Explore how a rainstorm may have ended the reign of one of history's most famous military generals, Napoleon Bonaparte.
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00:00Welcome to Invisible Iceberg.
00:06On today's show, we'll explore how a rainstorm may have ended the reign of one of history's
00:11most famous military generals, Napoleon.
00:15Plus, we take a fascinating look at the impact Napoleon had on our world today from our educational
00:21system to our roadways.
00:24And we'll examine if extreme weather events are getting worse, especially when it comes
00:29to rain.
00:30It all starts now on Invisible Iceberg.
00:42He's considered one of the greatest military masterminds in history.
00:46For 15 years, Napoleon Bonaparte led campaigns across Europe in his quest for power.
00:51But the French emperor may have ultimately been defeated by driving rain and deep mud
00:57that hampered the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
01:01It is just one of the amazing stories in the book, Invisible Iceberg, When Climate and
01:05Weather Shaped History.
01:07Joining us right now is Accuwe, the founder and executive chairman and author of Invisible
01:12Iceberg, When Climate and Weather Shaped History, Dr. Joel Myers.
01:17Well, we're going to talk about one of the most well-known figures in the history of
01:23this planet.
01:26I'll ask it anyway.
01:27Who was Napoleon, and how successful was he?
01:33Napoleon Bonaparte is considered maybe the greatest military genius of all time.
01:42In fact, when people have been asked, who are the most influential people in history,
01:48of course, Jesus Christ, number one, Napoleon Bonaparte, number two.
01:52A lot of people today may not realize, but many of his military tactics that he developed
02:00and employed are still taught today in military academies across the world.
02:06He won, I think, 90 percent more of his battles.
02:09Some of his victories were legendary.
02:11Let's talk about how he was defeated originally, that took him out of power originally.
02:17How did that happen?
02:18He reigned for a long time, a long, successful career, but then he attacked Russia in the
02:24wintertime.
02:25As we know, you don't attack Russia in the wintertime.
02:29He went into Russia with hundreds of thousands of troops, and I think 10 percent or fewer
02:36of the troops made it back to France.
02:38It was a devastating defeat and a tremendous setback for him.
02:45Somehow, he was exiled, and he escaped from exile.
02:50He tried to commit suicide.
02:51He was so down, but he came back and took power again in France, believe it or not.
02:58And then he had a bigger army, and again, here he is attacking neighbors.
03:04But by then, the neighbors had built up powerful armies to prevent him from doing this.
03:11How did weather impact history yet again and Napoleon?
03:15Well, first of all, it was just a rain cloud, and it's in the play, Miserable.
03:22It mentions the rain and how it defeated.
03:25So that was part of it, how it messed up the muskets, the water, and then the mud.
03:33And then he waited too long to attack because he wanted the ground to dry.
03:39And by the time he attacked, they were ready for him, and he lost again at Waterloo.
03:45And of course, that's well-known.
03:46You know, now it's quoted, you know, if you're too big for your britches, you'll have your
03:51Waterloo.
03:52Thanks, Dr. Joel.
03:53You're welcome.
03:55Here with more perspective on Napoleon is Dr. Rafe Blaufarb.
04:00He's a history professor at Florida State and a specialist in revolutionary and Napoleonic
04:05France.
04:06Thank you so much for joining us today.
04:11How did Napoleon initially arrive in France and gain power?
04:15Yes, he secured this military scholarship thanks to his family connections in Corsica.
04:25And the French government was very, very eager to attach the Corsicans to the French kingdom.
04:33The island had only recently been annexed, conquered by France.
04:38So Napoleon was very lucky to have this scholarship opportunity.
04:43And his family felt lucky to be able to integrate themselves into the French establishment at
04:53a low level, but nonetheless into the French establishment and become a part of the new
04:59kingdom to which they belonged.
05:01How successful was Napoleon as a military commander?
05:06Well, there was nothing in his early, early career to suggest that he would have been
05:11successful.
05:12But because of the French Revolution, a major overturning of the government and the social
05:21order that occurred in France in 1789, Napoleon was able to rise rapidly in the military thanks
05:29to his enormous natural talents.
05:32He was quite simply a brilliant, gifted leader, tactician, and strategist.
05:39How did Napoleon get defeated originally in the battles from 1812 to 1814?
05:45Yes, during his long, long career, Napoleon goes from success to success to success.
05:54But like so many successful generals, like so many successful rulers, he gets overconfident
06:02and falls victim to what we now call overstretch.
06:06In other words, he bites off more than even he can chew.
06:10His downfall begins in the year 1812.
06:14He's been emperor of France now for over 10 years.
06:18But in 1812, he decides to take on the largest country in Europe, Russia.
06:24He decides to do what probably you shouldn't do if you're a ruler and try to invade Russia
06:32and take it all over.
06:34And he leads, in 1812, he leads a massive army into Russia, the largest army Europe
06:43has ever seen.
06:44In fact, the world has probably ever seen up to that date, marches into Russia.
