First Napoleonic mass grave uncovered in Vilnius

Times of India ^ | APRIL 09, 2002 | Unknown

[MinuteGal]

As an amateur student of this time period, I find this discovery very interesting. Will you ping me if more comes in? Thanks.

Leni

[malakhi]

According to historians, the remains of some 40,000 soldiers were either buried or burned when the Grand Army fled from Vilnius in 1812.

And the French have been retreating ever since.

[blam]

Bump for the dead soldiers.

[eastsider]

The French consider the battle of Moscow a victory, and it is included in the mosaic of Great Victories of the Empire that encircles Napoleon's tomb at Les Invalides in Paris.




Le Tombeau de Napoleon

[Chairman Fred]

The Lithuanians were so oppressed by the Czars (who went so far as to outlaw the teaching and publishing of the Lithuanian language) that they welcomed Napoleon as a liberator, and there is today a building in the old city whose roof was designed to imitate Napoleon's hat! Sorry, didn't work out quite right.

[connectthedots]

Vilnius, most well known as the childhood home of the captain of the "Red October".

[livius]

Very interesting. Please ping me, too, if anything else comes out.

[Argus]

The entire territory once occupied by the Soviet Union is one big mass grave. Put a spade into the earth anywhere and you'll come up with human remains.

[GraniteStateConservative]

cool.

[curmudgeonII]

There were a good many other nationalities than French during this Napoleonic campaign in Russia. Spanish, Prussian [and other Germans], Austrian, Dutch, Italian, Pole and even Portugese. Although this information may have some value, it would seem to me to be of greater worth if the nationality of these troops could be uncovered.

[Lejes Rimul]

Bonaparte was one of the greatest men who ever lived. The Old Guard dies, but never surrenders. :)

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

I wonder who is the author of this article?

"... The Russians pursued a scorched-earth policy, even setting light to Moscow, leaving Napoleon's troops to freeze in the unusually harsh winter reducing the Grand Army to just one-fifth of the 700,000 men ..."

What an interesting grammatical angle--portraying the Russiansas the subjects of the sentence--- asserting that the Russians, who were the invaded party (the subject), were pursuing a scorched earth policy by denying the invading army their food and urban infrastructure.

Hmmm. Very odd indeed. The ongoing Western war against Slavic Peoples continues unabated--even to the point of one little sentence in an article in The Times Of India

"... Work is pursuing at a rapid pace because the construction company only gave researchers one month, or until April 11, to complete their work. The scientists don't have adequate time to record in detail the position of each of the skeletons found.

Also instructive---The de-natured, self-hating ways of white people everywhere on the planet are so acute they can't even slow down the construction of a housing project for a brief period in order to treat the corpses of fallen soldiers with some decency. It reminds me of the brutality practiced upon the corpse of the 5000 year old man in the Alps. They ripped off his dessicated private parts in an effort to grab his poor body for "scientific evaluation".

"...The remains may help anthropologists and historians learn more about the physical condition of soldiers of the Grand Army as it retreated from Moscow in 1812. "Thanks to methods from molecular biology, we can test whether typhus, which existed in the period, was widespread in the region" and contributed to the large numbers of deaths of soldiers, he told AFP. ..."

Western scientists searching for the cause of death. How typical. The causeis everything and anything except the Cause for which the soldiers were fighting. The Cause must never be uttered, of course, because therein lies the clue to the decline and fall of Western Civilization.

Oh well. Here in my Homeland--which is constantly on guard against blue-haired grandmothers who might comandeer a jet and crash it into a skyscraper--the battlefields of the Civil War are under constant pressure for shopping mall development

Let's all play our version of "Ashokan Farewell" loudly and tip a glass to the Fallen.

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

Napoleon was an extremely short man who came to power in a culture of tall men--who had been articficially shortened by the guillotine.....

[Eternal_Bear]

Napoleon issued a famous bulletin after the debacle which stated "The Emperor's health has never been better." No mention was made in reference however to the state of health of "La Grande Armee" which had effectively ceased to exist.

[Eternal_Bear]

Danny De Vito was the best movie Napoleon of all time :^)

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

If only Elomre Leonard had been alive in 1812. What a great chronicler of the life and times of Nappy he would have made.

Mr. Leonard, are you lurking?

How about "Just Shorty"? "Because Shorty"? "Shorty and the Russian Mafia"? "Shorty Takes It In the Shorts"? "All Shorty's Men"?

Or better yet: "The Importance of Being Short".

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

I meant "object" when I wrote "subject" the second time. I'm sure everyone knows that.....