He invaded Russia because they would not stop trading with the British.
At this point in time Napoleon was arrogant to the Nth degree.
If he had instead allied with the Russians in a joint invasion of the Ottoman empire if the Russians cut off trade with England he would not have lost his army and empire at the gates of Moscow.
Of course neither France nor England wanted Russia to have a warm water port and because of this the French and British a generation after Napoleon allied with the Turks to fight the Russians in Crimea.
The Turkish empire was preserved by the so called Christian nations of the West because it boxed in Russia.
So much for Christian unity....
” The Turkish empire was preserved by the so called Christian nations of the West because it boxed in Russia.
So much for Christian unity....”
We expected nothing better, N. We are fools if we do to this very day.
Well, the Christian nations could not get their acts together after about a Christian army was whipped at a place on the lower Danube. In part it was because there was two popes, and then later it was because we Latin wanted the Greeks to eat crow. So while the Turks were threatening Constantinople, we were squabbling over theology. Later we have the Protestant Reform and another religious split, Luther didn’t give a tinker’s dam if the Turks overran Europe. God’s judgement and all that. The Lutheran princes used the Turkish threat to get concessions out of the Emperor. The Hapsburgs managed to stop the Turkish advance, no thanks to France or England. Thank God the Turks had indolent sultans during our Confessional wars.
But, hey, I have been dashing off stuff you know, The trouble is that not even
the students of the elite schools are aware of this, and I have yet to see this narrative on the History Channel. But do they care?
The dopey Brits made the same mistake in the Crimean War.
They should have been HELPING the Russians dismantle Turkey.