Luka’s Corner

Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, and Adolf Hitler, Führer of the Third Reich, are widely considered the two greatest military leaders in European history. The two will forever stand together in their military prowess and dreams of domination of Europe. Both leaders attempted to conquer the continent, but both ultimately failed in their conquest. Their common failure was at the hands of the Russians in the years of 1812 and 1941, respectively. While it has been argued that the legendary Russian winter alone caused the failures of both military masterminds, this was ultimately not the case. The fact that Hitler, while planning and executing Operation Barbarossa, was not able to learn from the failure of Napoleon, who executed the French Invasion of 1812, proved that the cause of both of their failures in Russia runs deeper than the severe winter weather. Many factors on both sides, not including the winter, played a part in the eventual Russian victory over the Grand Armée, the French army, and the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces. Due to the insufficient logistics and tactics caused primarily by overconfidence on the part of Napoleon’s Grand Armée and Hitler’s Wehrmacht, as well as extreme Russian nationalism on the defensive, winter proved to play merely a minor role in the failures of two of the greatest military commanders Europe has ever seen.

The source of both Napoleon and Hitler’s eventual defeat at the hands of the Russians was not how successfully the Russians defended, but the critical mistakes in the general strategy used by the invaders. This included the use of an overly large military force that was supposed to use merely its might to subdue the enemy forces. As Robert Wilde, a teacher at the University of Sheffield in Great Britain, explained, the recruitment of such a large military force served as an actual disadvantage to Napoleon rather than an overwhelming advantage. Wilde described the massive army, “…in 1812 Napoleon went to war with Russia, assembling a force of over 400,000 soldiers, accompanied by the same number of followers and support. Such an army was almost impossible to feed or adequately control and the Russians repeatedly retreated, destroying the local resources and separating Bonaparte from his supplies”[2]. The use of a massive army played right into the Russians’ hands, as their use of guerilla warfare and scorched-earth policy was overwhelmingly successful against the superior Grand Armée. The recruitment of the largest military force that Europe had ever seen can be attributed to Napoleon’s sense of overconfidence. He hoped at the start of the campaign to basically march his glorious army into the heart of Russia, overwhelm the outnumbered Russians, and claim a quick, decisive victory. In addition to using such an army, Napoleon showed little of his past cleverness in battle, in which he would engulf the enemy with a swift cavalry strike or surround it with his rear flanks. For example, at the Battle of Borodino on September 7, 1812, Napoleon basically attempted to send as many soldiers as possible into the fray in order to ultimately overwhelm the enemy forces[3]. All other strategy was abandoned in the face of battle.

Like Napoleon before him, Hitler made multiple mistakes during his military’s invasion of Russia in the summer of 1941. The renowned German general’s most fundamental mistake was overextending his army, failing to focus on a single goal for the entire operation. He ordered a three-pronged invasion spread out from Leningrad to Stalingrad. This failure was clarified by Bevin Alexander, a specialist on military strategy at Virginia Commonwealth University, “Hitler’s greatest strategic mistake was his refusal to concentrate on a single, decisive goal. He sought to gain—all at the same time—three widely distant objectives: Leningrad, because it was the birthplace of Russian Communism; Ukraine and the Caucasus beyond, for its abundant foodstuffs, 60 percent of Soviet industry, and the bulk of the Soviet Union’s oil; and Moscow, because it was the capital of the Soviet Union and its nerve center”[4]. As with Napoleon, this failure can also be attributed to overconfidence, since Hitler felt he could spread out his apparently invincible military to overwhelm the Russians on all fronts. He thought that he could quickly crush the opposition and ultimately join all three of his flanks in the center of Moscow to celebrate the resounding victory. Another failure on the part of Hitler while planning Operation Barbarossa was underestimating the Russian resistance he would face. The German troops were told to march light, carrying limited food and ammunition, in order for blitzkrieg to work to its highest potential. In the end, it was because the German soldiers were ordered to bring limited supplies that the scorched-earth policy ordered by Stalin was able to eat away at the German lines. Overconfidence on the part of the invaders played right into the hands of the outnumbered Russian forces.

