Typhus Fever

Napoleon’s Greatest Enemy: Typhus Fever

By: Jared Morehouse

History 101-02

The Napoleonic campaign had raged across Europe for close to 11 years before he had decided to make his last push into Russia and capture Moscow. It is a common fallacy to think that the Russian cold had wiped out Napoleon’s Grand Armee in truth it was a fever. This fever known as Typhus fever has been around for nearly forever in human kind and has killed millions of people throughout history. With Napoleons push into Russia he was determined to take Moscow even with the Russians destroying almost all of it. Typhus Fever had done more to Napoleons Army than any soldier, cold weather could do to it. If anything Typhus fever contributed the most death to Napoleon’s Grand Armee in Russia. From a nearly invincible military power in 1812 let’s see how an insect could destroy the best military in the world at that time.

To start according to Stephan Talty in the book “The Illustrious Dead” “In all, Napoleon commanded 522,300 infantry, 94,000 cavalry, 47,000 artillery, and 21,000 miscellaneous troops.” (Talty Pg.26) Most of those troops under his command were from for nations that he had previously conquered by force. So entering the war with Russia Napoleon had a sizable force to be able to defeat the Russian army that was poorly equipped and trained but they still fought with extreme valor and heroism against the French military. It was to Napoleons mistake that he started the initial war with Russia to only use about a quarter of troops. “Napoleon biographer Frank McLynn argues that Napoleon had become an expert in winning with armies of 100,000 troops, which permitted the speed and flexibility that produced an Austerlitz.” (Talty Pg.26) What Napoleon was seeking was a fast and speedy war against the Russians and he only expected it to last for a quick 12 days but he was dead wrong. Many of the clothing that Napoleon had equipped his men with was already infested with fleas which...