Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 95 - French Invasion of Russia Part 1: Imperial Bromance

Episode Date: March 9, 2020

Napoleon attempts to make friends, ends up making war instead. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Follow us on Twitter @lions_by Source for all related episodes: Adam Zamoyski. Moscow 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March

and welcome to yet another episode of the lines led by donkeys podcast i'm joe and with me as always for the most part is nick yes returning champion uh from the field special guest yes special special uh regular guest um for people who are unaware uh nick was actually gone for the last several weeks and we had just recorded everything ahead of time yeah it sucked just getting locked in a in a recording room with me and a dog for fucking four hours so we could wrap that shit up. Now, I continually talk about when we first started the show, we kind of like spitballed about stuff we always wanted to cover. And one of the things that came up was Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. And as we got better and better at

doing this I mean I guess objectively better some people would say we're not we realized like we might actually be able to pull this off like after we did almost ten fucking hours of like the Soviet Afghan war I was like we might be ready we're ready to do this justice I'm ready for it it does not help that I did my capstone project for my bachelor's degree on the subject. So I'm already kind of familiar. Oh, it helps. Yeah.

Yeah. In celebration of finally doing something we set out to do almost two years ago, we cracked a bottle of French wine that was grown by French foreign legionnaires in their retirement village. And before anybody says that we're getting a bit bougie with our money, it was six euros. Calm down, everybody. Yeah. And it goes to supporting like the retirement and everything. I think the only rule is like you have to be able to work.

You have to be single and you have to have like an honorable discharge from the French Foreign Legion. Nice. Yeah. I mean, which as far as like retirement packages for the French Foreign Legion goes, not bad because they normally don't really get shit. Never heard of them getting anything, really. Yeah. I didn't know they had a retirement thing. Awful wine.

Yeah. In French, it's like the village of the invalids, which is not the most great way to word that because it's like mentally disabled, like PTSD, depression, stuff like that, physically disabled and retirees. And yeah, and you I'll put the like the link to get wine if you want in the show notes. They're almost always sold out. I was able to get two bottles. But yeah, it's not bad. It's pretty fucking good. I think they've been making wine there since like the Roman times.

Jesus. Yeah. Now, back on subject here. On all of our big series, we start with the Revolution, right? Pretty much, for the most part. I guess with the exception of the Winter War, there was really no Revolution there unless you kept the russian revolution um and this

one is uh as well so we have to start all the way back at the french revolution and i am just fucking kidding i am not going to do that i am not covering anyway this how many parts will this this is part 46 uh napoleon is still not emperor yet. There's a lot of popular narratives about this, which is something that we kind of have to kill during this series. When I talk to you about the invasion of Russia, what comes to mind to you? World War II.

You're not wrong when it comes to a whole bunch of idiots freezing to death in Russia. Also correct, yeah. But the two are often compared like you know yeah i mean you got the the hubris of a dictator um thinking way too highly of himself and his war making abilities um and then getting like just completely stomped in by the you know general winter of russia um and that is kind of true. But it's also way dumber than that. And I mean, the same goes for the Nazis as well. Maybe one day we'll cover Operation Barbarossa.

I don't know. That would be like a fucking six-month-long series. But I think the Napoleon's invasion of Russia is far dumber. And I guess we can revisit that. I don't know much about it, for sure. Oh boy, do I have some good news for you. Yeah, that's my... This is my gift.

Yeah. So before we dive into one of my favorite topics in all of military European history, we have to acknowledge our main source for this entire series. And that's Adam Zamosky's Moscow 1812, Napoleon's Fatal March. I used it for my capstone project. source for this entire series and it's adam zamosky's moscow 1812 napoleon's fatal march uh i used it for my capstone project i've i've used it in school for years i've used it on this

show before uh when we talked about the continental system during the war of 1812 uh it is an awesome book and i cannot recommend it enough if there's ever any quotes from anything else i'm not using that book uh i will say so instead of it's continually if you hear it the episode it probably came from this book uh good book it's it's probably my one of my top five favorite historical books i've ever read um and if you actually are enrolled in a university i know a lot of our listeners are you can probably get it for free um because it is uh it's considered a pretty normal uh textbook for classes in history yeah like i know i got it for free at first uh but i had on digits and i hate using uh ebooks for notes because i like to make

paper notes because i'm fucking old now uh so i had to go and buy a paper copy so i can make a bunch of notes in it so So it looks good. Yeah. It's incredibly unwieldy because I didn't color code anything when I was using the little note cards. Right. So I had to flip all of it through 600 pages or whatever and find it.

Now, we're not going to be talking about the French Revolution, but we kind of are. But like most historical fuck-ups we talk about, there is a huge backstory that needs to be told uh that ends with uh you know half a million french people freezing to

death in russia there's a lot of footwork that goes into that yeah the story that begins uh the story begins with the guy you've probably heard of napoleon bonaparte the first uh emperor of the french empire uh now so i consider him something of the patron saint of this podcast. He is one of my problematic historical favorites. Our podcast, Jim, has his

house standard flying from the wall. Awesome, too. Looks great. And I understand all of the problems that go into liking Napoleon that much. He was a shitty racist, tyrant. Yeah, I get that. He's just one of my historical favorites. We're not going to be going into a ton of his personal life.

