Thursday, May 21, 2020

Retreat from Moscow Puzzle

We have delved into Arkansas history with our new jigsaw puzzle games! With today’s puzzle, we are highlighting an oil painting by Arkansas artist James M. Fortenbury called "The Retreat from Moscow."

Fortenbury was an artist living in Little Rock in the 1870s. He was commissioned to paint a copy of the "Arkansas Traveller" that was displayed at the 1876 Centennial Expedition in Philadelphia. James M. Fortenbury also painted several items in the Arkansas State Archives' collections, including portraits of Chester Ashley and Robert Ward Johnson, and paintings depicting The Battle of Palarm and Retreat from Moscow.



"The Retreat from Moscow" shows Napoleon's soldiers retreating in the snow in 1812. Following the rejection of his Continental System by Czar Alexander I, French Emperor Napoleon I invaded Russia with his Grande Armée of 500,000 soldiers and staff on June 24, 1812. As the French soldiers advanced, the Russians under Gen. Mikhail Kutuzov burned everything behind them as they retreated deeper and deeper into Russia. 

On Sept. 14, 1812, Napoleon arrived in Moscow intending to find supplies, instead he found almost the entire population had evacuated, and the Russian army had retreated again. After waiting a month for a surrender that never came, Napoleon was forced to retreat in order to save his army from the onset of the harsh Russian winter and starvation. By the time Napolean's troops made it back to France, more than 400,000 men in the Grande Armée had lost their lives.

You can enjoy the puzzles here or at jigsawplanet.comIf you want to change the difficulty level of the puzzle, you can adjust the number of pieces at the top each puzzles with the "Play As" drop down menu.

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