hurry the crap out of there. And that was the two different strategies. Napoleon was like, I want to go in, attack with a massive force, unimpregnable, I have all these men. What could possibly go wrong? You know, there is that whole dumpster fire thing that we talk about. Here is this massive plan, and what could possibly go wrong? And then it literally turns into a dumpster fire when he sees Moscow burning to the ground. And Russia's stance was to just draw it out for as long as possible because that was the thing that Napoleon did not consider. So they were fighting two completely different strategies of war here. So winter is coming, and Napoleon was used to quick wars, conflicts, and he assumed Russia would be no different. He assumed he can get in there, take it over, uh, even though he had a superior strategy of like the supply chain and all that stuff. This shouldn't have gone um the way that it did. Alrighty. How did I I think it was uh Pochar Morse Mone Contenir or Incendie de Bon a Ardure or the beginning of the dumpster fire. That was my attempt at Russian.

Kara 1:15:15

Oh I I commend you for trying.

Ed 1:15:20

Yeah, yeah. I can do the French. Incendier de Ben Al Ardure.

Kara 1:15:28

So I can't, so it's fine. You're doing better than I can.

Ed 1:15:32

So realize Napoleon realized that he had to get the hell out of Moscow fast, not realizing that he was walking into a dumpster fire in his own right. Uh, during the weeks Napoleon stayed in Moscow waiting for a response from Alexander that never came, the massive Russian forces scattered to it north and south and all over the place basically positioned themselves to perform all these counterattacks. So that whole road that Napoleon would now have to go back through was now just littered with Russian forces, and there was a massive contingency of Russian forces just outside Moscow that were now poised to just harass Napoleon the whole way out. So because Napoleon thought that the road that he took was going to be, and correctly so, was going to be too heavily protected by uh enemy forces, he decided to go south of Moscow. That's how he was going to retreat by going south and then heading out west. And then he was going to try to meet up with the depots, like the biggest one, uh, Smolensk. And what Napoleon wanted to do was hey, let's get to Smolensk, and that's where I'll have my winter quarters. It's really funny how wars were fought at this time, is like both sides would call like a timeout during winter. Like there was no fighting during the winter, and both sides would be like, okay, we'll pick it up in like February or March, okay? Like, cool. So Napoleon was like, okay, let's get to Smolensk, where we have supplies, and we can hang out there for the winter, we can regroup, we can get all our forces back together again, and we'll be like, we'll be good to go in in 1813. But these depots and everything were hit hard, and it seemed like whenever Napoleon retreated to it, it was destroyed or pillaged or emptied out. So he tried to get to Smolensk, and the first thing that he hit when heading south was Kutzov's forces head on. Like instead of having an army marching towards a fight, this was an army trying to get away from a fight. And two completely different mindsets. Like, there's one one is like, okay, I'm ready for this. The other one was like, I'm panicking, and I want to get out of here because this is not going well. And that was that second mindset that Napoleon's men walked right into, and he hit Kutzov's main army, which I think at that time was 60,000, 70,000 strong. And Napoleon was realistically working with like 100,000. So already out of the 700,000, he only had 100,000 left. So it became apparent that heading south wasn't going to be an option. He just his men just were not prepared to take on a large-scale attack like what Kutzov had planned for them. So he reversed course, went back up to Moscow, and then proceeded to head to Smolensk for winter quarters. Out of the 100,000 men left, only about 30,000 to 40,000 were able to fight. So that's 70 to 60 to 70,000 were either sick, injured, they were too old, or they there was women involved. Uh, there was like some women or women and some children, because a lot of them were cooks and whatnot. They just kind of hung out with the army. So yeah, we're talking uh a third of Napoleon's forces that he started off with was well, not even started off with a a third of the 100,000 men that he had left out of that near 700,000, only a third of that could fight. So now this meant that Napoleon was outnumbered everywhere he went. And then we have the Cossacks. And the Cossacks are uh fascinating because they're like their own tribe of people, and they are insanely good with horses, they're like a vicious form of cavalry, and the best way I could equate