May 7, 2026 • 34 mins
Whole units lost to the river. Starving on the retreat out of Russia. Marshall Ney. Fighting the subversion at home.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is a Jesse Kelly Show, The Jesse Kelly Show,
another hour of the Jesse Kelly Show on a magnificent Thursday.
And now we finished things up, shall we? In case,
I guess there's a chance you're just now joining us
(00:32):
for the very first time this week. In the second
hour of every show so far this week, I have
been doing just a little history series on Napoleon's invasion,
disastrous invasion and retreat from Russia. If you're just jumping
in now, that's fine. I'll give a thirty second recap
(00:52):
in a second. But you've already missed three days of this.
The good news is the podcast of the show is
completely free. You don't have to I don't even think
you have to do anything. You just press download on
your phone. It'll download right there. You can go listen
to it iHeart Spotify iTunes hour two of the show
(01:13):
all week long. Then you'll get all the background to
what we're about to jump off with right now as
we wrap up this horrible, horrible little tale. I guess
it's horrible from the French perspective. From the Russians, Wow,
it was horrible from there too. Anyway, to recap thirty seconds,
Napoleon raises the biggest army of the world has ever seen,
(01:35):
at least in his mind it probably was. He sends
them into Russia after Alexander and the Russian army. The
Russians they do a we'll call it a fighting retreat,
letting the French come into Russian and into Russia. The
Russians are burning everything down, denying the French water, denying
the French food, denying the French shelter. Napoleon gets clear
(01:57):
to Moscow. The Russians basically just let him have it,
but they leave behind a bunch of arsonists and criminals
who set Moscow on fire while Napoleon and his troops
are there, and now the snow is starting to fall.
Napoleon can't wait in Moscow anymore. His troops do not
(02:17):
have winter clothes, and it's a long way back home,
and so they have to turn around and they have
to take off. There is a quote from Alexander. Remember
the Russians are the head of all of Russia. As
Napoleon is leaving Russia, leaving Moscow, I should say, his
(02:39):
troops starving, depleted, sick, freezing, Remember I told you yesterday
the Russian troops when they pulled out of Moscow. They
didn't just pull out and go sun themselves on a
beach somewhere that'd be tough to find in Russia. Anyway,
they pulled out of Russia, or they pulled out of
Moscow and they started training and preparing and bringing in
(03:01):
fresh troops. And Alexander says, at this time, as Napoleon
is fleeing, quote, now is the moment my campaign begins
pretty dominous. I mentioned the French they did not want
to retreat along the exact same line they'd come into
(03:22):
Russia on, for the simple fact they had already pillaged
everything along that line. There's no food left, there's no
water left, there's nothing else to take, there's nothing to
sustain us. We have to find a different route back home.
They had It's a town. I won't go into the
details of the whole story. So they marched towards this town,
(03:44):
which will allow them to take a different route back home.
But this rested and refitted Russian army gets there first.
They are waiting for them at this town. They fight,
they fight hard, and have to back away. The Russians
threw up the roadblock. Now the French are forced to
(04:07):
retreat along the exact same line. Now pause, So we
discuss this again, a continuing theme and always will be
in war men especially, I'm definitely this way. I don't
want to think about politics. I don't want to think
(04:28):
about votes in popularity and these things. In fact, when
people even bring them up, I'm just this is personal
about me. When people even bring those things up when
it comes to war, I get completely annoyed. Oh gosh,
here we go. Oh okay, public opinion. Oh I have
to worry about this. I have to worry about that.
(04:48):
Why do I have to worry about that. I'm out
here fighting and dying. Just let me go. But annoyed
as you or I may be, there is a political
side to every war, and always has been. Yes, Napoleon
is by a country mile, the most powerful man on
planet Earth at this time, a brilliant commander, a man
(05:10):
in charge of very large armies. He's won battle after
battle after battle after battle. That I need to remind
you of something we discussed earlier this week. Back home,
and when I say back home, remember Napoleon has conquered
so much of continental Europe at this time, France, Italy,
All these places. Back home, things are not good. To
(05:35):
put it mildly, Napoleon is not only gone. Napoleon on
his way out the door, and then every day since
then has had to legally pillage his own countryside to
get as much material and food and medical supplies and horses.
(05:56):
He's yanking as much stuff as he possibly can out
of Europe and pushing it as far and fast to
his army as he possibly can. And remember, I told
you all the way back at the beginning, the armies
that were marching towards the Russian border, in the very beginning,
they were already raping and pillaging and getting in trouble
(06:18):
and deserting. Now, how bad is that the situation back
home has not improved at all? And the natives are restless.
And one thing king's presidents and everyone else in between
have had to juggle with over and over and over
again throughout history is if the people are going hungry,
(06:41):
if they are not paying the bills, if you will,
if they're not making ends meet, if their bellies are
not full, you are going to have rebellion of some
kind on your hands. You are sure enough there's a
coup attempt back home. It's called the Malay Coup M
A L e. T. If you want to look it up.
(07:01):
I'm not going to go into it. What's he do?
What's what's the whole idea behind this whole thing. Well,
we live in the information age, so it can be
hard for us to relate. But word travel slow when
you think about it, at this point in time, word
travels at the speed of a horse. At the speed
(07:27):
of a horse. And yes, of course, during this entire
the speed of a horse. Yes, of course that rhyme quit.
Of course, Napoleon is constantly in his generals and everyone else.
They're constantly sending people back and forth back home to
France with orders, with requests, with this, and so there's
always horses coming and going from the Russian front back home.
(07:52):
But think about what we discussed. Remember, I'll come back
to it again. Remember there were troops that had to
march twelve one hundred miles before they got to the
border of Russia. Then they're spread out all over western
Russia and pushing further and further away from France. How
(08:14):
long is it taking for the quote latest word to
get back from the Russian front clear back to Paris.
