How did the Russians defeat napoleons grand army?

Answer 1

The russians had a huge army and Russia has a big land mass. At first, Napoleon was doing good and pretty much defeated the Russians but the Russians had more men, and when the Grand Armée was retreating they all slowly died from the bitter winter weather (below -30 degrees celsius) and literally froze in the middle of the road, plus Napoleon did not supply enough food or water, so the army would eat some of the left over horses from the dead troops or any animals they could find. Napoleans army was destroyed.

Answer 2

After Napoleon sized Moscow, they cheated him by a false friendly attitude of their troops deployed on the front.

This attitude induced Napoleon even to send on Oct. 5,1812 a delegation led by General Lauriston to Saint Petersburg in order to negotiate an armistice as a preliminary for negotiating a peace of compromise.

The delegation never reach the Russian Capital because they were stopped by Kutuzov at his Headquarter. The documents containing Napoleon's proposals were sent by Russians couriers to the Czar, who rejected the advances.

Napoleon was so convinced that the victory of Borodino and the seize of Moscow,

the Russian religious Capital, were so decisive to convince the Czar to accept the terms, that he sent a second delegation on Oct. 14,1812, with the same result.

The only purpose of the Russian behavior was to make him standing in and around the city as long as possible, until the French Army would have been bogged down by the Autumnal rainfalls and mud.

The retreat from Moscow started on Oct. 20 and thanks to the unusually enduring fine weather all was going somewhat well, though the French rearguard and flanks were harassed by the Russian pressure

On Oct. 24, after winning the Battle of Malojaroslavec Napoleon had the opportunity to carry on the retreat via Kaluga, thus exploiting the intact resources the land offered for supplying the Army, because they had not touched yet by the war. But against the opinion of his generals, Napoleon decided to continue the retreat by the same route followed during the summer during the advance towards Moscow in reverse.

This decision was fatal to the French, because the earth had been already scorched.

The cohesion of the Grand Army began gradually to give way. The food supply were rapidly decreasing, while a growing number of men threw down their weapons and went to swell the growing crowd of stragglers who were dragging themselves behind the rearward, while the long column was subjected to the endless attacks of the Cossacks and the pressure of the Russian vanguard

The first snowfall and the start of the big freeze on November 9, accelerated the dissolution of the French Army and their progressive destruction by the Russians.

In conclusion we can say that to defeat Napoleon in Russia were more his illusions and wrong decision and General Winter, rather than the Russian Armies, which were rarely able to beat the constantly weakening French units still able to fight during the retreat.

Answer 3

The reason the Russians won was because they just fell back and burned all their crops down so Napoleon's troops didn't have anything to eat and then the Russian winter also took a toll on Napoleon so really the cold and starvation beat his army