laststandonzombieisland

British historian Saul Davis goes over the Failure of Napoleons 1812 Grand Invasion of Russia due to the lack of a Winter horseshoe.

The theory is that the 250,000 horses of the pipsqueek genius’s 400,000-man Grand Armee entered Russia in June 1812 wearing summer shoes. If they would have had winter shoes ready to install they could have pulled the armies 9500-wagons over icy steepes easier.

Are those summer shoes you are wearing oh Warlord of the Grand Armee?

An excerpt- “Napoleon, Having entered Russia in June, and anticipating a short campaign, his horses were still shod with summer shoes.

But with the brutal Russian winter fast approaching, this tiny logistical oversight was to cost him dear. Winter horseshoes are equipped with little spikes that give a horse traction on snow and ice, and prevent it from slipping.

Without them, a horse can neither tow a wagon uphill, nor use them as brakes on the way down.

In the Russian winter of 1812, this spelt disaster for Napoleon’s reduced force. Horses in summer shoes would have “fallen down underneath whatever it was they were towing”, in the words of Bernie Tidmarsh, one of Britain’s leading farriers.

“They wouldn’t have got any grip going downhill any more than they would have going up,” he says. “The end result would have been broken legs and mutilated limbs.”

Its a good point, however it was the Tsar’s million man peasant army that could always withdraw instead of fight including 50,000 cossacks tearing at his flanks and rear and the fact that the Russian sub-continent was much too large to easily conquer that had the ultimate nail in the warlords coffin.

Also the fact goes that most horses have to be re-shod every 4-6 weeks belays that maybe a short campaign was a bad idea.