A word of warning, noble sir. I believe your intentions with regard to the Cimmerians and Scythians are just - they need to feel the yoke of civilization. But when the topic of invading their land is raised, there is reference only to the attempts of peoples like the Swedes and the Germans. These were not the first to try their hand at it. Many centuries earlier, Cyrus, Great King, King of Babylon, King of the Four Corners of the Earth, King of the Universe, also invaded the land of the Scythians, but he came to a bad end, and his expedition floundered. Then a few generations later, my lord and uncle, Darius, invaded again, marching through Thrace and across the Danube with all the peoples over which he ruled. But the Scythians - uncivilised liars all - refused to engage him in battle. They left their land desolate and retreated, again and again, until my lord Darius' supplies were depleted, and he was forced to withdraw.^1 Many were killed in the retreat, preyed upon by the mounted archers of the enemy. While Darius obviously conquered the place, since no one resisted him, it was a bit harder to enforce the demands of the Great King once the army had left their lands. This was a blemish on the otherwise glorious career of Darius, conqueror of Thrace and Naxos and Euboea and vanquisher of the rebellious cities of the Yauna that dwell by the sea.

1. Herodotus 4.120-142

Emperor of all Europe

Tsk tsk, please. This is the real Emperor of Europe speaking. I fought the French, Moors, and Heretics all simultaneously at the same time. You couldn't even handle the English. When you are ready to graduate from your boring and linear warfare, call me.

Would it kill you to wait, I dunno, 5 or 6 years? You're emperor for life, your people love you, you should let them get busy and get your numbers back up. No need to keep going endlessly.

Look, I don't mean to alarm you but you may not have noticed that Russia is FAR. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the apothecary but that's just peanuts to Russia. Listen, it's nearly 2500 kilometers from Paris to Moscow. That's a long walk, doubly so in the mud, triply so lugging a cannon.

My advice: leave Russia to the Russians. What are you gonna get out of Russia anyway? Serfs? Frozen ports? Nuts to that noise, your Majesty. What you need to do is cut your losses in San Domingo, make nice with the Americans, set up a permanent French agricultural colony up the Mississippi, and convince the Russians that they need to worry about the Chinese.

There is one here every week, isn't there?

Mods, I know that you frown on personal anecdotes, but please bear with me here.

So, OP. I'm quite sure you won't believe me, but if you invade Russia, you will have a bad time. Don't believe me? Well, if you try to grab that bear by the nose ring, you're going to have to face the following:

• Your baggage train is going to be long. You think you know a thing or two about baggage trains? You know squat once you try to stretch one to there and back, and I started off a lot closer than you did. You should be happy if you even have it when you get there, which you won't.
• That said, since you'll be living without a supply chain, you'll be living off the land. This will not make the general populace happy where you pass through, not to mention the raping and killing that your horde will commit on the march. That walk home is going to be a lot longer when you have gangs of roving partisans picking your army to pieces.
• "Oh, but I won't need a long baggage train, I'll win a decisive battle!" I hear you say? No, you won't, that's not how the Russians roll. They'll fight you when they're good and ready.
• Do you even have an escape plan? I was lucky and had a buddy down south I could hide out with for a few years when everything went pear shaped.
• Not sure from your post if you're planning on hiring any Cossacks. My tip: don't. Using Cossacks always ends badly. Cossacks suck.

So to summarize, I know you've just spanked a ton of Germans, you've routed the Russians a bit, you have the finest infantry there ever was, your army fancies you a minor deity, and you're feeling like the king of the world. I know, because I've been there, done that, ate the Semla. Literally all of it. I can see the road you're headed down though, and unless you change course, reality is going to hit you like a bullet to the side of the head.

I would strongly recommend against it.

The tricky thing about the Russian Steppes that you have to remember, my Emperor, is that in the spring when the snow melts they become an impassable bog. From Germinal to Prairial this vast morass will swallow cannons, men, and horses up to their withers in its sticky grasp. As you yourself have observed, "God fights on the side with the best artillery." Getting our cannons stuck in this mud would be a disaster that could spell the end of our second campaign against the Polish.

It is far preferable, in our humble opinion, to confine the fighting to the summer, autumn, or even winter months (where the ground is frozen and makes for especially fast going for our heavy cannons) and wrap up the campaign before our Grande Armée must fight the fearsome Russian spring as well as the forces of the Tsar.

Emperor please, I beg that you heed my advice...

The Russians are expecting you to attack St. Petersburg and Moscow, it would be suicide to attack that way. I recommend that at once you send your armies to the lands of Panama and build a canal there, for funzies. After completing this venture I recommend sailing directly to Vladivostok and begin marching west. The Russians will never expect it, you will have the element of surprise. Victory will be assured!

No, mon dieu no. That "nation" is a wasteland, deprived of culture, food, weather, and any sort of sustenance that could keep an army moving. When I invaded Russia, it was barren, a wasteland of technology that would have been better suited back in the dark ages of Gaul than the 19th century!

And the roads! You would presume the Russian language doesn't even have a word for road! Dirt roads that turned to mud with such ease that you would presume that they produced mud rather than grain.

