"By 1812, Napoleon was all powerful. Nearly all of Europe was under his control. He had succeeded in forbidding most of the continent from trading with Britain in an effort to bring the island nation to heel. And he was married to Marie Louise, daughter of the emperor of Austria, a major superpower at the time. (The dazzling emerald and diamond necklace that he gifted her when they were wed was one of the objects stolen in last weekend's heist at the Louvre.)"
""This is one of the most infamous military campaigns in the last centuries," says Nicolas Rascovan, the head of the microbial paleogenomics unit at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. "He believed that he was going to be able to conquer the whole world, more or less. It was probably the beginning of the end." In October, Napoleon called his soldiers back after barely engaging the Russian army. It wasn't a defeat, but it was no win either."
By 1812 Napoleon controlled much of Europe and enforced a trade embargo against Britain. Russia resisted, prompting a 600,000‑strong invasion that failed to decisively engage Russian forces. The retreat began in October and an early, harsh winter inflicted cold, hunger, and infectious disease on the soldiers. Hundreds of thousands died during the campaign. Researchers identify two unexpected pathogens among the infectious causes that hastened the soldiers' demise, adding to known threats like typhus and trench fever. Bioarchaeological analysis shows soldiers suffered a relentless microbial assault alongside battlefield and environmental hazards.
Read at www.npr.org
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]