The Invasion of Russia (1812)

By 1812 the Tilsit alliance had broken down: Russia had effectively abandoned the Continental Blockade through a decree permitting neutral trade in 1810, and disputes over Poland and the Balkans deepened the rift with Napoleon. He assembled the largest Grande Armée of his career, numbering between 600,000 and 685,000 men drawn from more than twenty European nationalities, and crossed the River Niemen on 24 June 1812. Facing this force, Tsar Alexander I's generals, first Barclay de Tolly and then Mikhail Kutuzov, adopted a strategy of continuous retreat and scorched earth, avoiding a decisive battle and letting distance, disease, and desertion wear the invaders down.