>yfw if Napoleon had attacked at Maloyaroslavets and pushed

That pic is really sad

Even if he did, he would have still been thrown away. His fate was sealed when he decided the blocus and went against the banque de france interests.

>>482913

How so?

>>482947
Business like always. And business was big with England. Instead of being partners, they became very aggressive competition. Necker couldn't allow that.

>>482797
Fucking keked on that image

>>482986
But albion blocused first...

>>482986
But Nappy3rd pursued a policy of friendship with Britain and only suffered because of it because the policies he introduced(less protectionism) were more to Britain's benefit than France's.

It's likely Necker would have hit the same problem if he had been around long enough. Plus, there's a big difference between judging ancien regime diplomacy and napoleonic diplomacy.

>>482797
Napoleon lost the moment he crossed into Russia. On the first night, a rain so heavy and cold that killed almost a quarter of all french horses. They had been underfed for most of the jounrey towards Poland and were very susceptible to the weather.

If Napoleon had crossed with a smaller army, he would have done a lot better.

>>484695
>Napoleon lost the moment he crossed into Russia
Not if he would have forced the russians into a decisive battle earlier on, or the czar would have sued for peace or fucking MacDonald would have advanced against St Petersburg or if Napoleon would not have taken the same route back as OP pointed out or if he just would stop when he had conquered enough (i dont know if he even had any plans of annexing anything apart from freeing some polish areas)

>>484737
>Not if he would have forced the russians into a decisive battle earlier on, or the czar would have sued for peace
Alexander never intended to fight, he knew the French were better than his army
Ever since he withdrew from the Continental System, he had that retreat+scorched earth strategy planned

>or if he just would stop when he had conquered enough (i dont know if he even had any plans of annexing anything apart from freeing some polish areas)
Napoleon didn't want to annex anything from Russia
All he wanted was them to re-enter the blockade

>>484752
I read that scorched earth was not planned, it just happened. The russians wanted to find a good defensive position but Nap was too fast and didn't leave them time to hole up, so they kept retreating.
Aside from that, tonight I'll go to sleep thinking about a french empire going from Lisbon to Riga, and Hamburg to Constantinople.

>>484737

Alexander wanted to fight but his generals couldn't work together to form a real defense plan, so they just kept retreating and Napoleon was obliged to follow after them. He never intended to go to Moscow.

But you are right, there were a bunch of things that led to the disaster. Me (the OP) was just pointing out that taking the same road back was the last chance to avert disaster.