Napoleon's failure: For the want of a winter horseshoe

[dipsydoodle]

Of all the challenges faced by generals through history, moving armies has been one of the greatest - and Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Russia 200 years ago illustrates just how badly things can go wrong when it is underestimated.

It is not enough just to get your forces from A to B - you have to keep them fed and watered as they go. The art of movement, therefore, is one of the most complex and vital that any commander must master, if he is going to win.

In 1812, his armies having swept all before them, Napoleon was at the zenith of his power (shades of another invader of Russia 129 years later). His Grand Armee of 400,000 men was thought to be unbeatable and he himself anticipated a rapid victory.

Yet within six months his huge force had been reduced to a straggling band of ragged fugitives, and fewer than one in 20 of his soldiers would ever see their homes again. How had it come to this?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16929522

[eppur_se_muova]

1. "Anticipating a short campaign ..." Gosh, who would make an error of judgement that big? nt

[RainDog]

3. Paging Donald Rumsfeld,

Donald Rumsfeld to the courtesy phone in Den Hague, please.

[Uncle Joe]

2. More like for "the want of humility" which is a want that most all

would be world rulers, emperors and dictators have in common.

This lacking of humility commonality and overabundance of pride, ego and arrogance led both Napoleon and Hitler to take on military beliefs that weren't based on sound logic.

There is much truth to the proverb, "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before the fall."

Thanks for the thread, dipsydoodle.

[Fumesucker]

4. Napoleon wasn't the only one to invade Russia to his eventual ruin..