Persian Invasion of 480 BC - articles

[Robert Vermaat]

"What's there to know? He took 691,000 men from Poland to Moscow. I think we can all agree on that"
That proves my point, you have no idea about Napoleon´s Russian campaign

True or False, Napoleon took ~691,000 men from Poland to Moscow, or the vicinity of Moscow?

False, you should do some reading before posting those things.

So these figures are nonsense?

The Grande Armée was divided as follows:

A central strike force of 250,000 under the emperor's personal command.
Two other frontline armies under Eugène de Beauharnais (80,000 men) and Jérôme Bonaparte (70,000 men).
Two detached corps under Jacques MacDonald (32,500 men) and Karl Schwarzenberg (34,000 Austrian troopers).
A reserve army of 225,000 troops.
In addition 80,000 National Guards had been conscripted for full military service defending the imperial frontier of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. With these included total French imperial forces on the Russian border and in Russia came to some 771,500 men. This vast commitment of manpower severely strained the Empire - especially considering that there were a further 300,000 French troops fighting in Iberia and over 200,000 more in Germany and Italy.

450,000 French troops made up the majority of the army with French allies making up the rest. In addition to the detached Austrian corps under Schwarzenberg there were some 95,000 Poles, 90,000 Germans (24,000 Bavarians, 20,000 Saxons, 20,000 Prussians, 17,000 Westphalians and several thousand from smaller Rhineland states), 25,000 Italians, 12,000 Swiss, 4,800 Spaniards, 3,500 Croats and 2,000 Portuguese. In addition there were Dutch and also a number of Belgian contingents. In short every nationality in Napoleon's vast empire was represented.

Military losses amounted to 300,000 French, 70,000 Poles, 50,000 Italians, 80,000 Germans and perhaps 450,000 Russians. As well as the loss of human life the French also lost some 200,000 horses and over 1,000 artillery pieces.