What Killed Napoleon's Army?
It wasn't just the Russians and the cold
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This is a riff on an NPR article from October 2025
By 1812, Napoleon seemed all powerful. Nearly all of Europe was under his control. He had forced most of the continent into his continental system, keeping them from trading with Britain to bring the island nation to heel. But the Russian Empire and Sweden resisted. On 24 June 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia with an army of over half a million men, comprising French, Austrian, Prussian, Polish, and other troops from all over his Empire.
Within six weeks, Napoleon lost half his men to disease, heat, exhaustion because of nearly continuous forced-marches (as much as 33 miles a day; normal was 15), and desertion. Despite the French force “winning” battles at Smolensk in August and Borodino in September, the Russian Army refused to stand still enough for the French to destroy them while Napoleon drove deeper into Russia. On 14 September 1812, his advance forces entered an abandoned and burning Moscow; no delegation met him. By then, Napoleon’s army stood at less than a third of the numbers he had in June.
On 12 October, Napoleon ordered his army to retreat, as winter weather had already arrived. It wasn’t a military defeat, but there was no victory either, as Russia refused to join his continental system and both Austria and Prussia soon defected. Traditionally, historians regard this campaign, one of the largest in the 19th Century, as the beginning of the end for Napoleon and the French Empire.
Napoleon’s casualties during the long march back from Moscow were catastrophic, caused by disease (the most common cause of soldier death before WWI), starvation, exposure, Russian guerillas and Cossacks. But which disease killed more of them? Researchers believe typhus and trench fever were among the afflictions that Napoleon’s soldiers suffered, based on historical accounts, the discovery of body lice on the remains of soldiers, and DNA analysis from nearly a decade ago.
In a study published in the November 2025 issue of Current Biology, researchers say the diseases likely included two unexpected pathogens that would have helped hasten many soldiers’ demise. A 2001 construction project in a suburb of Vilnius, Lithuania, uncovered a mass grave where 2-3,000 of Napoleon’s men lay buried, and it provided the teeth of thirteen of Napoleon’s soldiers, each from a unique individual.
These teeth would have had blood flowing through their interiors long ago, and thus, traces of pathogens. The two unexpected pathogens included paratyphoid, contracted through contaminated food, and relapsing fever, carried by body lice that dates back to the Iron Age. What was surprising was what the researchers did not find: typhus and trench fever.
Studying these remains also resulted in a much different picture of early 19th Century warfare. While historians have long known that the paintings and novels describing fit young men in shiny uniforms were false images, scientific proof has been contradictory or elusive. But with thousands more graves to examine and more precise scientific techniques, researchers can show that these men were under microbial assault on all fronts. In addition, forced marches on short rations with heavy equipment often starved and overworked them to the point of physical breakdown. It’s an ugly picture of malnutrition, broken feet from marching too far, too fast, and bodies already riddled with disease before they started into Russia.
Napoleon's invasion of Russia may have faced doom even before it started.
The Persistent Past: Discovering The Steele Diaries
While the study of history split from archaeology (that couldn’t provide dates) in the 19th Century, sort of, the reliance on artifacts to verify and enhance the archives (with the dates) has grown as science improves. Ned’s diaries, snapshots of a little-known unit in a savage conflict, are both archives and artifacts, as Curtis and Maria discover.
This is how history books are written.
And Finally...
On 21 February:
1804: Richard Trevithick demonstrates the first locomotive on rails at the Penydarren Ironworks, Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. His loco, a development of earlier steam engines, pulled ten tons of iron and seventy men along nine miles of track that, unfortunately, wasn’t strong enough to hold the load and soon failed.
1945: Anne Frank, 15, dies of typhus at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany just weeks before American troops liberated the camp. Though the exact date is unclear, this is the most widely accepted date, based on camp records that only listed prisoner numbers and gave the cause of death as “heart failure” regardless of actual cause, and eyewitness accounts.
And today is NATIONAL BOILED PEANUTS DAY, celebrating the official state snack of South Carolina. They originated in Africa, and people mostly enjoy them in the American South, especially during the summer months. I can’t eat ‘em anymore, but knock yourself out.