Evening star., 1941-06-24
! 8 II

Adolf Hitler, professedly a lover Of
great music, should have listened to
the 1872 Overture" of Tschaikovsky.
The score of that magnificent
achievement contains solemn
warning for Der Fuehrer. Perhaps
he has taken it into account. Con-
ditions, he juStiflably may believe,
have changed in the past one hun
dred and twenty-nine years. Yet
the gamble in which Napoleon
Bonaparte engaged when he pro-
ceeded against Alexander I has
striking resemblance to that in
which the Nazi leader now is in
volved.
Even the excuses of Hitler's attack
upon Stain sound familiar. 1t was
the Cars alleged failure to support
him effectively" that prompted the
Emperor of the French to declare
war. Then, as in 1941, Russia was
weak. Alexander's plan of campaign
therefore was ito entice the enemy
on into desolated country without
allowing any decisive action to be
fought" The armies of Napoleon
crossed the Niemen near Kovno on
June "a. Not until August 2 did
the two forces meet at Smolensk.
On September frightful carnage
occurred at Borodino, forty miles
west of the Muscovite capital. Both
sides claimed the victory, but it was
the Russians, not the French, who
fell back. The latter, as subsequent
developments indicated, would have
been wiser, to have fed.
Tourists as recently as Just a few
months ago still were shown the
"Hill of Salutation" from which
Bonaparte first looked down upon
the thousand towers of Moscow. The
date was September IA. Peace was
the prize the invader had promised
his followers. Instead there awaited
them disaster. The civilian popula-
ton of the city had escaped, taking
along everything that might have
been employed to fight confagra-
ton. On the night of September 16
four hundred convicts, released from
prison by the military governor be-
fore he departed, set fire to the town
in scores of different places. Ma
poleon described what ensued as
"the most grand, sublime and terrific
sight the world has ever beheld."
His exhausted veterans were power
less to halt the flames. Unfortunately,
they wasted precious time looting
the ruins until October IS when,
too late for their own safety, they
began their inevitable retirement
over the road by which they had
come.
Sir Walter Scott and Count Leo
Tolstoy are but two of the many
masters of prose who have attempted
to describe the horrors of the French
retreat from Moscow. Winter set in
earlier in 1872 than usual, and it
"eAo q oSooOli VI 11lSIlUl III SGN6TlUY,
The soldiers died by thousands in
the wild snowstorms which swept
over the country, and many of those
who lay down by their campfires
at night were found cold and stiff
in the morning. They were poorly
fed, and the weakness arising from
this increased their sensibility to
cold. One of the officers who
accompanied Napoleon on that
dreadful journey tells us that all
along their line of march were little
hillocks of snow, which the next
springs thaw discovered to be caused
by the bodies of French soldiers as
they fell by twos and threes to rise
no more. When the army reached
the plain of Borodino they saw the
remains Of twenty thousand un-
buried corpses of their countrymen,
partly devoured by beasts of prey.
But they were obliged to hasten on,
with only a passing glance OF
dismay."
The whole territory through which
they moved rose against the French.
"Harassed from all sides by guerrilla
bands and Cossack irregulars, the
Grand Army turned into a hungry
rabble, and only small portion Of
it was left to recross the Niemen."
The Emperor at last deserted the
the remnant of his troops and has
tened to Paris. Tschaikovsky wrote
his epitaph-the dirge of his legions
- in noble melody which Hitler
should have accorded particular at
fention