1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March on Moscow

Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and the terrible retreat from Moscow were a military epic and a human tragedy on a colossal scale – history’s first example of total war. But the campaign of 1812 was not just a war on Russia: it was the climax of a long duel between two emperors for supremacy in Europe, between two vast empires, and two utterly alien cultures, and its outcome affected the course of the continent’s history over the next two centuries.

Napoleon’s Grande Armée, the largest ever seen, had Spanish and Portuguese, Italians and Poles, Germans and Croats, Dutchmen and Swiss as well as Frenchmen in its ranks. He launched it into the huge expanses of Russia, where it could find neither food nor water. When the Russians finally made a stand at the gates of Moscow, the ensuing battle was a slaughter the lie of which would not be seen again until the first day of the Somme in 1916. The sufferings of the soldiers and their camp followers on the wintry retreat from Moscow are almost unbearable to read about.

In this gripping and masterly account, Adam Zamoyski has drawn on the latest Russian research as well as a vast pool of first-hand accounts in French, Russian, German, Polish and Italian to paint a vivid picture of the experiences of soldiers and civilians on both sides of the conflict. He charts the complex relationship between Napoleon and Tsar Alexander with great skill, and shows how it came to distort their alliance and bring about a war that neither wanted.

Extracts from reviews of 1812

“Adam Zamoyski’s account of the 1812 campaign is so brilliant that it is impossible to put the book aside. . . . Zamoyski is such an economical and elegant writer that one could overlook the amount of difficult original material he has read in so many languages. His grasp of both the big picture and of the significant detail reveals a master craftsman at work. . . . This is a great book, about what might be called the first total war.”

Michael Burleigh, Sunday Times

“A harrowing account of the retreat of Napoleon’s men from Moscow... This is an utterly admirable book. It benefits from a far wider range of sources (including Russian and Polish) than previous works, and combines clarity of thought and prose with a strong narrative drive.”

Antony Beevor, Daily Telegraph

“Zamoyski elegantly delivers gripping storytelling, bold revisionism, and poignant suffering... The agony in the retreat . . . is graphically told in heartbreaking detail... Adam Zamoyski has reexamined the evidence and created a modern account that... takes a giant step closer to how it really was.”

Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard

“A magnificent book. . . . No review can do justice to the scholarly integrity and human sensitivity of this book, or to the horrors it describes. I could not sleep after reading his description of the last days of the French retreat... One of the greatest stories ever told.”

Christoper Woodward, Spectator

“Powerful... A brilliant piece of narrative history, full of sparkling set-pieces, a wholly fascinating account of what must be reckoned one of the greatest military disasters of all time... Zamoyski’s exposition of the 1812 campaign is a model of elegant clarity.”

T.J. Binyon, Sunday Telegraph

“Zamoyski’s achievement rests on firmer foundations than previous studies. No historian has dug so deeply into eyewitness accounts...

Alan Palmer, Literary Review

“Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 is a dark and starry epic, about which hundreds of books have been written and then some. Now, almost two centuries after that drama, Adam Zamoyski’s Moscow 1812 is more than one of the best; it is perhaps the best – because of its scope, its profound character, and the excellence of his prose.”

John Lukacs, author of Five Days in London

“It is one of history’s great stories of hubris and tragedy, not to mention a titanic clash of personalities and men – and it’s all here in Adam Zamoyski’s Moscow 1812. Told with vigor, sweep, and insight, Moscow 1812 brings this epic moment to life in a thoroughly fascinating way. Zamoyski’s book will stand as one of the best accounts of this drama.”

Jay Winik, author of April 1865