Russian Winter Wars: How Napoleon & Hitler Floundered On Preparing For Russia's Winter

Weather has refashioned the course of history in manners more dramatic than dizzying movie plots. While a dense fog saved General George Washington to escape a certain defeat against the British at the Battle of Long Island on August 22, 1776, Kublai Khan's designs on invading Japan were thwarted by typhoons in the late thirteenth century.

The failed Russian invasions however trounce all other instances where (cold) weather trammelled invaders' intents.

Russian Winter
The great Himalayas that shield India from the blasts of cold from the north, also confine the moist and warm winds from the Indian Ocean to the sub-continent. The absentee warm air subjects Russia to the influence of the Arctic and Atlantic to the north & west and the Pacific to the east. Russian climate can be termed as continental in general.

The strong direct Arctic impact and the higher latitudes Russia is positioned at, forge very harsh and long winters that are characterized by temperatures - (minus) 40 degree Celsius and lower and heavy snowfall. Notably, the average annual temperature in the country is - (minus) 5.5 degree Celsius.

Napoleon Invades Russia
In 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte built the biggest army that Europe had seen in those times and attacked Russia. The Grande Armée, as it was known, was more than 600,000 men strong. But interestingly they did not prepare to enter deep into Russia, let alone the preparedness for the famed Russian Winter. Napoleon thought they will engage the Russian armies early in their campaign and seal a decisive victory. But to the amazement and upsetting of the invading French (Germans and Poles were also part of the army), Russians adopted a scorched earth policy.

The Russians fled into the abdominous Russian hinterland, burning down villages, towns, food and fodder, seriously threatening the 'live of the land' tactics of the Napoleonic wars. The evasion of a direct confrontation by the Russians elongated the war that Napoleon had not planned for, sucking the French Grande Armée in to the dreaded Russian Winter. The French had come in summer clothing and without winter shoes for their horses. An early onset of winter that year was also devastating.

And then struck Rasputitsa. During the tremulous retreat from Moscow around October where Napoleon did not find any one either to fight or talk peace, the Grand Armée faced another horrible weather factor, Rasputitsa or the semi-annual mud season that is triggered by rain and snow of the autumn and spring. The mud quagmires turned into the killing fields for horses and wagons of the French cavalry and many soldiers died of frost bites and hypothermia. The ill-equipped, starved and disoriented French were easy prey to the now energized, approaching Russians.

It is estimated that of the more than 600,000 men of the Grand Armée that started the campaign, only around 110,000 made out alive. More than 200,000 horses were also lost during the fateful campaign. The proportion of direct and indirect weather inflicted losses were huge. While exposure to cold killed thousands daily, the breakdown of army logistics also led to starvation and even cannibalism.

The Russian campaign not only proved disastrous for Napoleon's reign, it was an important lesson in the need of weather preparedness in modern warfare.

Hitler Invades Russia (USSR)
Hitler was an ardent reader of Napoleonic campaigns but missed out on the greatest lesson out of them. To be prepared for the Russian winter. The annihilation of Napoleon's Grand Armée just a century before was an inescapable example.

Hitler however parroted the faux pas unmistakably. He launched Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941 and expected to gobble up the then western USSR in a matter of six months and push Russians beyond the Ural Mountains.

The Germans made good initial advance and pushed 300 to 600 kilometres into USSR's territory at various places within a week. Stalin was quick to invoke the scorched earth policy like his czarist predecessors and the Germans were denied crops, industries, bridges and roads during their advance.

The Wehrmacht (Nazi armed forces) entered their campaign in summer uniforms while by December 1941, the Nazi high command was appealing German citizens to make donation of warm clothing for the soldiers on the eastern frontier.

But there was never enough. The Wehrmacht soldiers lost limbs and other body parts to frost bite by the thousands. On the other hand, planes and tanks sent by the Allies entering combat took away the early dominance that the Germans achieved by destroying USSR's Air Force and industrial towns.

The war dragged on and the Germans were faced by another winter in Russia, the winter of 1942-43. The hunter became hunted as the Red Army surrounded the German Sixth Army that was staking out Stalingrad earlier. The German morale was down and soldiers were starving as the supplies were cut off. The Sixth Army surrendered by January 1943 against Hitler's orders.

More than two million people died during the conflict between Nazi Germany and USSR, more famously known as the Eastern Front of the World War Two. The number of people who succumbed to cold cannot be ascertained. But it certainly was a leading executioner.

No Such Thing As Cold Weather
The Russians have a saying that there is no such thing as cold weather, only the wrong kind of clothing. But surprisingly two great armies of their times totally ignored this fact and were ill prepared for the winter in one of the coldest countries in the world.

Moreover, such disregard for the Russian winter ensured that Napoleon and Hitler took a drubbing from which they could never recover.

Noteworthy is the fact that both generals also thought they would be able to conquer Russia in a matter of months that was effectively derailed by the 'scorched earth Russian retreat'.