Regarding Ukraine: History Repeating Itself (with a slight twist) Might Not Be a Bad Thing

Putin "goes Napoleon" on Ukraine...

Note to readers: How do I know this stuff? I’m certainly no historian. But I’m a product of the NYC Public Schools, at a time when History (including the history of World War II, which many of our parents had experienced first-hand) was still being taught, and I guess that, at least some of the time, I must have been paying attention.

It could be said that Vladimir Putin is “going Napoleon” on Ukraine. One can only hope that his foray into Ukraine will end as disastrously for him as did the real Napoleon’s foray into Russia.

Just a few days in June after the U.S. declared war on Great Britain and began the War of 1812, Napoleon, with an army of almost a half-million (the largest army Europe had ever seen), invaded Russia. In September his forces took Moscow, but it was a Pyrrhic victory, as Napoleon had already lost over 3/4 of his army and found Moscow abandoned and burned. Napoleon’s retreat from Russia was even more costly in terms of men and materiel, as his forces, beset by Cossacks and other partisan fighters as well as by cold and starvation, were reduced to fewer than 50,000 men, and of those another 20,000 fell before Napoleon returned to Paris, leaving the remains of his once Grand Army to fend for themselves.

The toll of Russian casualties was enormous also, but Napoleon had been repulsed. It’s often said that Napoleon was defeated by the generals Janvier et Février (January and February), an allusion to the Russian winter, but Napoleon slunk out of Russia with his tail between his legs in December.

Putin is also being called “the new Hitler.” One can only hope that his foray into Ukraine will end as disastrously for him as did the real Hitler’s foray into Russia.

“Operation Barbarossa,” named after a 12th Century German king, was the name for Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, and was Germany’s largest operation during World War II. It was a classic overreach by Hitler, who by the invasion deliberately broke the non-aggression pact that had existed between the Soviets and the Nazis, who had been allies in the war against Poland.

Like Napoleon, Hitler underestimated the logistical challenges and the resistance of the Soviets. The invasion (by over 3 million troops) took a heavy toll (it included targeted mass murders of Russian Jews and Gypsies), but the Soviets eventually mounted a counter-offensive, turning the tide at Stalingrad, where the Soviets encircled Hitler’s Sixth Army, forcing what remained of it to surrender. In November of 1943 Soviet troops, driving the Nazis back westward, liberated Kiev. And they didn’t stop there, continuing to drive westward, liberating Poland and Hungary and eventually encircling Berlin.

Despite the cost of innocent lives in the process, Putin might very well join Napoleon and Hitler as the greatest overreachers in military history; one can only hope.