No greater example of overconfidence was evident during the two separate invasions of Russia than that in the Russian road network. During the French invasion, the roads could not be in a poorer state. The most meager in all of Europe, many were uncompleted and all were very limited in terms of size and width. More importantly for Napoleon and his large invasion force, the roads were built solely for the purpose of trade, not to support the movement of large groups of soldiers. Expecting the road network to be as complete in Russia as it had been in Austria and Prussia, Napoleon suffered a major setback in terms of quickly moving his lines into the heart of Russia. As James T. McGhee, a former officer in the United States’ army who studied European military history, explained, the Russian road system was simply not built for the purpose of “supporting the passage of hundreds of thousands of men, horses, wagons and carriages”[5]. The most important effect the poor roads had on Napoleon’s invasion was it forced the Grand Armée to march into Russia at a very sluggish pace, which allowed Russian guerillas to easily raid the army’s flanks. All in all, Napoleon had misplaced confidence in the Russian roads’ ability to support his remarkable military force.

Similar to Napoleon’s grave miscalculation, Hitler also overestimated the quality of the road network in Russia. In most cases, the roads that Hitler was forced to deal with during World War II were the same exact roads as those that Napoleon had to deal with in the year of 1812. Even during the heavy industrialization periods under Stalin in the Soviet Union, the improvement of the road network was left unfinished[6]. Michael Ruzza, a military historian residing in Washington D.C, described the state of the roads during the German invasion, “…poor roads made it difficult for wheeled vehicles, let alone foot infantry, to keep pace with the dwindling number of tanks in the spearheads”[7]. However, the poorness of the roads themselves would not have proven to be so great an obstacle for the Wehrmacht if there was not such heavy rainfall during the autumn months of 1941. The continual rain quickly turned the dirt roads into pure mud, making it almost impossible for vehicles and infantry alike to move at all. Hitler was so confident in blitzkrieg as a tactic under any circumstance that he failed to adjust when the circumstances for a quick deployment of troops did not provide themselves. Once again, as Napoleon and the Grand Armée did over a century earlier, Hitler and the German armed forces overestimated the condition of the Russian road network, a miscalculation that had brutal consequences.

The miscalculation with the most horrific consequences for the two invading forces was the overextension of supply lines. In Napoleon’s case, this overextension resulted in the eventual lack of food, proper clothing, and other key supplies. The famed general once again expected the Russian campaign to be the same as all of the other successful campaigns he had led in Europe. Napoleon failed to realize that many factors in Russia, such as the roads, terrain, and scorched-earth policy would not enable Napoleon to live off the land as he had in previous campaigns. Robert Burnham, a historian who studied Napoleon’s military victories and failures, explained why living off the land did not bolster the French supply lines, “…for it to work, the terrain must co-operate. There must be a good road network for his army to advance along several axes and an agricultural base capable of supporting the foraging soldiers”[8]. The failure to properly supply his troops with food and water paralleled Napoleon’s first mistake, which was recruiting such a large army. Supply lines became strained and eventually disappeared because the Grand Armée was too large to maintain.

The overextension of supply lines served as a major problem for Hitler in 1941 just like it had for Napoleon in 1812. However, even more so than Napoleon, it was inevitable that German supplies would run out because Hitler employed a three-pronged attack. The renowned German general failed to predict the extent of the damage of limited supplies on a military divided into three parts, a failure even more highlighted as the Russians implemented a scorched-earth policy. As Bevin Alexander described this supply overextension on the Eastern Front, “…the Soviet Union’s resources were immense compared to Germany’s. It had unlimited quantities of oil, minerals, and power. Soviet war production would outstrip German production”[9]. This is important to note because Hitler expected German resources to be superior to that of any enemy during the war. It was Hitler’s fundamental overconfidence in the amount of food, ammunition, and fuel at his disposal that caused the supply lines to become so long and difficult to maintain. It is also important to note the drop in morale as a result of the lack of supplies given to the German soldiers. In the end, before even engaging in an actual battle with the Soviet army, the overextension of supply lines produced horrific results for the Wehrmacht, which was unable to ward off starvation and thirst.

