French invasion of Russia

Napoleon's invasion of Russia, known in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812, was launched to force the Russian Empire to comply with the continental blockade of the United Kingdom. The multinational Grande Armee, nearly half a million men, crossed the Neman River on 24 June 1812 and advanced through western Russia while the Russian armies under Barclay de Tolly and Bagration kept withdrawing. Napoleon took Smolensk, fought the indecisive Battle of Borodino, and entered a deserted and burning Moscow on 14 September, then waited five weeks for a peace offer that never came. The retreat in snow and frost, with starvation, typhus and attacks by peasants and Cossacks, destroyed most of the army, and the campaign cost the lives of around a million soldiers and civilians in less than six months. The article calls the campaign decisive for the Napoleonic Wars.