Thursday, November 29, 2007

 

This Day in the History of Hard Lessons


On this day in 1812, the last elements of Napoleon Bonaparte's Grande Armée retreated across the Beresina River in Russia (actually Belarus) on two pontoon bridges, having fought their way out of Russia after abandoning burned out Moscow on October 19. The battle of Beresina lasted four days and caused the French further heavy losses. Of the 675,000 soldiers who went into Russia on June 24, roughly 25,000 made it back to Poland before the end of 1812.

What's Waterloo compared to that?
How could Napolean have stayed in power to the end of his days? Not invaded Russia. How could Hitler have won the war? Not invaded the Soviet Union. Anyone seeing a pattern here?

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Comments:
Joel Barlow, an American diplomat and poet, b. in Redding, CT where the H.S. is named for him, Yale graduate, died of exposure in Poland on Napoleon's retreat from Moscow.
 
Gereral Winter took no prisoners. Very interesting, Tony.
 
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