【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 en thousand dead on each side. Yet, the Russians were again able to retreat farther into Russian territory. Napoleon had won no decisive victory. He was now faced with a crucial decision. Should he continue to pursue the Russian army? Or should he keep his army in Smolensk for the approaching winter? Unit 1: Fighting with the Forces of Nature previous next index break over Chinese 6 Napoleon took the gamble of pressing on to Moscow, 448 kilometers away. On September 7, 1812, the French and Russian armies met in fierce battle at Borodiano, 112 kilometers west of Moscow. By night fall, thirty thousand French and fortyfour thousand Russians lay dead or wounded on the battlefield. NCEB4 Unit 1: Fighting with the Forces of Nature previous next index break over Chinese 7 Again, the Russian army retreated to safety. Napoleon had a clear path to Moscow, but the occupation of the city became an empty victory. The Russians fled their capital. Soon after the French arrived, a raging fire destroyed twothirds of the city. Napoleon offered a truce to Alexander I, but the Russian czar knew he could bide his time: “ We shall let the Russian winter fight the war for us.” NCEB4 Unit 1: Fighting with the Forces of Nature previous next index break over Chinese 8 Napoleon soon realized he could not feed, clothe, and quarter his army Moscow during the winter. In October 1812, he ordered his Grand Army to retreat from Moscow. 9 The French retreat turned into a nightmare. From fields and forests, the Russians launched hitandrun attacks on the French. A short distance from Moscow, the temperature had already dropped to minus 4 degrees Celsius. NCEB4 Unit 1: Fighting with the Forces of Nature previous next index break over Chinese On November 3, the winter’ s first snow came. Exhausted horses fell dead in their tracks. Cannon became stuck in the snow. Equipment had to be burned for fuel. Soldiers took ill and froze to death. The French soldiers dragged on, leaving the dead along every mile. 10 As the Russian army was gathering its strength, the French had to flee Russia to avoid certain defeat. NCEB4 Unit 1: Fighting with the Forces of Nature previous next index break over Chinese At the Berezina River, the Russians nearly trapped the retreating French by burning the bridges over the swollen river. But Napoleon, by a stroke of luck, was able to build two new bridges. Thousands of French soldiers escaped, but at the cost of fifty thousand dead. Once across the Berezina, the tattered survivors limped toward Vilna. NCEB4 Unit 1: Fighting with the Forces of Nature previous next index break over Chinese 11 Of the six hundred thousand soldiers Napoleon had led into Russia, less than one hundred thousand came back, the weakened French army continued its retreat westward across Europe. Soon, Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia formed a powerful alliance and attacked these stragglers, in march 1814, Paris was captured. Napoleon abdicated and went into exile, his empire at an end. NCEB4 Unit 1: Fighting with the Forces of Nature previous next index break over Chinese NCEB4 Hitler’ s Invasion 12 By early 1941, Adolf Hitler, leader of Nazi Germany, had seized control of most of Europe. To the east of Hitler’ s German empire was the Soviet Union. On June 22,1941, without a declaration of war, Hitler began an invasion of the Soviet Union that was the largest military land campaign in history. Confident of a quick victory, Hitler expected the campaign to last no longer than three months. Unit 1: Fighting with the Forces of Nature previous next index break over Chinese He planned to use the blitzkrieg, or “ lightning war,” tactics that had defeated the rest of Europe. The invasion had three broad thrusts: against Leningrad and Moscow and through the Ukraine. 13 Caught off guard by the invasion, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin instructed the Russian people to “ scorch the earth” in front of the German invaders. Farms and factories were burned, destroyed, or rendered useless. During the first weeks of the invasion, the Germans pushed the front eastward, and the Russians suffered more than a million casualties. NCEB4 Unit 1: Fighting with the Forces of Nature previous next index break over Chinese 14 In the north, the Germans closed in on Leningrad. Despite great suffering, however, the people of Leningrad refused to surrender. As the battle of Leningrad dragged on into winter, the city’s situation became desperate. As food ran out, people died from hunger and disease. By the middle of the winter of 19411942, nearly four thousand people starved to death every day. Close to one million people died as a result of the siege. NCEB4 Unit 1: Fighting with the Forces of Nature previous next index break over Chinese 15 In the center of Russia, Hitler’ s goal was the capture of Moscow. Because the Germans had anticipated a quick victory, they had made no plans for winter supplies. October arrived with heavy rains. “ General Mud” slowed down the movement of the Germans’ lightning attack. 16 As Hitler’ s armies drew closer and closer to Moscow, an early, severe winter settled over the Soviet Union, the harshest in years. NCEB4 Unit 1: Fighting with the Forces of Nature previous next index break over Chinese NCEB4 Temperatures dropped to minus 48 degrees Celsius. Heavy snows fell. The German soldiers, pletely unprepared for the Russian winter, froze in their light summer uniforms. The German tanks lay buried in the heavy snowbanks. The Russian winter brought the German offensive to a halt. 17 By the summer of 1942, Hitler had launched two new offensives. In the south, the G