You Did What__ Mad Plans and Great Historical Disasters - Bill Fawcett [29]
Burr was allowed to serve out the rest of his term as vice president, but he soon fell into greater disrepute when he was connected to a conspiracy and was later tried for treason. Not even he, the master of politics that he was, could regain the public’s good graces and the trust of his colleagues after having killed Hamilton.
An apology would have saved Hamilton’s life.
A shot to wound rather than a shot to kill would have saved Burr’s political future.
As a result both men suffered for their failing to do the right thing, and as a result the duel in Weehawken sealed the fate of two of America’s founding fathers.
You Invaded Where?
We tend to encourage ambition…until someone fails. And in this case one of the greatest generals of all times certainly managed to fail on a level most lesser mortals can’t even contemplate.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
RUSSIA, 1812
Bill Fawcett
The invasion of Russia, ruled by Tsar Alexander (the title is derived from the Roman emperor’s rank of Caesar, and the same root from which the Prussian title kaiser is derived), was perhaps the worst mistake in the emperor of France’s career. On the tactical level and, indeed, the grand tactical level, Napoleon was a genius almost without peer. But in this one case he made a strategic blunder, three actually, and all of his genius could not save him from the consequences.
In June of 1812 Napoleon was the undisputed master of all continental Europe. The only enemy that remained unconquered was the British, and the only other nation not totally under his thumb, either occupied or battered into submission, was Russia. This is not to say the Russian army had distinguished itself to date. The Russian Empire was in the far side of Europe, literally months of marching away from France. It was for some time even a valuable ally, if a strange one, for republican France.
So why did Napoleon invade?
Basically, England made him do it. Having failed miserably to gain control of the English Channel even long enough to cross with a single army, which was all the conquest would have taken, Napoleon turned to economic warfare. England was an industrial giant but poor in resources; it lived by trade and selling the goods manufactured in its factories and mills. If the emperor could undermine the English economy, the nation was itself too small and weak to be any further threat. Simply put, if the British economy could be crippled, the nation could no longer afford to maintain the largest and most expensive fleet in the world.
All trade between continental Europe and England was banned by imperial decree. With no markets, the English economy would collapse. This was called the Continental System. The problem was that the merchants on the continent who had been importing and shipping goods to England and the colonies would also be impoverished, sometimes whole coastal cities plunged into instant depression. There was, needless to say, a lot of internal resistance even in France itself. In the occupied nations, such as Prussia and Denmark, smuggling became the order of the day. Finally there was Russia, whose ports connected to roads leading into all of Europe and who could least afford the damage this new Continental System would do to its still weak economy. Even after being pressured to sign onto this Continental System, Russia simply ignored it. As much as for ego, and to open the entire Orient to his armies, Napoleon invaded Russia in an effort to bankrupt Britain.
So the first decision that sealed Napoleon’s fate was to invade Russia.
After all, much more powerful