Marshal Berthier

Another one of Napoleon's stalwarts . . .

Amusing story related by Adam Zamoyski in his book 1812 about the invasion of Russia.

The Russians refrained from engaging with the French and withdrew deeper and deeper into the countryside.

The French found themselves marching 20-30 miles per day, day after day, with nothing to eat or drink, no fodder for their horses, down endless dusty trails, in the baking sun. As I said in a previous post, the parallels with the German experience over a century later are striking.

At some point, Napoleon and his generals got into a debate about whether to pursue the Russians deeper into the countryside, or cut their losses and withdraw, with Berthier advocating forcefully for the latter course of action.

The argument grew quite heated apparently, and finally Napoleon rebuked Berthier with "You only want to go back to France so you can [diddle] your latest young mistress," which comment utterly infuriated Berthier, leading to the two men not speaking for a time.

That's the kind of conversation you can imagine taking place verbatim over the ages up to the present day.

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