them is like the modern day Genghis Khan tribal attacks. Uh, they were very savage, they were unrelenting, and it was but like they just made things so much worse. Uh, the Cossacks were coming down from the north under uh a um, what was his name? It was uh Platov, Plutov, and then Admiral uh Chichikov was from the south. You now have Kutuzov off to the east with you know a substantial amount of men and an army that was ready to fight. You have the Cossacks coming from the north, and then you have an admiral, which it's kind of weird. I had no idea that Russia even had a navy, but hey, they had an admiral lying around, they put him in as a general, and he he was the one that was stationed down south to take on uh Austria as need be. And Austria was kind of getting involved, like Chichikov did have to worry about uh the Austrians a little bit, but they started marching north, and basically the idea was to cut off Napoleon's retreat. So now we have like a hundred thousand Russians versus 30 to 40,000 French that are just trying to get out of there. And actually, Napoleon had some pretty bold strategies on the way out to his credit, but it was it was a disaster, no matter how you looked at it. From October 19th and November 29th, the grande armée went from 100,000 men down to 20, so 20,000 with 80,000 wounded, sick, or struggling to keep up. This was the other problem, too. If you couldn't keep up, they just left you. So, like, even when like this all ended, there were still tens of thousands of Frenchmen stuck in Russia that got cut off and got stuck or left behind, and it eventually turned into like a uh prisoner exchange of monumental proportions. So, like Napoleon kind of screwed over a lot of his men. I don't know about necessity or what, but he had to get out of there. So by November, Russian winter kicked into full gear and killing men every night. On uh on many nights, it got below negative eight degrees Fahrenheit. At that point, no matter what you are wearing, you're getting frostbite. So even if you were fully prepared for what the clothing and whatnot, when you get below zero like that and you're not around a fire, uh you're in bad shape. And Kudasov understood that as well. Kuduzov also understood that hey, if Napoleon's men is freezing, then so are mine. So that put pressure on Kudazov to really speed up this retreating process. Napoleon did not have a lot of experience retreating, but I think he kind of picked up some ideas uh from Russia uh the last five or six weeks. In 30 days, what was left of the Grand Armee had traveled over 500 miles. Yeah, dang. Yeah, that's just insane. It took them six to seven weeks to get from where they started into Moscow, and then it took them 30 days to retreat uh that many miles, so they were moving. And all this time, uh, while they were retreating, uh, Napoleon and what was left of his forces were under constant attack. And there was parts where, like at this time, the goal was to get to Minsk, uh, which is more towards the border into like Poland and stuff like that. There was a horrowing ordeal at Borisov, about 30 miles east of Minsk. The army was surrounded by Kuduzov to the east, and then there was another general, Russian general to the north by Wittgenstein, because that's very Russian. He's probably one of its holy counterparts. So you got Wittgenstein to the north, and then Protov's Cossacks or Plutov, yeah, I think it was Proto's. The Cossack guy was all over the place. So they were just attacking at night, attacking during the day. Who knows where they were at? They were just being attacked left and right, and then Chichigov on the other side of the what is it, the uh Berusina River? Berrr, how do you say that?

Kara 1:25:06

I'm not sure.

Ed 1:25:07

I want to make sure I get that right. Berr Berasina River. Okay, Berjina. Berjina River. Um, the idea was that Napoleon was thinking, like, okay, I'm gonna get to this river, and it should be frozen, right? It's been negative eight degrees. That river should just be a nice icy patch to walk all over. When he got there, a heat wave from the south had actually melted the river, and it was just a torrent of running water and thousand-pound chunks of ice. That's a bad luck. That's where like you see that meme. I think I shared it with the uh you and Deja a little while ago. Like Star Wars Episode 3 was a PG-13 movie, so there was they could have gotten away with dropping one F-bomb, and then it showed the scene where it showed like the little kid, like the little Padawan, and then here comes like Vader is in the council room and he ignites his lightsaber, and that little kid's just standing there, like, oh crap, like that would have been a good time to drop an F-bomb. Um, that it this is where Napoleon would have dropped an F-bomb, and he always started Yeah, l F-bomb.

