Did A Brain Injury Save Russia From Napoleon?

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Many Russians consider Mikhail Kutuzov a national hero and a savior of his country for brilliantly repelling Napoleon's 1812 invasion.

But it could all have turned out differently, if it hadn't been for a certain French doctor.

That, at least, is what researchers at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona have concluded.

After an investigation lasting more than two years, the American scientists credited a French surgeon in the Russian army, Jean Massot, with changing the course of history.

http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-kutuzov-napoleon-brain-injury/27164371.html

[djean111]

1. Looks like a combination of this and the Russian winter saved Russia from Napoleon - but I have

wondered - if Napoleon had won, would Russia have been spared from Stalin?

It was such a misstep to not take the Russian winter into consideration. Or, as Eddie Izzard put it "bad idea bad idea bad idea".

[bemildred]

2. It's a speculative argument, to be sure.

And not without self-interest for the people who thought it up, but interesting in that sense, I thought.

Napoleon, like all megalomaniacs, was a habitual over-reacher, he could not even hold Spain in the end, or Egypt. There is no way he was going to hold Russia. However, he might have destroyed the Russian government of that time, and the result from that could have been wildly different from what happened. There were a lot of radical ideas in the wind back then in Russia, in Europe, and Russia has always had its restive minorities.

[djean111]

3. Thank you for the OP, and your input!

Have you read A Distant Mirror, by Barbara Tuchman? I see echoes of that in today's world.

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4. I can see my old copy from the 60s, from where I sit.

Yes, I think of it regularly. She had an acute mind, Ms. Tuchman.

Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip. Barbara Tuchman “Guns of August”

If that does not describe our Middle Eastern fiasco, I don't know what does.

But it is far from fresh in my mind now, refresh me, tell me what you think about it?

[djean111]

5. It is not REALLY fresh in my mind, not all of it but I am thinking of the way

the rich treated the peasants - taking more and more of their labor, raiding noblemen cutting off the
arms of the peasants instead of killing them, in order to impoverish their owner. Seems like denying abortions and birth control and a way to earn a fair living accomplish some of the same.
AIDS, and the Black Plague.
Now I want to re-read it; I lent it to my sister a while back.
The more things change, the mre they stay the same.

[bemildred]

6. Yes, that's it.

As the system ceases to work and resources become scarce, and expensive, the better off parts of society start fighting over maintaining their privileges, and start parasitizing the underclasses to an unsustainable extent, resulting in further disfunction and decay. It's a feedback loop which leads to the collapse of social order. This is happening now. Most of our ruling elites seem to be focused on staying on top as things collapse, "fighting over maintaining their privileges", as I said. Meanwhile various rabble-rousers and provocateurs take advantage of the situation and rise to the top.

Consider our MIC. Consider Trump.

That is what happened to Rome, too, pretty much.

Yeah, I've been thinking I have to read it again, too. But I am way behind as it is ...

[MisterP]

7. don't forget gallstones!

[bemildred]

8. Heh.

All that high living will get you in the end.

[MisterP]

9. Napoleon missed a big battle with a level of pain a lot of women *prefer childbirthing to*

though rich foods cause *gout* rather than stones (which are usually from bilirubin if genetic, or cholesterol if you're *losing* a lot of weight): you just can't win with your body *sobs*

[packman]

10. I suffer from gout

and I have had various operations, bruises, and broken bones over the decades. Gout is a bitch. Days of acute, needle like pain making sleep impossible. You literally have to knock yourself out until it passes.

[KoKo]

11. Bookmarking...looks like a definite Good Read!

So much behind the scenes is often missed. We don't have enough historical emphasis anymore that gets a Forum to discuss those "background issues" that often are more important than the Grand Official PooBah's stories of how things went...in THEIR MINDS.

Anyway...don't want to get carried away.

Recommend...looks interesting.

[appalachiablue]

12. K & R. Interesting. Years ago I saw artifacts of Napoleon at the Met Museum,

in a cool exhibit- his cape, hat, campaign tent etc. Also visited what was left of Josephine's family home in Martinique.

[bemildred]

13. Lucky you. I'd like to see the volcano.

You might find this interesting:

The Traveller's Tree: A Journey Through the Caribbean Islands

In the late 1940s Patrick Leigh Fermor, now widely regarded as one of the twentieth century’s greatest travel writers, set out to explore the then relatively little-visited islands of the Caribbean. Rather than a comprehensive political or historical study of the region, The Traveller’s Tree, Leigh Fermor’s first book, gives us his own vivid, idiosyncratic impressions of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Dominica, Barbados, Trinidad, and Haiti, among other islands. Here we watch Leigh Fermor walk the dusty roads of the countryside and the broad avenues of former colonial capitals, equally at home among the peasant and the elite, the laborer and the artist. He listens to steel drum bands, delights in the Congo dancing that closes out Havana’s Carnival, and observes vodou and Rastafarian rites, all with the generous curiosity and easy erudition that readers will recognize from his subsequent classic accounts A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water.

http://www.amazon.com/Travellers-Tree-Journey-Caribbean-Classics/dp/1590173805/ref=la_B000APTHY0_1_9/185-0282311-3222911?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438708906&sr=1-9

[appalachiablue]

14. Thank you for the book info., it looks terrific, how cool. We went to Martinque for the day

from St. Lucia which is beautiful with rainforests, waterfalls and the 2 mountains, 'Les Pitons'. That day on Martinique there was a transport strike but we found a driver and saw some sights. He drove us around the small town, 'St. Pierre'- the Paris of the Carib. that Mt. Pelee's volcano hit in 1902. I just read on wiki that the 30,000 people lost were devastated in in 2 mins. !? We didn't have time to go into the mt/volcano area.

Jamaica is also wonderful, Barbados too. We traveled a good bit in the 80s, 90s, not much anymore but we are very grateful for the opportunities we had. With family in So. FL it was fairly easy and affordable then. I first travelled to Seattle in 1979, and on later trips I saw Mount St. Helen's from the distance.