"A day that will live in infamy..."

[Lew]

There is a wonderful Simpsons episode that deals with the butterfly effect. Homer goes around killing different creatures, and each he returns the future has been dramatically altered (among the various future timelines, it rains donuts instead of water).

Or, as Jay Leno pointed out regarding that infamous picture of Donna Rice sitting on Gary Hart's lap, you go back in time and put one extra deck chair on that boat, Gary Hart could have been the President of the United States.

[LanDroid]

Sometimes I think about the time machine I used to have - and that butterfly I stepped on in the Jurassic Period. Is that why the world is so screwed up now? I hope not. I'd hate to have a butterfly taking on all that blame. [img]graemlins/shhh.gif[/img]

[Beachcomber]

Did you know the term "bug in the system" in reference to computers actually refers to a butterfly? Back when the first computer was developed (it used vacuum tubes and generated a lot of heat) a butterfly actually flew into one of the tubes from outside.

Now on the "what if..." scenarios, what if Blucher had been delayed in June 1815 and Napoleon WON Waterloo? May well have prevented WWI 100 yrs later...

[Lew]

GL, since I don't know about the Napoleonic era, is it apples to apples to compare the French invasion of Russia to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union? The Germans had tanks, motorized infantry, planes, modern technology, etc. and they still couldn't conquer Moscow. And when you look at a map of Russia, Moscow isn't anywhere near the center, it's clearly on the western side. Yet it's still a long way from western Europe. Hitler overestimated his chances and didn't bother to prepare his troops for winter fighting. And from what I've read, the winters there are so harsh that the only "fighting" you can do is against the weather, not your opponent.

If the Germans were going to win, they had to do it in 1941. They did survive that winter, and made another go of it in 1942 but the Soviets were in better shape than the year prior and they held. The 1942-43 winter beat the hell of out the German army, and from 1943 on they were on the defensive.

And I confess I know more about the Pacific theater than Europe, but I just don't see anyway that the Germans could have ever conquered the Soviets. If they had been able to concentrate their all their resources, maybe. But they couldn't do that because of the fighting in North Africa as well as western Europe. Stalin always whined that the allies should have opened a western front in 1942 and then 1943 (which we didn't do until June 6, 1944 of course). But the fact is, there WAS a western front when you think about all the bombing that was done by the British and the Americans in 1942 and 1943. I've read estimates where the Germans had to commit somwhere between 1 and 1.5 million servicemen to combating allied bombing. And every pilot that had to concentrate on the British and Americans was one less pilot that the Soviets had to deal with (and remember, not just pilots, we're talking planes, mechanics, fuel, etc.)

But back to my original question, since Napoleon had none of that technology (of course, neither did Czarist Russia), did he ever have a realistic chance of conquering them?

[Beachcomber]

Good question Lew. In my opinion, Napoleon should have marched on St Petersburg for several reasons.
* It was the modern, working capitol of Russia while Moscow was the traditional, religious capitol (and in Russia the Czar was both religious and secular leader)
* Moscow is indeed very far from Western Europe, esp on foot and on animals. Even more than his loss of soldiers (and people were an even cheaper commodity then than they are now in world politics) his loss of horses for his cavalry and to move artillery hurt his chances for near future battles more than anything.
* He should not have proceeded to Moscow, but in every battle since his 1st Italian campaign, he won and dictated peace terms from the vanquished capitol. He wanted to do this to bring Alexandre back into line with his "Continental System" wherein he blocked British goods from entering Europe.

Had he been able to draw the Russian General Kutuzof into battle he had enough men and weapons and material to win. But Kutuzof, sly as a fox or simply old and tired, would not allow him the chance. He drew him into the waste lands of Russia to die of the winter.