But if that is something that you're interested in, there is a podcast called The Age of Napoleon that is magnificent, and it literally covers his life from his birth, and I'm going to assume all the way to his death. Like, for instance, French was even his first language. Bonaparte was not how you pronounced his last name. It was Bonaparte. When he moved into mainland France,

he simply switched it so people wouldn't make fun of him. I'm French? Yeah, he's Corsican, so he's pretty much Italian. Oh, okay. So, yes, you can do the Napoleon... I thought he was Sicilian or some shit. No, he's Corsican. So he's pretty much Italian. Oh, okay. So yes, you can do the Napoleon. I thought he was Sicilian or some shit. No, he's from the island of Corsica, which he was saved from not being able to be French nobility

because his father was someone that was a very, very, very minorly important person. By only a couple of years, I think it was like a year and some change, I could be wrong, uh, that it was Italy's Island. And then it switched to France right before he was born. Uh,

so yeah, yep. Calendar kind of changed the course of history. Who would have thought? Uh, but yeah, if you want more of that to include how Napoleon got involved in politics and Corsica,

which pretty much just involves people shooting each other, you can follow the entire life of our favorite little corporal over there. Instead, we will join the emperor who has long since taken the throne and subjugated most of Europe. We're operating under the assumption that

you understand that he came from the French Revolution, he seized power power made himself emperor long story short yada yada yada yada he controlled most of the world that's never how my classes were yeah uh a lot of in i think he's one of my problematic favorites because he was virtually a nobody and he's like fucking an emperor now uh and the nations that had not been taken over by uh napoleon and the french empire directly uh well most of the ones that he did had a bonaparte family member sitting on the throne

or he had married into their family you know normal imperial stuff uh but the ones that were not dominated by napoleon were mostly on their back foot kind of like england and uh and or had been forced into shitty alliances with Napoleon that were not equal. Napoleon did not look at anybody as France's equal. They were just another power to be subjugated, which will be problematic as we will find out.

But he is still constantly at war with England. There's a war going on in Spain where England is openly fighting them and fomenting insurrection. It's a footnote to the larger historical narrative that we're playing here. Because throughout all of this, he's worried about, well, I'm going to be fighting a two-front war. Because, you know, Spain is still a problem.

Then he would end up losing. But, I mean, he would end up losing, like, real hard. But not yet. Now, more importantly than all of that, Napoleon had begun to cement his dynasty. Because before then, he had no kids. People called him the Corsican upstart. One of the main reasons since the time of the French Revolution that the rest of the European powers have been fighting him is because they generally don't like new people that they thought to be much, much lower than sovereigns calling themselves emperors and then just killing the old king frowned upon yeah don't like change

yeah uh definitely not uh they're really into fucking their own cousins though it goes into our our like two year long podcast joke where all of uh the world's problems are pretty much just two inbreds fighting over like beefing over turf over turf. Like the South. Yeah, it's the Civil War, but with Europe. But he was now like, you know what? I'm no longer just the Corsican upstart. I have a dynasty. I have a son. And he, in true emperor fashion,

the birth of his son was greeted by the firing of 100 cannons outside of his palace and parties in the street. That would suck. Imagine being in that details. I have to fire how many cannons? Fuck. Like people were legitimately ecstatic that Napoleon had a kid.

Well, I dig the parties on the streets. I mean, and there's a certain amount of this, like how many people felt forced to rejoice in their emperor having a kid because party napoleon definitely was not a huge fan of freedom of speech or expression so everybody just getting told to party or they die he was at one point uh but then he became emperor and he was like molly's people saying i'm not that cool it's kind of a problem uh i wonder if he would ever do an undercover boss like what do you think of napoleon like with a shitty mustache yeah uh weird how this strange officer who also he always spoke french with an accent and he never learned how to spell it quite right nice because he didn't learn i do not think he started to learn french until he's about 10 years old so like well yeah you

don't need to if you're in charge guy sounds kind of italian hey what you think about that napoleon always talks like this yeah it's like sir could you put your hand down oh yeah i'm french sorry now it probably sounds kind of obvious that the emperor might have an heir but uh napoleon and his first wife could not conceive uh so that led them to get a divorce just because of that yeah was it his idea well it was and it was a political choice like he his first wife was absolutely his like his lifelong love and like they became they were friends until the day he died oh that's nice yeah um and he married again uh who's the person he married the second time was the daughter of the austrian emperor uh and the last emperor of the

holy roman empire who was the daughter was raised to believe that he was literally the antichrist but like because it was a woman and it was the 1800s hell yeah you don't have any rights go marry this weird italian french guy um and and admit it like the book makes it quite uh obvious they that she fucking hated him but they fell in love after they started having sex so i guess I guess Napoleon fucked like a champ. What? Yeah. Yeah.

It was like after they know the marital bed that she could not pull himself. It was like Napoleon fucked. Like, imagine fucking so good that someone who literally thought you're the Antichrist, like, hmm, you're actually all right. You're pretty fucking awesome. Yeah.

Yeah, it was definitely a political marriage. They did end up loving each other, but for what it seems like, for the most loveless political marriages throughout Europe, they actually did like each other. Even in their correspondence, they're at least friends.

Oh, that's good. Yeah, which is more than you can say for most marriages back then that you get kind of sold into. So you're saying he can't spell french french yeah so how did they communicate she was austrian uh he spoke he spoke decent german and italian and he also he had aid right most of his letters from i understand it like there was a joke that uh cz Alexander of Russia spoke better French than Napoleon. We'll get to that as to why. Now, all this is supposed to be a pretty big deal. He was hoping that this would be kind of the silver bullet to finally end all these wars that France had been involved in since the dawn of the revolution.

Because they wanted to kill the French Revolution. And now they should have maybe realized, like, eh, fuck. He's cemented his rule. He's a dynasty now. We kind of just have to deal with him. He's gonna be here. I hope they don't kill it off. I want to see Les Miserables again. Well, unfortunately, they did do a pretty good job of that.

Well, Napoleon did a pretty good job of killing the revolution in itself, but it's a different argument for a different day. Do you enjoy Les Mizrobs or less mizrobs i was a pretty big fan of les mis uh i'm uh i'm not a musical guy uh but i mean i like chops i'm a pretty big hugh jackman fan now if you make les mis and have hugh jackman again and just have him play wolverine that's what i was thinking he just starts stabbing his enemies with his fucking hand claws uh I was thinking that too.

