What the fuck was he thinking?
>>1260239
Like Cyprus and those before him who ventured into Russia: he was overconfident.
>>1260288
Sorry, not Cyprus, Cyrus. Cyrus the Great, I believe.
Why didn't he head straight up north to capture the developed and important cities of Memel, Riga, Tallin and Petersburg effectively cutting Russia from any sea access and enforcing the Continental Blocade instead of just going in deep for Moscow?
>>1260288
tamerlame and the mongols did just fine, so did the lithuanians and the poles+swedes during the time of troubles
> swedes
What the fuck was he thinking?
Napoleon's strategy for years was to march in, force the enemy to engage him in battle, win a grand knockout victory, and force the enemy to capitulate rather quickly.
by 1812, Tsar Alexander knew Napoleon's Grande Armee was one big taunt to try and compel the Tsar to sending his army to engage it.
So the Tsar decided to never give Napoleon a chance to perform his traditional tactics of one large scale battle to break the enemy's military, and instead harass the armee little by little, making sure they were always under pressure and never had the freedom to send scouting parties to forage for food.
When Napoleon turned back, the Tsar believed he could use Napoleon's tactic against him by dealing a massive blow at Borodino. It never dealt the blow that Alexander wanted, but the failed invasion as a whole was enough to cripple france beyond repair, as they were never able to refill the ranks of their lost army.
>>1260351
I guess he didn't wanted to spend that much maintaining the army controlling Russian territories, invading the capital would be much faster in his mind for his purposes and it is also nice to have an actual great army defending your homeland and closer to Portugal. But I don't know shit about history
>>1260239
That Alexander wasn't so suicidal as to fuck up rural Russia for an entire century just so he could trade with Britain. He was wrong.
>>1260417
Kutuzov had the plan. The Tsar later deposed him as commander in chief because no one could get why he abandoned Moscow without giving battle.
>>1260423
But Petersburg was the capital.
>>1260417
Borodino was fought on the way to Moscow, bud
>>1260437
Yeah, I don't know shit about history
But was it the real palace thing like Paris and Versailles?
>>1260481
Petersburg was funded in early XVIII century by Peter the Great and it was much more modern and European city than Moscow at the time. It was mostly made of brick and stone, it had numerous palaces and was really much, much more sensible thing to capture it. The march there could pressure the Tsar to risk and throw his whole army at Napoleon to stop him from capturing the city.
It might have been that it's easier to get surrounded and your lines of supply and communication cut when there's the sea on one side.
>>1260393
Yeah but those were all Easterners. Anyone who is near Russia has some sort of chance against them. If you're not near them, you don't know what to expect, and therefore you end up like Cyrus, Napoleon, or Hitler.
>>1260408
Swedes are retards, just look at what they're doing to their country today.
>>1261663
Even if the Russians came after Napoleon just because he captured St. Petersburg, do you really think they would go after him? After all the events that occurred under the Tsar's watch, do you really think he would just send all of his army to deal with Napoleon?
I wouldn't have, and neither would Alexander. Which is why he let General Winter do all the killing.
>>1260239
DAY
A
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So what were the actual long term effects of Russia's scorched earth policy? I read about how clever the tsar and his generals were to derby Napoleon resources but surely this super destructive tactic had actual répercussions?
>>1260408
He was facing a coalition of Norway/Denmark, Saxony, Poland, and Russia. He btfo all of them and would have finished Russia if he hadn't been wounded previous to the Battle of Poltava and thus unable to command, leaving the command to his subordinates who then get defeated.
Carlous Rex was a fucking badass.
