Campaigns of Napolean & of Hitler
General Winter and Colon
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The two most successful conquerors of the modern age, Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler, had much in common in their military political careers. Both succeeded in conquering most of Western and Central Europe through lightning wars. Both failed to solve the problem of crossing the sea to conquer Britain. And, finally, both were brought to ruin when they tried to conquer Russia and their invasion armies were caught in the grip of the Russian winter. So devastating was the impact of that winter on the French and German armies that the cold, the mud, the freezing wind, the snow, all the effects the Russian winter can have on enemies has been personified: General Winter. Sometimes he is granted a chief of staff: Colonel Mud. Together they are portrayed as the invincible force that will deliver Russia from her enemies when all merely human armies fail. However, the Napoleonic and Nazi armies were not stopped simply by the rigors of the Russian winter. Western Europe in winter could present conditions nearly as severe as those found in European Russia. But in Russia the winter weather was as vast and endless as the Russian landscape, and it was its endlessness that made it unendurable. Moreover, even without the direct effects of winter, both Napoleon and Hitler would have faced the possibility of defeat due to the sheer immensity of Russia. Both Napoleon and Hitler had won previous "lightning war" victories in relatively confined spac
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the war on the Allied side. Hitler's gamble had failed.
Even before the coming of the first winter snows in 1941, the German army had discovered that it was in many respects poorly equipped for the Russian environment. Panzer divisions were highly dependent on road mobility. Tanks could operate on or off a road, but the armor's support vehicles supply trucks, artillery machines, armored cars were largely wheeled and therefore road dependent.10 During the fine weather of summer and early fall, the open Russian plain could be traversed by wheeled vehicles.11 This freedom of movement abruptly disappeared, however, when the fall rains began. Vehicles other than tanks could no longer leave the roads. Soon the roads too were impassable. One is described as "bottomless" with mud.11
Moreover, the Russian road system was minimal, with a complete network only in the neighborhood of Moscow. Thus, the blitzkrieg army, dependent on its superior mobility, gradually found its mobility restricted and limited. It could no longer use its superiority in maneuver to evade the slow moving but massive Russian offensives.
The German invasion did not collapse in a few weeks, as the French invasion did over a ce
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Some common words found in the essay are:
French German, Napoleon Hitler, Eastern Front, Marshall Vastness, Charles XIIth, European Russia's, Operation Barbarossa, Allied Hitler's, Moscow September, Moreover Russian, russian winter, napoleon hitler, french german, ca presidio, russian landscape, conquer russia, operation barbarossa, novato ca presidio, cold mud, western europe, campaign 1812, napoleonic nazi armies, orig published 1843, vastness winter mud, harper row 1987,
Approximate Word count = 4066
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page)
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