And the people, superstitious and dull minded, distrusting any sort of intelligence that isn't gotten or given by their masters who hold them in servitude. These people aren't even free and yet they willingly serve despotic masters.

Worse are those that exist within their service, within her borders. Barbarians that ride as if they were with Genghis Khan rather than that wannabe Alexander! They still use bows and arrows, riding with raw meat in their hamper sack. Pulled from the most barbaric of lands, only the Greeks facing the Persians.

And the winter. One should think that the Russians are barely human for being able to exist in such weather. Sadly I had to leave to put down a plot about my supposed death before I even experienced the worst... and Berthier had to go and mess up my army...

No, don't invade Russia.

Edit: Needed to smash Berthier's head against a wall for making a mistake. It has been corrected now that he's conscious.

Second Edit: HOW DARE YOU IMPERSONATE ME! ARE YOU IN LEAGUE WITH THAT COWARD MALET THAT ESCAPED FROM PRISON! ONE MOMENT WHILE I SUMMON THE GENDARME!

Mon Empereur, Russia is barely worth looking at! You have already proven you can best their armies in combat, you stand to gain little for what you have the potential of losing if, by some miracle, you do not succeed. In your time you have already beaten the finest armies Europe has to offer in the Hasburgs and Prussia, you have forced the scum English to hide on their little island and attempt to slander your height of all things, you took Egypt from the heathens barely breaking a sweat and you have dismantled the Holy Roman Empire! Take your victories, rule over the glorious empire that is mother Francia, make friends with the Americans and you will set up your family to rule Europe for many years to come!

Yes you should. But don't overstep my friend. This will be your most challenging campaign. Your enemies have learned much from you.

Winter in Smolensk as you have planned and take Moscow and St. Petersburg the next year. You need both to enforce the Continental System, not just Moscow. Alexander won't surrender unless you hold both his 'capitals'. Maybe not even then.

You can't live off their land. They'll go scorched earth, so when they start to retreat, chill the fuck out and don't try to finish them off. You can't catch them and you'll only seperate yourself from the baggage train.

I have to say this again. When they retreat, do not try to catch them. I know, you're Napoleon and you think you're an invincible god king. You've beaten Europe time and again by marching faster then your enemies. But if you go too fast in this invasion, you will lose.

TL;DR Just ignore your massive ego and you'll be fine. You're fucking Napoleon.

I took a political science class called Modern Weapons and International Relations. The professor once said "If you only remember one thing from this class, let it be to never invade Russia"

So no.

One has to ask, why invade Russia? There is a lot of it and it tends away from civilization, the more you go East.

How about forgetting Moscow (full of crooks anyway) and turn north after Smolensk heading for the capital, St. Petersburg? It is a port city after all and even a sliver of land and Polish Russia would be a lot of new territory with a supply route. Moscow would remain Russian for the time being to be taken later. As a side effect unless the Russians were very quick, you may have a chance to mop up some of their units in the North. You do not pursue an enemy army over such a long distance as eventually you may be drawn into a trap.

Go for it, it's a fun time. My recommandation is to start allying yourself to the local tribes NOW. Russia is filled with a multitude of rival factions, a lot of them would love to see you kick their neighbor's asses. If you can't get them to send soldiers, at least ask them to stay neutral. Once that's established, set the bait and lure them away from their supply lines. Set the feint and flank. It's best to do this over winter so that pesky things like rivers and lakes don't get in your way.

You need to keep the Brits under control first. Get a bigger Navy, build up your manpower and seek land across the channel. Russia can wait, and travelling through Prussian/Austro-Hungarian territory to get there might yield devastating results.

You need to try new tactics to, to potentially get better results. The Brits are renowned for their order and consistency in combat. They rely on travelling in a line, firing in a line and dying in a line. And you do too. Spread out, hit the bushes and break their lines before they even hit yours using "disorderly", orderly, combat.

Experiment a bit with the way you fight. Lines are great, but you should try new things that work well with your lines.

You're spot on about artillery though. That stuff is important, you can never have enough.

Semi serious question: Would Russia maybe be more invade-able from the South or the East? I mean, the mongols took that area but anything involving the mongols doesn't really require standard military logic anyways.

Hello folks. In this thread we have had a number of one or two-line shitposts and joke comments about Russian winters. Thanks to recent vertical integrations of AskHistorians Corporation, including the purchase of a 313,000 acre joke-answer forest in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, we no longer need such "contributions" in this thread. Further unsolicited shitposts will be run through a woodchipper and turned into charcoal briquettes.

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You will be chasing them for a while. Your supply train will get longer and longer, your troops morale will be lower, and the cold will take a toll on your men. Once Russia is ready they will fight. You may have defeated the Germans and fought some Russians in the past but you're on their territory now. They have thousands of miles of the steppe and tundra to fall back into. Your trains will only make it so far and then, when you're at your lowest and furthest away from your supply lines they will attack and defeat you.

It's really important that after you return with what little is left of your army, starving and cold, that you don't eat a ton of food.