Did Napoleon's failure in Russia stem from the lack of cavalry?

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. As a victorious country, Britain will hold a series of commemorative activities on 20 15. The legendary war 200 years ago has become a part of the myth that Britain established the British Empire.

For the battle between Napoleon and European countries, each country has its own narrative way, and each country reconstructs history according to its own needs. Interestingly, in the narrative of this European war, the voice about Russia has always been blank. Ironically, most of us know that history from Tolstoy's great novel War and Peace, but how far is it from history?

Just published by Social Science Literature Publishing House, the decisive battle between Russia and Napoleon: the battle against Europa, 1807- 18 14 fills the gap in this respect. War and Peace, regarded as a historical version, completely subverts the history of how Napoleon was defeated as we know it.

This article is the preface (excerpt) of the book The Decisive Battle between Russia and Napoleon. Dominic Li Fen, the author, said that a key goal of writing this book is to transcend Russian national myth and return to the reality of Russian war1812 ~1814. Besides, in his view, the Napoleonic War was a global struggle, not a pure European war. (Note: the subtitle of this article is editing and adding)

Russia's victory over Napoleon is one of the most dramatic historical events in European history, and its process is full of twists and turns. Not only in 18 12, but also in 18 13, the war situation is still extremely uncertain, and most of the advantages seem to be on Napoleon's side. The personal life of the emperors in those years was a series of stories of arrogance and retribution, full of charming people who made the whole history alive. Reading history is easy to make people feel the same. This story also includes the two greatest battles in European history-Leipzig and Borodino-and countless other colorful chapters that fascinated later war historians. At the same time, it provided a lot of information about European social, political and cultural at that time. From the perspective of Russia, the whole story also has a crucial factor-a happy ending. Napoleon's first legion was wiped out in Russia in 18 12, and the second legion was defeated in Germany in 18 13. In this longest battle in European history, the Russian army chased the French army from Moscow to Paris, and led the victorious allied forces to attack the enemy's capital on March 3 18 1 2004.

But I am an old-school historian. I like telling true stories, or at least conducting honest, well-informed and meticulous research on the premise of the evidence obtained, so as to be as close to the truth as possible. Many years ago, I came to the conclusion that the narrative of this history in Western Europe and North America is actually far from the historical facts. It annoys me to hear untrue stories repeated over and over again, so another goal of this book is to explain why Russia defeated Napoleon and how it defeated him in a more credible way for me.

It is not surprising that what happened in1812 ~1814 is usually distorted in books published in Britain, France and the United States. Most best-selling books about the Napoleonic era need to follow a fixed pattern. For example, in Britain, there are countless books about Nelson's naval battle with Terra 004, or the battle between Wellington and Waterloo. They are heroic narratives and symbols of British national identity. The description of Napoleon and his army has its own charm for the British-even for the French-speaking public. In any case, the vast majority of authors are unable to read multiple languages or access archives in multiple countries. They hope to get information through the research results of experts. However, when discussing Russia's role in defeating Napoleon, such research results and experts do not exist. No western professor has written a monograph on Russia's war effort to defeat Napoleon. If you want British universities to shut you out (let alone the United States), the safest way is to say that you want to study the history of war, diplomacy and kings.