 

While both the French and Germans relied on faulty logistics and employed flawed tactics in their separate invasions, the Russians were able to fully capitalize off of those failures by employing a scorched-earth policy. Napoleon’s troops were known for carrying limited supplies in all of their successful European campaigns, opting to live off the land. This was effective at first because the French troops could move more rapidly and were never in fear of running low on their own supplies. Gunther Rothenberg, a Napoleonic expert and professor at Purdue University, described how this failed in Russia, “Napoleon remained essentially an improviser. He could never free himself from the experience of his first Italian campaign when a small, highly motivated army, moving rapidly in a rich countryside had sustained itself from local resources and captured supplies”[10]. Contrary to what Napoleon encountered in Italy, for example, the entire Russian population was ordered by Tsar Alexander I to burn grain, potatoes, and any other crops that were not yet harvested and that could be of use to the Grand Armée. So, Napoleon’s increasingly hungry men were marching through neither a rich countryside nor one with local resources and supplies. Another element of the scorched earth policy employed by the Russian population was the burning of Moscow prior to Napoleon’s arrival. Even after marching through Russia unchecked and ultimately reaching the Russian capital, the French were not acknowledged as victorious by the Tsar, who actually ignored Napoleon’s demands for a peace treaty. As Oleg Sokholov, who teaches Russian military history in St. Petersburg, put it, “when Moscow went up in flame, this was the worst blow to Napoleon’s army”[11].

Like against the French army in 1812, the Russians employed a scorched-earth policy against the German army in 1941. As ordered by Stalin, the Russian people destroyed crops in the countryside, moved factories from local towns, and deported people to the eastern regions of Russia, simply so that they could not be used against the Russians by the Germans. For example, as early as 1940, millions of Poles and Ukrainians were deported from Western Russia to Siberia[12]. This forced the German army, which was already carrying limited supplies in the first place, to rely solely on its supply lines, rather than any resources found in Russia. Equally important, as noted by Walter N. Sanning, an American military historian and author, this scorched-earth policy included “the withdrawal of almost the entire railway rolling stock”[13], which significantly slowed German military advances into the heart of Russia. It cannot be overstated that this ultimate sacrifice of material goods, which had a significantly negative impact on the civilian population, was unheard of in any of Hitler’s past invasions during the war. Neither in France nor in any other nation overrun by the Wehrmacht was this level of sacrifice used to repel the invaders. More importantly than the fact that the German army was deprived of key supplies because of the scorched-earth policy, it prevented the invading forces to have any sense of victory or accomplishment. Because they were not able to capture factories and farms or secure prisoners of war, the morale of the invaders plummeted.

In addition to the implementation of the scorched-earth policy in both wars, the use of “total war” and guerilla warfare allowed the Russians to dispatch two larger invading forces. In 1812, to minimize the disadvantage of being outnumbered approximately 600,000 men to 250,000[14], the Russians used guerilla warfare to pick away at Napoleon’s vulnerable lines. Accustomed to warfare involving two armies marching in straight lines toward each other, Napoleon did not prepare for smaller groups of Russian firing at the flanks of the French army. These smaller groups were the Cossacks recruited by the Tsar at the start of the war. Cossacks were groups of light cavalry, originally from the Ukraine area of Russia, who were feared for their ability as raiders and skirmishers. This was particularly useful for the Tsar because he would not lose large amounts of men in battle, while still raiding the French lines. Napoleon himself praised the Cossacks used against him, “Cossacks are the best light troops among all that exist. If I had them in my army, I would go through all the world with them”[15]. In addition, the Tsar was able prevent any major confrontations with the French until the Battle of Borodino in early September, in which the Russians faced a noticeably weakened French army. This strategy of not giving all-out battle actually paid off for the Russians, according to Sokholov, who argued, “…while [the Russians] were retreating, they were, in fact, weakening Napoleon’s army”[16]. In the end, because the French army was noticeably weaker as result of the guerilla warfare at the start of the war, the Russian army was able to reduce the French army to under two-thirds of its original strength at Borodino alone.

