The Retreat from Moscow
Typhus, cold, and Cossack raids destroy an army that survived every battle it fought
Quick facts
- Location
- Russia, Niemen to Berezina River
- Date
- October - December 1812
- Cause of most deaths
- Typhus and cold, more than combat
- Survivors
- About 27,000 organized combat troops of roughly 615,000
What happened
Napoleon's retreating army was already dying of disease before the famous cold set in: within days of crossing the Niemen in June, soldiers billeted in filthy peasant homes infested with lice began developing the high fevers and pink rashes of epidemic typhus, and the disease killed far more men over the course of the campaign than combat did. By the time the shrinking army reached the Berezina River on 25 November, harassed constantly by Cossack cavalry that struck and vanished before French units could respond, engineers under General Jean-Baptiste Eble built two makeshift bridges that let most of the army cross on 27 and 28 November before the crossing had to be abandoned, leaving nearly 10,000 stragglers on the eastern bank. Of the roughly 615,000 men who had crossed into Russia that summer, only around 27,000 organized combat troops made it back.
Why it matters
An army that had swept across Europe for a decade without a comparable disaster ceased to exist as a fighting force in six months, destroyed as much by lice-borne disease and a Russian winter as by the enemy. The scale of the loss stripped Napoleon of the veteran core of his army just as Prussia, Austria, and Russia were preparing to combine against him again.
How we know
Montana State University's history of typhus in the Napoleonic Wars documents the disease's outbreak within days of the Niemen crossing and its role in the army's destruction, while Fondation Napoleon's account of the Berezina crossing gives the dates of the bridge construction and the number of stragglers abandoned.
Sources
- Montana State University. Insects, Disease, and History: Typhus in the Russian Campaign · Reputable sourcemontana.edu · The domain "montana.edu" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Fondation Napoleon. The French Army crossing the Berezina on 28 November 1812 · General sourcenapoleon.org · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
See something wrong? . Corrections with a source get fixed fastest.
Part of a timelineThe Napoleonic Wars23 events · How one artillery officer from Corsica remade Europe's map, then lost it all twiceView all →