【可汗學院】歐洲史（全16講）公開課 P12 - 12.12. 第十一節 入侵俄國

在上個視頻中,我談到了兩次導致了尼泊爾的倒塌的運動 其中一個是帛琳島運動 帛琳島運動 在尼泊爾和法國帝國 浪費了大量的資源 在戰鬥和掌握西班牙 另一個幾乎更直接的影響 尼泊爾的倒塌 在這段視頻中,我們將看到 為何尼泊爾的倒塌如此糟糕 這可能是歷史上最有名的五大軍事運動 讓我們回想一下 尼泊爾和法國帝國和俄羅斯的關係 在第四次協議之後 你可能還記得 在第四次協議結束後 俄羅斯和俄羅斯的朋友們 俄羅斯是一部分的大陸系統 這意味著俄羅斯會制裁 俄羅斯不會和英國交易 或允許英國使用任何俄羅斯的港口 俄羅斯可以做任何它想要的事 所以一切都很好 但是我們移到1811年 俄羅斯開始放鬆大陸系統 俄羅斯放鬆大陸系統 意味著俄羅斯開始和英國交易 所以突然間 這讓尼泊爾很憤怒 為了讓大陸系統運作 所有人都不得不和英國交易 因為如果有人和英國交易 英國就可以和他們交易 然後交易就可以流通到 整個歐洲 所以這已經讓尼泊爾很憤怒 尤其是因為他打敗了俄羅斯 在第四次協議結束後 他以為他很友善 不要和英國交易 我們會成為好朋友 但是這讓尼泊爾非常憤怒 在1812年 他聽到俄羅斯正在考慮 取得法國帝國的一部分 或是俄羅斯國王 所以俄羅斯正在考慮取得 取得法國 所以尼泊爾覺得 我們不再是朋友了 我最好先攻擊他們 所以對於很多人的建議 尼泊爾決定攻擊 導致尼泊爾 尼泊爾攻擊 他的另一個選擇 當然是防衛 俄羅斯 但是尼泊爾 他只會說 如果他們這樣 對抗我 我會全力以赴 向他們展示誰是老大 所以他決定攻擊 在1812年4月 1812年4月 尼泊爾並不是笨蛋 他意識到 俄羅斯的冬天 非常激烈 所以他說 如果我像這樣 在春天開始 我和俄羅斯一起 我會決心擊敗他們 一切都會安排好 我也會成為俄羅斯的皇帝 在俄羅斯開始冷卻之前 所以我現在要做的 就是了解 這次的運動 如何令尼泊爾感到沮喪 我會使用 歷史上最有名的圖表 有些人認為 這是最好的 最完美的圖表 這個是 這是由 Charles 我使用另一個顏色 我一直在使用這個 這個是 Charles Joseph Menard 你可以在維基百科 找到更大的版本 但那張畫面太大了 所以這是一個小版本 但是這是一個非常有趣的圖表 它顯示的是 尼泊爾軍隊的大小 尼泊爾軍隊正在攻擊俄羅斯 而軍隊的大小 顯示的是 這條黃線的寬度 所以當他開始攻擊俄羅斯 他有450,000人 450,000人 如果你能夠讀到這個數字 這就是它說的 你可以在網上找到 Zoom版本 如果你搜尋這個 和俄羅斯的攻擊 你會找到這個圖表 非常非常有名 我 不僅教你歷史 這也是一個有趣的圖表 這是你應該 有機會瞭解的東西 但是你們可以看到 除了顯示 俄羅斯軍隊的大小 它還顯示了 俄羅斯軍隊的路線 它還顯示了 你已經看到 俄羅斯軍隊正在走 而俄羅斯軍隊的軍隊 是在減少 俄羅斯軍隊正在提升 所以這個寬度 比這個寬度還小 但是看來 俄羅斯軍隊的數量 已經減少了一半 比這個數量還小 我們來瞭解 And where this is going on, here is a map of Eastern Europe. And Charles Joseph Menard's map starts right around here in Lithuania. So this is where the Napoleon forces were strongest. We had 450,000 and it kind of goes like this. This is Moscow right here. So this is kind of the end point. And if I were to trace this shape onto here, it would look something like this. I'm just trying to show the path roughly like this. And then you get to Moscow. So that line is the same thing as that line, just so you have some context within the broader geography of Europe. So it's starting off in what's roughly the north, almost exactly the northeastern border of present-day Poland, or you could say the southwestern border of what's now Lithuania, crosses through what is now Belarus and then goes on into Russia. Now,as you can see here, I already pointed out that as he's traveling, as the forces are traveling, these 450,000 men, horses and armaments and cannons and everything else is getting thinner and thinner. And one is, it's just basic military logistics. You have to keep your supply routes open. You have to keep leaving men behind. You have to keep leaving men behind to essentially guard the supply routes. So just as the longer your campaign, the further into enemy territory you have, you have to keep leaving men behind to guard it. And this whole time, Napoleon kept wanting to engage with the Russians. The whole time that he was traveling, he kept expecting to engage the Russians. But just as he was about to engage the Russians, the Russians would back up a little bit. And this kept happening. And there were small skirmishes. So obviously, he lost some troops here or there. But most of this was just to maintain the supply line. Eventually, he is able to have a, I guess we could say a skirmish or a brief... I don't want to say a skirmish. It was actually maybe a brief battle with the Russians in August in Smolensk. And that is... Let me make sure I get it right on the map. That is right there. But once again, Napoleon was victorious, but the Russians retreated. It wasn't a decisive victory over the Russian army. Eventually, he just keeps chasing them, keeps chasing them until we get to September 7th, 1812. So we are in September of 1812. And now you can imagine that we're kind of in the fall now, and it gets cold quickly out here in Russia. So already, it's getting to be a kind of precarious position. But