On the Eastern Front in 1941, similar to the war against the French, the Russians were able to incorporate the principles of “total war”. Starting from the head of government, Joseph Stalin, the Russian strategy from the start was to turn a war of two armies into a war involving the entire Russian population. As the German military made its way through Russia, Stalin said to his people, “…the Red Army and Navy and the whole Soviet people must fight for every inch of Soviet soil, fight to the last drop of blood for our towns and villages…onward, to victory!”[17] Even though this tactic was employed most notably in Belgium earlier in the war, where extremely small pockets of civilians fired at German soldiers through windows or from behind doors, the Russians took it to new heights. The entire population of Russia, the largest in Europe, was used as a weapon, not only to attack the enemy, but also to implement the scorched-earth policy ordered by Stalin. This combination of “total war” and guerilla warfare was especially frightening for the invaders. Franz Halder, a German army general on the Eastern Front, described Stalin’s use of civilians in the war effort, “…the Russian colossus…has been underestimated by us…whenever a dozen divisions are destroyed the Russians replace them with another dozen”[18]. It is important to note that, although the Russians were outnumbered at the start of the war and possessed inferior technology to that of the Germans, the rapid recruitment of average citizens into the army eliminated that disadvantage. This contributed to the drop in morale among the invading forces of Germany. No sense of victory was felt by the invaders because the Russian military was constantly replenished by new civilian recruits.

The scorched-earth policy could not be implemented and the civilian population could not fight if, at the core, the Russian population did not possess extraordinary unwillingness to surrender. In the case of Napoleon and his army, the invaders were unaccustomed to encountering such a resilient people with such a love for their country. This resiliency was summed up by Sokholov, who described the mindsets of the soldiers, “…they were prepared to die, die for Russia. Everyone saw this as a holy day”[19]. Before the Battle of Borodino, for instance, the Russian soldiers were said to have been chanting collectively that it was “the will of God”[20] for them to defend their country. It is also important to note that, unlike the Russian army, Napoleon’s Grand Armée was comprised of many foreign divisions that were serving Napoleon only because he had conquered their homeland. Italians, Poles, and Prussians were all serving under Napoleon and they, unsurprisingly, were the first to desert the army when supplies became strained and soldiers were lost. The Russian population was more motivated to defend its country than the French army, comprised of many foreigners, was to invade.

This extreme national pride was definitely present against the invading German war machine as well. However, the extreme nationalism was raised to another level by Joseph Stalin, who basically forced national pride onto his people. The Soviet leader instructed his army generals and officers to personally shoot any deserters or soldiers who wished to surrender. Stalin, speaking about national pride, described his army quite simply, “…in the Soviet army, it takes more courage to retreat than advance”[21]. In the end, this worked out for Stalin, as the Russian army did not officially surrender at any point during the German invasion. On the other hand, the Germans did surrender for the first time during the Battle of Stalingrad, which ended in February of 1943. Henry L. Stimson, the Secretary of War for the United States during World War II, summed up the Russian defense against German invaders on the Eastern Front, “…history knows no greater display of courage than that shown by the people of the Soviet Union”[22]. Like in 1812 with Napoleon, the ultimate sacrifice and determination on the part of the Russians was a first for Hitler, who was used to quick victories with little resistance. Starting from their extremist head of government, the people of the Soviet Union were willing to die in the name of Mother Russia.