Yeah, but Napoleon's whole thought is like, finally this is going to end because they have to deal with me. They realize that the Bonapartes are just a part of France now. King of Big Dick is here. Yeah, Big Dick Emperor Energy. Now, most people would think, as Napoleon is an insane desperately attempting to take over the world, he thought of his wars as defensive. Which, I mean, if you're listening to this and you're American,

you should understand the cognitive dissonance there. Kind of like protecting yourself by invading Afghanistan. Yeah, you got to. Yeah. He was to secure France and leave the throne to his heirs. His idea was, well, if I go out and strike them, they can't attack France. I mean, many of these countries did invade France during the revolution

and then got pushed back because the wars immediately following the French Revolution are a different subject altogether. But yeah, there was all sorts of enemy armies invading France. But what little aspect that you can give to Napoleon and say, I guess you kind of have to hand it to him quickly evaporates as the story

goes on. Also, it's important to point out here that Napoleon would invade Russia. That would eventually invade Russia was not the same Napoleon that storm through Europe. He was in his forties. Now he'd gotten kind of fat. His mind was beginning to slip.

He was aging, began to speak a bit slower. His mind was beginning to slip. He was aging. Began to speak a bit slower. It took him longer to make choices. Instead of being whip smart and liable to snap at people who pissed him off in a constructive way, like a constructive criticism that was immediate. He was kind of pensive and hesitant and would just kind of get mad without any ideas of how to solve problems. He just wanted to yell and be mad. Hell yeah. No, I mean, we're like, well,

he's 40. That's not that old. That's true. He's going to be fighting people in charge of the Russian army who are much older, but he was beginning to slip. He couldn't concentrate on a task for more than a few hours or a few minutes at a time, even though he was known for virtually never sleeping and studying maps and ideas

and tactics for hours on end before. He had a bit of an incredibly unhealthy life, as you would imagine. Someone who takes over the world. He had an insane work ethic. During the invasion of Russia, he's only sleeping a couple hours a night.

Which is a problem because that means he takes all the stuff onto himself rather than passing things to his secondary command. It seems like his generals don't take charge. That will become a problem, which we will get into. Or he had built such a dependency on Napoleon the Brilliant Strategist that his generals never really had to learn for themselves. We just wear the rank. We don't really do anything. You have no idea

how right you are. It hurts to laugh. Now, there's a good reason that Napoleon himself felt himself slipping. He was desperately grasping for a settlement for these decades-long

continent-wide war that he couldn't seem to figure out how to end um which again for like the third time brings us to the continental system now i'll give this a quick once over for people who are just joining us because i've talked about this a lot the continental system for people who don't remember uh is the really really dumbass french attempt to enforce a continent-wide embargo uh on the english now the main threat to the french was the british uh they just wouldn't stop trying to fight him and more importantly the the english knew the best way they could fight france was to prop up people that were actively fighting them with money trade stuff like that it's called the golden cavalry okay

also they would deploy soldiers pretty much wherever someone's like fuck you napoleon british soldiers would pop up hey yeah i was like what's up uh and the problem another problem was that france knew they couldn couldn't stop them from doing that because the British Navy absolutely fucking destroyed Napoleon at Trafalgar. So confronting them straight up was simply not an option. So they attempted to destroy Britain economically. And being the premier superpower of the mainland, of mainland Europe, through arms,

Napoleon decided like, well, fuck it. They control the seas. We can't help that, but I control Europe. So I'm just going to make sure nobody can import any of their stuff. Now, in case you're wondering, a continent-wide embargo would be hard in 2020. That would be extremely hard. It is fucking impossible in 1812.

He simply made it up an idea that was completely unenforceable. This would be like if he was like, nobody can use forks. Sir, how are we going to inspect and ensure people are doing this? Well, I'm the emperor and I'm telling them not to do it. Okay. Yes. But how are we going to enforce this? And then everybody around him is like, yeah, sure.

Cool. Yeah. They're all just gutless sycophants. Great idea, huh? The French Empire was fucking massive and there was ports everywhere. So it's pretty much it's as easy

to smuggle something from England into the continent of Europe as it is to just pull your goddamn ship in and bribe somebody. Because that was the other option is bribe the French custom officials. That seems pretty easy. Like,

Hey, I got some baguettes here. I need to get some black market baguettes and wine. Even worse was that as many of the, the, the Napoleonic client States were just like, yeah, we're not going to do that.

So that's like, fuck, this doesn't sound like a good idea. Yeah. of need their imports so no uh more still the system impacted the very people who napoleon was in charge of rather than the brits that's important too it's like doing sanctions like whenever you see america like we're putting sanctions on iran or russia do you think that impacts iranian people or impacts Iranian people or Russian people? No, not at all. The people in power in Iran or Russia. No, it impacts the people

who go to the fucking grocery store and buy goddamn food. It's the same thing that happened with the continental system. It wasn't impacting England. It was impacting all the people that technically fell under his throne that didn't have money.

The German states begin to get so pissy that they were just like, yeah, I guess we're just not going to do it. The problem was the relationship between Napoleon and all his various powers was pretty fucking tentative. It pretty much just depended on not them liking Napoleon

because a lot of them fucking hated him. It was like, well, we have no choice, because he'll just come in here and stomp us again. Yeah, he's kind of in charge. Another important client of that was Russia, who we'll talk about in a little bit. Now, Russia was not a traditional ally of France. It wasn't really a traditional ally of anybody.

Nobody really gave a shit, because they were supposed to be some backward swamp people that the rest of Europe kind of just thought as an afterthought. They didn't really have any power. Yeah, what is Napoleon's reasoning for invading Russia? Oh, we'll get there. It is as dumb as you can imagine. I don't understand.

