French invasion of Russia subject of much discussion among historians. The campaign's sustained role in Russian culture may be seen in Tolstoy's "War and Peace", Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture", and the identification of it with the German invasion of 1941–45, which became known as the "Great Patriotic War" in the Soviet Union. 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
Leo Tolstoy Nicholas II of Russia and Wilhelm II of Germany. Tolstoy, a famous sinophile, also read the works of Chinese thinker and philosopher, Confucius. Tolstoy corresponded with the Chinese intellectual Gu Hongming and recommended that China remain an agrarian nation and warned against reform like what Japan implemented. The Eight-Nation Alliance intervention in the Boxer Rebellion was denounced by Tolstoy as were the Philippine–American War and the Second Boer War between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics. The words "terrible for its injustice and cruelty" were used to describe the Czarist intervention in China by Tolstoy. Confucius's works