Order of battle of the French invasion of Russia

Grande Armée

Napoleon organized the Grande Armée of 674,000 men, the largest army assembled up to that point in European history. On June 24, 1812 almost half a million men from this multinational army crossed the river Neman and headed towards Moscow.

Grande Armee composition.

Commander-in-Chief: Emperor Napoleon Chief of Staff: Major Général (Chief of Staff) Maréchal Louis-Alexandre Berthier, 1st Duc de Wagram, 1st Duc de Valengin, 1st Sovereign Prince de Neuchâtel

In addition National Guards had been conscripted for full military service defending the imperial frontier of the Duchy of Warsaw. With these included total French imperial forces on the Russian border and in Russia came to almost 674,000 men. This vast commitment of manpower severely strained the Empire — especially considering that there were a further 220,000 French troops fighting in Iberia and over 100,000 more in Germany and Italy.

The army consisted of:

Anthony Joes in Journal of Conflict Studies wrote that:

Figures on how many men Napoleon took into Russia and how many eventually came out vary rather widely.

Whatever the accurate number, it is generally accepted that the overwhelming majority of this grand army, French and allied, remained, in one condition or another, inside Russia.

M. Minard's infographic (see below) depicts the march ingeniously by showing the size of the advancing army, overlaid on a rough map, as well as the retreating soldiers together with temperatures recorded (as much as 30 below zero on the Réaumur scale) on their return. The numbers on this chart have 422,000 crossing the Neman with Napoleon, 22,000 taking a side trip early on in the campaign, 100,000 surviving the battles en route to Moscow and returning from there; only 4,000 survive the march back, to be joined by 6,000 that survived that initial 22,000 in the feint attack northward; in the end, only 10,000 cross the Neman back out of the initial 422,000.

Adam Zamoyski estimated that between 550,000 and 600,000 French and allied troops (including reinforcements) operated beyond the Niemen, of which as many as 400,000 troops died.

Russian Imperial Army

The forces immediately facing Napoleon consisted of three armies comprising 175,000 Russians and 15,000 Cossacks, with 938 guns as follows:

General of Infantry Mikhail Bogdanovich Barclay de Tolly served as the Commander in Chief of the Russian Armies, a field commander of the First Western Army and Minister of War until replaced by Mikhail Kutuzov who assumed the role of Commander-in-chief during the retreat after the Battle of Smolensk.

There also were forces gathered in several places:

These forces, however, could count on reinforcements from the second line, which totaled 129,000 men and 8,000 Cossacks, with 434 guns and 433 rounds of ammo.

Of these about 105,000 men were actually available for the defense against the invasion. In the third line were the 36 recruit depots and militias, which came to the total of approximately 161,000 men of various and highly disparate military values, of which about 133,000 actually took part in the defense.

Thus, the grand total of all Russian forces was 488,000 men, of which about 428,000 gradually came into action against the Grand Armee. This bottom line, however, includes more than 80,000 Cossacks and militiamen, as well as about 20,000 men who garrisoned the fortresses in the operational area.

Sweden, Russia's only ally, did not send supporting troops. But the alliance made it possible to withdraw part troops from the 45,000 man Russian corps Steinheil from Finland and use it in the later battles (20,000 men were sent to Riga).