: The "General Winter" and the sheer scale of the Russian Eurasian colossus create a "cemetery of armies" for those who enter.
: Barbero notes the irony that while Italy invaded Russia three times, Russian troops have only entered Italian soil once (in 1799 to fight the French), and they left voluntarily shortly after. Mai INVADERE la RUSSIA - Alessandro Barbero [Co...
: Small Italian contingents participated in the Allied intervention against the Bolsheviks. : The "General Winter" and the sheer scale
: Napoleon saw himself as the successor to the Holy Roman Emperors and aimed to make Paris the "Fourth Rome". : Napoleon saw himself as the successor to
: The Zar viewed Moscow as the "Third Rome" (following Rome and Constantinople), believing that no fourth would ever exist.
: Mussolini sent the ARMIR (Italian Army in Russia), where approximately 100,000 soldiers perished on the Don front. Key Takeaways from Barbero
In Barbero’s telling, these two ideological forces were destined to collide, regardless of the individual will of their leaders. Drawing on Tolstoy’s War and Peace , Barbero suggests that even a figure as powerful as Napoleon was often "dragged by forces greater than himself". The Italian Perspective