This is why I say at least the Nazis had a plan. Like, I really hate to be the guy who's like, you kind of have to hand it to Hitler. He just wanted to take over Russia. Right. Not so simple with Napoleon. Somehow dumber than Hitler. Did he just wake up one day like, you kind of have to hand it to Hitler. He just wanted to take over Russia. Not so simple with Napoleon. Somehow dumber than Hitler. Did he just wake up one day like, hmm. Kind of. We'll get there.

Now, Russia was beginning to become a European power that people like England and everybody else kind of wanted to talk to in around 1801. And that was when... Hold on, 1801. This is only part one yeah

and a war doesn't start until 1812 I know this is dog shit I have questions for when the war starts we'll get there now

at that in 1801 General Bonaparte was acting as first council he was an emperor and he reached out to Tsar Paul

my rank on call of duty because Tsar or first council first council that's pretty solid actually congrats congrats on your reached out to Czar Paul. My rank on Call of Duty. Because Czar or First Counsel? First Counsel. That's pretty solid, actually. Yeah. Congrats on your future seizure of the Call of Duty throne.

You're going to be the new emperor of Call of Duty, which I think just means you yell racial slurs louder than anybody else. That's the only way to win in Call of Duty. You just got to be louder. The main reason that France reached out reached out to russia was because they were desperate for allies napoleon was kind of sick of fighting everybody and was he he knew it wasn't a winning strategy like i seem to like it i can't fight everybody forever now remember i said he got dumber as he got older right as we all do and he reached out to Russia, the Tsar, which was Paul at the time.

Now, this is a problem because Paul was kind of dumb and legitimately insane. And he was eventually dragged into his bedroom and murdered by his generals, leading to his son, Alexander, to become Tsar. What? Now, Alexander didn't entirely inherit his father's insanity, but he did inherit a lot of emotional baggage from being the son of an abusive parent who was mentally unwell. Right. Now, this was controlled by his somewhat decent education and a good dose of just horrible emotional abuse by his grandmother, Catherine the Great. Now, we both kind of come from weird households, but just think about this. Catherine the Great, who is his

grandmother, forced him to keep a journal of every single time he failed at anything. And every night before he went to bed, he was forced to read it. What? He called it his archive of shame. That's awesome.

Oh, fuck, that's cool. Now, Alex, before you go to bed, did you read all of the things you suck at? No, Grandma. Well, you better get to it. Also, like, all of the physical abuse, too. So, like, Alex has some baggage. I could not masturbate today. I tried to jerk off, and I only had a softie.

Now, something that was not in his big book of failures was the time he helped a group of generals kill his own father. Because, yeah, he did that. Oh, he helped. Yeah. He was a part of it. And everybody knew it. Like, it was common in Russia. Like, yeah, the Tsar killed his dad. But also, it should be pointed out, that was not uncommon in Russia either. Like, for

patricide. That just seems normal. Patricide and fratricide, like, you know, it was not unheard of for rulers to kill their sons or their sons to kill their dads. Fuck, Stalin committed his son to die in a Nazi camp. So like, eh. Fuck you. Now, Alexander's only 23 years old, but he wanted to fundamentally reform Russia. This included hiring people who knew how to run governance

and professionalizing it. This is going to sound kind of dumb because you're used to something that looks like a government, but he instituted institutional structures like government departments and ministries, which simply did not exist before. Prior to this,

nobility would just kind of run whatever they wanted to run. Like, hey, Nick, you want to run the army? Yeah, sure. Okay, you're in charge of the army. There's no ministry of defense. Like, hey Nick, you want to run the army? Yeah, sure. Okay, you're in charge of the army. There's no ministry of defense. Yeah, I don't really need to do anything at that point. You're just kind of in charge of army stuff. Like, whatever you want, really.

And only because you're like my cousin, not because you're good at it, though. Yeah. You don't need to be good at it. And that's something he tried to fix. Like, he wanted, like, you had to have gone to school and pass a test to be in the government and people like whoa whoa whoa whoa you want me to do what that was like a big problem for the nobility like you want me to be good at this i don't fucking know i mean uh civil

service tests are nothing new they date all the way back to like uh i think like wu china like they're pretty old uh but i guess in russia they were cutting edge nice yeah as involved as alex was in his internal reforms early in his role he was kind of simple when it came to foreign policy and easily he's 23 years old so like i was pretty dumb when i was 23 i can't imagine i've been aar. I'm 31. I would be a great czar. Elect me czar 2020. Now, he came up with an idea of like a new Europe

ruled by liberal states that would, and that was an idea that the British Prime Minister again named Pitt wanted absolutely nothing to do with. He thought it was really stupid. But he just lied to Alexander.

He was like, yes, I totally agree. We should team up and do that by kicking napoleon's ass oh yeah great idea and then alexander was like hey he's treating me as an equal i'm on his side so in 1805 he went to war with france despite having no fucking reason to do so nice and then got his ass kicked you can assume this is kind of just what happens when a 23 year old is put in charge of a country just because of who his dad was.

I feel like maybe he should have a left seat, right seat type of deal. Maybe learn. And maybe elect someone competent. And he could just sit there and be the face. I mean, that's kind of how the Prime Minister of Pitt existed. They still had a king. Now, if you're thinking why didn't he have advisors or members of the

court that was like, Alex, this is a really bad idea. Literally all of them did. They're like, yeah, we should not fight Napoleon. Because he's like, the Prime Minister is just lying to you so he could use you. And he's like, no, my bro wouldn't do that. Not pity. He's my boy.

And also, Alex kind of thought himself to be a general, despite not having any education in military matters other than being really into military parades and uniforms. He's a reenactor who's really into buttons, but totally swears he could be a field marshal.

