From the Sublime to the Ridiculous
When he reached Moscow, Napoleon assumed that the Russians would sue for peace. So he waited for their peace feelers, as winter drew near. The Russians strung him along, but no more than he strung himself along with hopes of peace negotiations long after it became obvious that the Russians were not interested. By the time he gave up and marched back to Smolensk, it was too late, and his unprepared army was caught by winter. That was exacerbated by his choice of route.
Napoleon had two options, and picked the far worse one. He chose a route that was struck by severe winter storms, while the one he didn’t take saw little snow that year. Most of his army starved or froze to death, while more were killed by Cossacks who harried the rear and flanks of the retreating columns. Napoleon had marched into Russia with 685,000 men – at the time, the largest army the world had ever seen. He came out with only 35,000 Frenchmen still under his command. The rest had died (over 400,000), deserted, or switched sides. Reflecting upon the debacle, Napoleon commented: “From the sublime to the ridiculous, it is only one step“.