06:50The Russians retreat, the winter takes its toll, just like it will years later on Hitler
06:58and the Germans.
07:00And Napoleon is lucky to escape alive.
07:03Five out of six of his soldiers die in Russia.
07:08It is a terrible military disaster for Napoleon.
07:12And from that point on, from 1812 on, he's fighting a defensive battle.
07:18He's fighting a rearguard action, scraping together conscripts, doing whatever he can
07:25to stave off the inevitable defeat, as all of his accumulated enemies, Russia, England,
07:34Prussia, Austria, join forces and come at him, determined to get rid of this militaristic
07:43emperor once and for all.
07:46He finally succumbs in the year 1814 and is forced to abdicate his throne.
07:53And why was Napoleon able to regain power then after this defeat?
07:59Well, after his defeat in 1814 and his abdication, he is sent into exile on a tiny island in
08:08the Mediterranean off the coast of Italy, an island called Elba.
08:14And Napoleon is not willing to die on that island.
08:19He wants to take another chance.
08:21And so he sneaks back into France on a boat.
08:25He actually goes on a tiny little boat with several companions, lands in France, and proclaims
08:32that he's come back to take back his crown.
08:37The French government that had replaced him sends the army after him to arrest him.
08:43But he is so popular with his former soldiers that instead of arresting Napoleon, each new
08:50regiment sent down to get him is overcome with nostalgia and they switch sides and join
08:58Napoleon in his march on Paris.
09:01What are some interesting facts about him?
09:05Also, did he have any unique habits?
09:08You might say that the secret of his success, or at least one of the secrets, is that he
09:13didn't sleep a lot.
09:14He slept at most four hours a day, which meant that he could get a lot more done than most people.
09:21The other thing is, despite his great wealth and power, he didn't care much for material luxury.
09:30So he ate his meals extremely rapidly in a matter of minutes, ate simply, wasn't interested
09:38in fancy stuff.
09:40So this is a man who's awake 20 hours a day and working, who has very few vices, very
09:49few luxuries.
09:50He gets a ton done.
09:51He is a workaholic of the most extreme kind.
09:56What is Napoleon's legacy?
10:00Napoleon has a very important legacy.
10:02On the global level, his legal reform, that is the creation of a uniform system of law
10:10called the Napoleonic Code, ends up being adopted by many, many countries all around
10:16the world, in Asia, in the Middle East, in Latin America, obviously in Europe, and even
10:23in one of the United States, the state of Louisiana, which still follows Napoleon's law code.
10:31Dr. Rafe Blaufarb, history professor at Florida State and specialist in Revolutionary and
10:38Napoleonic France, thank you again for joining us.
10:44Coming up, we'll examine if rainstorms and other extreme weather events are getting worse.
10:50But next, we take an interesting look at the impact Napoleon had on our world today.
10:56We'll be back after the break.
11:02Welcome back to Invisible Iceberg, I'm Bernie Raynaud.
11:07We're back with Acua, the founder and executive chairman and author of the book Invisible
11:10Iceberg, When Climate and Weather Shaped History, Dr. Joel Myers.
11:14We're talking about Napoleon, and let's talk about how he was able to regain power after
11:21his first defeat.
11:23Yeah, and he was only in power for 100 days.
11:27But he escaped from the island where he was imprisoned.
11:31He came back.
11:33People joined him.
11:34Even people were supposed to be guarding him.
11:37And the king was unpopular and he was related to the original crowd that was beheaded.
11:45So he got out of Dodge, got out of Dodge, Napoleon came in and took over and was welcomed
11:53and cheered by the crowds on his return.
11:55So he had a second life in leadership.
11:59And it's really too bad that he overextended his, tried to militarily take over his neighbors
12:06again and so on.
12:08Because he really, if he had been continued as leader of France for the remaining six
12:15years of his life, he only lived six more years and died of cancer in his 40s.
12:21He was a reformer.
12:22He was liberal.
12:23He was eliminating slavery, eliminating discrimination against the Jews, a lot of cultural reforms
12:33and setting the stage.
12:35But when he was defeated, some of the dark side and the leaders and the tyrants in other
12:41countries then went backwards for decades in harming society, setting things up for
12:49future events.
12:50I mean, you could imagine if Napoleon had been successful and these reforms had spread
12:55and so on, it's possible seeds wouldn't have been sowed for World War I, which of course
13:01led to the seeds for World War II, the Russian Revolution in 1917.
13:09So many things followed.
13:11You could imagine totally different hysterical developments.
13:18It's like almost a butterfly effect in weather, where a butterfly flapping its wings, according
13:24to Professor Lorenzen, in Rio de Janeiro eventually has some impact on the development of a tornado
13:32in Kansas.
13:34And you can think of history that way.
13:36In this case, the weather ended, his reign played an important role in Waterloo and that
13:45was the end of Napoleon's reign.
13:47And so really a lot of parts of Europe moved to the dark side against the kind of liberal
13:53thinking that Napoleon had.
