[05:03.20]But Napoleon,by a stroke of luck,was able to build two new bridges.Thousands of French soldiers escaped,
[05:12.14]but at the cost of fifty thousand dead.Once across the Berezina,the tattered survivors limped toward Vilna.
[05:20.78]Of the six hundred thousand soldies Napoleon had led into Russia,less than one hundred thousand came back.
[05:28.65]The weakened French army continued its retreat westward across Europe.Soon,Britain,Austria,Russia,and Prussia formed a powerfull alliance
[05:38.91]and attacked these stragglers.In March1814,Paris was captured.Napoleon abdicated and went into exile,his empire at an end.
[05:49.86]Hitler's Invasion
[05:52.42]By early1941,Adolf Hitler,leader of Nazi Germany,had seized control of most of Europe.
[05:54.98]To the east of Hitler's German empire was the Soviet Union.On June22,1941,without a declaration of war,
[06:03.18]Hitler began an invasion of the Soviet Union that was the largest military land campaign in history.Confident of a quick victory,
[06:13.37]Hitler expected the campaign to last nolonger than three months.He planned to use the blitzkrieg,or"lightning war,"
[06:23.87]tactics that had defeated the rest of Europe.The invasion had three broad thrusts:against Leningrad and Moscow and through the Ukraine.
[06:44.90]Caught off guard by the invasion,Soviet leader Joseph Stalin instructed the Russian people to "scorch the earth"
[06:53.91]in front of the German invaders.Farms and factories were burned,destroyed,or rendered useless.During the first ten weeks of the invasion,
[07:01.17]the Germans pushed the front eastward,and the Russians suffered more than a million casualties.
[07:08.41]In the north,the Germans closed in on Leningrad.Despite great suffering,however,the people of Leningrad refused to surrender.
[07:18.31]As the battle of Leningrad dragged on into winter,the city's situation became desperate.As food ran out,
[07:26.90]people died from hunger and disease.By the middle of the winter of1941-1942,
[07:35.47]nearly four thousand people starved to death every day.Close to one million people died as a result of the siege.
[07:45.03]In the center of Russia,Hitler's goal was the capture of Moscow.Because the Germans had anticipated a quick victory,
[07:53.65]they had made no plans for winter srpplies.October arrived with heavy rains.
[08:00.60]"General Mud"slowed down the movement of the Germans' lightning attack.
[08:06.82]As Hitler's armies drew closer and closer to Moscow,
[08:11.49]an early,severe winter settled over the Soviet Union,the harshest in years.
[08:18.68]Temperatures dropped to minus 48degrees Celsius.Heavy snows fell.
[08:25.73]The German soldiers,completely uNPRepared for the Russian winter,froze in their light summer uniforms.
[08:34.25]The German tanks lay buried in the heavy snowbanks.The Russian winter brought the German offensive to a halt.
[08:43.00]By the summer of1942,Hitler had launched two new offensives.In the south,the Germans captured Sevastopol.
[08:52.72]Hitler then pushed east to Stalingrad,a great industrial city that stretched for48kilometers along the Volga River.
[09:02.12]Despite great suffering,Soviet defenders refursed to give up Stalingrad.
[09:08.31]In November1942,the Russians launched a counterattack.With little or no shelter from the winter the winter cold in and around Stalingrad,
[09:18.52]German troops were further weakened by a lack of food and supplies.Not until January1943 did the Germans
[09:28.37]give up their siege.Of the three hundred thousand Germans attacking Stalingrad,only ninety thousand starving soldiers were left.
[09:38.95]The loss of the battle for Stalingrad finally rurned the tide against Hitler.
[09:44.83]The German victories were over,thanks in part to the Russian winter.
[09:50.79]During1943 and 1944,the Soviet armies pushed the German front back toward the west.In the north,
[10:00.24]the Red Army broke the three-year siege of Leningrad with a surprise attack on January15,1944.Within two weeks,
[10:10.95]the heroic survivors of Leningrad saw their invaders depart.By March1944,the Ukraine farming region was again in Soviet hands
[10:22.81]On May9,1944,Sevastopol was liberated from the Germans.The Russians were now heading for Berlin.
[10:32.61]For Hitler,the invasion of the Soviet Union had turned into a military disaster.For the Russian people,
[10:42.25]it brought unspeakable suffering.The total Soviet dead in World WarⅡreached almost 23 million.
[10:52.33]Russia's Icy Defender
[10:54.97]The elements of nature must be reckoned with in any military campaign.Napoleon and Hitler
[11:02.39]both underestimated the severity of the Russian winter.Snow,ice,and freezing temperatures took their toll on both invading armies.
[11:12.00]For the Russian people,the winter was an icy defender.
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