No, not in 1945, in 1813. Napoleon had forgotten the first rule of European wars (Don't invade Russia) the previous year. While his overwhelming force of 600,000 troops was unstoppable by the Tsarist forces, General Winter would have his due.
Napoleon checked out early from Moscow, with the few surviving French troops quick on his heels. The Russians, flush with success, didn't stop at the old border, but took the shortest route towards Paris - in this case, via Berlin.
In what would foreshadow events 127 years later, the French army executed a double-time advance to the rear. Two years later, General Kutusov's Hussar cavalry found itself ensconced in Parisian restaurants, complaining about the slow service. From their corrupted russian exclaimations, we get the name Bistro (from "bistra", or "hurry up").
4 comments:
And the World's Greatest statistical graphing map displaying the march and it's attendant loss of marchers...
I wonder how long it will be before we get to see that again.
Oldblingdog, that's a depressing thought. Although I'm not sure that the smart money will bet on french troops there ...
DirtCrashr, I think that I'm the only one around who doesn't like that map. Yes, it displays lots of information on one page, which is cool. But the information is too dense. It communicates, but not well. IMHO.
Like I said, I seems to be the only one who thinks this way. :-/
Not just you, it's a Tufte-Harvard elite hermetic thing - he siezed upon it as a touchstone and a teachable moment, plus it's in French!
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