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Posted on 11/28/2025 10:00:01 PM PST by Cronos
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An exceptional lifespan.
Ping!.................
Well, he was certainly a survivor. It’s a shame he didn’t write a memoir. His heirs could have profited from it.
My grandmothers older sister was born im 1899 and passed away 2003; that’s three centuries. My grandmother, born 1901 only made two centuries.
I wonder 🤔🤔🤔
What if Napoleon had a B-52 at the Battle of Waterloo?
My, my!
Busted!
https://youtu.be/Sj_9CiNkkn4?si=T7eAF5TIQ4RBjKeD
In this context, neither was Napoleon. Herodotus wrote about the Persian campaign into the steppe to teach those darned Scythians a lesson.
Thanks for the ping.
Pretty amazing
The mystery of Waterloo’s last living soldier
This is Louis-Victor Baillot, the oldest surviving combatant from Waterloo. The photograph was taken a year before his death.
By Michael Prodger
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2015/06/mystery-waterloos-last-living-soldier
COMPARE:
GOOGLE AI
The last WWI veteran, Lazare Ponticelli of France, died on March 12, 2008, at the age of 110. However, the last surviving American WWI veteran, Frank Buckles, died on February 27, 2011, at age 110.
Lazare Ponticelli: He was the last officially recognized WWI veteran and died on March 12, 2008.
Frank Buckles: He was the last surviving American veteran of WWI. He enlisted at 16 and died on February 27, 2011, at age 110.
It is important to distinguish between the last recognized veteran of the war and the last surviving American veteran, as their deaths occurred at different times.
Not quite.
The aims, strategies and organisation of Napoleon and Hitler’s invasions were significantly different.
Napoleon’s primary objective was geopolitical coercion rather than outright conquest: he sought to force Tsar Alexander I’s Russia back into compliance with the Continental System, his economic blockade against Britain, after Russia withdrew from it in 1810. The invasion aimed at a quick military defeat of Russian armies to compel a favorable peace, subordinating Russia within French-dominated Europe without intending to dismantle or occupy the state long-term. Capturing Moscow was not an initial goal but a later fallback after failing to decisively engage Russian forces at the border.
In contrast, Hitler’s aims were ideological, economic, and expansionist: the total annihilation of the Soviet Union as a Bolshevik entity, the seizure of vast territories for Lebensraum (living space) and resources like oil and grain, and the establishment of a German colonial empire in the east. This was a war of extermination and permanent occupation, with plans to resettle Germans and exploit or eliminate Slavic populations.
Napoleon’s strategy centered on rapid forced marches and attrition to provoke a decisive battle early on, relying on overwhelming numbers to dismantle Russian armies through direct confrontations like the Battle of Borodino (a bloody but inconclusive engagement).
Hitler’s Barbarossa, by contrast, was a modern Blitzkrieg operation emphasizing surprise, speed, and encirclement: a three-pronged assault (Army Groups North, Center, and South) along a 1,500-mile front to destroy the Red Army at the frontiers through massive “cauldron” battles, preventing any organized withdrawal eastward. The plan, outlined in Directive No. 21, targeted key objectives like Leningrad, Moscow, and Ukraine in 6-10 weeks, leveraging mechanized warfare to capture resources and industrial centers quickly. Hitler explicitly drew lessons from Napoleon to avoid chasing retreating forces, instead prioritizing immediate annihilation and even delaying a push on Moscow in 1941 to focus on flanks, citing Napoleon’s occupation of the capital as ineffective.
In fact, Hitler was obsessed with Napoleon’s campaign, frequently referencing it and believing he could succeed where the French emperor failed by avoiding a retreat and holding positions during the 1941 Soviet counteroffensives. German military planners also researched the historical precedent, but overconfidence in a quick victory, ideological biases against the Soviet system, and the expectation that the USSR would collapse like Tsarist Russia in World War I led them to ignore key lessons. This hubris, rather than ignorance, contributed to the failure.
AIiiiieeeee.
Petrol. He would run out of fuel.
When studying metallurgy and strength of materials in mechanical engineering, I learnt what a wonder a simple iron nail is.
To extract iron requires specialized knowledge.
And even in Napoleonic times, aluminium was more expensive than gold, which is why the obelisk in DC has an aluminium cap. But modern tech has changed it.
However the modern tech is built on millenia of knowledge and diversified skill.
So plopping a b52 in 1812 would be an initial shock factor but without the ecosystem it would not last. No fuel, no maintenance, no sheet metal, no runways, no asphalt, no aluminium, nothing
Though the scythians were an Iranian speaking people, or at least their elite were. The slavs may have been the farming caste.
Incidentally the Slavic languages are closer to Indo-Iranian languages than they are to Germanic languages
Any sufficiently advanced engineering is akin to magic. Imagine mobile phones in 1812?!?!
You know your Bible. One of the most fascinating verses I read when I was 12, which started my fascination with history was, I think in Joshua, about warriors with bronze swords meeting those with iron swords!! The iron sword cut through the bronze with ease!
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