ch his troops into Moscow. He slaughtered all of the livestock so Napoleon’s troops couldn’t eat them, and basically starved his men. This method of warfare is known as the scorched-earth policy. Instead of fighting, the czar burned Moscow, so Napoleon could not get goods. By this time, winter was there, and Napoleon’s troops were freezing and starving to death. With no one to fight, and his forces rapidly depleting, Napoleon had no other choice but to retreat. With the 400,000 men Napoleon entered Russia with, by the time they reached the border, only 10,000 were fit to fight. After the Russian incident, Napoleon's empire fell apart. England, Russia, Prussia, and Austria allied together to fight the French. On June 13, 1813, Czar Alexander I, the head of the Russians, joined the Prussians and thus, the War of Liberation started. Lucky for Napoleon, he defeated the Russian and Prussian armies in Lutzen and Bautzen. In a three-day battle at Leipzig, also known as the Battle of the Nations, the French were outnumbered in every way. The French had to retreat. Then on March 30, 1814 the allies captured Paris. Even Napoleon's generals realized it was a lost fight and gave up. Napoleon was forced to abdicate the throne on April 6, 1814. Napoleon was exiled from France. He took a few soldiers to his new "empire" -the small island of Elba, a small island within sight of Corsica. He was allowed to keep his title of emperor and promised to pay two million francs every year to France. After Napoleon’s Exile, European leaders quarreled over the division of Napoleon’s empire. The work of deciding the fate of Europe was done at the Congress of Vienna. The congress was hosted by Austria and looked over by Prince Klemens von Metternich, the guiding genius of the conference. Meanwhile, Napoleon had been in Elba for 10 months and in the midst of the arguing that the Congress was doing, he escaped from the island set f...