Change their uniforms again. I don't like the way those look. He had uniforms for every regiment in the russian army so like when he showed up to do like parades he would change into it nice yeah that's awesome no idea how to lead them though don't need to yeah when you look that good yeah eventually uh he did put someone in charge of the russian army that knew what he was doing getting mikhail katuzov uh but then he ignored everything Kutuzov told him to do, which was like, hey, a tactical retreat

is a good idea sometimes. And we'll talk more about how honor shaped, the bullshit concepts of honor shaped a lot of military strategy back then. But Alex thought that it would look really bad if the Tsar retreated. But Alex being in charge of the Russian army led to one of the most legendary Napoleonic

victories of all time in Austerlitz. So, way to go. Of course, Kutuzov got all the blame. And then he was sent into exile in a minor government position in Ukraine. And after another defeat of the Russian army at Friedland, and facing an invasion of Mother

Russia herself, the two sides came to meet at the River Tilsit on a raft to come with. On a raft? Yeah, it was like in a floating raft that was like anchored to the shore on the French side. Now, Napoleon did that for a reason. He knew exactly what he was dealing with here. He knew after watching

the naive boy emperor of Russia get sucked into a war by the British Prime Minister, he could probably also take advantage of this fucking idiot. So they're just taking advantage of this guy. Oh yeah, yeah. Alex showed up wearing his best uniform to impress the French emperor, while Napoleon set out to literally

seduce him into the French cause. Napoleon's wearing sweats and a fucking wife beater. Wearing a track suit. Why don't you have a squat? I hear you Russiansussians really enjoy this uh now napoleon was not born into royalty as i point out he literally created all of that thin air through guile manipulation and leveraging power nice alexander didn't stay in a fucking chance when it came to negotiating with napoleon uh he flattered alexander uh and and Russia in general endlessly.

He treated him like an equal rather than a defeated foe, which he absolutely was. Napoleon laid none of the blame of him being involved in the war on him, but rather on Prussia and England, neither of who were invited to that meeting. He wanted to get the Tsar alone. Now, they knew what Napoleon was doing to the Tsar. He was like, fuck, he's going to trick our simple boy into being on his side. So Frederick William III of Prussia did show up uninvited. They fucking crashed the party? Well, he tried.

It was on a raft, and no boat was given to him. So he swam. No, he walked his horse as deep as he. As deep as he could, like, up until, like, the horse is nearly drowning. So he could try to eavesdrop. I bet the eaves... While they're fucking having this meeting, fucking Napoleon's having the little kid play Xbox or something. Trying to get on his side. They just hear a horse outside drowning.

You hear that? Nope. Turns the Xbox up louder you know if you uh come back to my place we can do a system link and i have like four tvs man it's sick as fuck i'm the french emperor they're like 60 inches it's like bro no shit i got a tube tv in moscow yeah maybe you should come over sometime and the tvs are always gray meanwhile fucking frederick williams like give me more horses that drown yeah he goes back and gets another horse to drown in the same spot fuck this one was weak again now alex went from thinking napoleon was literally evil to thinking

he was the greatest man who's ever walked the earth. He wrote to his grandmother, quote, just imagine... Alright. Before I read this, they didn't fuck. I need to lay that out. If you read the Tsar of Russia's letters, it sounds like he and Napoleon were in love. Do we know if they...

Maybe they just touched tips. I don't know. He's young. He's still experimenting. He hadn't quite figured out his sexuality. Now it says, Just imagining spending my days with Bonaparte spending hours quite alone with him. I just think he sucks at letters. Fellas, is it gay if you hang out

with the French Emperor alone? No. I mean, Napoleon isn't one to literally fuck someone for power. So like, eh, maybe. keep it all within the royalty. You know what I'm saying? Now it should be pointed out that while Napoleon went out of his way to warp Alex to his needs, he ended up actually liking him too.

But like the power dynamic was all fucked up. He liked him as like an apprentice. He didn't like him as like a fellow emperor. No, no, no, no. Or as a fuck buddy. Maybe as a fuck buddy. This czar is 23 years tight. tight yeah i'm sick of my wife i need to go hang out with some fucking early early 20s strange sir you are 40 and you are fat yeah yeah that's why i get good russia the french girls don't like

me anymore uh so he he talked to alex Alex about where Russia's borders really should be. He's like, you know, you should really be out here. Like, you should take over all this. You're Russia. This is yours. And gave him in-depth lessons of how he could do that. You tell him, like, the ocean. Like, just claim water.

Have you thought about that? Whoa. And also he explained to him, him like how he modernized France. Like this is how you do it by shooting a lot of people. Have you thought about that? And how he could do the same for Russia. In short, the two became bros. Nice.

They developed one hell of a bromance. Eventually, the Treaty of Tilsit was signed, giving a few islands to France in exchange for a slice of Poland, which was considered much more important to Russia. More importantly, Russia agreed to join the continental system against Britain. And France took another piece of Poland from Prussia, proclaiming the Grand Duchy of Warsaw as a new satellite state.

This will become a huge fucking mistake on Napoleon's part. It's pretty important to remember or know that Poland at the time that's their most of history is continuously fucked by Russia in this situation and is considered part of Russia and an incredibly important part of Russia.

It's now split between these two bros. The treaty made Alex feel pretty good but in the end France was the winner because that's the only kind of deal Napoleon ever made. French troops were stationed in the Grand Duchy right next to Russia, obviously to keep them in check. They also planted the seeds

of a new Poland, which had been destroyed only a decade before and made up a huge chunk of the Russian Empire. So many people were unhappy with Russia's deal that his own mother refused to hug him when he came back. Though, honestly, that just kind of sounds par for the course for this

family so far yeah they probably didn't hug maybe it was like a maybe a one shoulder hug oh one of those like you keep the other hand in your pocket yeah furthermore a lot of regular russian peasants and soldiers were confused now this is because they're at the russian orthodox church had literally been telling people that nap was the Antichrist. That's awesome. And now their king just went and made a deal with the Antichrist. Why would he do that? Russian nobles got pretty pissed as they thought it was below a real royal line, like Alex's family was, to be cutting a deal with Napoleon, who remember they did not see as their equal.

