and the battle is called berezina. it took place in 1812 during napoleon's invasion of russia, and as most people know, that invasion went catastrophically bad for napoleon. he invades russia in june of 1812, and by november he's essentially forced to retreat. and as he's retreating from russia, three russian armies try to surround and corner him. and they choose the place on the river berezina which now is in bella russia where they want to corner that napoleon and destro. and so the book is the first full-scale account, full-length account in english of what happened on this, on the banks of the river back in november of 1812. if we look on the global scale, what we see is that the struggle between britain and france enters its tenth year. the war broke -- they signed a peace treaty in 1802, and then the peace treaty essentially collapsed the following year. the war resumed in 1805, and you have the gradual intensification of this war. the 1812 is interesting because that year united states effectively entered the fr

and so i was always fascinated by this idea, by how smart napoleon was at berezina. so i decided to look closer at the events on the river, and i look at the russian archival documents. and when i realized is that the story is actually wrong. that the main reason why napoleon was said was actually russians mismanaging the whole operation. the rivalry between russian generals, the misinformation thathat in many respects fed eah other played a much greater role than napoleons personal role. in fact, napoleon had placed -- played at the least role in the battles, and in his generals, and his marshals. their stories are often sidetracked or not discussed. and the other thing, the story of human tragedy. tragedy on the large-scale. just imagine, since i'm standing with my back against the lake, but imagine of the french army cornered with the river on one hand, to russian armies attacking someone's eye, and another russian army being across the river. so they have to escape. it is wintertime. so the one where they can escape is by crossing the river. but it's cold. they h