Mike Magee

210 years ago on September 7, 1812, a Putin-like commander narrowly won a battle but lost a war, entering a downward cycle that ended his rule. The battle was the Battle of Borodino, a small town on the Moscow River, 70 miles west of Moscow. The commander is Napoleon.

The facts are clear: Napoleon arrived with 130,000 soldiers, including his 20,000 royal guards and 500 cannons. Opposing him were 120,000 Russians with 600 guns. The fighting lasted from 6 am to noon. The French suffered 30,000 casualties, while the Russians lost 45,000, but survived and continued to fight.

As Leo Tolstoy describes the Holocaust scene on page 818 of his epic novel, War and Peace, 1867, “For hundreds of years, the village’s farmers … in fields and meadows where crops were harvested and livestock were grazing at the same time, tens of thousands of people died in various poses and uniforms. At the changing station, three acres of grass and soil were covered in blood. Drenched in. Crowds of wounded and uninjured, with horrified faces, trudging forward… The whole field, once in the morning sun, bayonets gleaming and smoky, so joyous and beautiful, Now hung the haze of dampness and smoke, and the strange sour smell of saltpeter and blood. Little clouds gathered and began to sprinkle on the dead…”

But in the passages that follow, it is clear that Tolstoy’s intent and point was not to describe why and how Napoleon won the Battle of Borodino, but to describe how this was the end of his army and the beginning of Napoleon’s rule.

Tolstoy wrote: “For the French, with the memory of the victories of the past 15 years, with the confidence in Napoleon’s invincibility, realizing that they had taken part in the field, they had lost only a quarter of their soldiers. , and they still have a full 20,000 guards, the effort (to advance and annihilate the Russians) would have been easy … but the French didn’t make that effort … it’s not that Napoleon didn’t put on his guard because he didn’t want to , but that can’t be done. All the generals and officers and men of the French army know it can’t be done, because the fallen spirit of the army does not allow … (they) have the same fear in front of the enemy, who has lost half His army was as strong at the end of the battle as at the beginning. The moral power of the attacking French has been exhausted … (for the Russians it is) a moral victory to convince the opponent of his enemy’s moral superiority and his own incompetence, which is the Russian in the Borates obtained by Noah. “

Not only did the Russians retreat, but instead of stopping in Moscow, they continued on for 80 miles beyond their beloved city. But as Tolstoy described it, “In the Russian army, as it retreats, the hostility towards the enemy increases; as it retreats, it concentrates and increases.”

As for the French, they occupied Moscow, but stopped there. Tolstoy added: “For five weeks after that, there was not a single battle. The French didn’t move. Like a badly wounded beast, bleeding and licking its wounds, they stayed in Moscow for five weeks with nothing. No, all of a sudden, fleeing back for no reason… not taking part in a serious battle…”

Putin’s aging dream of conquest may be Napoleonic in scale. But when his hesitant troops observed their Borodino-style massacre of human beings at Mariupol, at the mouths of the Karmius and Kalchik rivers, and preparing to enter Kyiv, it was the first An East Slavic country that acquired the “Mother of Rus’ Cities” millennia ago, their vulnerability and lack of “moral strength” are already evident. Lacking a rationally stated goal beyond dominance, young Russian conscripts and their commanders are sure to grow increasingly concerned.They are also caught in a trap and “experience the same fear in the presence of an enemy who has lost half His army was as strong at the end of the battle as at the beginning. ”

As for Putin, like Napoleon, he may feel the wind of fate blowing heavily on his shoulders even now. Napoleon did return to Paris. But three years after the Battle of Borodino and the five-week occupation of Moscow, he met Waterloo at the hands of the Duke of Wellington on June 16, 1815. He died on the island of Helena in exile on May 5, 1821. In his will, he wrote: “I wish my ashes to rest on the banks of the Seine, among my beloved French people.”

Putin may have a similar love for Russian mothers, but in the end the Russian people may choose not to reciprocate that affection.

Mike Magee, MD is a medical historian and health economist, and “CodeBlue: Inside the Medical Industrial Park.”