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Campaigns of Napolean & of Hitler General Winter and Colon

The two most successful conquerors of the modern age, Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler, had much in common in their militarypolitical 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 spaces, where an enemy defeated and bereft of his capital and supply center  Prussia in 1806 or France in 1940  was as good as lost. In a war of confined spaces, such an enemy's surviving forces could be defeated in detail before they could regroup. Thus a single smashing victory could win a war at a stroke.

To General Winter and Colonol Mud, then, a third master strategist should be added: Marshall Vastness, we may call him. In Russia, a day of solid advances, a...

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Campaigns of Napolean & of Hitler General Winter and Colon. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 09:03, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1704837.html