During both invasions of Russia, the extreme weather conditions during the summer and fall slowed and disheartened the invaders, rather than the infamous Russian winter. During Napoleon’s campaign, the summer played the primary role in demoralizing Napoleon’s once-confident army, as the unbearable heat picked away at the invading forces. As explained by Dr. Donald Horward, a teacher of Napoleon’s military campaigns at Florida State University, “…as the days passed, the blazing heat of the Russian summer began to take its toll. Soldiers fell out from exhaustion, sickness, and desertion — more than five thousand a day”[23]. Howard went on to explain that the heat brought by the summer and the dire consequences it had for the soldiers in the French army especially demoralized the foreign legions serving under Napoleon, who had no allegiance to the French. More importantly, extreme heat slowed down the Grand Armée, as the French generals were forced to care for their sick and tired men. This allowed the Russians to regroup and gather more troops to their cause, especially the Cossacks from the South. Out of the approximate number of 600,000 soldiers in the French ranks, over 150,000 soldiers were forced out of commission due to the Russian summer[24]. This meant that Napoleon, who had intended to crush the Russian forces with one, fell swoop of his superior army, had lost nearly one-third of his army before even fighting a single battle. Soldiers who had not experienced a single defeat under Napoleon were now witnessing their comrades falling by their sides during one of the hottest Russian summers on record.

Just as the summer proved to be too great an obstacle to overcome for the French, the invading German Wehrmacht was also forced to deal with the brutal weather conditions during the latter stages of summer and early stages of autumn. The months of July, August, and September brought a combination of scorching and sodden weather. Hitler had not expected the weather to play a role before the winter months of November and December, which he had hoped to avoid at any cost. Instead, the rain turned the already meager Russian roads into lines of mud. The effect of the rains was explained by Patrick J. Shrier, an American military historian and author, “…the fall rainy season set in and the largely road less county became virtually impassable to vehicular traffic”[25]. The fact that the fall weather slowed the German advance to such a degree cannot be taken lightly simply because the Wehrmacht’s battle strategies revolved around blitzkrieg, or a rapid deployment of troops and tanks. These heavy rains, which were already present in the latter weeks of the summer, were described by Michael Wright, a British teacher of European military history. Wright stressed the devastation caused by the combination of a hot summer and wet fall in Ukraine, where Hitler concentrated his Army Group South and one-third of his overall forces, “…the Ukraine suffered a scorching summer which saw a large amount of rainfall. In the intense heat, the German tank tracks ground the baked earth to powdery fine dust which clogged machinery, eyes and mouths and made it hard for troops to function”[26]. Wright went on to say that the weather conditions prior to the infamous Russian winter served as two weapons against the invaders. The heat served as the psychological weapon for the Russians, attacking the very morale of the German forces. The rainfall served as the physical weapon, slowing the movement of soldiers and vehicles, which significantly delayed the invasion.

Even more so than the weather conditions prior to the winter, the sheer vastness of Russian territory was too great to overcome for both Napoleon and Hitler’s forces. The size of Western Russia was incomparable to Austria, Prussia, and Italy, the territories that the French army had previously fought in and conquered. Oleg Sokholov explained how the size of Russia played into the Russians’ strategy, “Napoleon’s army trudged slowly across Russia’s vast, open spaces. He hoped to annihilate his enemy quickly, but the Russians would not give battle”[27]. These words illustrated the vulnerability of Napoleon’s army of 600,000 men as it marched through the open areas in the unfamiliar countryside. The massive force was a prime target for raiding Cossack forces that could basically pick away at the French flanks with minimal consequences. The Tsar would not send his actual army to confront the French and the French did not come across any major centers of population before Moscow, which was set ablaze by its own inhabitants. As mentioned before, the significant amount of time required to reach Moscow allowed the negative effects of the extreme summer to set in. Disease, desertion, and exhaustion were all present in Russia as opposed to other countries in Europe because of the immeasurable size of the country.