Kara 1:26:26

His his one F bomb.

Ed 1:26:27

He uh he was starting to show his like his exhaustion too. Uh, one thing he never ever talked to his men about was like, hey, what are your ideas and what to do?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:36

Yeah.

Ed 1:26:37

But it got to the point where Napoleon was like, okay, guys, I'm out of ideas. What do you got? They found a couple miles north, they found a place where they could ford. And Napoleon uh came up with a brilliant strategy where he sent a large group of soldiers down south to make it look like they were going to try to ford the river from the south, and that was going to distract Tuchikov's men because they were just on the other side, and they saw like Napoleon was making his way down south. He releases all his men to go down there, but meanwhile, Napoleon left all of his, um, all of his engineers and workers to the north, and a they started to build a uh a pontoon-based bridge across this river that Napoleon was going to use to get his men back over. He also had a few thousand other men uh to the east that were kind of delayed by by Kutzov, but they had broken free and they did an all night march to uh get to there and try to hold off Kutuzov and Platov and and everybody else, uh, so that Napoleon's men couldn't make their escape. But in the process of marching all night, this force basically plowed right into Kutzov's. Forces and like all three to four thousand men were killed. But it worked, and like Napoleon was able to ford the river. This is where it gets a little messed up. After this bridge was built, he told, okay, only fighting men can cross first. So we're talking like 10,000, 20,000 men were able to cross, and then whatever's left over can come over. The fighting men got over, but we don't forget we still have tens of thousands of sick and injured men and women and whatnot. They got cut off and a lot of them got stuck on the east side of this river. Three-quarters of the engineers that worked on the bridge uh died of hypothermia or drowning because they were like neck high and obviously just shy freezing water. So, yeah, tens of thousands of stragglers were left behind because Napoleon only wanted to make sure that his fighting men, and I could see the logic, but it's like, okay, at this point, could you not just send over a writer to Kutzov and be like, hey, look, I'm retreating, I'm getting out of here. Can you at least let my sick and wounded pass? But instead, Napoleon just left them all there to get caught or die. To make matters worse, uh, when the fighting men did get over and the Russians were fast on their heels, uh, he had no choice but to burn the bridges because the last thing he needed was to have two functioning two functioning, two functioning bridges ready to go for all of the Russian or two-thirds of the Russian army to cross. So he Napoleon had to burn those bridges, thus stranding tens of thousands of men and women to the other side. And most of them were either killed, uh, they froze or starved to death, or they were taken prisoner. And there was also like Austrian men in there, there's Prussian men in there. So you can imagine that Austria, when they're getting down worried downwind of this, Austria and Prussia, they're getting really upset with Napoleon here. Like, you just sacrificed most of our men just to retreat. And one thing to keep in mind is that during this final stretch, Prussia and Austria had been talking to Russia about switching sides. So Russia had already sent over diplomats. Like I think they sent them over before they even got to Moscow. They sent over diplomats to be like, hey, you know, I do you really want to be fighting for this Napoleon guy? Because he ain't gonna win. And so having uh what Napoleon was hoping for he was that he would cross the river, get to that Polish side where Austria and then Prussia would give him reinforcements and help their men get back. Um yeah, that that didn't work out. They kind of left them high and dry. Uh, so this is where karma is now catching up to Napoleon.

Kara 1:31:20

I was gonna say, can you blame them? Yeah, yeah, because they were taken over by force, they didn't really want to be part of that treaty anyway, but they had to be. And then on top of that, Napoleon left their people high and dry trying to save his own butt.

Ed 1:31:37

Uh-huh.

Kara 1:31:38

I mean, yeah, I kind of get it.