Alex's family was to be cutting a deal with Napoleon who remember they did not see as their equal. It soon became a pretty common worry that Alex would get his ass stabbed just like his dad did to the point they were openly talking about it. Really? Yeah. I hope this art doesn't get killed. I'm sitting right here guys. This is the knife I would use.

Yeah. Right here still. I'd stab him like this. Sergei, you killed my dad. Yep. I'm going for a twofer. There's also something of a hidden problem with the treaty.

The treaty was supposed to embody an alliance between two equal powers, France and Russia. But Napoleon did not have allies. He had puppets and vassals. He had no idea how to treat another country as an equal. You can see parallels of that maybe today. Which is why the treaty was inherently unequal in the first place. But the problem was like, it was supposed to be an understanding between two friends,

not like France is the daddy. But that was like the only way, only relationship Napoleon ever had was, I'm in control of everything. You just shut the fuck up and listen to me. Which is why he made himself'm in control of everything. You just shut the fuck up and listen to me. Which is why he made himself emperor in the first place. Nice.

It forced Russia to stop expanding while triggering an economic war against a former ally. Problem. There was no way that Russia would be able to hold these agreements. As about the Russian imperial throne under way too much pressure from a court that showed it's totally cool murdering their king if they had to. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Yeah, it's like making a deal with the Praetorian Guard if you're the emperor of Rome. Like, someone in this room is gonna stab me. What

year is this taking place? 1805, 1806. So we're still... We're gonna do a smash cut forward here in a few minutes. It did not take long for the bromance between the two sides to cool off. The heat of the relationship died down pretty quickly. The honeymoon phase, I guess.

I don't know. But Napoleon knew that. He was intuitive to his partner's needs. And he tried his best to win back his best czar bro. This includes spending an ungodly amount of money to impress the Russian ambassador which didn't work because the man fucking hated him and would never even go into the same room as him

what do you do what do you spend it on he literally built him his own palace what oh yeah like the book tries to monetize like how much that would cost like modern modern money hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars what yeah just to impress this one dude who fucking hated him because the ambassador is a noble wow all the fucking nobles hate napoleon with the exception of the czar

so it's completely lost on him saw the palace like oh burn it yeah this fucking sucks i'll sleep in my car yeah now uh yeah but napoleon wasn't gonna give up that easily napoleon began to plan random offensives against the british empire's holdings in india telling alex that the russian and french soldiers would fight side by side to take the crown of the british empire all together uh obviously it never happened um this is now this is something napoleon wanted to do like he had always had device he had designs on india forever um but he knew it was important to make the czar feel important and as an equal uh it's like letting him pick where he wants to eat for dinner oh yeah like you like where do you want to eat how about

here you know he's like okay you really picked where you want to need for dinner and you're kind of an asshole um he also began the whole giant dinners, dances, and meetings where his wealth would be lavished on the Tsar. And it's like, look how important I am. But also, it did kind of work. Like any bro, he did try to get Alex laid with members of the European aristocracy. Really?

The book does not note if he took him up on this offer. Bet you he did. I bet you he did. At one point, they spent an entire two weeks together. With the letters. Hey, man, it's the deep, deep romance. They spent two weeks together in what would be modern-day Germany. They hung out, and Napoleon introduced him to the rest of the European monarchies.

Now, he introduced them in a way that was like, look at all these bitches who listened to me. Oh, wow. Yeah. It was like, you could be with them. Like, it didn't look good. Do you want to be one of them? Like, it's described as like he wanted to show Alexander how powerful he was.

And it's kind of an implicit threat. Like, look at everything I have. Do you really want to turn back towards England? They sat through plays together, and Napoleon had his elite soldiers parade around in front of him, knowing how much Alex liked that sort of thing. Now, I wonder, how did this date happen? Oh, they were sending letters back and forth constantly.

Yeah. And then they hung out at another battle site, which is the battle of Jena when it was like a Napoleonic victory that was just legendary and Alex had questions about it so he's like why don't we go have lunch at the battlefield I'll tell you all about it

you see the dead soldier is still there didn't even bother to pick him up that much of a baller next question now Alex made it seem like he still looked up to the French Emperor and then all of this is like he was having fun. This is a great time. It seemed like their bromance is back in full swing.

This time, however, this is an elaborate ruse on the part of the Tsar. He was playing Napoleon. The student had become the master. Ever since Tilsit, Alex had been fighting to gain respect within his own country. Hearing nobles literally openly talk shit to him

and talk about how he was totally going to get murdered like dad, he's like, I need to reevaluate how I run this country or I'm going to die. In order to do this, he had to bide his time. It was around 1808 now.

Alex knew he could not just throw down against the strongest empire in the world at the time. It was around 1808 now. Alex knew he could not just throw down against the strongest empire in the world at the time. The only course of action was to mobilize the massive power of Russia and wait for a moment where that power, along with the power of Austria, could be thrown against France because Austria fucking hated Napoleon.

Even if at the time they were like, I'll shut up when he leaves. I'll start talking shit again. Until then, he had to play the part of the smitten czar that was totally falling in line with all the other monarchs of Europe. I mean, he learned from the shitty manipulator himself how to do this. Right. He knew Napoleon wouldn't just randomly attack him.

The alliance was always a much better choice than a war. So as long as he didn't openly threaten France or just like, fuck it, I'm invading you, he would have as much time as he needed. He knew that the alliance

is more to France's need than Russia's and the canal system, all that other shit. Alex was actually worried about Austria launching a war before he was ready to launch a war uh so he went and hung out with napoleon making it look like everyone they were best

bros and scaring the austrians into keeping their shit together and not going off preemptively napoleon had no idea but he knew alex had changed he was more confident steadfast and would argue with him something that did not happen before uh before. Napoleon was not used to being argued with. So, like, when the argument stirred over Alex's wish to invade the Ottoman Empire or something, I personally always encourage, Napoleon took off his hat and threw it at him. Is that a good thing?