It's a long time. Now I want you to think
about this. What are the two most recent kind of
wars that we've had to that we've experienced in this country.
(08:34):
I'll mention three Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Gaza and now this
Iran business. How many lies have you seen? How many lies?
How many times? And maybe you even believe one where
you saw a video an American ship it's got a
big hole in it, and somebody told you on Facebook
(08:56):
or whatever it is the Iranians hit one of our
destroyers with the cruise missile and then someone below will
be all, that's Ai you what are you talking about?
Remember the Ghost of Kiev. At the very beginning of
the Russia Ukraine War, there were all kinds of headlines
spread about by United States congressman that there was some
(09:19):
Ukrainian fighter pilot and he was basically maverick from top gun.
He was up in the skies blowing Russian jets out
of there. Nobody could kill him. He was indestructible. It
was all I it's all fake. That's today in war,
(09:39):
the first casualty is the truth. It's an ancient proverb.
I don't know who to assign it to, but it's
an ancient proverb, and it's one hundred percent true. Think
about what people back home are hearing, and think about
because it's a time where there's some poverty, where there's
some uncertainty, where there's unrest all around. Think about how
(10:02):
susceptible the people were back then to believing the rumors
they were hearing from the front. What happens? Will they say, oh, napoleon'stead?
How would you know any better if you're Russian citizen?
But he's not texting you, he's not posted anything on Twitter.
(10:23):
How fast would a rumor like that fly? We'll continue
with this in just a second. Hang on the Jesse
Kelly Show. It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Thursday.
As we wrap up our Napoleon Invasion of Russia's story here,
Remember though, tomorrow is ask doctor Jesse Friday, and you
need to get your questions emailed in right now. Ask
(10:45):
me anything Jesse at Jesse kellyshow dot com. There's a
coup back home. I'll go ahead and give it away
cause I don't want to go through all the things.
In the coup they tell everybody Napoleon's dead in charge.
Now it is discovered, they do put the coup down?
Guy's dead. Life is good. Kind of a coup like
(11:11):
this doesn't necessarily have to be successful to have an
extreme effect on someone like Napoleon. Napoleon was always concerned
about political things back home, the unrest level back home.
And pause to reinforce my point. Alexander the Great, even
(11:34):
the perfect one, Alexander the Great, as he's out there
conquering everything he can touch, constantly sending letters and receiving
letters back home, and so much of the time it's
is this a coup? Is this guy going to establish
in the back? It's just something you have to worry
(11:56):
about when you're off conquering foreign lands. Was already concerned
about this. He's been concerned about this, and now he
finds out there's a very legitimate attempt. So he's trying
to physically survive himself, trying to make sure he comes
out of Russia with some semblance of an army, and
trying to make sure by the time he gets back
(12:17):
to France he even has a throne to go back
and sit on. The man's probably got some things on
his mind at the moment, wouldn't you say, Oh, and
how physically in danger is he well. At one point
in time during this whole affair, the Russians got physically,
very very close to killing Napoleon. Took a lot of
(12:40):
heroic frenchmen surrounding fighting, or Napoleon possibly takes a spear
in the face, and Napoleon is starting to hear the rumors.
They're not really rumors, they're facts. The Russians as they
are descending on the stragg on the strata, the French
(13:01):
troops who are forging for food, maybe resting too long,
the Russians are grabbing them and they're torturing them terribly
for information. They want to know where is this unit,
where is that unit, where is this? Where is that?
If you are part of the Grand Army, you very
(13:23):
much do not want to be taken alive by a
bunch of Cossacks on horseback who surround you. That's one
of those kind of what do they say, save the
last bullet for yourself kind of situations. It's as bad
as it could possibly get. Napoleon now starts to carry
poison around for himself should he be captured. That's where
(13:48):
we're at now. Let's talk about the snowfall and the cold.
I have been in some serious, serious cold in my life,
told you these stories before growing up in Montana. I mean,
it's gonna hit fifteen below on you. It just is
when the weather gets that cold, it hurts to breathe.
(14:13):
When you breathe in it's like you're breathing in needles. Okay,
I'm trying to explain this to people who've never experienced
extreme cold. And here's the thing about it. This was
even me as a kid in good health. You know,
I'm getting three hot meals a day, good sleep, things
like that. When you find yourself out in extreme cold
(14:37):
like that, it becomes really all you can think about.
It becomes all consuming. You are at such a war,
trying to survive the cold, thating, nothing else matters, nothing
else else even enters your head. All there is is
the cold you're trying to overcome. How cold are we
(15:00):
talking about? They are finding groups of French soldiers. I'm
gonna keep saying French. Remember there's a bunch of different
countries here, but they are finding groups of French soldiers
sitting around a fire. It's the morning, the sun comes up.
They're sitting around the fire and they're all frozen solid.
(15:26):
Frozen to death. Blocks of French icemen sitting around a fire.
This is the kind of winter that has descended on Russia,
and most of these troops don't even have winter coats.
(15:46):
Whole units are being wiped out, entire units. You'll have
a thousand men there one day. Two days later they're gone,
some killed by cossacks, some killed by wool. Russia has
packs of wolves, smart, dangerous, deadly killers. What do you
think a pack of wolves is gonna do against two
(16:09):
French soldiers kind of snuck in the snow looking around
for food. Yeah, wolves involved and frostbite. I know it
may be nearing dinner time for you, depending on where
you are in the country, but imagine taking off your
boots and half your foot stays in it in the
(16:32):
boot just breaks off. Your feet are turning black, You're
losing fingers. You ever seen a documentary with Korean War
veterans in it, highly recommend you do. Those guys relyons.
They'll be watching them talk and oftentimes there's so much
discoloration on their face, almost like they were burnt or something. Well,
(16:56):
they were by the frost. And then at some point
in time being interviewed, he'll try to talk with his
hands and lift up his hands, and you see all
these nubs where his fingers and sometimes his entire hand
used to be. If you're a French soldier, you're in
the snow, you're being attacked by wolves. If you're captured,
you're gonna be tortured to death, and your feet are
(17:18):
breaking off in your boots. At the same time, men
are simply dying in droves like I can't possibly describe.
