When it comes to Russia, the first thing that comes to mind is putin the so-called "iron-fisted president", but in addition to this, Russia is impressive that it has encountered two armed attacks from Western Europe.
The leaders of these two offensives are familiar to us, one is the military genius Napoleon, the other is the Nazi leader Hitler.
Why, then, did both men with outstanding military talents invariably choose to attack Russia? What kind of existence did the historical Russia exist in the eyes of the Western countries?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="6" > barbarian ancestry in the Western European world</h1>
One of the most important points is that in terms of national identity, Russians have not been respected and recognized by Western Europeans.
Those who have a little understanding of the ancient history of the world should know that in the ancient history of Western Europe, ancient Rome and ancient Greece have always been regarded as models of civilization, which is also an important driving force for Western European civilization to reawaken in modern times and eventually break through the shackles of the medieval Catholic Church.
The major countries of Western Europe today were historically subordinate to the ancient Greek and Roman regimes, especially during the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire.
However, at that time, the vast area of Eastern Europe was undeveloped, and the peoples living in Eastern Europe were regarded as barbarians by the Romans.
However, with the decline of the Roman Empire, the surrounding barbarian forces developed rapidly under the influence of Roman civilization, gradually got rid of the primitive state, and they began to change passive to active, and gradually became the mourners of the Roman Empire.
Among the many barbarians at that time, the Slavs can be said to be a very strong branch, they have long lived in Eastern Europe and lived a nomadic life.
However, under the influence of the Roman agrarian civilization, some Slavs also began to cultivate agriculture and entered the stage of new civilization.
Subsequently, the Slavs began to establish their own regimes in Eastern Europe, and gradually formed a number of principalities, of which the Duchy of Moscow, which we are very familiar with, is the Principality of Moscow.
This principality finally fulfilled the task of unification and became an important foundation for the formation of modern Tsarist Russia.
Therefore, in the long history of Russia's development, although it has always claimed to be a European, and the capital moscow is located in Western Europe, western Europeans do not seem to accept the Meaning of Russians.
In addition, another important factor that led to the disapproval of Russia by Western Europeans was the influence of the ancient Mongols.
Before the establishment of the Muscovite Principality, the more powerful Mongols had now conquered it with great cavalry power, thus becoming the sphere of influence of the Mongol Golden Horde.
During the reign of the Golden Horde, the Slavs, although they always wanted to restore freedom and independence, they were helpless to accept the cultural export and economic oppression of the Mongols, and they gradually drifted away from the traditional Western Europeans.
On the other hand, the Western Europeans, although the Mongols' advances had come to the Danube Valley, came and went quickly, and it did not take long for the Mongol cavalry to retreat, which made their impact and impact on western Europeans not great, so the culture and race of Western Europeans continued.
The Russians, who had the blood of the barbarians of ancient Europe and who today maintain a warlike and fierce national style, have always prevented Western Europeans, who have always called themselves civilized and noble, from looking at them squarely.
In particular, the First French Empire in the Napoleonic era did not want such a barbarian state to exist on the map of the European continent, so it began to expedition to Tsarist Russia at all costs, but eventually returned with hatred.
The same was true of Hitler's Germany, and we all know very well that Hillert himself was a fanatical nationalist who boasted of the nobility of the Germans without limits and denigrated other peoples, as evidenced by the massacre of Jews by the German Nazis during World War II.
Naturally, when Hitler pursued an extreme national policy, he would also have cruel ideas about the Russians in the east, and in addition to national and pedigree reasons, Russia's national strength has always been an important reason for the invasion of Western European powers.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="60" > although the territory is large, the national strength is weak</h1>
Historically, although the Russians were fierce and occupied a huge map resource, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia still occupied more than 17 million square kilometers of land, making it the largest country in the world.
However, such a behemoth has not dominated the world in history because it has an unprecedented territorial scope, but its actual national strength is seriously inconsistent with its territorial scope.
We all know that while Napoleon led France in western Europe to conquer the west and build a powerful empire, Russia in the Tsarist era was still bound by backward serfdom and could not move forward.
Although Tsarist Russia under Alexander I changed in national strength, it could only follow the traditional powers of Western Europe to form an anti-French alliance to serve as a "gendarme".
