Weather That Changed the World

Russia's Secret Weapon (1x5)

: 30, 2013

We explore the role Russian winter played in destroying Napoleon Bonaparte’s “Grand Army” in 1812, the legacy of which ultimately cost him his empire. Forensic anthropologist, Dr Rimantas Jankauskas explains how he determined over 3000 skeletons unearthed in Lithuania in 2002 belonged to Napoleons men and has been killed by winter cold. We follow the story of these bones back to 1812, and the disastrous weather conditions Napoleons men experienced. Dramatic reconstruction and archive images bring to life the soldiers struggle for survival against the winter weather. Napoleonic historian, Ben Townsend experiences the same freezing conditions as Napoleon’s men in a climate chamber set at 30 degrees below freezing and meteorologist Tomasz Schafernaker demonstrates why wind chill was particularly hazardous. In the final act we discover how history went on to repeat itself 140 years later, when Hitler led his army into the jaws of Russian winter.