We'll continue in a moment. The Jesse Kelly Show I
Like It returns next. It is The Jesse Kelly Show
on a magnificent Thursday. Member. If you miss any part
(17:40):
of the show, you can download the whole thing. iHeart
Spotify iTunes. I'm gonna get to some more politics here
in about a half hour from now. We're wrapping up
our little story about Napoleon's now desperate retreat from Russia.
Things are happening, and it's all bad if you're part
of the Grand Army. There's one night I keep mentioning,
(18:02):
whole units are dying. How many twenty five hundred men
die in one night trying to cross a river. The
starvation is so severe the men are eating cats, and
this is going to be a little hard to hear
all every bit of it, so just hang with me
for a second. The men are eating horses, and not
(18:28):
just the dead ones. Men are so hungry they are
carving pieces of dead horses, are of alive horses off
and eating them. I love horses, so that's hard for
me to hear men are eating each other. Don't think
(18:48):
that cannibalism is rare in the case of starvation. Cannibalism
is the human condition. Human beings, when hungry enough, will
eat other human beings. They just will. Now let's talk
about this part. I am actually so impressed with the
(19:11):
Grand Army, and I'll get to exactly why in a moment.
But here's why. Men when they are this hungry and
cold and desperate, even some of the toughest, most trained men,
when they get pushed to a certain point, will oftentimes
descend into violence and anarchy. It's a your mind almost breaks,
(19:34):
it goes into human survival mode. And there's a lot
of that here, don't get me wrong. Some of the
most desperate, horrible acts you can imagine as men are dying.
There's a lot of that here. But they're racing now,
and now it's a race. Now the French are racing
to try to get out of Russia, and the Russians
(19:54):
are racing to try to wipe them out in a
big battle. Member, how it's amazing how times have changed.
The French had spent this entire time trying to surround
and wipe out the Russians, and now it is the
exact opposite, as the French are booking it back home,
the Russians are trying to surround and wipe them out.
Napoleon gets to a river, tries to get to a
(20:17):
crossing in the river, and the freaking Russians succeed in
getting around him and cutting him off. Blocking it off.
They surround him, but Napoleon finds a way. The French
fight like lions. Imagine the physical condition they are in.
(20:40):
They fight like lions and hold off the Russians in
a big battle. They do not get wiped out. Napoleon
goes to it himself, goes to a different part of
the river and finds a way across. Don't think that
this is some rousing success story, because at this point
in time, an entire corps of the Grand Army annihilated,
(21:03):
completely wiped off the face of the planet. They're dying
by the thousand. We're talking twenty below zero here. After
this the Russians, honestly, this might be the coldest part
of it. After this, the Russians, the Russian army leads
them to the wolves and the peasants. Oh, I probably
(21:28):
didn't touch on this point. On the retreat. Remember what
the French were doing the whole way they were invading Russia.
Remember how they were treating the peasants in the countryside,
even if they weren't mean about it. Is there a
nice way to walk into your home and steal all
the food out of your cupboard, so you and your
wife starved to death. Now the peasants are being encouraged
(21:52):
by Russian leadership. Hey, grab a pitch fork, grab a spear,
grab a sword, steal someone's musket, kill a Frenchman on
the way out. The peasants are randomly shooting the Russians.
So you and five of your buddies may have started
a fire and you're trying to warm your frost bitten
feet and gear up for another hike towards the river,
(22:15):
and a shot may ring out and your buddy's brains
get blown out in the middle of the night by
a random peasant who then SLINKs back into the forest.
This is now all the time. I already mentioned the wolves,
and of course the main force of the Russian Army
may have stopped, but the Cossacks have not stopped. The
(22:40):
horseback warriors of Russia slash poland are still butchering the
Grand Army every single chance they get horse raids with
experienced horsemen, and it's just the worst thing in the world. Now,
I wanted to finish this story with this. There's a
(23:00):
man you should look up worth remembering. Nay Is. His
last name Marshall Ney. Napoleon had some marshals he thought
very highly of his top top man. Nay May is
one of those commanders troops fall in love with. He
(23:20):
wants to be there mixing it up with his men.
He wants to be shooting and be shot. May has
refused multiple promotions in the past. No, I don't want
a promotion. I'm good right here fighting with my men.
This is the kind of man we're talking about here,
nay Is. He is so brave that he is. I
(23:41):
heard him described multiple times as dumb, brave, stupid, brave.
May at one point in his life in a battle,
has not one, not two, not three, but four horses
shot out from under him in a single battle. He
just keeps getting back on the horse and charging. That's
what he does. He's Nay. His men worship him. He look,
(24:01):
he drives them hard, but they know he's going to
be right there, suffering with them, fighting with them. Nagets
himself and all of his men. It's not that he
got himself. It wasn't up to him. He is cut
off from retreat. He is thought to be completely lost.
Everyone thinks that Nay and all his men this is
(24:23):
another one of those units. We're never seeing them again.
Rest in peace, Marshall May, Except it's Marshall May. He
fights like a demon, and so do his men. And yes,
he loses most of them, but they fight their way
through the Russian blocking action, and Nay comes home as
(24:48):
a hero. I'll finish with this. I wanted to finish
with the positive story because it is such a tragic story.
