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On This Day...

: 1812
In 1812 Napoleon began his disastrous invasion of Russia.

Despite changing the newly founded French constitution and making himself a supreme leader and dictator of France, Napoleon’s political claim was that he was freeing Poland from Russian tyranny when he began his invasion of Russia on the 24^th of June 1812, but his real motives were much less selfless.

On the 21^st of October 1805, Napoleon attempted to invade the United Kingdom. With a massive combined fleet of Spanish and French ships, he attempted to cross the English Channel and conquer Britain. His plan however was foiled when a smaller Royal Navy fleet, led by Nelson, defeated Napoleon's naval forces. With the Royal Navy and new defences across the Southern English coast, a successful invasion seemed unlikely. Having suffered several defeats in the Peninsular War (1808-1814), particularly the loss of Portugal to British and Portuguese forces under the command of Wellington, Napoleon was eager for the United Kingdom to broker peace with France. He hoped by preventing European trade with Britain they would be forced to start peace negotiations, however Russia, among other European nations, continued to trade with the UK.

Napoleon planned to invade Russia and force Tsar Alexander I to stop trading with Britain. He amassed the largest army the world had ever seen, some half a million men known as the Grande Armee, and headed for Russia. Such a large army would require a huge amount of food and other supplies to enable the force to keep marching. Accompanying the Army was 9,300 wagons of supplies including both those carrying the wagons and used by the troops a total of 250,000 horses.

Russia had no chance of defeating a mobile army of such magnitude but Napoleon had made a massive mistake. Despite the huge amount of supplies, Napoleon would have to defeat the Russians quickly before supplies ran out and starvation began and Russia was a vast country to conquer. Previously smaller armies would live off the land, stealing or buying what they needed but this tactic would not last long on this scale. The Russian military leader knew the difficulty feeding such a large force would cause and he used this to his advantage.

Despite many victories by the huge French army, the Russian’s continuous retreats and destruction of any supplies the French may use left the Grande Armee starving to death.

With his army severely reduced, most of his horses dead, and no winter provisions and supplies in general at almost zero Napoleon had no choice but to retreat home to France. His campaign ended on the 14^th of December 1812 with the largest army the world had ever seen being reduced from 500,000 to less than 30,000 (370,000 dead and 100,000 imprisoned).; 1948
In 1948 the Soviet blockade of West Berlin was imposed.

After World War II tougher restrictions were put on Germany than the First World War. Part of the restrictions included the country being put under the control of the major powers of the ‘Allies’ (United Kingdom, United States, France and Russia) with each country controlling a section. Each of the four countries also controlled part of the German capital of Berlin which is situated deep within what was soviet controlled Germany. When the United States, the United Kingdom and France discussed merging their sections to form West Germany, the Soviet Union was outraged. This outrage grew when on the 20^th of June 1948 they introduced the Deutsche Mark to their regions. By the 24^th of June 1948, the Soviet Union set up a blockade preventing all supplies to West Berlin. For eleven months the United Kingdom and the United States flew in supplies (mainly fuel). On the 12^th of May 1949, the Soviet blockade was lifted and on the 23^rd of May 1949, the Western areas were united as the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or BRD). Shortly after, on the 7^th of October 1949, the Soviet-controlled side or Eastern side became the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik, or DDR) with control of the capital city of Berlin also split accordingly.

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