No, it's... Oh, sweet. Tricorn. Whenever Napoleon got mad, he tended to throw his hat at people or stomp on them. I wonder if it was heavy. I don't think so.

Isn't somebody selling... That was not that long ago. Someone found a hat that was made for Napoleon. I don't think he ever wore it. No, yeah. It was for hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Do you think we should get that? Yeah, if you want to donate to the Patreon and our next Patreon target is half a million dollars a month get that chapo money and then i will i will buy napoleon's hat we won't actually i will uh claim my right to the the house of bonaparte if you give me enough money where is that house although it's still uh like his family line still exists. Right. And people still people still claim like if the house of Bonaparte was to be restored, I would be emperor. Everyone's like, shut up, dude.

Cool guy. Shut up, Pete. Go back home. Dinner. Yeah. But then like he threw his hat at Alex and then stomped it flat on the floor. But what Alex wanted to do was to make him bad. He wanted to get a rise out of him, see if he could do it.

Oh, he did it. Because at that point, he's like, fine, fine, I won't press the expansion issue much past that. This relationship is getting spicy. Sparks. Eventually, Austria and France would go to war anyway in 1809, ending

with Austria getting their shit stomped into the ground and Russia sitting out of it. Austria was not totally defeated, but there was an exchange of territories as per usual, most of them in what we'd consider Poland once again. But Napoleon kept part of the territory and gave it to his Grand Duchy project that he's building and gave some to Russia as a reminder, like, hey, we're still cool. Yeah. Dutchie project that he's building and gave some to Russia as a reminder, like, Hey, we're still cool. Yeah.

This is where, uh, Napoleon really fucked up their relationship, giving part of the territory to Warsaw. Right now, when I say Warsaw, I mean his, I mean,

Napoleon's version of Poland, not Russia's version of Poland. It pissed off Russia pretty bad. The further growth of the nominally Polish state was a, was a direct threat to the, a huge swath of Russia. Because hypothetically, if Napoleon wanted to fuck with Russia, he'd be like, I'm restoring the kingdom of Poland. And then half of fucking the Russian territory outside of what we consider normally Russia would now be in rebellion. It's a huge stab in the back.

would now be in rebellion. That's a huge stab in the back. Though Napoleon kept telling everybody that he never had any intention of restoring Poland, not even as a puppet, because if he was going to do it, he could have done it a long time ago and Russia couldn't have done shit. Right.

But nobody trusted him because he's Napoleon. Why would they? Yeah. In order to ease this, Napoleon offered that they sign a joint declaration that neither of them support the idea of Poland or Polish independence. Alex rewrote the declaration,

omitting any notion of the Polish people altogether because it wasn't even allowed to exist on paper, I guess. Napoleon wasn't cool with this version because tens of thousands of Poles fought in Napoleon's army and he thought that would kind of be insulting to them. Okay. Alex, kind of with the fact that if Napoleon didn't sign his version,

he might find it kind of hard to keep up with this whole continental system. Obviously, this little move began to make Napoleon suspicious as to what the Tsar's real plans were. Being Napoleon, he voices displeasure, as he always did, by summoning the Russian ambassador and screaming at him for a while. That's awesome. He did that a lot. For funsies?

He's like, give me the ambassador. And then he won't even let the ambassador speak. You just scream at him. This is a one-way conversation. Yeah. I just need somebody to yell at. You stand there and take it. But after this little fit, he let slip the idea that leaving his side and making peace

with England and leaving the continental system would mean war against France. This is the first time he'd ever brought up war. And he just kind of screamed it out. He's like, fuck, I showed my hand. Sometimes when you get angry, you black out sometimes. He seems like a blackout angry type of guy. He seems like someone who will say the most extreme shit while he's mad.

Because at the time, he did not mean it shut up baby you know i love you i didn't mean to hit you like that it reminds me of bender maybe i know it uh the fucking was what was bender's last name it's like bender bender bending rodriguez yeah napoleon bender rodriguez uh now nap now Napoleon did not want war with Russia and that was the first time he'd ever brought it up and he was like fuck god damn it my bad you already said it

takes you back but Russia was beginning to look forward to the idea of war the Russian people hated France and especially Napoleon and the upper class of Russia hated France for a whole lot of different reasons. A lot of them really don't make sense.

It all kind of boils down to they were jealous of being the dominant culture in Russia. Because they were full of Frenchmen who had ran from the French Revolution. You see, French culture largely dominated

all of Europe. It was the cultural touchstone of the entire place, kind of like American culture is today. You can't go anywhere without seeing American culture bleeding into people's lives are bad. And Russia was no different at the time for French. Russia was still playing keep up with the rest of Europe, and Russian nobility filled the void with French culture as a sign of how civilized they were.

This literally included everything down to the fact that they spoke French amongst each other. Like, they didn't even speak Russian. Really? Russia was seen as like a peasant's language to them. That's crazy. The Russian army swelled with French aristocracy that ran from the guillotine

and filled the Russian state administration. This happened so completely that by 1812, when the war started, only one senior officer in the Russian army did not speak French. Wow. And there's many other members who are German, Austrian, Prussian, whatever. The Russian government was largely not controlled by Russians. Okay. It's weird.

Despite all of this Franco-centrism, there is a general hatred for the country of France herself. It's really strange. Despite the fact that they loved and just

consumed everything French, they hated France. There's a lot of hate. Yeah. I mean, maybe a lot of this had a lot to do with getting their asses

stomped in by napoleon uh in the last war they just considered and they considered the treaty of tilsit like a huge spit in their face the hate only amplified so you know where this is going when there's like a culture war brewing and and they're like hmm we need to figure out a way to stop this xenophobia anti-french papers began to be printed along with a strong urge to return to our traditional Russian values. In Russia they printed these?