Nay at the end of his life, after Napoleon escapes
whatever Napoleon has met his end, there is a crackdown
(25:10):
on all of Napoleon's top men. This is years later,
by the way, there is a crackdown on Napoleon's top
men where they're being arrested, tried, and executed. Nay, of course,
is convicted and time to go get executed, executed by
firing squad. Nay stands in front of his own firing
(25:33):
squad and he says to them, when I give the order,
fire at the heart. Nay takes command of his own
firing squad and has them shoot him in the chest
in Lie's death. It's kind of cool, right, Chris, that
there were so many heroes and so much tragedy in
(25:55):
Napoleon's invasion and retreat from Russia. Look, wars are not
always about having the superior army. Commander after commander, general
after general throughout history has marched off with a far
superior army, and they have had to run into things
(26:16):
like logistical problems and weather and all kinds of things,
and the army just dies. Hitler's army was far better
than the Russians, at least in the beginning of his invasion.
At the end the Russians were better. But still it's
just too far, it's too cold, not enough food. Many
many conquerors have looked out over the horizon and thought
(26:40):
to themselves, I have a great army. Maybe I should
cross that horizon. See what I can do with it.
Some have found glory and many have found nothing but
complete devastation. That's the whole history of the world. I
hope you enjoyed it. We'll be back the Jesse Kelly Show, Daz,
(27:00):
the Jesse Kelly Show, and a magnificent Thursday. I asked
doctor Jesse. Friday is tomorrow, and you can email the
show Jesse at Jesse Kellyshow dot com. Jesse at Jesse
kellyshow dot com. Send in your questions now. So remember
that little story about Napoleon constantly having to fight off
(27:21):
subversives back home. Memory how many times we've talked about
how difficult it would be for the United States of
America to ever fight a long drawn out war overseas
because Democrats hate the country and they'll try to subvert it.
How far will they go to try to subvert it? Well,
(27:46):
PROMI La Jaya Powell, you remember this, lady.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
We might call this getting strike ready. I think of
it as getting us strike ready or street ready. And
part of that is understanding our own strength and as
we develop that strength being able to assess our risk tolerance,
because we know that risk tolerance increases as the severity
of the situation increases and as our own understanding of
(28:11):
what's happening increases. So overall, the more we understand what's effective,
what the risks are, and who's ready to participate, the
more impact we can have.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Yeah, that one. So Trump has mentioned multiple times that
he wants Cuba. He wants Cuba. Trump wants the communist
regime in Cuba to fall. He wants it replaced with
the regime friendly to America. Trump is trying to clean up.
Has a strong desire to clean up this Cuban thing.
I suspect he will not have the political capital for
(28:42):
that with all this Iran stuff going badly, but that's
another story. Entirely, that's what Trump wants. So this is
the first part of Jaya Powell.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Just this past Friday, on me First, Trump signed a
broad executive order that widens sanctions and allows for new
tenant tease, similar to what we have for Iran and Russia.
I have called these sanctions an economic bombing of the
infrastructure of Cuba. It is illegal, it is against the
(29:13):
war being You're talking about this in Iran. Obviously, to
bomb the infrastructure of any country that is against international law.
This is essentially doing the same thing. It is bombing
the infrastructure of Cuba.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
With okay, so she has somehow in her mind made
sanctions into bombing and this, of course, in her filthy
little communist mind, justifies this.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
And oil shipments from Venezuela, that's where Cuba had been
getting it's oiled, were halted after the US operations to
kidnap Nicholas Baduro. Since January, only one Russian tanker of
oil has made it to Cuba. Now Russia said they're
going to send another tanker. I was in conversations with
(30:03):
the ambassadors from Mexico and some other places, and I
know other countries in Latin America trying to figure out
how to get oil there.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
But it is.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
What did you just say? The Trump administration has sanctions
on communists Cuba. Russians snuck them a ship of oil
and the communists member of the House of Representatives from
Washington state, what did you just say?
Speaker 3 (30:33):
And oil shipments from Venezuela, that's where Cuba had been
getting it's oiled, were halted after the US operations to
kidnap Nicholas Baduro. Since January, only one Russian tanker of
oil has made it to Cuba. Now Russia said they're
going to send another tanker. I was in conversations with
(30:56):
the ambassadors from Mexico and some other places, and I
know other countries in Latin America trying to figure out
how to get oil there. But it is a crisis imagination.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Remember when I told you Democrats will work with the
enemy to ensure we lose. By the way, she should
be in handcuffs and in prison already if she actually
did that. But I have also said they will flat
out a bed the enemy, they will aid the enemy,
they will. That is a democrat announcing publicly she's trying
(31:34):
to break Trump's sanctions. So communist Cuba has oil, we cannot,
we cannot. It's not possible to prosecute a long foreign
war successfully with this level of Democrat subversion at home.
It's not you can't do it. You can't do it.
(31:56):
Napoleon couldn't do it. Nobody can do it. When you
have to try to fight this off back home, when
it's this severe, it's bad. All right, Let's do some
emails shall we, hey, Jesse, the last desperate act. This
one's called I fear they may oh you talking about Iran.
I fear they may do this if they're backed into
a quarter, into a corner. Consider the facts. Crude oil
(32:18):
floats on seawater. Crude oil was very flammable. The pipeline
from Iraq to Carguy or around a car island could
be disconnected, aimed at the Strait of hor moves at night. Unseen,
these idiots could pump millions of barrels of crud into
the strait at night, enveloping all ships in a giant oil. So, okay,
I understand what you're saying. I can't speak to how
(32:40):
feasible that would be. I'm not an expert on if
that's even possible. I will I will tell you. I
promise you that we have imagery at all times of
what is and is not happening on carg Island. I
would doubt that a tick could crawl across the sand
on Harg Island without an American satellite or a drone
(33:03):
picking that up. Imagine that's something our guys have possibly seen,
but not at all calling you ridiculous for the theory
does Iron have plans. Yeah, I'm sure they do. Then
the enemy is oftentimes not nearly as defeated as you
pretend he is. That's just that's the danger of these things.
(33:27):
You can see. Look, it's Napoleon in Moscow, but you're defeated.
I'm not suing for peace. What do you mean you're
not suing for peace? I mean, I mean you're capital what. Yeah, No,
I'm good. He has to agree that he's defeated. If
he doesn't, you have to make him or a band
(33:47):
in the whole thing. Whether there's no, you can't just
sit there. We'll see what happens. We're gonna see what happens.
