The Washington herald., 1914-09-06
ZNHLN1c7T@ AS40 0e0F CG1 6H4Ro n" 11zs3zez4Z
~ EEeHHHA4SW-Cc69ea7 AooGe4eHaH
Rm 91e7oee4mc a. MN her)
is armed force had dwindled to 50,
len.
The Winter Not 10 Blame.

his armed force had dwindled to 5000
men.
The Winter Not 10 Blame.
When a later Bonaparte. Napoleon III.
invaded Russia by sea, the Car Nicholas
brother of Alexander l. grimly boosted
that Gen. January and Gen. February
would crush the invader. But the first
NAPOLEON was not overwhelmed by the
elements in his Russian campaign.
Neither the fires of Moscow nor the
SHOWS Of the steppes undid him. On the
contrary, before ever he looked upon
Moscow and while advancing in summer
half his army had melted away, while
in fortnight of a genial autumn he lost
nearly half his retreating army.
The weather was not to blame for the
stupendous disaster of 1872 The hosts
of the twenty nations persisted for the
simple, undramatiC reason that they did
not have enough to eat Had they been
housed at home in warm barracks they
could not have lived on the food and
drink they found in Russia BY the end
OF ten days after the retreat began there
was neither bread nor beef for the men.
Truly an army moves on its belly
and on coming to Russia Napoleon had
violated one Of his own aXioms never
make war on desert" When, in a mad
concelt, he marched more than 500 600
men into a poverty-striCken wilderness
where they could not live of the coun-
try and where the roads were so poor
that the supply trains were stalled, he
sealed their doom and his own. Neither
Gen. January nor Gen. February nor vet
Gen. Kutusof was needed to fix his fate
For there was only a broken fragment
OF the army left when the first snow
fake fell in the third week of the re-
treat. Nor did Napoleon lose a battle on
Russian soil
Another disaster befen the remnant OF
the army from still another prosais cause
as the winter drew on. In the confident
summer DAYS when supplies were laid in
thought had not been taken of the posi-
bility of a winter campaign, and no calks
were provided for the horses shoes. The
horses of the cavalry, the hospital wag-
ons, the supply trains, and the guns
could not be sharp-shod, and when they
slipped and fell on the ice, there was
small chance of their finding the strength
to get up again. For want of a little
sharp-pointed piece of iron. therefore.
the army suffered worse than from some
far more picturesque causes.
Hunger and Cold.
With the coming of the snow. the sleet
and the icy blasts OF winter, the men
not only had to struggle for food. but
froze." To be sure, the temperature
seldom fell to zero and never approach
ed the low levels to which American SOL
diers have been exposed in some Indian
were from the sunny lands of the Medi-
terranean, and so i'll prepared for the I'M
accustomed severity OF a more rigorous
climate that they were craZed by the
biting cold. After marching thirteen and
fifteen miles a day in the teeth of a bliz-
zard and with the snow up to their knees,
the stronger pushed the weaker out of
the circle about a feeble campfire in the
evening, often to find them shortly after
ward stiff and dead where they had rolled
them. Members of company, friends in
many a campaign, fought with one an
other like beasts over morsel of hor-
rlble food at supper only to renew the ]
savage battle for place by the bivouac