Le Tombeau de Napoleon
Posted on 04/10/2002 12:31:59 PM PDT by Korth
VILNIUS: Researchers are rushing to remove hundreds of skeletons from a mass grave of Napoleonic soldiers discovered on a Vilnius construction site in a find that promises to offer fresh insights into the disastrous 1812 campaign to Moscow.
The remains of an estimated 1,000 soldiers of Napoleon Bonaparte's Grand Army were buried here as they retreated from the ill-fated campaign to Moscow, dumped in a ditch they had built when advancing on the Russian Empire.
It is the largest mass grave of Napoleonic soldiers ever found, according to Olivier Dutour, an anthropological biologist at the University of Marseille's school of medicine, who heads a five-man team from France's National Center for Scientific Research.
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.
"What we can learn from this find is the age of the soldiers in the Grand Army and their state of health on the march back from Moscow," said Rimantas Jankuaskas, chair of the anthropology department at Vilnius University, who is leading the excavation work.
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 from 20 nations that it initially contained.
So far the grave site is testimony to the severe cold which claimed many lives.
"Looking at the skeletons, we can say that the bodies were buried frozen," said Dutour.
He points to a skeletal finger, the only bones recovered from one man, bent in an "abnormal" curled position.
"This man died from exposure at a temperature of around minus 30 degrees centigrade (minus 22 Fahrenheit) in a crouched position," said Dutour.
The grave was found last October as preparations were made to begin building a residential complex on land that has been used for military purposes by Czarist Russian, Polish, Nazi and Soviet troops since the end of 19th century.
Work had to quickly be suspended because of the winter, and was resumed only in mid-March after the snow melted.
Investigators originally believed the remains may have been those of Polish soldiers killed by the Soviets, but based on buttons and other articles of clothing identified them as belonging to the Grand Army.
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.
"We've been forced to focus on just several individuals," said Michel Signolis, the deputy director of the French team.
The team was dispatched to Vilnius with such haste that they did not even receive a formal budget for the trip, and are sleeping at the site in an old camper made available to them by a French citizen who lives in Lithuania.
"We must keep watch over and protect our treasures from the curious" who can easily gain access to the open site, said Signolis.
The remains are being removed to Vilnius University's Anthropology Institute while a decision is taken on their final burial.
The city is "in contact with French officials to determine a dignified burial site for these soldiers," Vilnius Mayor Arturas Zuokas told AFP.
More experts from the French defense ministry were expected in Vilnius to help the Lithuanians examine the remains and review information on trenches where others soldiers may have been buried.
According to historians, the remains of some 40,000 soldiers were either buried or burned when the Grand Army fled from Vilnius in 1812.
Leni
And the French have been retreating ever since.
"... 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.
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".
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