Napoleon's Reasons for Defeat The Campaign of 1812 should have been a another crusade for Napoleon, but he now faced 2 new policies that he had never faced before, the severe Russian winter and the notorious scorched-earth policy. On June 23, 1812 Napoleon's Grande Armee, over 500,000 men strong, poured over the Russian border. An equal amount of Russian forces awaited them. The result of the campaign was a surprise. Two authors, General carl von Clausewitz and Brett James, show …showed first 75 words of 1080 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1080 total…of 1812 to Russia. However, Napoleon did not lose the war out of military errors but of a simple miscalculation - a miscalculation that was made by Hitler a century later. Napoleon believed that if he occupied Moscow, the Russian government would collapse and he would rule Europe with little opposition. But as history reveals, this tactic does not work and Napoleon is defeated, paving the way for other nations to deny Napoleon's lust for power.