Quotulatiousness

March 4, 2022

Why Napoleon Invaded Russia in 1812

Filed under: France, History, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Real Time History
Published 3 Mar 2022

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When Napoleon’s Grande Armée crossed the Nemen river into the Russian Empire in 1812, the die had been cast. In the years between the peace of Tilsit and the war against Russia, Tsar Alexander I and Emperor Napoleon had praised each other and Russia had even joined the continental blockade of Napoleon’s arch enemy Great Britain. Still, in 1811 both sides saw war as inevitable.

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» SOURCES
Boudon, Jacques-Olivier. Napoléon et la campagne de Russie en 1812. 2021.
Lieven, Dominic. Russia Against Napoleon. 2010.
Rey, Marie-Pierre. L’effroyable tragédie : une nouvelle histoire de la campagne de Russie. 2012.
Zamoyski, Adam. 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March on Moscow. 2005.

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»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Above Zero
Editing: Toni Steller
Motion Design: Toni Steller
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Digital Maps: Canadian Research and Mapping Association (CRMA)
Research by: Jesse Alexander
Fact checking: Florian Wittig

Channel Design: Simon Buckmaster

Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2022

From the comments:

Real Time History
10 hours ago

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Dear RTH supporters and new time viewers,

as I am writing this the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a week old. Our thoughts are with our friends and family in Ukraine as we watch this historic tragedy unfold before our eyes. At the same time we have been working hard to launch our series about Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia in 1812. Most of you will know us for our approach to military history, we don’t just follow the “great men of history” and take the armchair general position that is just moving abstract markers on a map. To the best of our abilities, we are showing the ugly truth of war and the cost for the people on the ground. This will be no different for our Napoleon series.

At the end of this series, you will see that the Russian Empire emerges victorious and indeed 1812 is called “The Patriotic War” in Russia. We began work on the series long before the current phase of the war began, and, as those of you who are familiar with our work already know, this series is in no way a statement of support for the actions of the current Russian government. In our series, we will show how the 1812 campaign was another step towards the totalization of warfare as a whole. We will also show how the question of independence for non-Russians in the Russian Empire was already a thorn in Russia’s side over 200 years ago.

War is never glorious and after studying the 1812 campaign, we can say with certainty that this war was one of the ugliest wars in history. The cost for the common people between Moscow and the Berezina was immense and so was the cost for the French and non-French soldiers in the Grande Armée – and of course for the Russian soldiers too.

Lastly, current events always shape our understanding of history. A crude, perverted version of history has even been used by Vladimir Putin to justify this war of aggression against Ukraine. Undoubtably, this current war will also cause us to see 1812 in a different light. Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia is rightfully considered as one of the most important events in European history and it needs to be remembered for generations to come. With our series, we hope we can contribute to this understanding.

Thank you for your support and keeping a critical view of history alive with us. No to war!

Florian Wittig and the entire Real Time History team

Germany is finally being forced to adapt to 21st century realities

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, Russia — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In The Line, Matt Gurney outlines German history since the end of WW2 and why German governments have allowed the Bundeswehr to shrivel to almost Canadian Armed Forces status and why they have also been eager to scrap local power options in favour of imported Russian oil and gas:

A Bundeswehr Marder 1A3 Infantry Fighting Vehicle during an exercise at the Munster Training Centre, 1 September, 2010.
Photo by Bundeswehr-Fotos via Wikimedia Commons.

After 1990, the newly combined German military largely evaporated. Manpower levels plummeted; huge quantities of equipment were mothballed or sold off. German military spending fell well below that of other large European NATO allies. Indeed, despite their military history and economic clout, Germany, on a per capita basis, is more a Canada to NATO than a France or Britain.

And not by accident. Germany’s partial demilitarization was driven by a series of considerations, all of which reflected deliberate choices. Germany is still haunted by its Nazi-era history, and even its peacekeeping contribution to Afghanistan was controversial, marking the country’s first major foreign mission since 1945. A smaller, little-used military is a balm to the nation’s wounded psyche. Further, a small German military, and a Germany broadly and overtly uninterested in military affairs, did much to ease concerns of wary allies with living memories of life under the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht.

And, well, yeah: the Germans also cut their force levels like crazy because, as noted in my recent column here, it saved them a ton of money.

It’s important to understand, though, that it’s not just about the German military, though that’s perhaps the most stark symbol. The country has emerged as a leading force for European unity and liberal-democratic values. Not for nothing was recently retired chancellor Angela Merkel touted as a leader of the free world during the rocky Trump presidency in Washington. Under Merkel, the country tried to live the ideal of the modern Europe, including by letting in a million refugees fleeing fighting in the Middle East, a decision that has opened up political fissures in Germany that remain a problem today.

Much has also been made of the country’s decision to shut down its nuclear plants and rely instead on imports of Russian natural gas for energy. Dismissed by many as foolhardy — and it was foolhardy — it’s also not hard to read a whiff of almost pathetic desperation into the move. If we are just nice enough, if we buy enough Russian gas, if we perfectly model the new amiable European ideal, maybe, just maybe, could Germany cast off some of its historical taint?

If that was the plan, it hasn’t worked, and gosh, it hasn’t worked with a vengeance. Since the Cold War ended — paused? changed? — the Germans have remained minimally armed and resolutely affable and committed to European unity. The country did increase military spending after Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, but it almost had to — the German military had fallen into a state of neglect and non-functionality that any Canadian would find instantly recognizable. Hundreds of billions of Euros were budgeted, and tens of thousands of new enlistments authorized, in the first expansion of German military power since reunification. Even while embarking on this effort, though, Germany continued to shut down its nuclear plants and increase its use of Russian energy imports.

That’s over. Deader than East Germany, as much as a relic as the bits of the Berlin Wall that tourists now collect (I have a fragment myself somewhere in a file in my office, though damned if I could find it when I went searching today while procrastinating on this column). On top of the many billions of Euros already pledged to military modernization, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has committed a supplemental fund of a further €100 billion for immediate shoring up of military capabilities, and has also committed to substantially raise Germany’s baseline defence spending to the two per cent NATO target — an effectively permanent annual boost of roughly a third over the already higher level achieved since 2015.

Checkpoint Charlie – Berlin’s Cold War Frontier

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Mark Felton Productions
Published 4 Dec 2018

The history of Checkpoint Charlie, the most famous of Berlin’s East-West crossing points and the focus of a serious standoff between the US and Soviet Union in 1961 that could have led to World War III.

Support Mark at Patreon for $1 a Month!
https://www.patreon.com/markfeltonpro…

QotD: “Avoid New York City”

Filed under: Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

It [NYC] smells terrible, the people are rude, and everything costs at least three times more than it should, for no discernible increase in quality. Most activities are crowded and overrated (e.g. Broadway plays such as Les Miz), food in the “best” restaurants is no better than you’ll get in any good restaurant in your home town, and walking in the streets of Manhattan is as close to a contact sport as you’ll get off a rugby field. Don’t buy into the hype; New York sucks. If you can make it there, you probably have organized crime ties (just like Sinatra did).

Kim du Toit, “Don’t Do That”, Splendid Isolation, 2019-01-28.

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