Evening star., 1941-04-06
HitIer's Domain Less
Than That Ruled
By Napoleon
Fuehrer Is $4,000
Square Miles Behind
French Conqueror

Although the small nations of
Europe have seemed to fall like a
row of dominoes before the diplo-
matte and military advances of Nazi
Germany. the area now under con-
troll of Adolf Hitler still is subStan-
TALLY less than that dominated by
Napoleon Bonaparte at the height
of his power.
The Europe of Napoleon in 1872
covered 1,134,00o square miles.
whereas the territory currently oc-
cupied by German troops or allied
to the Reich consists Of 5000
square miles, bulletin from the
National Geograp phic Society points
out. This leaves Hitler behind the
Little Corporal by some 2l6,000
square miles. an area considerably
larger than Spain.
233,600.00O in Hitler Domain.
Even had Yugoslavia aligned itself
definitely with Germany, Napoleon
would have retained his advantage,
the bulletin states, and continues:
"Populous, the Hitler-axis area in
Europe contains about 33,600,000
persons. compared to this countrys
669,275, although it covers only
about two-fifths as much territory
as the United States.
The principal area militarily con-
trolled by Napoleon and not by Hit
Ter consists of Spain, unoccupied
France and Switzerland. The prin-
cipal area, on the other hand under
control by Hitler but not by Ma
poleon, is made up Of present-day
Bulgaria and most of present-day
Rumania.
Napoleon, like Hitler, acquired
territory both by conquest and by
forced alliances. His Europe was a
patchwork of conquered countries
and puppet states headed by his
friends and relatives.
Both domains reached from the
Arctic to the Balkans and both fell
afoul of British sea power. 1t was a
British naval victory in the Medi-
terranean, under Nelson at Abukir
at the mouth of the Nile, that
smashed Napoleon's African venture
and left his army stranded in Egypt.
Invasion Hopes Vanished.
Napoleon, like Hitler, marshaled
his hosts for the invasion of the
British Isles, but he never was able
to get his deadly armies across the
20-mile moat. His invasion hopes
vanished when Nelson destroyed the
French and Spanish fleets off Ira
falgar.
For Napoleon, the beginning of
the end came when he led his grand
army against vast RusSia-and rode
back out of the wintry wastes with
only pitiful, limping remnant.
Conquered peoples were inspired to
rise against him, and with the aid
of continental foothold gained in
Portugal and Spain by the British
Army under Wellington, Napoleon's
downfall was achieved at last by a
coalition of his enemies.
Between Napoleon's and Hitler's
day the methods of warfare have
changed so completely as to make
comparisons largely futile. In Ma
poleon's time. for instance, a patriot
rising against the conqueror needed
little more than a musket, while to-
day he needs the industrial power
that produces tanks and bombing
planes.
yet, certain verities of strategy
and geography still apply a century
and a qusrter after Waterloo. On
the east and southeast the Russians,
some of the Balkan peoples and the
Turks form bulwark against Hitler
as they did against Napoleon. In
Greece, this time, instead of Por-
tugal, the British have a foothold
on the continent, and British war
ships still rule the encircling seas"