13:55Napoleon also had an influence on a favorite food.
14:00Beef Wellington.
14:01Beef Wellington.
14:02How did that come about?
14:04Well, he lost to Wellington of the UK, the general.
14:09And Beef Wellington was named after the winner.
14:13So that's how that came about.
14:16Wellington became famous because he beat Napoleon at Waterloo.
14:22And so that dish, Beef Wellington, was named after him.
14:26You know, when you think of Napoleon, you think of the military genius.
14:30But from what everything you're telling me about him, and we've read in the book, he
14:35was a very effective leader for his country.
14:40He was.
14:41He was ahead of his time and made a lot of progress in human rights and in also building
14:50the architecture of France and so many other ways.
14:53He was truly a genius and he had a great influence on civilization.
14:58And he also had an influence and or inspired the United Nations.
15:03Well, indirectly, indirectly, because finally to defeat him, he was, you know, since he
15:10had captured and was a threat to areas he hadn't captured across Europe, the Nations
15:17United, you know, to fight him.
15:20And it was called the United Nations.
15:22And that inspired U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and had the idea to create
15:28the United Nations.
15:29That's where he got the idea for the name, the United Nations, which, of course, then
15:34was formed a few years after FDR got that idea.
15:39He got the idea in 42 and at the end of the war in 1945, the U.N. was established.
15:44And you hear this term a lot, the Napoleon complex.
15:48What is that?
15:49The idea was that Napoleon was short.
15:52And so because he was short, he was insecure.
15:55And so that drove him to become a very powerful, insatiable, to prove himself.
16:02But it turns out that he was more or less the average height of European men of that
16:09era, about five, six, five, seven.
16:13But he always had tall guards around him.
16:16He got beefy protection and they were tall.
16:21So he looked small by comparison.
16:23I don't I think that was made up after the fact.
16:26Do you really?
16:27And what have things been different if Napoleon was taller?
16:32I can't answer that.
16:33You'll have to get a psychologist or psychiatrist on the program next.
16:37All right.
16:38Let's talk about how Napoleon did affect the United States, because there is a pretty significant
16:44impact in the history of of the United States.
16:48Yeah.
16:49He sold the United States a huge swath of what's now part of the United States that
16:54was owned by France, the central part of the country.
16:58It was known as the Louisiana Purchase, involved about 10 states, parts of the southern parts
17:04of provinces of Canada.
17:06And the United States got a heck of a deal, paying three cents an acre in those days,
17:11even allowing for inflation if it's a couple of dollars an acre today, still a heck of
17:16a bargain.
17:17Not only for the land, but when you think of the area that was purchased, that's the
17:22breadbasket of America.
17:24Yeah.
17:25You know, Missouri, Arkansas, up through the Midwest and so on.
17:28No question about it.
17:29And it provided, you know, almost double the size, double the size of the United States
17:34at that time.
17:35You would think, where would the United States be without the Louisiana Purchase?
17:38It would be very different.
17:39Not in the shape that we're in now.
17:41Not the shape.
17:42Not the shape.
17:43Dr. Joel, fascinating story.
17:45Thanks.
17:46You're welcome.
17:47All right.
17:48I want to thank Ackie with the founder and executive chairman and author of the book
17:50Invisible Iceberg When Climate and Weather Shaped History.
17:53Thank you, Dr. Joel Myers, for joining us today.
17:55My pleasure.
18:04Welcome back to Invisible Iceberg.
18:05I'm Bernie Raynaud.
18:07As our planet warms, many scientists are warning of extreme weather events, including the increasing
18:12frequency of heavy precipitation.
18:15A warmer climate intensifies the water cycle as warmer air is able to hold more moisture.
18:21Now, there is already substantial evidence that heavy precipitation events are increasing.
18:27The future is even more concerning as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
18:31is projecting that 10 and 50 year events will be increasing, unfortunately, over time.
18:40This projected increase in intensity of extreme precipitation will also lead to an increase
18:44in the frequency and magnitude of surface water and flash floods.
18:49We are already seeing this unfold in parts of the U.S., especially in the Northeast and
18:54Midwest.
18:55In addition, extreme one-day precipitation events continue to trend higher in the United
19:00States, with the greatest increase across the Northeastern United States.
19:07While the amount of U.S. area annually impacted by one-day extreme precipitation remained
19:12fairly flat during the 20th century, averaging about 8 to 11 percent coverage, there has
19:18been a slow but steady uptick during the 21st century.
19:23The average coverage is now between 12 and 17 percent.
19:27There will continue to be increased vulnerability to the human population from extreme rainfall
19:31events as more and more people are living and building in low-lying areas.
19:37Human development has altered the natural drainage system in many areas as well, increasing
19:42the risk of damaging and sudden flooding from extreme rainfall.
19:46That's our show for today.
19:48For more information and to get your copy of the book Invisible Iceberg, When Climate
19:53and Weather Shaped History by Dr. Joel Myers, go to InvisibleIceberg.com.