AFAIK Prussia and Austria didn't contribute large forces to either the Russian or Spanish theatres? My point being, if the Russians and British launch major offensives at the same time, Napoleon can't be in two places at once (and has to split his army). France doesn't have an ally that can do something like this to distract the Russians.
As I said before, the best thing for Nappy would be to evacuate Spain. This would free a lot of the experienced troops and more or less kill any danger of the British attack on the Southern France (anyway, they did not have enough troops to try something of the kind with the strong French presence on the Franco-Spanish border. Of course, as an alternative, Nappy could launch a blitz campaign on the Peninsula, like one he did earlier but left unfinished. This would require only relatively small additions to the troops he already had there but (IMO) the whole Spanish scenario was a massive waste of the resources which continued only due to Nappy's stubbornness.
An idea of a simultaneous offensive requires coordination that would go well beyond the available means of communications and, if initiative of attack is their, it is highly unlikely that the Russians would try anything prior to 1813 when their new troops are raised and trained and even then it is very unlikely because so far their experience of an aggressive war against Napoleon was strictly negative: the 1st ended at Austerlitz and 2nd at Friedland.
I've said before that Napoleon's initial plan wasn't bad.
Actually, it was because it relied too much on enemy's foolishness and incompetence and completely ignored the nationalistic/political component of this specific war.
AFAIK Prussia and Austria didn't contribute large forces to either the Russian or Spanish theatres? My point being, if the Russians and British launch major offensives at the same time, Napoleon can't be in two places at once (and has to split his army). France doesn't have an ally that can do something like this to distract the Russians.
As I said before, the best thing for Nappy would be to evacuate Spain. This would free a lot of the experienced troops and more or less kill any danger of the British attack on the Southern France (anyway, they did not have enough troops to try something of the kind with the strong French presence on the Franco-Spanish border. Of course, as an alternative, Nappy could launch a blitz campaign on the Peninsula, like one he did earlier but left unfinished. This would require only relatively small additions to the troops he already had there but (IMO) the whole Spanish scenario was a massive waste of the resources which continued only due to Nappy's stubbornness.
An idea of a simultaneous offensive requires coordination that would go well beyond the available means of communications and, if initiative of attack is their, it is highly unlikely that the Russians would try anything prior to 1813 when their new troops are raised and trained and even then it is very unlikely because so far their experience of an aggressive war against Napoleon was strictly negative: the 1st ended at Austerlitz and 2nd at Friedland.
The main difference from OTL would be the movements of his armies such that when a major battle is fought, the Russian forces cannot easily retreat. This was ultimately what saved them at Vitebsk, at Smolensk, and at Borodino. Force the surrender, not just retreat, of a major army and the campaign is won.
Of course, I understand that comparing to you Nappy was just a mediocre military talent and his marshals were ordinary nincompoops who did not manage to accomplish such a trivial task as achieve enemy's surrender. However, making allowances to their limited mental capacities, complete lack of a military experience, absence of the radio and aerial surveillance and unavailability of the history books describing their mistakes and giving valuable recommendations, it is safe to say that they did pretty much what they could do under the circumstances in the area with which they were not familiar (just kidding).
There were couple moments when a
portion of the Russian army (not the whole army) could be cut off but the questionable "credit" goes mostly to the quarrels between the Russian top commanders about which Napoleon could not know (Bagration & Co forced Barclay to stay and fight at Smolensk with a resulting difficulty of extricating themselves out the the dangerous situation). An idea of forcing Russian army to surrender at Borodino is very interesting one but I wonder how this could be achieved if the retreat route was safely behind well-protected Russian right flank.
By Borodino, the Grande Armee was falling apart and was overextended,
It was far from falling apart but the numbers, especially after the terrible losses in the battle, had been too small to force Alexander to surrender. OTOH, a much greater French force staying in Smolensk would not force Alexander to surrender either.
the Tsar knew he wasn't going to lose just because Moscow burned. If he loses a battle early on that wipes out most of his army, he won't see an enemy falling apart, but an enemy who is a serious threat.
Well, the obvious problem with that scenario is, as I said earlier, the fact that the Russian commanders did not want to indulge Napoleon with such a battle. Even
if on the early stage of campaign Davout was successful in cutting off and completely defeating Bagration (which would be quite difficult because, while being inept strategist, Bagration was a brilliant tactician with an impressive record of getting out of the difficult situations), this would only strengthen Barclay's resolve not to give a battle with the inferior numbers and fighting for Smolensk would be avoided altogether.
A lenient peace deal at that point would look a lot better than letting Napoleon rampage through Western Russia.
Clausewitz was quite skeptical about that "rampaging" scenario and, anyway, "Western Russia" amounted mostly to the Poland/Lithuania/Belorussia which were only marginally valuable from the "imperial" perspective.