Grande Armée crosses the Neman into Russia
- When
- 24 June 1812
- Where
- Neman River crossing from the Duchy of Warsaw into Russia
On 24 June 1812 the initial wave of the multinational Grande Armée crossed the Neman River, entering Russia from the Duchy of Warsaw.
After two days of preparation, the invasion commenced on Wednesday, 24 June [O.S. 12 June] 1812. Beginning that day, the initial wave of the multinational Grande Armée crossed the Neman River, marking the entry from the Duchy of Warsaw into Russia. Around 400,000–500,000 men crossed the border and headed towards Moscow; the army is described as the largest assembled up to that point in European history. The supplied passages do not name a specific crossing point near Kovno or Ponary, so no exact site is asserted.
Sources
- French invasion of Russia Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-24
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.