Ed 1:31:41

Yeah, I I I definitely think if Napoleon didn't want to be banished uh for a couple of years, if he had just reached out to Kutzov and be like, hey, I'm retreating, you know, and it's it's called a marked writer. You send a guy over there with a little white flag saying, I get a message from Napoleon, like he should have negotiated a retreat with Kutazov, and that probably would have saved a lot, a lot of his men that he left behind. But he didn't, and you know, that actually did not work out in his favor. Um, this on top of the fact that the Grand Armee only consisted of 20,000 men at most. So that's all he had left out of nearly 700,000 men. And by this time, there'd already been a coup uh or an attempt of assassination on Napoleon, and so his generals were like, hey dude, you need to get out of here. And so many people think that Napoleon opted to hightail out of there, like, because he did, he left his men there in this dire straits and made his way straight back to Paris in like the course of a week. And people are like, Wow, Napoleon, douchebag move, bro. But it was his generals that were like, dude, you need to get back to Paris and you need to control the narrative, because it's gonna take time for all the details to get back to Paris. Like, you need to get back there, you need to control the narrative, you need to start reforming an army so when whatever of us is left over, they'll come back to a fully functioning army, so then it wouldn't look as bad, as opposed to just having no army ready for them, and then having like 5,000 men walk into Paris in dire straits. At least this way, if they had an actual army raised, it wouldn't look as bad. So his generals were actually like, hey, dude, like you need to get the heck out of here, and that's exactly what happened. So yeah, the idea was to get him back before uh before word arrived that Russia destroyed Napoleon, which would make it easier for Napoleon to raise a new army. Uh, I think by now everyone knew that France's enemies were aware of the defeat and that France was at its weakest. And suddenly now all these conquered lands that Napoleon had taken over were like, hmm, okay. Do we really need to worry about Napoleon anymore? Like, suddenly we can start acting on our own. Napoleon arrived in Paris 11 days after leaving the Russian border. Uh, the decision was sound logic, but optically it looked really bad when the newspapers got a hold of it. Oh my god, when the British newspapers got a hold of it.

Kara 1:34:46

Field day propaganda of the waz. Man, yeah, they just if you ever want a good laugh, look at Napoleonic propaganda from Britain.

Ed 1:34:57

It's great. We always think of Napoleon, or we've heard of the term a Napoleon complex.

Kara 1:35:02

Oh, because they they depicted him as being small.

Ed 1:35:05

Yeah, like they're actually average height. Yeah, he's average height, average size. But yeah, they purposely portrayed him as like this short little tyrant guy. He was angry, so angry all the time. When actually he was very methodical, he was pretty level-headed, all things considered. He wasn't super impulsive, but when you abandon your army the way he did, uh even though it wasn't his idea, yeah. Uh, everybody, all especially your enemies are just gonna have a field day with that.

Kara 1:35:38

That's why he has the reputation yes today, is because of that propaganda that came out after events.

Ed 1:35:44

So let's let's count the cost. Out of the 615,000 fighting uh soldiers, only 100,000 returned, and they returned in like small groups over the course of weeks, if not months. So it's not like everybody returned at once, it was like tiny little pockets of men. Out of that hundred thousand, only twenty to thirty thousand men could actually fight to a point, like they were still strong enough to pick up a gun and fire it, but in terms of doing any sort of forced marches or complicated maneuvers or whatever, no, they they they were kind of hosed. 100,000 killed in action, 200,000 died from exhaustion or disease or um heat exhaustion and hypothermia. So 200,000 men that that was the number one killer was just the elements trained to get into Russia, and then yeah, there was like you know, like 10,000, 15,000 died from the winter. No, it was the summer that killed most of them. Uh 50,000 were left sick in hospitals all over Russian territory. So like they took over these little towns, and you know, they had sick men in there, and then you know, a few months later, when you know France was retreating like crazy, you know, these sick men were like, Woo-hoo, you're here to pick us up. And Napoleon's like, nope, gotta go. Just kept on going down the road. 100,000 were prisoners of war, 50,000 were deserters. There's that. And then out of the 100,000 KA, 70,000 were French. So France took the biggest beating. Out of Russia, 200,000 were killed in action, uh, 50,000 dispersed or deserted, uh, 150,000 wounded. Most of the Prussian and Austrian forces remained intact because hey, yeah, no, they were allied with Napoleon from the beginning, but they didn't hand over everybody they had. They only handed over like maybe a quarter of the forces that they had, and told Napoleon, sorry, man, that's all we have to work with. So suddenly Prussia and Austria uh they remained intact, and then they formed what became known as the Russian German Alliance, which starts the final part of the Napoleonic Wars. But yeah, at this point, though, like Napoleon was so defeated that he was exiled and all that stuff. The defeat of France is a huge moment of pride for Russia culture, and it solidified it as a nation. So after this, the rest of Europe was like, okay, Russia, well played. Like, we thought you were the kind of the weirdos out in the boondocks. But yeah, it sounds like you guys do actually know how to fight a war, uh, especially an unorthodox war. So good on you. And it remained that nation all the way up until 1917, uh, when the Bolshevik Revolution took place. But that is a completely separate dumpster fire. Meanwhile, Napoleon was exiled, and uh there he remained for a few years, and then he comes back, and then we have the final moment where he tries to take back all of Europe and gets his butt kicked in Waterloo, where then he was sent out to the middle of the ocean and died of stomach cancer. I summarized a lot of that. Yes, but it's fine, so yeah, that that is the dumpster fire that is the Russian invasion of Napoleon. And hey, it started off rough, but for the most part, Napoleon was like victorious, right? Taking over city after city and defeating everybody in large scales, but that is precisely the thing that he fell victim to.

