French invasion of Russia French invasion of Russia The French invasion of Russia, known in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 () and in France as the Russian Campaign (), began on 24 June 1812 when Napoleon's crossed the Neman River in an attempt to engage and defeat the Russian army. Napoleon hoped to compel Tsar Alexander I of Russia to cease trading with British merchants through proxies in an effort to pressure the United Kingdom to sue for peace. The official political aim of the campaign was to liberate Poland from the threat of Russia. Napoleon named the campaign the Second Polish
War and Peace that Tolstoy's works have now been translated into Danish, Goncharov again stressed the immense importance of "War and Peace". "Count Tolstoy really mounts over everybody else here [in Russia]", he remarked. Fyodor Dostoyevsky (in a May 30, 1871 letter to Strakhov) described "War and Peace" as "the last word of the landlord's literature and the brilliant one at that". In a draft version of "The Raw Youth" he described Tolstoy as "a historiograph of the , or rather, its cultural elite". "The objectivity and realism impart wonderful charm to all scenes, and alongside people of talent, honour and duty he