I know this might sound like a silly and stupid question; I know every particular of ww1 and ww2, but nothing about the napoleonic wars, I liked at some maps and it seems that the attack consisted in a main spearhead directed towards moskow. I know that the russian did all of that scorched earth tactics, but since the French had no rear guard couldn't the Russians just cut them of from behind leading to the whole french army being encircled? Or this wasn't even something that one could think of at that era? The french were arleady really bad on supplies and cutting them of from behind would have resulted in them having no supplies at all. So why didn't they do that? Sorry if this might sound dumb, as I said, I always studied the 20th century and almost nothing regarding the past ones
Hey there,
Just to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be difficult to prove the counterfactual: historians know much more about what happened than what might have happened. Secondly, 'why didn't X do Y' questions are sometimes phrased in an ahistorical way. It's worth remembering that people in the past couldn't see into the future, and they generally didn't have all the information we now have about their situations; things that look obvious now didn't necessarily look that way at the time.
If you end up not getting a response after a day or two, consider asking a new question focusing instead on why what happened did happen (rather than why what didn't happen didn't happen) - this kind of question is more likely to get a response in our experience. Hope this helps!