Saturday, December 15, 2012

Bicentennial of Napoleon's retreat from Russia


Two hundred years ago, on Dec 14 1812, the last French soldiers left Russia after a disastrous retreat from Moscow in freezing weather. Napoleon had marched into Russia with nearly half a million soldiers; only about 100,000 or perhaps just 25,000, returned.

In a way, Napoleon had been defeated becouse he underestimated the power of climate on human activities. More than that, however, it was a disaster caused by human stupidity, greed, and ignorance.

Unfortunately, in two hundred years, it doesn't seem that we have learned much from our mistakes. It doesn't bid well for our future.



Who

Ugo Bardi is a member of the Club of Rome, faculty member of the University of Florence, and the author of "Extracted" (Chelsea Green 2014), "The Seneca Effect" (Springer 2017), and Before the Collapse (Springer 2019)