Napoleon is confident. He's like, you know what? If I can decisively defeat the Russians, I can take Moscow. Moscow will have food in it and all will be sent out. And that actually brings up another point. That brings up another point. You might remember when I talked about the war of the Third Coalition, that Napoleon... And it's in general good military tactics to invade during the fall because the fall is the harvest season. That way, you don't have to have as many supplies carried with you. You don't have to guard the supply routes as carefully because you can just go and take all of the farmers' crops to feed your troops. But what the Russians did is what they call scorched earth tactics. Scorched earth tactics, which essentially means exactly what it sounds like. As the Russians kept retreating back, they burned everything that could be of benefit to Napoleon's troops. So they burned all the fields as they retreated so that Napoleon's troops couldn't access the local resources. So they had to keep having a very, I guess you could say, a costly supply chain from where they started as opposed to just feeding off of the land. And the Russians just continued to do this on and on and on all the way to Moscow, all the way to September 1812, where we have the Battle of Borodino, if I'm saying it correctly. So we have September of 1812. We have the Battle of Borodino. And at this point, Napoleon only had 135,000 of his original 450,000 men. The rest had to be left behind to guard the supply route or they deserted because they were starting to get hungry or they were lost just with minor skirmishes that happened along the entire way. And at the Battle of Borodino, after a long, protracted, super bloody battle, in which, let me write these numbers down, 44,000, these are all estimates, 44,000 Russian casualties, mostly death, but also wounded or captured, and 35,000 French. Many historians think this is the most bloody day of battle up to this day in history. The French are victorious. So we have a French victory here. So Napoleon's feeling good about himself. Borodino is right outside of Moscow. He's like, you know what, I'm just going to walk into Moscow. They're going to hand the keys of the city over to me, and then my troops are going to have a good time in Moscow, being able to eat and all the food that must be there, and I will now be emperor of Russia as well. So about a week later, he walks into Moscow and it's completely deserted. So Moscow deserted. All of the inhabitants have left and they've taken all the food with them. And then on top of that, Moscow starts burning. So Moscow burns and burns. And there's some debate as to why Moscow burned. Some historians believe it's because the Russians deliberately set fire to the city. Some believe that it was just a tinderbox waiting to burn and that Napoleon's true and Napoleon's troops were just a little irresponsible with where they built fires. It's not clear, but needless to say, it made Moscow useless to Napoleon. And this is kind of a major change. You know, Napoleon just expected, look, if I beat your army decisively, like I did at Borodino, I won. I take the city. Now you should give me food and shelter and I am your new emperor. But the Russians had something different in mind. They said, no, you will never take Russia. You can have Moscow. You can have a burned Moscow. There's nothing in it. And we'll just like to see you retreat in the Moscow winter. And by Napoleon's own accounts, this is a quote that he gave. The most terrible of all my battles was the one before Moscow. The French showed themselves to be worthy of victory. This is at Borodino. But the Russians showed themselves worthy