The weather played a major part in Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, as it attacked him and his armies from all sides and from both extremes.

After 1809, virtually all of continental Europe was under Napoleon's control, with Russia and Austria as allies. However, Napoleon's continental system gradually began to undermine the Russian economy as it forbade trade with England because they were still at war with each other. This strain on the Russian economy brought the Tsar increasingly under pressure to sever this strangling pact he had signed with France after the battle of Friedland.

The general relations between France and Russia were also starting to deteriorate, and both sides had started preparing for war as a consequence. In June of 1812, Napoleon began his invasion of Russia, which was an attempt to force the Tsar to submit once again to the terms of the treaty that Napoleon had imposed on him four years earlier. Napoleon was also determined to demonstrate to both England and Europe that it was pointless in defying French imperial power.

Napoleon gathered a vast number of troops from France and many other countries under his control, totalling around half a million soldiers. When he entered Russia with his 'Grand Army', the Russians realised that they could not realistically hope to defeat him in a direct confrontation, and began to use a strategy of planned 'retreat'. But how did the weather contribute to defeating the French and increase the scale of their disaster and misfortune?

Napoleon gambled that the Russians would mount a large scale frontal attack not too far within their borders, and when they failed to do so, it drew the French further into Russia where they were unprepared for the notoriously changeable Russian climate which was prone to great extremes of heat and cold. In this respect, Napoleon was guilty of failing to order sufficient preparations for meeting the changes in Russian weather.

After fighting for a couple of months and having not come to any arrangement with the Tsar, the French decided to return home. Having waited until mid-October to depart, the French army soon found itself in the midst of an unusually early and extremely cold winter, from which they suffered great losses.

With this severe winter on their side, the Russians now had total control over the French because of their experience of surviving and manoeuvring within such extreme temperatures. As a result, the suffering was unrelenting for the French as the skilled Cossacks continued to attack in temperatures as low as -17C; also food supplies were practically non-existent, and the cold march out of Russia was five hundred miles.

The reality was that Napoleon was already decisively beaten before the serious frosts began, and the real damage winter caused was that it served to increase the scale of the disaster during the final stage of the retreat. Napoleon actually tried to explain away his losses by blaming the weather, but this was largely propaganda. As he modestly admitted to the Senate on December 20th - "My army has had some losses, but this was due to the premature rigors of the season".

However, Napoleon's army in fact suffered as much damage from the heat of the Russian summer as from the harsh realities of winter. Tens of thousands of cavalry and artillery horses died before Napoleon even reached Moscow; tens of thousands of men dropped out of the ranks through sickness and heat exhaustion - the hot weather of July and August was as much to blame in increasing the severity of France's defeat, as the frosts of November and December. For that reason, it is safe to say that within the Russian climate, Napoleon had met his match!

The French defeat resulted in Napoleon's downfall and increased Russia's status as a leading power in post-Napoleonic Europe. This episode from history really shows just how influential climate can be, and how military leaders can also use it as an excuse for an unfair or unexpected defeat.

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