Liquid Courage

Drink: Tsar “Brandy” Alexander

Ratings:
Strength: 2/5 (musket)
Skill: 3/5 (grenadiers)
Rank: 4/5 (knight of the realm)

[Ingredients:]

• cognac
• creme de cacao
• half and half
• cinnamon
• nutmeg
• apple strudel

[Preparation:]

1. Mix one part cognac, one part brown creme de cacao, and one part half and half in a chilled cocktail shaker.
2. Mix and pour into a martini glass.
3. Sprinkle the top with cinnamon and nutmeg.
4. Serve drink with a warm slice of apple strudel.

Background

Today Napoleon is well known for his signature brands of olive oil and smoked oysters, and his cameo in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Napoleon made his name, however, for being one of history’s greatest tactical minds. Rising through the chaos of the post-Revolutionary French army from lowly artillery officer, to General, to Consul, and eventually Emperor, Napoleon sought to make all of Europe as free as his native France. The most expedient route to this goal involved gunpowder and bayonets, and Napoleon had some good ideas on how best to use them.

We can have a horse-rearing-back competition, or I can repeatedly invade your homeland. Your choice, frère.

In all of Europe, Austria and Russia had the most to lose from the exportation of newfangled French idees of liberte, egalite et fraternite. Their sprawling, multiethnic empires were based on feudal and religious power, not Frenchified notions of Kumbaya-singing brotherhood. Styling themselves the defenders of the Ancien Regieme, Emperors Francis II of Austria and Alexander I of Russia set out to defeat Napoleon and restore the balance of power in Europe. In 1805, the two nations formed what was one of several coalitions which hoped to gang up on the diminutive General and put him in his place.

‘Twas not so easy. On October 20, 1805, Napoleon forced the surrender of 23,000 Austrian troops at Ulm in Bavaria. That brought Old Bony’s collection of captured Austrian troops to 60,000 in that year’s campaign, putting Napoleon over the legal catch limit for that season and triggering a large fine from the Fish and Game Commission. The remaining Austrian forces, led by Emperor Francis II, regrouped and joined Alexander I’s advancing Russian army. Together they met Napoleon on December 2nd at a small village called Austerlitz (which means “Austerlitz” in Czech), about 100 miles southeast of Vienna.

Somethin' don't smell right, Tsar.

The Austrians took the field sporting crisp white uniforms and an under-qualified aristocratic officer corps. Napoleon arrayed his roughly 70,000 motivated, meritocratic, and self-sufficient troops between a frozen lake and a roadbed. Napoleon correctly surmised that the Austro-Russian force of 85,000 would attempt to outflank him along the roadbed. Anticipated this, Napoleon weakened this flank and strengthened his center. In a fit of haughty confidence befitting a second-rate Hollywood movie, young Tsar Alexander attempted this flanking maneuver against the advice of his one-eyed, hard drinking field commander, Kutuzov.

Always trust one-eyed, hard-drinking field commanders.

According to legend, when Napoleon saw the Allies leaving the high ground in the center, he knew the battle was won and exclaimed, “One sharp blow and the war’s over.” Napoleon pushed the bulk of his force through the weakened Austro-Russian center. In one of the most dramatic moments in military history, French infantry marched uphill through fog to attack the Russian center. The battle turned, and after several more hours of hard fighting, the French forces routed the Allied troops from the field. Some accounts of the aftermath tell of Russian soldiers, too young to heed G.I. Joe’s warning that “knowing is half the battle,” fleeing across frozen lakes and drowning by the hundreds in the freezing water. The day saw French casualties of roughly 8,500 compared to nearly 30,000 Austrian and Russians killed or wounded (triggering another gaming commission fine and the one-year suspension of Napoleon’s hunting license).

And for gosh shakes, if you ARE routed by Napoleon's troops, remember...oh, forget it.

Austerlitz was Napoleon’s masterpiece, his source of greatest pride, and a battle Tolstoy immortalized in War and Peace. The victory ended the War of the Third Coalition and secured Napoleon’s dominance in Italy and Germany. Because of the presence of Napoleon, Alexander I, and Francis II, Austerlitz is also known as “The Battle of the Three Emperors.”