of being invincible. So with no one to recognize Napoleon or to help him out or to feed his troops, he's kind of in a worthless Moscow. He decides to just turn around, especially because the Russian winter's approaching. So on this chart, you can see they went all the way to Moscow. They had 135,000 troops. They lose 35,000 of them. So you have 100,000 troops coming back. This black line right here, this represents the retreat. And then things start getting cold. So it's really interesting about this chart that Menard made. It has a couple of things. You see the route that Napoleon's army took as it went into Russia. Then in black, this is its retreat. It gets thinner and thinner and thinner. And you see where they went. And on top of that, he shows the temperature as they retreated. And this is on something called a Rameur scale. But you can just multiply these numbers if you can see them by 1.25. So you can see that it was already, it was not that bad. But over here, we're already below freezing. We're well below freezing over here. At the coldest point, if Menard's numbers are right, and I've seen some historians contest the numbers, but it was cold nonetheless. It's negative 37 degrees as we start approaching into November and December. So Napoleon's forces, as before, they had this whole supply chain that scorched earth. So there was nothing to eat. They still had nothing to eat. Then it started getting cold. And while it was cold and they were retreating, some of the troops would desert. They would be attacked by peasants. They would be attacked by, you know, just a little bit, a little bit. They'd be attacked by various Russian forces. And then the kind of, the final blow was when they were trying to cross the Berezina River. So this right here is the Berezina River. Berezina River. And you can even see from Menard's chart that the width was respectable, but then after trying to cross that river, it just got decimated by almost, you know, almost half of the soldiers died or disappeared. And these are depictions. These are paintings. These are just paintings of the retreat of Napoleon's forces in the winter. And this is actually a painting of the crossing, crossing of Berezina, crossing of the Berezina River. And by the time that the forces got back at the end of 1812, all the way over here by Menard's map, you only have 10,000 troops of the original 450,000. So only 1 in 45 returned. The other were either captured, deserted, or just died. So when this happened, you can imagine, not only did Napoleon lose so many soldiers, also lost on the order of 200,000 horses, actually total casualties for this campaign. The Napoleon's, the estimates are about 300,000 French troops. The estimates I saw had about 200,000 Russian troops. And just to be clear, a big portion of the French troops was died as they tried to retreat. 200,000 Russian troops. And then there was a huge amount of Russian civilian casualties. And there were also soldiers from other countries participating, especially on the French side. When all is said and done, estimates are over 1 million, over 1 million dead from the French invasion. But beyond even just the human casualties, Napoleon lost on the order of 200,000 horses, tens,I forgot the exact number, but thousands of cannons. So you can imagine that it was just a huge, huge loss to the French military. So by the time this was done, the rest of the powers of Europe could kind of finally see Napoleon being weakened. He was already bogged down in the peninsula. He had had this huge defeat as he tried to invade Russia. And they finally realized that now is the time that they can form maybe a sixth coalition and really take Napoleon out.