Napoleon had entered Moscow on September 14 expecting Tsar Alexander I to negotiate. Instead, fires, probably set on the orders of the city's governor, burned much of it, and the tsar refused to talk. With winter approaching and supplies scarce, Napoleon ordered the army out. About 100,000 men left, loaded with loot. Harassed by Cossacks and Russian troops, starving and freezing, the army disintegrated on the road west. Fewer than 30,000 crossed back over the Niemen in December.
The invasion had begun in June with the largest army Europe had ever seen, more than 600,000 men. The Russians retreated, burning supplies behind them. After the bloody battle of Borodino on September 7, the Russian commander, Mikhail Kutuzov, abandoned Moscow rather than risk his army. When the French arrived, most of the population had gone.
That night fires broke out and burned for days, destroying about three-quarters of the city. Napoleon waited in the Kremlin for a peace offer that never came. On October 18 Russian forces attacked his cavalry at Tarutino, and the next day he ordered the retreat, planning to head southwest through country not yet stripped of food.
Kutuzov blocked that route at Maloyaroslavets on October 24, forcing the French back onto the road they had come by, through devastated land. The first heavy snow fell in early November. Horses died by the thousands, and soldiers abandoned guns and plunder. The crossing of the Berezina River in late November cost tens of thousands of lives. Napoleon left the army on December 5 and hurried to Paris.
Key people: Napoleon Bonaparte, Mikhail Kutuzov, Alexander I of Russia