Winter came early and hard in 1812-1813. His march on Moscow thinned his supply line beyond sustainability.(And in previous battles in Europe his troops could and did live off the land. The Russians introduced a "scorched earth" policy. No food to eat for the troops and no food for the horses. Napoleon suffered significant losses before he ever reached Moscow and had he not been victim of his own megalomania by then he would have stopped) And rear guard attacks by the main Russian army and Cossacks caused serious attrition. He also did not achieve help from the locals as he had in Italy and other areas that viewed his invasion as "liberation". They didn't want to be "liberated" (nor did the Spanish population) He also took on Russia before wrapping up things in Spain, so he had 2 fronts. (another similarity to Hitler in WWII) Then ofcourse the Russian Rostopchin (mayor of Moscow) is the one responsible for the burning of Moscow. Napoleon did not burn his winter refuge so far from home. He dallied too long hoping Alexandre would sue for peace. But had Alexandre, chances are his nobles would have assasinated him in St Petersburg for his weakness.

So in essence, Hitler's invasion was very similar to Napoleon's. They both bit off more than they could swallow. But I will not draw any similarities beyond that between Napoleon and Hitler.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 13, 2007 11:47 AM: Message edited by: Beachcomber ]</font>

[Lew]

I have Winston Churchill's WWII memoirs, and in there is a picture of Hitler visiting Napoleon's tomb, and the commentary was that, while Hitler lauded Napoleon for his great conquests, he also criticized him for his lack of vision. So much for learning from the past...

Actually, we can tie-in Napoleon's Russian incursion to the Cold War. There are primarily four schools of thought regarding the Cold War: 1) it was the Soviet's fault; 2) it was the American's fault; 3) it was both their faults, and could have been avoided; 4) it wasn't really anyone's "fault" because it was an inevitable consequence. I have always ascribed to No. 4.

We originally portrayed Soviet actions in Eastern Europe as evil and corrupt. How dare they erect this "Iron Curtain" against democracy.

The fact is, three times in 130 years, they had been invaded from the West. Napoleon did it, Imperial Germany did it, Nazi Germany did it. Yes, all three invasions failed, but not without tremendous loss of Russian and Soviet life. Depending upon whose numbers you believe, the Soviets may have lost 25M people during WWII. Americans have no grasp of those kinds of numbers. I would imagine our total loss of life in all wars (going back to the revolution) can't be much over 2M.

Think about the death toll on September 11. Now multiply that times a factor of 6. Now imagine that happening every day for 4 years. That's how many people the Soviets lost during WWII.

And think about our response to September 11. Don't you think we'd take dramatic action if an enemy killed 25 million of us over a four-year period?

From 1945 onward, I think it was the core of their foreign policy that they would never, ever again be invaded from the west. And when you look at how many of them were killed, I don't think you can blame them. Thanks to all the documents that have come out in recent years, this has only been further confirmed. Apparently, their gameplan during the 60s and 70s was, in the event of an attack, to nuke Poland and basically make it an impassable, nuked-out barrier.

And don't get me wrong, I'm hardy exonerating them. Personally, I rank Stalin as worst human being of all-time (with Mao and Hitler battling it out for second place). Their hard-liners were bastards of the highest order. Communism, as an economic policy, has been proven over and over again to be a failure, and millions of Soviets over the years starved and suffered because of it.

But, I think it's unfair (and quite frankly, wrong) to look at the Cold War as the mean ol' Russians throwing up an Iron Curtain like they did. It was inevitable, and there really wasn't anything either side could have been expected to do about it.

Of course, had Napoleon conquered Russia, WWI may never have occurred (which means WWII may never have occurred), so in a way, I think we can blame all of it on Napoleon's failures [img]wink.gif[/img]

[Beachcomber]

You forgot to list Woodrow Wilson's expeditionary force that invaded Russia briefly at the close of WWI in an attempt to overthrow Lenin.

And you make very good points Lew. I have long contended that the USSR reacted to apparent US and British sabre rattling at the close of WWII. We no longer perceived them as a necessary ally after we nuked Japan. And Churchill thrived on war, his entire career was that of a warmonger and Britain sent him into retirement as soon as they perceived the danger was past, only to re-elect him when they felt threatened again. It was his game and he was a master at it.

I have seen in recent years, esp during the Bush administration, an apparent policy of alienating Russia and re-enacting cold war tensions. NATO recruitment of post Soviet break away republics, if the USSR no longer exists who is the common enemy then? I have long espoused warmer relations with Russia. Whether or not they can be trusted is a matter I'll leave to the experts, but the day will come when China is going to flex their muscles and we better have more friends in that part of the world than we have now.

