it This was the largest invasion army the world had ever seen. But when he invaded Russia, the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte ,grand army, Was doomed to failure and death, and not just on the battlefield.
NowA French research team has unearthed two new criminals who contributed to the destruction of a 500,000-strong army during the Russian campaign of 1812.
murderer? Two species of bacteria responsible for causing fever.
Its A surprising discovery by a French research paleogenomics group led by scientists from the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France.
typhus etc. Trench fever was first established as the disease that spread through the ranks of Napoleon’s army during the retreat of 1812. Newly exposed infections cause different diseases with similar symptoms.
“Even Today, it would be almost impossible to make a differential diagnosis between [fever] symptoms with different pathogens,” said Nicolas Raskoven, a paleontologist at the Pasteur Institute who led the study.
,It would be impossible for a doctor to tell which pathogen is infecting you.”
First retreat, Then Death
is wanting To force Russian Tsar Alexander I to abide by his trade embargo against Britain, Napoleon led the largest army that Europe had ever seen into Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus before marching on Russia.
In In the summer of 1812, his forces successfully captured Moscow. From there, they fell into a standoff with the Tsar’s men who refused to negotiate.
Burden With the treasury gone, and Napoleon himself having already departed for Paris, the Grande Armée delayed its return until 17 October.
it Then a new threat emerged. Instead of Russian troops, the Grand Army Now Was To fight the triple threat of the advancing Russian winter, dwindling rations, and disease. Barely 30,000 soldiers, about 6% of the original force, are recorded as having survived the withdrawal.
As Along with starvation and cold weather, typhus – a common infection among military camps of that era – was considered one of the deadliest threats to haunt the Grande Armée.,
ThenIn 2002, excavators unearthed the bodies of hundreds of Napoleon’s soldiers in Vilnius, Lithuania. capitalOne of the major stopping points of the army. Analysis of some of these bodies in 2006 found genetic evidence. Rickettsia prowazekiI, the bacteria that causes requisite typhus, and Artonella quintana, Which causes trench fever.
but a New analysis of 13 different bodies from a Vilnius mass grave has revealed new killers.
modern dna tests detects Fatal bacteria In Ancient remains
raskovan’s The team searched for typhus and trench fever, but instead found two distinct diseases.
using the Using modern techniques to analyze ancient DNA, researchers found genetic remains that cause paratyphoid salmonella enterica enterica bacteriaetc Borrelia recurrent, cause of relapsing fever,
The four diseases identified in the remains of Napoleon’s soldiers have similar symptoms associated with fever, such as muscle pain and fatigue. Army doctors in 1812 must have been suffering the same fate. When combined with lack of food, cold conditions, and battle fatigue, these fevers would have made survival almost impossible.
Raskovan It is expected that still more deadly diseases may be discovered among the dead.
,Ancient DNA advances as a field [since 2006]”There has been a lot of expansion,” Raskoven told DW.
,Today, 200 years later, we can diagnose and potentially detect all the different pathogens that exist.”
paleogenomics answer Mystery From past
Paleogenomic Scientists analyze ancient remains for genetic markers. The findings can often be surprising.
First This year, Raskovan’s team discovered that a form of leprosy was already spreading in the Americas. East First European arrival in 1492.
The discipline has also been used to chart the movement of the bubonic plague Outside Central Asia during the Bronze Age. And researchers have tracked the activities of human groups nearby the world as well as how they relate to each other,
Its It was even used to shed light on the ailments that plagued the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven.,
historians There is excitement about the prospects of using DNA analysis to improve understanding of major events in recent centuries.
“No “Not just because it makes our historical knowledge a little more accurate, but it also gives us information about a variety of social situations,” said Erica Charters, a historian of war and disease at the University of Oxford in Britain.
charter, Those who were not involved in Raskovan’s study said that the scale of Napoleon’s conquests would have allowed the disease to spread easily throughout Europe by 1812 – not only because of the movement of his troops, but also because of trade between the French Empire and its neighboring alliances. One of the bacteria discovered by Raskovan’s team was also found to be of English origin. Given that Britain was Napoleon’s primary enemy, and was separated from France by an ocean, this shows how mobile diseases could be in times of major conflict.
“The “The retreat of the French army from Russia is astonishing. They are losing 95% of their army due to deaths and there are very few battles,” Chartres told DW.
disease and war come Together
From From a historical perspective, these types of numbers are somewhat unusual, Charters said. But high rates of illness and death from disease are not at all unusual during war.
broken He said the lack of civilian infrastructure and the loss of food supplies for communities and armies increases disease outbreaks.
,We actually see a lot of epidemics increase when wars break out,” he said. “These are events that tend to spread together.”
He The study points to the spread of syphilis in Europe amid conflicts in the 15th and 16th centuries and the spread of influenza after World War I.
Understanding How diseases spread during war can also provide insight into the risks associated with modern conflicts: sanitation, not just advances in medicine, is an important factor.
,If you look around today and you see where epidemics are occurring, it’s often because there has been conflict that has broken down water supplies, Charters said, “which means sanitation is gone and now that means you have outbreaks.”
edited By: Christy Pladson