Drink: The Maginot Line

Ratings:
Strength: 1/5 (sling)
Skill: 3/5 (grenadier)
Rank: 1/5 (drummer boy)

[Ingredients:]

• water
• Jagermeister
• double-tracked ice luge

[Preparation:]

1. Place ice luge in a position of prominence at a large party.
2. Place mouth at end of one of the tracks.
3. Pour shot of Jagermeister down the other track of the ice luge.
4. Repeat until embarrassment, wasted Jager, or an American stops you.

Background

For nearly 800 years, from roughly 1066 until 1870, the French were the dominant military power in Europe. Then Otto Von Bismark united the German principalities into the Second Reich in 1871, and France’s winning streak came to an end. France lost to the newly-united Germans in 1871, then saw most of World War I fought on its territory. To a nation with a proud military tradition, these embarrassments were unconscionable. France tried to sap Germany’s military and industrial power through the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, and sought ways of ensuring its safety from any future German military hostility.

The French Committee On Defensive Fortifications unwinds after a hard day

The French High Command’s master plan was the Maginot Line, a whopper of a fortified defense system (so named after one of its strongest advocates, Andre Maginot, the French Minister of War and a WWI veteran). Costing approximately 3 billion francs, the Line was an interconnected series of defensive fortifications stretching across the Franco-German border. It had many purposes: provide warning of a surprise German attack, delay the Germans until the French military could fully mobilize, and allow a French populace decimated by millions of deaths in WWI to effectively fight a more numerous German army.

They even had unicorn traps for those mighty German unicorn cavalry.

The Maginot Line was built between 1930 and 1939, and had counters for everything the French military could imagine Germany might use. Unfortunately for France, they forgot about tanks and airplanes. More specifically, they failed to realize just how fast tanks and airplanes had become since 1919. In May 1940, Germany attacked through the Low Countries of Belgium and the Netherlands. German tanks and aircraft overwhelmed the defenses there, and as the whole world watched, skirted around the mighty French fortifications. By June the Germans were on the other side of the Line, never having truly engaged its defenses.

The Maginot Line was built to fight Germans attacking from Germany. It was not capable of fighting Germans attacking from France. Within 2 months, France signed an armistice with the Germans and the Maginot Line never figured significantly in the fighting of World War II. “Maginot Line” has since become synonymous with horrifically expensive projects of great responsibility and comically little use.

Drink: Molotov’s Cocktail

Ratings:
Strength: 5/5 (atomic bomb)
Skill: 3/5 (grenadiers)
Rank: 2/5 (lance corporal)

[Ingredients:]

• one glass coke bottle
• Finnish or Russian vodka
• celery stalk
• sugar (optional)

[Preparation:]

1. Fill bottle with vodka.  Add sugar if desired for better sticking to tank iron.
2. Insert celery stalk into bottle and let sit until celery is saturated with vodka.
3. Eat celery and give bottle to party “tank” to drink.

Background

Three months after Germany began World War II by invading Poland, the Soviet Union invaded Finland. Beginning on November 30, 1939, the Soviet Union’s initial invasion force of 630,000 troops and thousands of tanks rumbled across Finland, crushing the meager defenses and capturing Helsinki within two weeks.

Right? After all, the Soviet Union brought more than a million men, over 6,500 tanks, and more than 3,800 aircraft to bear against a Finnish army of only 250,00 men, 30 tanks, and 130 aircraft. Sure, it was one of the worst winters in the 20th century. But the Soviets were bolstered by the ideological contact high that was the Bolshevik Revolution. Surely it was a walk in a frozen park.

Um, no. Unfortunately for Stalin, but fortunately for fans of the underdog worldwide, the Finns ran circles (or, more accurately skied circles) around the darkly-clad-against-the-snow Soviet troops. The Russian Army was completely unprepared for fighting in the brutal cold and dense forests of Eastern Finland. The Finns, by contrast, were masters of their landscape, spirited in defending their homeland, and really damn hard to spot against the snow.