[Beachcomber]

And whether you meant it in jest or not, Napoleon's fall really did lead to WWI. It enabled the Hapsburgs to remain in power another century, it enabled all the rotten and despotic regimes to remain in control. The spirit of the French Revolution and equality before the law were buried in reactionary regimes. The Congress of Vienna, controlled by Talleyrand imposed on Europe the concept of "Legitimacy" which meant those in power had sole rights to it. The rise of Communism was a direct result of the upper classes refusing to yield an inch to the lower classes. One did not get promoted by merit, but by birth. Britain had an absolute free hand to colonize the entire world and enslave the natives. Austria held on to it's crumbling empire and kept Italy from self actualization. Prussia and Austria equally held down the spirit of German nationalism, unable to make themselves the master of it until Bismark came along. That same nationalism asserted itself against the Hapsburgs, and WWI was born.

[Lew]

You read editorials from the 50s and 60s, you take a look at the propaganda films (which I love those old movies, I could watch them all the time), and there are two recurring themes: 1) we have to build-up our defenses because the Soviets want to invade us; and 2) we have to build-up our nuclear arsenal because the Soviets want to nuke us.

Yet if we want to be accurate here (and you know how fond I am of accuracy), two statements are true: one (and as you alluded), while no Soviet troops ever fought on U.S. soil against Americans, U.S. troops did fight on Russian soil against the Reds. I did not know about that until I was in high school. You can bet Soviet schoolchildren were taught it from day one; and second, in the history of the world, only one nation has ever used nuclear weapons against another nation, and it wasn't the U.S.S.R.

I know you can take these last two posts of mine, and there's no way I could ever gain admittance to the John Birch society. But I'm sorry, those are the facts, and there's no getting away from them.

When you've won a war, you inherently want to reap the spoils. After all, you just lost a lot of lives (as you mentioned in one of your earlier posts, not that the government particularly cares about that other than it means fewer soldiers for them), you've spent a lot of money, you've consumed a lot of resources. So now you've won, it's time to start reaping.

I don't believe it was ever in the Soviet plans to try to invade us. But I do believe they would have tried to invade western Europe. And again, I can see why they would want to, and I also see why we would want to stop them. So like I said, I see the Cold War as an unavoidable consequence of the aftermath of WWII.

And thank you as always for the information regarding the happenings of Europe in the 19th century, an area I am painfully ignorant about but I must confess it's nice to have a cheat sheet like GL [img]wink.gif[/img]

[Lew]

And to touch on colonialism, as you alluded...you know, you go to Valley Forge, you go to Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, you go to Independence Hall....it's all about freedom. Freedom from tyranny (which, interestingly enough, "tyranny" in those days was a glorified word for taxation).

OK fine, I buy into that. But isn't it amazing how wonderful it was for us to exert our independence from colonial rule, yet when other peoples around the world tried to do it.....we tried to stop them. As I appreciate it (and if anyone disagrees with me, please correct me), Ho Chi Minh didn't even ask for our financial support, just our diplomatic blessing in Vietnam gaining its independence from France. They had been dominated by China for most of their modern history. Then the French had controlled them for about 100 years. That temporarily ended with the Japanese invaded them, but after Japan was defeated, they wanted to become an independed state. France said no, and we (because we don't always take the time to think) supported France. Truth be told, France had its own postwar mess to clean-up, it had more important things to worry about than its colonies. And think if we would have supported Ho Chi Minh. Or at least stayed out of their business altogther.

Nope, we go in to help France, who then leaves us holding the bag in 1954, and the next thing you know....well, there's 58,000 names on that wall, that pretty much speaks for itself.

And 53,000 died in Korea. History portrays the Cold War as just that- a "cold" war, fighting without fighting. Well, that's 111,000 Americans right there who died in it. I don't know how many the Soviets and Chinese lost (plus you can add in Soviet losses in Afghanistan, which was their Vietnam).