Kara 1:40:04

And his hubris got the best of him.

Ed 1:40:07

Uh yeah. Well, and and actually, I don't want to say it was so much hubris. I I totally could see that standpoint, but it was just like he was fighting a different war, he was fighting this under traditional European methods, and Russia was like, no, we're gonna fight this to win, and we don't care what we have to do to win. Uh, we will do everything in our power to win, and that means fighting unorthodox measures, and we're gonna spread our guys out in again an unorthodox measure. And because of that, when Napoleon tried to retreat, he walked right into these guys that were rested, that were fed, that they were equipped, and they just harried Napoleon for like 30 days straight in a god-awful mess. So, does that check enough boxes as a dumpster fire?

Kara 1:41:00

Yeah, probably.

Ed 1:41:04

So, yeah, what uh what uh housekeeping stuff do we have uh lined up for us?

Kara 1:41:10

Uh, just the usual. If you have a topic that you want us to cover, go ahead and email us at thedaysdumpsterfire at gmail.com, or you can drop a little note into us uh from our website, www.the daysdumpsterfire.com, or you can text us on the little text message thingy that'll be up on the website here pretty soon. We're in the middle of doing some upgrades. Partner dust will get there. We also have an Instagram if you want to message us there at the Days Dumpster Fire. And we've got a Patreon thing happening. So if you want to support the show, you can uh visit us there on Patreon. And I I think we're on YouTube now. I think that's uh still in process, so it might be a baby account.

Ed 1:41:54

But yeah, we're on YouTube. We're not doing any video uh just because we all I just want to keep this in audio only. Uh, but yeah, if you're at work and you have YouTube up and running in the background, uh you can listen to the podcast. It's just literally just type in the day's dumpster fire in YouTube and it will come up. We have our fancy little logo there, which our new one uh is brought to you by Kara and her drawings. So when you go to the website or you see our icon on where we get your podcast from, you'll see a fancy new icon there. Uh, we will eventually have uh Kara's art up for sale because she's like good and stuff uh with the whole artwork side of things. And then lastly, try to do some homework here. Try to find a couple of friends or family members and literally like take their phones and show them how to subscribe to the show. Like, get out there, talk to people. If you are 38 episodes in or 39 episodes in, you are a firm believer in the power of dumpster fires, and we need you to spread the good word that hey, your life can be made better a little bit by understanding that people have failed more than you have, and much worse terms, and have disastrous consequences regardless of their plans. So spread the word that we're out there. Go to our website, the dumpsterfire.com. You know, look for us on the whole support the uh podcast thing, and um yeah, I guess until then, but keep it a hot mess. Thanks. All right, see y'all later.