Napoleon's Campaign in Russia, Anno 1812; Medico-Historical by Achilles Rose

(18 User reviews)   5313
By Jacob Brown Posted on Dec 22, 2025
In Category - Time Travel
Rose, Achilles, 1839-1916 Rose, Achilles, 1839-1916
English
You think you know the story of Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign? Think again. This book doesn't just give you the troop movements and battle dates. It asks a chilling question: what really killed most of Napoleon's Grande Armée? A brilliant doctor, Achilles Rose, takes us beyond the generals and politics to examine the true enemy—typhus, dysentery, and frostbite. He makes a shocking case that germs and cold, not Russian soldiers, destroyed the world's most powerful army. It's a medical detective story set against one of history's greatest tragedies, and it completely changes how you see war.
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to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 Author: Achilles Rose Release Date: June 8, 2003 [EBook #7973] [Most recently updated: October 19, 2020] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NAPOLEON'S CAMPAIGN IN RUSSIA ANNO 1812 *** Produced by David Starner, John P. Hadley, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. Napoleon’s Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 MEDICO-HISTORICAL by Dr. A. Rose Contents PREFACE CROSSING THE NIEMEN ON TO MOSCOW THE GRAND ARMY IN MOSCOW ROSTOPCHINE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW WIASMA VOP SMOLENSK BERESINA TWO EPISODES WILNA FROM WILNA TO KOWNO PRISONERS OF WAR TREATMENT OF TYPHUS AFTER THE SECOND CROSSING OF THE NIEMEN LITERATURE INDEX PREFACE There is no campaign in the history of the world which has left such a deep impression upon the heart of the people than that of Napoleon in Russia, Anno 1812. Of the soldiers of other wars who had not come home it was reported where they had ended on the field of honor. Of the great majority of the 600 thousand who had crossed the Niemen in the month of June Anno 1812, there was recorded in the list of their regiments, in the archives “_Disappeared during the Retreat_” and nothing else. When the few who had come home, those hollow eyed specters with their frozen hands, were asked about these comrades who had disappeared during the retreat, they could give no information, but they would speak of endless, of never-heard-of sufferings in the icy deserts of the north, of the cruelty of the Cossacks, of the atrocious acts of the Moushiks and the peasants of Lithuania, and, worst of all, of the infernal acts of the people of Wilna. And it would break the heart of those who listened to them. There is a medical history of the hundreds of thousands who have perished Anno 1812 in Russia from cold, hunger, fatigue or misery. Such medical history cannot be intelligible without some details of the history of events causing and surrounding the deaths from cold and hunger and fatigue. And such a history I have attempted to write. Casting a glance on the map on which the battle fields on the march to and from Moscow are marked, we notice that it was not a deep thrust which the attack of the French army had made into the colossus of Russia. From the Niemen to Mohilew, Ostrowno, Polotsk, Krasnoi, the first time, Smolensk, Walutina, Borodino, Conflagration of Moscow, and on the retreat the battles of Winkonow, Jaroslawetz, Wiasma, Vop, Krasnoi, the second time, Beresina, Wilna, Kowno; this is not a great distance, says Paul Holzhausen in his book “Die Deutschen in Russland 1812” but a great piece of history. Holzhausen, whose book has furnished the most valuable material of which I could avail myself besides the dissertation of von Scherer, the book of Beaupré and the report of Krantz, and numerous monographs, has brought to light valuable papers of soldiers who had returned and had left their remembrances of life of the soldiers during the Russian campaign to their descendants and relatives who had kept these papers a sacred inheritance during one hundred years. The picture in the foreground of all histories of the Russian campaign is the shadow of the great warrior who led the troops, in whose invincibility all men who followed him Anno 1812 believed and by whom they stood in their soldier’s honor, with a constancy without equal, a steadfastness which merits our admiration. Three fourths...

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Most history books tell you Napoleon invaded Russia with over 600,000 men and limped back with a shattered remnant. They talk about the burning of Moscow and the brutal winter retreat. Achilles Rose, a doctor with a historian's eye, zooms in on the grisly details everyone else skips. He follows the army not as a fighting force, but as a massive, moving population ripe for disease.

The Story

The book tracks the campaign from the optimistic summer crossing of the Niemen River to the horrific winter collapse. But the main characters aren't Napoleon and Tsar Alexander—they're typhus-bearing lice, dysentery-causing bacteria, and the brutal cold. Rose uses soldiers' diaries, doctors' reports, and his own medical knowledge to show how illness spread in the crowded camps, how starvation weakened immune systems, and how frostbite finished off the survivors. The Russian army becomes almost a secondary threat to this invisible, biological massacre.

Why You Should Read It

This book flips the script. It’s humbling and horrifying to see the limits of human power laid so bare. Napoleon’s grand strategy meant nothing in the face of a microbe. Rose writes with clear, clinical precision, but the facts themselves are dramatic. You’ll never read about a historical "great man" the same way again. It reminds us that behind every famous battle are countless quiet, miserable deaths from causes we now take for granted.

Final Verdict

Perfect for history buffs who feel they’ve heard it all, or for anyone fascinated by the intersection of science and human stories. It’s not a light read—the medical descriptions are stark—but it’s utterly gripping. If you like your history with a dose of reality that’s both intelligent and deeply human, this unique perspective is a must-read.



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Edward Williams
8 months ago

The formatting on this digital edition is flawless.

Elizabeth Lewis
1 year ago

After hearing about this author multiple times, the emotional weight of the story is balanced perfectly. Worth every second.

Emma Johnson
1 year ago

Clear and concise.

4.5
4.5 out of 5 (18 User reviews )

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