Despite the fact that most Russian peasants could not read. So like this is solely for the nobility. People began to police the Russian language and the strong foreign influences in literature so like if you were speaking amongst nobility people was like hey why the fuck are you speaking

french yeah are you not russian like oh shit my bad uh and this is like this new wave of nationalism in russia was kind of new nobody really had it before because before like we need to civilize us we need to improve our country we'll take from france because they just went through all this right there was no like we must build upon strong russian culture and traditions and i use the term civilized loosely it's in common knowledge it just means you know know, improve, whatever. I don't mean that Russia was a horrible, backward, savage place. Fucking barbarians. Yeah.

Goddamn savages. No, that's not the case. This is the language that the nobility of Russia used. So it's like they absorbed somebody else's culture along with a fucking ton of immigrants from France. And they were immigrants who ran from the French Revolution because they would have been killed in it. Most of the, like, from the ancient

regime under Louis, they all ran to Russia or Prussia or what we consider Germany now. Because it's like, you know this or I'm going to die. So they brought with them an intense hatred for France and Napoleon. Because like, motherfucker stole my house! He wanted to kill me because I was taking money

from all the goddamn poor people who had no money. That monster. Now he has money. Yeah, and then they hated him even more because they were nobility under the old regime, so they wanted their claims back. Their peerage was dead. Oh. So, yeah. It's like all the

Cubans in Florida who are really pissed off because the Cuban Revolution happened and forced their fucking slave owningowning great-grandfather to lose his plantation. Like, but now I'm not rich anymore! My grandpa came from Cuba to Florida. Bad news, Nick! I'm going to assume from your father who had to join the LAPD for a living wage, he was not a plantation owner in Cuba. No.

Most of these people all work for, I don't know, the Federalists now. He definitely went across a boat you have to put your lips to. Not a good sign. No. Yeah. Yeah. So this new wave of nationalism in in russia was totally totally new uh and they they dealt with it now that did not mean they

kicked out the french because they still needed them they're like we're modernizing our military modernizing our economy our government you guys can keep running things just keep it down a bit stop being so french um but this kind of can't like one of the things it is like they shamed people for hiring french like yo you hired a french tutor for your kid why don't you want him to learn russian oh you married a french maid why don't you want to marry her or why don't you want to fucking uh hire a russian shit like that we don't see that today at all nope uh moving on it's around that time that Napoleon created the Grand Duchy that we talked about. So as you can imagine, he created the Grand Duchy, and this sparked the nationalistic fire to sweep through Russia because he's taken our Poland.

Dumb. Yeah. Yeah. They thought this was a dire threat to Russia. this as a dire threat to Russia. And Napoleon, who remember they thought who was legitimately the Antichrist, or at least the demon adjacent, was about to invade and finish

his subjugation of Russia once and for all. He began with Tilsit. It's dumb. But not entirely wrong. He did want to dominate Russia. He just didn't want to have to invade them to do it. And then, I mean, to make matters worse, Napoleon managed to put one of his marshals, a Frenchman didn't want to have to invade them to do it uh and then i mean to make matters worse napoleon

managed to put one of his marshals a frenchman named jean bernadotte on a place uh in place at the crown prince of sweden who remember ran the board of russia nice so i was like now he's surrounding us with his loyalists they're on our flanks yeah and it's pretty interesting to point out that like bernadotte andadotte and Napoleon fucking hated one another. But they like, he knew that Bernadotte kind of had an in. So Napoleon supported him to marry into the family, become crown prince, and eventually become king. Okay. And like the house of Bernadotte is still the royal house of Sweden today.

Really? Yeah. So he thought, well, he'll be a Frenchman, so he'll be on my side. First of all, huge fuck up. Second of all, this is a fuck up in two different ways. Bernadotte hated Napoleon, like I said, and putting a Frenchman on

the... Eventually putting a Frenchman in line for the crown of Sweden pissed off the Russians even further, because now they were under the... I mean, they were under the same notion that napoleon was that he would be a puppet uh king to the french emperor so he's like oh god we're surrounded by french puppets now he's moving in for the kill oh and all this seemed like all this happened pretty rapidly too so it all looked like a one big move yeah really wasn't the russians

seemed like that one guy in the movie in the foxhole that's really paranoid. I remember when I looked, they see another French plot. And then if he was to piss off some... If Napoleon was maybe like, hey man, I don't mean it. Maybe he could postpone this a little further.

But then he annexed the Duchy of Oldenburg. Which is largely unimportant. But the guy who happened to run that slice of land was Alex's brother-in-law. So now he's like directly attacking his family. I mean, in-law. Yeah, I mean, I would totally annex my in-law's backyard. I mean, I don't see a problem with it.

And if Napoleon did, I'd be like, yeah, whatever. They have a nice backyard? I guess. They have a nice backyard? I guess. They have a backyard. That's true. Better than yours. And that was when Alex decided to fly off the handle and said, quote, blood must flow again. And that's when the real plans for war

began. And that's where we'll pick up next week. Whatever. I don't even care, dude. You look deeply unhappy with this cliffhanger I wanted 1812 bam go but you know it's not that easy no it never is

but I promise violence and people dying of dysentery is coming quickly my favorite you know what comes pretty quickly dysentery where'd you think I was going with that? Napoleon, I guess. I don't know.

But anyway, thank you. Nice. For tuning in to part one of the French invasion of Russia. If you like what we do, you can check out our Patreon and throw us a dollar. You get bonus episodes. You get Discord access. You get to ask us a question from the Legion, which we will answer at the end of the series because it's a series.

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It would be like a sealed taco from the gas station, a musket, and a bottle of liquor. And then on there, do you trust this taco? Question mark. Just a picture of a guy shrugging. Yeah. Also, check out our Teespring store. I just put a whole bunch of new designs on there.

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So, until next week, don't invade Russia, kids. Later.