The immeasurable size of Russia provided the same unsolvable problems for Hitler’s forces. Like the Grand Armée, the German Wehrmacht had not yet laid siege to such an enormous area of land, incomparable to Poland, the Netherlands, or France. Tactically, the strategy of a rapid strike or attack could not be carried in an area so vast because there was no central point of attack. The effect of Russia’s size on the German battle tactics was explained by Michael Ruzza, in terms of the German air forces, “…the famous Luftwaffe was basically a tactical air force, suitable for supporting a short-term ground offensive but not for conducting a deep and effective air campaign”[28]. The Luftwaffe had carried out a short-term ground offensive during the bombings of Great Britain, for example, but could not carry out that same amount of bombing with a deep air campaign, which was required in Russia. In the exact way the sheer size of Russia enabled the likes of disease, desertion, and exhaustion to attack the French ranks in 1812, it enabled the poor Russian road network to slow the German advance in 1941. Quite simply, the inconsistency and incompletion of the road network would have never even hindered the advance of the German military if the German military was not forced to use the roads for such a great distance. In the same way, the disease and suffering brought about by the heat and wetness throughout the march would not have been as extensively felt if the march had not been so inevitably long. So, it was not the size of Russia alone that caused the failures of both Napoleon and Hitler, but the fact that the size of Russia amplified the negative impact of other factors during the two campaigns.

While the unfamiliar Russian terrain, changed considerably by the weather conditions, slowed both invading forces, the Russians were able to use their familiarity with the land to their advantage. For example, the French infantry was fully dressed in standard military garb, oblivious to the type of weather the soldiers might face during the invasion. Carrying maximum amounts of ammunition, the average French soldier was carrying significantly heavier loads than the average Russian soldier. Once again, the equipment used by the Cossack raider served as a perfect example of the light loads that the Russians carried because they were well aware of the heat during the summer. Russian light cavalry units were simply not as affected by the heat waves as French heavy infantry units. As Michael Wright put it, “…the Russian troops were well aware of the advantages they had in their climate and rugged terrain”[29]. Also, in terms of familiarity with the terrain, the Russians were able to employ guerilla warfare because they knew exactly from where they could carry out such quick attacks or raids. Throughout history, the defending forces were more able to take advantage of forests, rivers, and hills in their homeland than the invading forces. This held true for the Russians during their war with the French in 1812, as well.

In the case of Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the Russians were once again able to take advantage of their own terrain and weather conditions. Since guerilla warfare was widely used by the defending Soviet army and the civilian population, familiarity with the terrain was especially useful. Average Russian peasants and laborers knew exactly the hills and forests from which they could shoot at the advancing German war machine. Even more so than in 1812, the ability of the Russian citizens to fire from their own houses or farms was especially devastating to the enemy, unprepared for such an extensive civilian defensive. Summarizing the effectiveness of the combined Russian people and natural obstacles, Wright stated, “…the operation failed due to the Russian people’s tenacity and the harsh weather and terrain conditions during the invasion”[30]. This basically proved that because the Russian people could take advantage of defending their own country rather than attacking another, they were able to ward off a superior military power like the combined German forces. Once more in history, it held true that the defenders of a certain land have the immediate advantage over the invaders of that same land.

While it has been argued that the infamous Russian winter was responsible for the failures of both the French invasion in 1812 and Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the winter alone played only a minor role in the ultimate Russian victories. The source of both failures was the combination of mistakes made by the two leading generals, successful tactics used by the defending Russian forces, and the other natural obstacles that stood in the way. If the invaders had not made frequent miscalculations and the defenders had not protected their homeland in such a resilient manner, the two invasions would have been over before the winter had even struck. All in all, the failures had common consequences for both Napoleon and Hitler, as their grip on Europe was slowly loosened following the years of 1812 and 1941, respectively. The Russians in both cases indirectly caused the final surrenders of two of the most powerful conquerors in not only the history of Europe, but in the history of the world. More importantly, what could have been the last stand of the Russians in both situations has taught those who study history the true meaning of love for one’s country. As explained before, there is not a more perfect example of courage when pitted against overwhelming odds than that of the entire Russian people against the French and Germans. They alone redefined the meaning of courage as the world knows it.