It's a big, ugly mess. Just remember to keep praying,
and definitely keep praying for the safety of our troops,
certainly a sailors. There's a lot of sailors on the
water in hostile territory right now, and there are things
flying in the air, and we haven't had a terrible
(34:09):
story just yet, and I certainly hope we don't. But
make sure you keep our troops in your prayers. All right,
all right, I'm gonna talk about generalized victim campaigns, communist plans,
if they win. Oh, that's so much more still to
come in the final hour. Hang on,
This is a Jesse Kelly Show, The Jesse Kelly Show,
another hour of the Jesse Kelly Show on a magnificent Thursday.
And now we finished things up, shall we? In case,
I guess there's a chance you're just now joining us
(00:32):
for the very first time this week. In the second
hour of every show so far this week, I have
been doing just a little history series on Napoleon's invasion,
disastrous invasion and retreat from Russia. If you're just jumping
in now, that's fine. I'll give a thirty second recap
(00:52):
in a second. But you've already missed three days of this.
The good news is the podcast of the show is
completely free. You don't have to I don't even think
you have to do anything. You just press download on
your phone. It'll download right there. You can go listen
to it iHeart Spotify iTunes hour two of the show
(01:13):
all week long. Then you'll get all the background to
what we're about to jump off with right now as
we wrap up this horrible, horrible little tale. I guess
it's horrible from the French perspective. From the Russians, Wow,
it was horrible from there too. Anyway, to recap thirty seconds,
Napoleon raises the biggest army of the world has ever seen,
(01:35):
at least in his mind it probably was. He sends
them into Russia after Alexander and the Russian army. The
Russians they do a we'll call it a fighting retreat,
letting the French come into Russian and into Russia. The
Russians are burning everything down, denying the French water, denying
the French food, denying the French shelter. Napoleon gets clear
(01:57):
to Moscow. The Russians basically just let him have it,
but they leave behind a bunch of arsonists and criminals
who set Moscow on fire while Napoleon and his troops
are there, and now the snow is starting to fall.
Napoleon can't wait in Moscow anymore. His troops do not
(02:17):
have winter clothes, and it's a long way back home,
and so they have to turn around and they have
to take off. There is a quote from Alexander. Remember
the Russians are the head of all of Russia. As
Napoleon is leaving Russia, leaving Moscow, I should say, his
(02:39):
troops starving, depleted, sick, freezing, Remember I told you yesterday
the Russian troops when they pulled out of Moscow. They
didn't just pull out and go sun themselves on a
beach somewhere that'd be tough to find in Russia. Anyway,
they pulled out of Russia, or they pulled out of
Moscow and they started training and preparing and bringing in
(03:01):
fresh troops. And Alexander says, at this time, as Napoleon
is fleeing, quote, now is the moment my campaign begins
pretty dominous. I mentioned the French they did not want
to retreat along the exact same line they'd come into
(03:22):
Russia on, for the simple fact they had already pillaged
everything along that line. There's no food left, there's no
water left, there's nothing else to take, there's nothing to
sustain us. We have to find a different route back home.
They had It's a town. I won't go into the
details of the whole story. So they marched towards this town,
(03:44):
which will allow them to take a different route back home.
But this rested and refitted Russian army gets there first.
They are waiting for them at this town. They fight,
they fight hard, and have to back away. The Russians
threw up the roadblock. Now the French are forced to
(04:07):
retreat along the exact same line. Now pause, So we
discuss this again, a continuing theme and always will be
in war men especially, I'm definitely this way. I don't
want to think about politics. I don't want to think
(04:28):
about votes in popularity and these things. In fact, when
people even bring them up, I'm just this is personal
about me. When people even bring those things up when
it comes to war, I get completely annoyed. Oh gosh,
here we go. Oh okay, public opinion. Oh I have
to worry about this. I have to worry about that.
(04:48):
Why do I have to worry about that. I'm out
here fighting and dying. Just let me go. But annoyed
as you or I may be, there is a political
side to every war, and always has been. Yes, Napoleon
is by a country mile, the most powerful man on
planet Earth at this time, a brilliant commander, a man
(05:10):
in charge of very large armies. He's won battle after
battle after battle after battle. That I need to remind
you of something we discussed earlier this week. Back home,
and when I say back home, remember Napoleon has conquered
so much of continental Europe at this time, France, Italy,
All these places. Back home, things are not good. To
(05:35):
put it mildly, Napoleon is not only gone. Napoleon on
his way out the door, and then every day since
then has had to legally pillage his own countryside to
get as much material and food and medical supplies and horses.
(05:56):
He's yanking as much stuff as he possibly can out
of Europe and pushing it as far and fast to
his army as he possibly can. And remember, I told
you all the way back at the beginning, the armies
that were marching towards the Russian border, in the very beginning,
they were already raping and pillaging and getting in trouble
(06:18):
and deserting. Now, how bad is that the situation back
home has not improved at all? And the natives are restless.
And one thing king's presidents and everyone else in between
have had to juggle with over and over and over
again throughout history is if the people are going hungry,
(06:41):
if they are not paying the bills, if you will,
if they're not making ends meet, if their bellies are
not full, you are going to have rebellion of some
kind on your hands. You are sure enough there's a
coup attempt back home. It's called the Malay Coup M
A L e. T. If you want to look it up.
(07:01):
I'm not going to go into it. What's he do?
What's what's the whole idea behind this whole thing. Well,
we live in the information age, so it can be
hard for us to relate. But word travel slow when
you think about it, at this point in time, word
travels at the speed of a horse. At the speed
(07:27):
of a horse. And yes, of course, during this entire
the speed of a horse. Yes, of course that rhyme quit.
Of course, Napoleon is constantly in his generals and everyone else.
