week of advances, a month, could leave an invading army worn down day by day, but seemingly no closer to that magic decisive victory. Vastness, winter, and mud all worked together. Vastness made supply lines long and vulnerable. Winter made the need for provision, supply, and replacement particularly critical. Mud made the roads impassable. Soldiers and armies were ground, slowly, into the mud.
Finally, to the physical conditions that make Russia so difficult to conquer, we must add the Russians' mastery of their environment. Their military adaptations extended from conscious tactics and strategy withdrawals, "scorched earth" tactics, and the like, to such underlying national traits as stubborn, enduring heroism. Russia is geographically difficult to conquer; Russia defended by the Russians has proven impossible to conquer.
Napoleon and Hitler began their campaigns not unaware of the problems implicit in attempting to conquer Russia. Hitler had the example of Napoleon. Napoleon in turn had the example of Charles XII of Sweden, who attempted to conquer Russia under Peter the Great early in the eighteenth century.1 His failed attempt in many some ways prefigured theirs; like them he found
1Charles Fair, From the Jaws of Victory (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971, 143 84.
that he could defeat every Russian army except for the next one.
Napoleon and Hitler both realized that they could not afford to become "bogged down" in Russia. Their solutions were in both cases to aim for a psychological victory: a blow so complete and devastating that it would psychologically disarm those enemy forces which were not directly defeated. Previous experience had taught them that this was precisely the way to swift, relatively low cost victories.
Bounaparte determined to conduct and terminate
the war in Russia as he had so many others. To begin
with decisive battles, a...