ZXCChort t1_jeayt1t wrote on March 30, 2023 at 6:19 PM

Why did Napoleon go to Moscow, and not St. Petersburg, which was the capital of Russia at that time?

quantdave t1_jeb2zkx wrote on March 30, 2023 at 6:46 PM

While St Petersburg may have been the more prestigious prize, Moscow would have been strategically the more valuable city, offering routes to the north, east and south and hopefully less challenging climatic conditions (even if these weren't mild in the event): the northern capital is attractive but strategically something of a dead-end unless your adversary chooses to stake everything on holding it, which couldn't be assumed.

ZXCChort t1_jeckse9 wrote on March 31, 2023 at 12:50 AM

Just, Napoleon's tactic was to defeat the enemy armies and capture the capital and leaders of the country. He made vassals out of the occupied countries, and did not fight them to the last.

quantdave t1_jecn80b wrote on March 31, 2023 at 1:08 AM

The Austrian campaign of 1809 may also have convinced him that victory on the battlefield counted for more than a capital: then it took eight more weeks to settle the issue, but Russia's huge distances might drag that out into the winter and beyond. In the event, even Moscow didn't deliver the decisive win, but that couldn't readily be foreseen in the summer.

ZXCChort t1_jecqq3q wrote on March 31, 2023 at 1:35 AM

I mean that an attack on the capital would force the Russians into battle.

quantdave t1_jecv2td wrote on March 31, 2023 at 2:09 AM

I don't think it necessarily would, though: the Austrians hadn't fought a last-ditch battle at the city gates, so it couldn't be assumed in Russia either with the assets of its space and its weather, especially given the capital's peripheral location. A calculation that the enemy might leave him to plod around an abandoned palace as his troops froze or starved wouldn't have been unreasonable.