Rent General Winter Takes Command (2001)
0h 50min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
One of the most calamitous military campaigns ever undertaken was planned by an acknowledged military genius, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. The invasion of hated Russia in 1812 involved an army of more than 500,000 men but less than 50,000 lived to see their homeland again. Was Napoleon undone by a dramatic loss of his military prowess? The answer is no - he was defeated by the freezing snows of a merciless Russian winter, the most severe for more than one hundred years. The unimaginable misery of the infamous retreat from Moscow is vividly retold with the use of extensive film footage and period imagery. The events of 1941 proved that Hitler was no student of history, for the fate suffered by his armies during the Russian campaign in the third year of World War Two was virtually identical to that which befell Napoleon some 130 years earlier. Sent to conquer the great enemy during the summer, the German Army expected and was prepared for, a swift decisive campaign but the Russians refused to buckle and the fighting dragged on. Soon the Germans, supplied with only light summer clothing, were faced with an enemy every bit as dangerous as the Red Army, the savage Russian winter. This episode of "The Weather at War" describes the effects of winter conditions on these disastrous campaigns and draws eerie similarities and coincidences between them both. - Actors:
- Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler
- Aka:
- The Weather at War: General Winter Takes Command
- Studio:
- Pegasus
- Genres:
- Children & Family, Documentary, Special Interest
