NAPOLEON IN RUSSIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 November 1941, Page 8

NAPOLEON IN RUSSIA

DECISIVE EFFECT OF BATTLE OF BORODINO.

The old legend of Napoleon being defeated by the snows of Russia, having once seized the public imagination, dies very hard, and is still very frequently mentioned, writes Prince V. Obolensky in the “Sunday Times.” In fact, Napoleon’s Grand Army, after it had gained great initial success in a terrific thrust toward Moscow, was met and halted by the Russian Army under Marshal Kutuzov in one of the bloodiesf battles of that time at Borodino, on September 7, 1812. This battle was fought at a time when there is no snow in Russia. Napoleon himself when he wrote to the Empress Marie Louise, only three days before the battle, pointed out: “We are in autumn here. We are having the same weather as when we moved to Fontainebleau. The granaries are full. The earth is covered with vegetables. Consequently the troops are well, which is a great point. My affairs are going well. My health is good.” In this ferocious battle, for the first time, the initiative fell from his hands, and the greatest armed forces of the time lost the strength to continue its “blitz” advance. Trapped in burned-out Moscow, surrounded by Russian Armies, menaced by a guerilla warfare in his rear, Napoleon found himself in a strategic void; he could not move forward and was compelled to retreat in search of possible winter quarters, which he said he hoped to find in Poland. All this took place when there was still no snow, and only on his retreat, when he was already approaching Smolensk, on November 7, he reported that “the weather was beginning to show signs of impending snow.” Thus the end of Napoleon’s career began at. the Battle of Borodino, and was effected, not by the snow, but by the desperate Russian resistance.