Napoleonic mass grave recap

Not a new story, but this article from the Sunday Times does have some additional details about the excavation results that I hadn't seen before:

The excavation of the biggest mass grave of Napoleonic soldiers ever found has shed new light on one of the worst military disasters in history.

Thousands of bones have been uncovered during the construction of a block of flats in Lithuania, revealing the final agonies of the soldiers who invaded Russia with Napoleon in 1812. Most froze to death before they could be cut down by the tsar’s Cossacks.

Archeologists believe that as many as 40,000 troops from the Grande Armée could lie in the pits in Vilnius, now the capital of Lithuania. The bones show there were a surprising number of women in the ranks and that 80% of the soldiers suffered from venereal diseases.

“There is inflammation in some skulls showing signs of advanced syphilis,” said Rimantas Jankauskas, associate professor of anatomy at Vilnius University. “This makes it all the more surprising that they were able to march 700 miles in the extreme cold”. . .

The excavation is to be described in documentaries by the Discovery Channel and the BBC. Both channels helped to fund the dig. The BBC film will be shown next month. Builders who discovered the grave at the end of 2001 first thought that it contained victims of the Nazis or the communists. But pieces of uniform and buttons showed that the catastrophe was much earlier.

When the starving soldiers entered Vilnius, a supply centre for the invasion, they found undreamt-of luxuries. They gorged on hams, omelettes and brandy and many died from digestive shock while others swelled to death after warming themselves too quickly. Thousands froze in the streets, where the temperature fell to -35C, after they collapsed drunk or because the terrified inhabitants kept their doors locked.

Posted by David on January 26, 2003 2:53 PM