Impact of the weather on Napoleon's defeat

Impact of the weather on Napoleon's defeat

Assessment of the importance of the weather in Napoleon’s defeat in Russia
A) Plan of the Investigation
My goal in this essay is to define the factors for Napoleon’s defeat in Russia, during the Russian campaign in 1812, and compare them to the importance of the weather in the Russian victory. Besides Russian winter I will investigate other factors which caused Napoleon to lose to the Russians. Such factors include military tactics of the French, military tactics of the Russians, and also the French supply trains. Napoleon claimed that if not harsh Russian winter he wouldn’t have lost the war. But was he right when he said those words? Those opinions and facts about the impacts of the factors which made Napoleon to lose to the Russians focused on the top of the actual events, but in order to truly analyze the whole situation we must look at the different sources that explain the different perspectives. In order to do that I would focus on the primary sources which include Napoleon’s speeches and comments and also I would consider the information given by the witnesses who were living particularly in that period of time and saw the whole situation. I would also include secondary sources, which were written by historians and philosophers who researched and analyzed my question earlier. So by looking at their works I can also get useful information.
B) Summary of Evidences
Weather
• Napoleon’s public speech at Palace Des Tuileries at 14th February 1813, translated by Tom Holmberg: “But the rigor of an extreme and premature winter laid the weight of a terrible calamity upon my army.”1
• One of the Russian blacksmith made ironic comment about founded the French horseshoe in the territory of Russia. “Not one of these horses will leave Russia if the army remains till frosts sets in.”2
• According to the diary of an officer in the First Battalion of Hessian Lifeguards during the campaign of Moscow 1812-1815 the winter in the Russia came in...