They're constantly sending people back and forth back home to
France with orders, with requests, with this, and so there's
always horses coming and going from the Russian front back home.
(07:52):
But think about what we discussed. Remember, I'll come back
to it again. Remember there were troops that had to
march twelve one hundred miles before they got to the
border of Russia. Then they're spread out all over western
Russia and pushing further and further away from France. How
(08:14):
long is it taking for the quote latest word to
get back from the Russian front clear back to Paris.
It's a long time. Now I want you to think
about this. What are the two most recent kind of
wars that we've had to that we've experienced in this country.
(08:34):
I'll mention three Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Gaza and now this
Iran business. How many lies have you seen? How many lies?
How many times? And maybe you even believe one where
you saw a video an American ship it's got a
big hole in it, and somebody told you on Facebook
(08:56):
or whatever it is the Iranians hit one of our
destroyers with the cruise missile and then someone below will
be all, that's Ai you what are you talking about?
Remember the Ghost of Kiev. At the very beginning of
the Russia Ukraine War, there were all kinds of headlines
spread about by United States congressman that there was some
(09:19):
Ukrainian fighter pilot and he was basically maverick from top gun.
He was up in the skies blowing Russian jets out
of there. Nobody could kill him. He was indestructible. It
was all I it's all fake. That's today in war,
(09:39):
the first casualty is the truth. It's an ancient proverb.
I don't know who to assign it to, but it's
an ancient proverb, and it's one hundred percent true. Think
about what people back home are hearing, and think about
because it's a time where there's some poverty, where there's
some uncertainty, where there's unrest all around. Think about how
(10:02):
susceptible the people were back then to believing the rumors
they were hearing from the front. What happens? Will they say, oh, napoleon'stead?
How would you know any better if you're Russian citizen?
But he's not texting you, he's not posted anything on Twitter.
(10:23):
How fast would a rumor like that fly? We'll continue
with this in just a second. Hang on the Jesse
Kelly Show. It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Thursday.
As we wrap up our Napoleon Invasion of Russia's story here,
Remember though, tomorrow is ask doctor Jesse Friday, and you
need to get your questions emailed in right now. Ask
(10:45):
me anything Jesse at Jesse kellyshow dot com. There's a
coup back home. I'll go ahead and give it away
cause I don't want to go through all the things.
In the coup they tell everybody Napoleon's dead in charge.
Now it is discovered, they do put the coup down?
Guy's dead. Life is good. Kind of a coup like
(11:11):
this doesn't necessarily have to be successful to have an
extreme effect on someone like Napoleon. Napoleon was always concerned
about political things back home, the unrest level back home.
And pause to reinforce my point. Alexander the Great, even
(11:34):
the perfect one, Alexander the Great, as he's out there
conquering everything he can touch, constantly sending letters and receiving
letters back home, and so much of the time it's
is this a coup? Is this guy going to establish
in the back? It's just something you have to worry
(11:56):
about when you're off conquering foreign lands. Was already concerned
about this. He's been concerned about this, and now he
finds out there's a very legitimate attempt. So he's trying
to physically survive himself, trying to make sure he comes
out of Russia with some semblance of an army, and
trying to make sure by the time he gets back
(12:17):
to France he even has a throne to go back
and sit on. The man's probably got some things on
his mind at the moment, wouldn't you say, Oh, and
how physically in danger is he well. At one point
in time during this whole affair, the Russians got physically,
very very close to killing Napoleon. Took a lot of
(12:40):
heroic frenchmen surrounding fighting, or Napoleon possibly takes a spear
in the face, and Napoleon is starting to hear the rumors.
They're not really rumors, they're facts. The Russians as they
are descending on the stragg on the strata, the French
(13:01):
troops who are forging for food, maybe resting too long,
the Russians are grabbing them and they're torturing them terribly
for information. They want to know where is this unit,
where is that unit, where is this? Where is that?
If you are part of the Grand Army, you very
(13:23):
much do not want to be taken alive by a
bunch of Cossacks on horseback who surround you. That's one
of those kind of what do they say, save the
last bullet for yourself kind of situations. It's as bad
as it could possibly get. Napoleon now starts to carry
poison around for himself should he be captured. That's where
(13:48):
we're at now. Let's talk about the snowfall and the cold.
I have been in some serious, serious cold in my life,
told you these stories before growing up in Montana. I mean,
it's gonna hit fifteen below on you. It just is
when the weather gets that cold, it hurts to breathe.
(14:13):
When you breathe in it's like you're breathing in needles. Okay,
I'm trying to explain this to people who've never experienced
extreme cold. And here's the thing about it. This was
even me as a kid in good health. You know,
I'm getting three hot meals a day, good sleep, things
like that. When you find yourself out in extreme cold
(14:37):
like that, it becomes really all you can think about.
It becomes all consuming. You are at such a war,
trying to survive the cold, thating, nothing else matters, nothing
else else even enters your head. All there is is
the cold you're trying to overcome. How cold are we
(15:00):
talking about? They are finding groups of French soldiers. I'm
gonna keep saying French. Remember there's a bunch of different
countries here, but they are finding groups of French soldiers
sitting around a fire. It's the morning, the sun comes up.
They're sitting around the fire and they're all frozen solid.
(15:26):
Frozen to death. Blocks of French icemen sitting around a fire.
This is the kind of winter that has descended on Russia,
and most of these troops don't even have winter coats.
(15:46):
Whole units are being wiped out, entire units. You'll have
a thousand men there one day. Two days later they're gone,
some killed by cossacks, some killed by wool. Russia has
packs of wolves, smart, dangerous, deadly killers. What do you
think a pack of wolves is gonna do against two
(16:09):
French soldiers kind of snuck in the snow looking around
for food. Yeah, wolves involved and frostbite. I know it
may be nearing dinner time for you, depending on where
you are in the country, but imagine taking off your
boots and half your foot stays in it in the
(16:32):
boot just breaks off. Your feet are turning black, You're
losing fingers. You ever seen a documentary with Korean War
veterans in it, highly recommend you do. Those guys relyons.
