Scientists recently discovered deadly bacteria in DNA from Napoleon's soldiers' teeth, revealing new causes of death during the catastrophic 1812 Russian retreat.

In June 1812, Napoleon I led a massive force of 500,000 to 600,000 troops into Russia. After reaching Moscow without defeating the Russian army, his soldiers faced a burnt, abandoned city with ...

Painting dating from 1851 entitled “Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow” by Adolph Northen, depicting the conditions of the retreat of Napoleon's army. (CREDIT: Current Biology) When Napoleon’s once ...

When Napoleon Bonaparte led his Grand Army into Russia in 1812, he commanded the largest military force Europe had ever seen — an estimated 600,000 men. By the time his battered troops stumbled out of ...

A 2006 study involving DNA from 35 other soldiers from the same cemetery detected the pathogens behind typhus and trench ...

Napoleon’s withdrawal from Russia in 1812 was one of history’s most disastrous retreats. New research bolsters the theory that diseases made the calamitous situation even worse. Researchers in France ...

THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA (312 pp.)—Harold Nicolson—Harcourt, Brace ($4). The retreat from Moscow was over; in a room at Fontainebleau, the defeated Emperor Napoleon meditated suicide. “Preceded by the ...

NAPOLEON’S RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN (306 pp.)—Philippe-Paul de Ségur—Hough-ion Mifflin ($5). Count de Ségur’s famed diary of Napoleon’s Russian campaign is not just another book about Bonaparte; it is the ...