The title of Empire seems to be compatible only with the territory of Tsarist Russia, but it is incompatible with its backward national strength.
Tsarist Russia had always wanted to follow the Anti-French Alliance against France and gain some practical benefits from it, but what they did not expect was that they, who had always wanted to take advantage of small advantages and gain benefits, would actually be personally conquered by the French army led by Napoleon.
In Poland in the same year, Napoleon gathered 500,000 troops and more than 1,300 cannons, and united with the Prussian and Austrian troops to march to the French and Russian fronts.
At this time, Tsarist Russia really seemed vulnerable in the face of the strong Napoleonic army, coupled with Napoleon's unprecedented military command ability, which gave a lot of pressure on the Tsarist side, and even the Tsar and his ruling group saw the despair of the country' subjugation.
Napoleon's side was also confident that Tsarist Russia could only come up with 250,000 troops at this time, so it would be easy to conquer Russia.
It is true that in the ensuing engagements, the Russians were gradually defeated in the face of the well-trained French army, but due to the arrival of winter and the outbreak of diseases within the French army, Napoleon's expedition soon suffered a defeat, and some people said that Tsarist Russia actually won "countless defeats".
Coincidentally, Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union during World War II was also due to its weak national strength.
The Tsarist regime, as early as World War I and during the Tsarist era, was called "the weakest link in the chain of imperialism."
At this time, although the Soviet Union had already built a socialist country and could have the advantage of concentrating its forces on big things, after all, the economic foundation was there, and compared with Germany's mechanized troops and industrialization achievements, the Soviet Union, a behemoth, was really able to come up with some shabbiness.
Therefore, Hitler saw the weakness of the Soviet Union's military strength and wanted to carry out a surprise attack to crush the Soviet Union in one fell swoop and turn the tide of the War in Europe in an instant.
The Soviet Union quickly paid a huge price in the war with the German army, according to statistics in the Soviet-German battlefield Soviet military and civilian casualties as high as 26 million, some people say that the Soviet Union disappeared for a generation.
However, even when Hitler was confident that he could take the Soviet Union in one fell swoop, he still failed to bypass Napoleon's "hurdle", and the cold weather of the Soviet Union became a deadly weapon.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="61" > will be done</h1>
Since ancient times, famous generals have often been gradually accumulated after the feats of fierce wars.
Although Napoleon and Hitler were characters of different eras, they had a high degree of similarity in personality.
The situation in Europe during the First French Empire was turbulent, and it was in the midst of a fierce confrontation between the old and the new forces, which is the so-called "hero of the times".
Although Napoleon was not outstanding, he had extraordinary military talent, and under his leadership, the French army repelled many attacks of the anti-French alliance, and to a certain extent, maintained the independence and freedom of France.
But Napoleon's own ambitions and ambitions were far more than that, he wanted to lead France out of western Europe, wanted to dominate Europe, and thus the original ambition became ambition.
Hitler, as the leader of the Nazis, preached extreme national policies and vainly wanted to put the Germans above the rule of Western Europe and even Europe as a whole, and Hitler was even more mad than Napoleon's ambitions.
So the two people, driven by fame and ambition, gradually aimed at a common goal, that is, Russia.
Because in the context of their respective eras, Napoleon's French army and Hitler's German army had basically claimed hegemony in Western Europe, so if they wanted to complete the ambition to unify Europe, they would inevitably conquer the Russians in Eastern Europe.
Therefore, the expedition to Russia at all costs is the full manifestation of the duo's ambitions, although in the end they are covered in gray and blood.
In the campaign of the expedition to Russia, the French army led by Napoleon and the German army led by Hitler suffered countless casualties, and the confidence of the two commanders had to fall in defeat and then to perish.
From the historical Grand Duchy of Moscow to the modern Tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union and Russia, this behemoth standing on the land of Eastern Europe, although it has encountered many strong attacks by foreign forces, has always been able to laugh to the end, and has almost become the burial place of the two major military commanders Napoleon and Hitler.
It has to be said that the tenacity and indomitability in the bones of the Russians is admirable, miracles cannot always happen, but miracles always happen when they should, and in the final analysis, Napoleon and Hitler underestimated the strength of the Russians.