They'll be watching them talk and oftentimes there's so much
discoloration on their face, almost like they were burnt or something. Well,
(16:56):
they were by the frost. And then at some point
in time being interviewed, he'll try to talk with his
hands and lift up his hands, and you see all
these nubs where his fingers and sometimes his entire hand
used to be. If you're a French soldier, you're in
the snow, you're being attacked by wolves. If you're captured,
you're gonna be tortured to death, and your feet are
(17:18):
breaking off in your boots. At the same time, men
are simply dying in droves like I can't possibly describe.
We'll continue in a moment. The Jesse Kelly Show I
Like It returns next. It is The Jesse Kelly Show
on a magnificent Thursday. Member. If you miss any part
(17:40):
of the show, you can download the whole thing. iHeart
Spotify iTunes. I'm gonna get to some more politics here
in about a half hour from now. We're wrapping up
our little story about Napoleon's now desperate retreat from Russia.
Things are happening, and it's all bad if you're part
of the Grand Army. There's one night I keep mentioning,
(18:02):
whole units are dying. How many twenty five hundred men
die in one night trying to cross a river. The
starvation is so severe the men are eating cats, and
this is going to be a little hard to hear
all every bit of it, so just hang with me
for a second. The men are eating horses, and not
(18:28):
just the dead ones. Men are so hungry they are
carving pieces of dead horses, are of alive horses off
and eating them. I love horses, so that's hard for
me to hear men are eating each other. Don't think
(18:48):
that cannibalism is rare in the case of starvation. Cannibalism
is the human condition. Human beings, when hungry enough, will
eat other human beings. They just will. Now let's talk
about this part. I am actually so impressed with the
(19:11):
Grand Army, and I'll get to exactly why in a moment.
But here's why. Men when they are this hungry and
cold and desperate, even some of the toughest, most trained men,
when they get pushed to a certain point, will oftentimes
descend into violence and anarchy. It's a your mind almost breaks,
(19:34):
it goes into human survival mode. And there's a lot
of that here, don't get me wrong. Some of the
most desperate, horrible acts you can imagine as men are dying.
There's a lot of that here. But they're racing now,
and now it's a race. Now the French are racing
to try to get out of Russia, and the Russians
(19:54):
are racing to try to wipe them out in a
big battle. Member, how it's amazing how times have changed.
The French had spent this entire time trying to surround
and wipe out the Russians, and now it is the
exact opposite, as the French are booking it back home,
the Russians are trying to surround and wipe them out.
Napoleon gets to a river, tries to get to a
(20:17):
crossing in the river, and the freaking Russians succeed in
getting around him and cutting him off. Blocking it off.
They surround him, but Napoleon finds a way. The French
fight like lions. Imagine the physical condition they are in.
(20:40):
They fight like lions and hold off the Russians in
a big battle. They do not get wiped out. Napoleon
goes to it himself, goes to a different part of
the river and finds a way across. Don't think that
this is some rousing success story, because at this point
in time, an entire corps of the Grand Army annihilated,
(21:03):
completely wiped off the face of the planet. They're dying
by the thousand. We're talking twenty below zero here. After
this the Russians, honestly, this might be the coldest part
of it. After this, the Russians, the Russian army leads
them to the wolves and the peasants. Oh, I probably
(21:28):
didn't touch on this point. On the retreat. Remember what
the French were doing the whole way they were invading Russia.
Remember how they were treating the peasants in the countryside,
even if they weren't mean about it. Is there a
nice way to walk into your home and steal all
the food out of your cupboard, so you and your
wife starved to death. Now the peasants are being encouraged
(21:52):
by Russian leadership. Hey, grab a pitch fork, grab a spear,
grab a sword, steal someone's musket, kill a Frenchman on
the way out. The peasants are randomly shooting the Russians.
So you and five of your buddies may have started
a fire and you're trying to warm your frost bitten
feet and gear up for another hike towards the river,
(22:15):
and a shot may ring out and your buddy's brains
get blown out in the middle of the night by
a random peasant who then SLINKs back into the forest.
This is now all the time. I already mentioned the wolves,
and of course the main force of the Russian Army
may have stopped, but the Cossacks have not stopped. The
(22:40):
horseback warriors of Russia slash poland are still butchering the
Grand Army every single chance they get horse raids with
experienced horsemen, and it's just the worst thing in the world. Now,
I wanted to finish this story with this. There's a
(23:00):
man you should look up worth remembering. Nay Is. His
last name Marshall Ney. Napoleon had some marshals he thought
very highly of his top top man. Nay May is
one of those commanders troops fall in love with. He
(23:20):
wants to be there mixing it up with his men.
He wants to be shooting and be shot. May has
refused multiple promotions in the past. No, I don't want
a promotion. I'm good right here fighting with my men.
This is the kind of man we're talking about here,
nay Is. He is so brave that he is. I
(23:41):
heard him described multiple times as dumb, brave, stupid, brave.
May at one point in his life in a battle,
has not one, not two, not three, but four horses
shot out from under him in a single battle. He
just keeps getting back on the horse and charging. That's
what he does. He's Nay. His men worship him. He look,
(24:01):
he drives them hard, but they know he's going to
be right there, suffering with them, fighting with them. Nagets
himself and all of his men. It's not that he
got himself. It wasn't up to him. He is cut
off from retreat. He is thought to be completely lost.
Everyone thinks that Nay and all his men this is
(24:23):
another one of those units. We're never seeing them again.
Rest in peace, Marshall May, Except it's Marshall May. He
fights like a demon, and so do his men. And yes,
he loses most of them, but they fight their way
through the Russian blocking action, and Nay comes home as
(24:48):
a hero. I'll finish with this. I wanted to finish
with the positive story because it is such a tragic story.
