nd the French were in no shape for a battle) the retreat retraced the long, devastated route of the invasion. Having waited until mid-October to depart, the exhausted French army found itself in the middle of an early and cold winter. Temperatures soon dropped well below freezing, food was hard to get, and the march was five hundred miles. Ten thousand men survived. The campaign ensured Napoleon's downfall and Russia's status as a leading power in post-Napoleonic Europe. Yet even as Russia emerged more powerful than ever from the Napoleonic era, its internal tensions began to increase. By the 23rd of June 1812, all the troops had taken their positions. Napoleon's main army was between Kovno and Pilviszki. Eugene's army was around Kalvaria. Jerome with his VII Corps was near Novrogod. Macdonald with X Corps was at Tilsit. Swarzenberg's Austrians were near Siedlice. All of these forces totaled up to 499,000 men, with 1146 guns. At the time, Russians had an army of 183,000 men and 15,000 Cossacks with 938 guns. Napoleon's main army reached Kovno after crossing the river Niemen between June 24-25 1812. At the same time, Macdonald went over Niemen at Tilsit, eighty miles downstream. Jerome did not cross Neimen until the June 30th at Grodno. Napoleon established headquarters at Kovno and remained in that town for three days. Until Kovno, everything had gone according to the plans, but the following days were to reveal much tougher challenges in terms of climate and road quality. 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 ...