[1] George Santayana, History is Bunk, http://www.goines.net/Writing/history_is_bunk.html (April 2009)

[2] Robert Wilde, 1812: Napoleon’s Disaster in Russia, http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/bonapartenapoleon/a/bionapoleon_2.htm (May 2009)

[3] Isser Woloch, The Russian Campaign, 1812, http://www.pbs.org/empires/napoleon/n_war/campaign/page_12.html (May 2009)

[4] Bevin Alexander, How Hitler Could have Won World War II: The Fatal Errors that Led to Nazi Defeat (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2000), p. 83.

[5] James T. McGhee, Soldiers of Fortitude: The Grand Armée of 1812 in Russia, http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/napoleonicwars/articles/soldiersoffortitude.aspx (May 2009)

[6] Maxim Krans, Russia Needs at Least Twice the Number of Roads It Has Now, http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/2008-107-2.cfm (May 2009)

[7] Michael Ruzza, The Failure of Operation Barbarossa, http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/failureofbarbarossa.aspx (May 2009)

[8] Robert Burnham, Why did Napoleon Fail in Russia in 1812?,

http://www.napoleon-series.org/faq/c_russia.html (May 2009)

[9] Bevin Alexander, Ibid, p. 88.

[10] Gunther Rothenberg, Soldiers of Fortitude: The Grand Armée of 1812 in Russia, http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/napoleonicwars/articles/soldiersoffortitude.aspx (May 2009)

[11] Oleg Sokholov, The Russian Campaign, 1812, http://www.pbs.org/empires/napoleon/n_war/campaign/page_12.html (May 2009)

[12] Walter Sanning, Soviet Scorched-Earth Warfare: Facts and Consequences, http://www.vho.org/GB/Journals/JHR/6/1/Sanning91-116.html#ftn13 (May 2009)

[13] Ibid.

[14] Isser Woloch, The Russian Campaign, 1812, http://www.pbs.org/empires/napoleon/n_war/campaign/page_12.html (May 2009)

[15] Napoleon Bonaparte, Cossack Hurrah!,

http://www.napoleon-series.org/reviews/military/c_cossackhurrah.html (May 2009)

[16] Oleg Sokholov, The Russian Campaign, 1812, http://www.pbs.org/empires/napoleon/n_war/campaign/page_12.html (May 2009)

[17] Joseph Stalin, Joseph Stalin Quotes,

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/joseph_stalin.html (April 2009)

[18] Franz Halder, World War II Quotes,

http://www.worldwar-2.net/famous-quotes/famous-quotes-index.htm (April 2009)

[19] Oleg Sokholov, The Russian Campaign, 1812, http://www.pbs.org/empires/napoleon/n_war/campaign/page_12.html (May 2009)

[20] Ibid.

[21] Joseph Stalin, Joseph Stalin Quotes,

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/joseph_stalin.html (April 2009)

[22] Henry Stimson, World War II Quotes,

http://www.2worldwar2.com/quotes.htm (April 2009)

[23] Donald Howard The Russian Campaign, 1812, http://www.pbs.org/empires/napoleon/n_war/campaign/page_12.html (May 2009)

[24] Ibid.

[25] Patrick Shrier, Operation Barbarossa: The Ultimate Strategic Miscalculation, http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/barbarossa/articles/barbarossashrier.aspx (May 2009)

[26] Michael Wright, History: Operation Barbarossa in World War II, http://www.cyberessays.com/History/133.htm (April 2009)

[27] Oleg Sokholov, The Russian Campaign, 1812, http://www.pbs.org/empires/napoleon/n_war/campaign/page_12.html (May 2009)

[28] Michael Ruzza, The Failure of Operation Barbarossa, http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/failureofbarbarossa.aspx (May 2009)

[29] Michael Wright, History: Operation Barbarossa in World War II, http://www.cyberessays.com/History/133.htm (April 2009)

[30] Ibid.