Why did Napoleon march to Moscow instead of Saint Petersburg?

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  1. Moscow was a capital in XIX cent. It was "old capital", "second capital", but capital it was. Without any doubt it was the main religious center.
  2. Moscow was a main road hub. Taking it and controlling the nearest surroundings, Napoleon controlled all main roads. At least, he thought so. The problem was, that being the best tactic, he was weak as a strategist. And against him Kutuzov stood, maybe the best strategist at all. He was famous for winning wars without battles. This time Napoleon had the hub, Kutuzov sat nearly and it was Kutuzov who blocked Napoleon, not vice versa.
  3. Yes, taking St.Petersburg was much easier. So, Napoleon thought that Ponyatovsky would be enough. The same as he thought that Schwarzenberg will take the Kiev.
  4. None of his strategic plans in Russia were successful. By the way, Napoleon never thought about the retreat until it happened and never thought about famine until Kutuzov MADE him to return the same road.
  5. If 640000 ( Or even 320000 that went in this direction) army would go all along the same road to the ST.Petersburg, they would start to die of hunger much earlier than on the BACK route.

Conclusion: There were reasons to choose Moscow for a target, but it could be only a preliminary target. And it was. Taking it did not help to make Russia to capitulate. So, the decision to go for Moscow was voluntary, purely personal and erroneous. But choosing the St-P would be even worse error. Napoleon simply could not solve the task - what intermediate tasks could win the war in Russia.

Napoleon wanted a decisive win. History teaches that it is impossible to win over Russia without it having the inner conflict. In 40 years the half of Europe, having the technological edge had managed to get only one important port from Russia.

Overtaking the rich western regions of Russia would be much more effective and easy. And really possible. Or Napoleon could initiate and support the civil war in Russia, claiming the freedom and ground for farmers. And Russia would become his willing and eager ally.

But Napoleon wanted to prove his geniality of a tactician once more. So, he had set the impossible task of total and pure military win over Russia. An impossible and/or foolish task is an often reason of fail for dictatorships. Maybe the main one.

Upvote:7

Napoleon's initial objective was defeating Russian army in a border battle. Immediately after that he was planning to start negotiations and, among other things, to restore the alliance with Russia. Neither Moscow, nor St.Petersburg were of any use for him.

On the other hand, Alexander I considered the possibility of losing both St.Petersburg and Moscow from the very beginning. And the plan would remain absolutely same.

Still being in Smolensk Napoleon tried to start peace talks, but had no success. Then he must have realized that the things didn't go as planned, and Russia was ready for a long war of attrition. And even capturing, say, St.Petersburg would change nothing. So he took his chance in pursuing Russian army and forcing it into battle.

Napoleon expected that public opinion wouldn't let Russian army to retreat forever. But, as we know, the battle of Borodino gave him nothing except abandoned city of Moscow. He tried to start peace talks several times, but had no answer at all.

Thus going to St.Petersburg instead of Moscow in the beginning of the war would let Napoleon to retreat from Russia easily, that's true. But he sought for a chance to win, and capturing St.Petersburg was totally useless from this point of view.

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