A colum of Soviet tanks, post-cocktail party

An examination of Finnish and Soviet tactics suggests proper strategies to employ in snowy forests with temperatures as low as negative-40 degrees Fahrenheit:

Finnish Tactics:

• Wear white.
• Travel by skis.
• Fight in the forests you grew up in.
• Use mobile units and double-envelopment techniques to divide up enemy columns for easier picking.
• Attack field kitchens, destroying enemy food and fuel supplies.

Soviet Tactics:

• Wear dark colors.
• Drive vulnerable tanks and trucks along forest roads with no escape routes.
• Use troops not experienced in cold or forests.
• Establish a military tradition of killing soldiers who retreat.
• Remove all your experienced officers in pre-war political purges.

A platoon of Finnish ski patrol soldiers

Of course, the Finnish military had ethanol, storm matches, skis and white snow pants at their disposal, so perhaps it was never a fair fight. At the outset of their illegal invasion, the Soviet propaganda machine asserted that they were dropping food, not bombs, on the Finns. The Finnish people, finding the shells filling but not nourishing, called the bombs “Molotov Bread Baskets” after Soviet diplomat and cheerleader Vyacheslav Molotov. To combat Soviet tanks, the Finns adapted a crude incendiary devise from the Spanish Civil War and called them “Molotov Cocktails”, or “a drink to go with the food.” The Finnish alcohol distributor Alko mass produced them for Soviet consumption: an ethanol, tar and gasoline mixture in a glass bottle, with two storm matches stuck to the side. Simply light matches and throw. The burning mixture stuck to vehicles, and the name stuck to the devise (the Soviet-coined name, “Improvised Proletariat Incendiary Device for the Unjust Opposition of Inevitable Glorious Bolshevik Soviet People’s Progress Device,” never really caught on).

The Finns held off the massive Red Army for five months despite being completely outnumbered and outgunned. They did so with some spectacularly one-sided snowy showdowns. In the Battle of Raate Road in January 1940, 3,600 Finnish troops decimated 25,000 Soviet soldiers. The Finns captured 43 tanks (more than Finland’s entire supply of tanks at the start of fighting), 71 heavy guns, 260 trucks, 6,000 rifles, and more horses, rifles, armored cars, ammunition, medical equipment, and volleyball nets than they knew what to do with. The Soviet commander who survived the battle was executed upon returning to Soviet lines. The Finns played a riotous game of sardines, with the stockpile of Soviet booty as home base.

Tactical comparisons of the two sides reveal just how far knowing-what-you’re-doing can take you. Finnish snipers would set up dummies to draw out Soviet snipers. Once the Soviet sniper had been located by shooting at the dummy (”Hey Yuri, watch me shoot this idiot Finn sticking his head out”), they would kill the sniper with a large anti-tank gun (”boom”).

Pystykorva rifle, $120 by Finnish manufacturing; winter coat, $400 by Patagonia

Perhaps the biggest Finnish advantage was a 5′ 3″ wrecking crew named Simo Hayha. Given the nickname “White Death” by the Soviets(!!!), the sniper killed somewhere between 505 and 800 Soviet soldiers in less than 100 days. Shot in the head on March 6, 1940, he picked up his gun and killed his attacker. Surviving his wound, Hayha was promoted straight from corporal to second lieutenant after the war, and from there to Finland National Bad-Ass, First Class.

The fighting was a terrible embarrassment for the Soviets. Their losses have been estimated at nearly 2,260 tanks and 400,000 men killed, wounded or captured. Finnish loses were 26,000 dead and 43,000 wounded. Eventually the Finnish forces’ supplies of ammunition, spunk, and snow forts began to run low, and a peace treaty was signed on March 12, 1940. The terms were harsh (the Soviets were pissed), but the Finns’ successes had made the Red Army appear weak, and may have contributed to Hitler’s decision to invade the Soviet Union the following year.