Why did Napoleon repeat Charles XII’s mistakes in Russia?

The short answer

• Logistics against arithmetic. Napoleon's familiar way of war joined rapid movement, local forage and a decisive battle. In the comparatively rich, densely settled regions of Western Europe, roads and supplies had helped make that possible. Russia posed another problem: distances were longer, roads poor and forage sparse. Wagons brought food, but their draft horses consumed some of it. One estimate puts losses from disease and other attrition at roughly 120,000 before Smolensk. Napoleon expected a short campaign near Vilna; as the march continued east, the army's needs exceeded what could be supplied.
• Scorched earth and the refused battle. Barclay's retreat, whether chiefly planned or improvised, kept the Russian army away from the decisive battle Napoleon wanted near his supply base. Each march east increased the strain on the invaders and the danger of their eventual return. In Spain, dispersed resistance prolonged the war; in Russia, an army that kept receding remained available to fight another day. Both denied Napoleon the ending he sought, by different means.
• An empire of conscripted allies. Roughly half the invading force came from outside France. Prussian, Austrian, German, Italian and Polish contingents served under treaties, but their reasons for following Napoleon differed. Many Poles attached strong hopes to him; other states had recently suffered defeat at his hands. Hardship damaged the army, and defeat strained the political ties that held its contingents together. In December the Prussian corps agreed to neutrality, and Austria later moved away from France.
• Winter was the finisher, not the cause. The cold of November killed and disabled men and horses on a terrible scale. It did not begin the army's losses. During the warmer months, heat, typhus, dysentery, hunger and desertion had already reduced its strength, although estimates of the proportion lost before the first hard frost vary. Napoleon emphasized weather, while Russian patriotic accounts celebrated “General Winter”. The cold struck a force already depleted and far from its supplies.

What it changed

The spell breaks in public. France learned of the disaster through the 29th Bulletin, which nevertheless assured readers that the Emperor's health “has never been better”. Prussian forces moved away from the alliance within weeks, and Austria joined the opposing coalition in 1813. Russia's surviving army helped sustain the effort that became the Sixth Coalition. Bailén had already damaged Napoleon's reputation; Russia revealed a defeat on a much larger scale.

The instrument is gone. Men could be conscripted more quickly than experience could be replaced. France raised young soldiers, including the “Marie-Louises” who fought in 1814, but horses, veteran noncommissioned officers and trained gunners were harder to recover. Napoleon rebuilt an army for 1813; its losses in experience and cavalry limited what it could accomplish, including after battles such as Leipzig.

Russia marches west, twice. The Russian pursuit carried armies west to Paris in 1814 and helped make the tsar a principal arbiter of Europe. The journey also exposed young Russian officers to societies and political ideas beyond their own country. For some, comparison with constitutional France contributed to the discontent expressed in the Decembrist revolt of 1825.