Nay at the end of his life, after Napoleon escapes
whatever Napoleon has met his end, there is a crackdown
(25:10):
on all of Napoleon's top men. This is years later,
by the way, there is a crackdown on Napoleon's top
men where they're being arrested, tried, and executed. Nay, of course,
is convicted and time to go get executed, executed by
firing squad. Nay stands in front of his own firing
(25:33):
squad and he says to them, when I give the order,
fire at the heart. Nay takes command of his own
firing squad and has them shoot him in the chest
in Lie's death. It's kind of cool, right, Chris, that
there were so many heroes and so much tragedy in
(25:55):
Napoleon's invasion and retreat from Russia. Look, wars are not
always about having the superior army. Commander after commander, general
after general throughout history has marched off with a far
superior army, and they have had to run into things
(26:16):
like logistical problems and weather and all kinds of things,
and the army just dies. Hitler's army was far better
than the Russians, at least in the beginning of his invasion.
At the end the Russians were better. But still it's
just too far, it's too cold, not enough food. Many
many conquerors have looked out over the horizon and thought
(26:40):
to themselves, I have a great army. Maybe I should
cross that horizon. See what I can do with it.
Some have found glory and many have found nothing but
complete devastation. That's the whole history of the world. I
hope you enjoyed it. We'll be back the Jesse Kelly Show, Daz,
(27:00):
the Jesse Kelly Show, and a magnificent Thursday. I asked
doctor Jesse. Friday is tomorrow, and you can email the
show Jesse at Jesse Kellyshow dot com. Jesse at Jesse
kellyshow dot com. Send in your questions now. So remember
that little story about Napoleon constantly having to fight off
(27:21):
subversives back home. Memory how many times we've talked about
how difficult it would be for the United States of
America to ever fight a long drawn out war overseas
because Democrats hate the country and they'll try to subvert it.
How far will they go to try to subvert it? Well,
(27:46):
PROMI La Jaya Powell, you remember this, lady.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
We might call this getting strike ready. I think of
it as getting us strike ready or street ready. And
part of that is understanding our own strength and as
we develop that strength being able to assess our risk tolerance,
because we know that risk tolerance increases as the severity
of the situation increases and as our own understanding of
(28:11):
what's happening increases. So overall, the more we understand what's effective,
what the risks are, and who's ready to participate, the
more impact we can have.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Yeah, that one. So Trump has mentioned multiple times that
he wants Cuba. He wants Cuba. Trump wants the communist
regime in Cuba to fall. He wants it replaced with
the regime friendly to America. Trump is trying to clean up.
Has a strong desire to clean up this Cuban thing.
I suspect he will not have the political capital for
(28:42):
that with all this Iran stuff going badly, but that's
another story. Entirely, that's what Trump wants. So this is
the first part of Jaya Powell.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Just this past Friday, on me First, Trump signed a
broad executive order that widens sanctions and allows for new
tenant tease, similar to what we have for Iran and Russia.
I have called these sanctions an economic bombing of the
infrastructure of Cuba. It is illegal, it is against the
(29:13):
war being You're talking about this in Iran. Obviously, to
bomb the infrastructure of any country that is against international law.
This is essentially doing the same thing. It is bombing
the infrastructure of Cuba.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
With okay, so she has somehow in her mind made
sanctions into bombing and this, of course, in her filthy
little communist mind, justifies this.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
And oil shipments from Venezuela, that's where Cuba had been
getting it's oiled, were halted after the US operations to
kidnap Nicholas Baduro. Since January, only one Russian tanker of
oil has made it to Cuba. Now Russia said they're
going to send another tanker. I was in conversations with
(30:03):
the ambassadors from Mexico and some other places, and I
know other countries in Latin America trying to figure out
how to get oil there.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
But it is.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
What did you just say? The Trump administration has sanctions
on communists Cuba. Russians snuck them a ship of oil
and the communists member of the House of Representatives from
Washington state, what did you just say?
Speaker 3 (30:33):
And oil shipments from Venezuela, that's where Cuba had been
getting it's oiled, were halted after the US operations to
kidnap Nicholas Baduro. Since January, only one Russian tanker of
oil has made it to Cuba. Now Russia said they're
going to send another tanker. I was in conversations with
(30:56):
the ambassadors from Mexico and some other places, and I
know other countries in Latin America trying to figure out
how to get oil there. But it is a crisis imagination.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Remember when I told you Democrats will work with the
enemy to ensure we lose. By the way, she should
be in handcuffs and in prison already if she actually
did that. But I have also said they will flat
out a bed the enemy, they will aid the enemy,
they will. That is a democrat announcing publicly she's trying
(31:34):
to break Trump's sanctions. So communist Cuba has oil, we cannot,
we cannot. It's not possible to prosecute a long foreign
war successfully with this level of Democrat subversion at home.
It's not you can't do it. You can't do it.
(31:56):
Napoleon couldn't do it. Nobody can do it. When you
have to try to fight this off back home, when
it's this severe, it's bad. All right, Let's do some
emails shall we, hey, Jesse, the last desperate act. This
one's called I fear they may oh you talking about Iran.
I fear they may do this if they're backed into
a quarter, into a corner. Consider the facts. Crude oil
(32:18):
floats on seawater. Crude oil was very flammable. The pipeline
from Iraq to Carguy or around a car island could
be disconnected, aimed at the Strait of hor moves at night. Unseen,
these idiots could pump millions of barrels of crud into
the strait at night, enveloping all ships in a giant oil. So, okay,
I understand what you're saying. I can't speak to how
(32:40):
feasible that would be. I'm not an expert on if
that's even possible. I will I will tell you. I
promise you that we have imagery at all times of
what is and is not happening on carg Island. I
would doubt that a tick could crawl across the sand
on Harg Island without an American satellite or a drone
(33:03):
picking that up. Imagine that's something our guys have possibly seen,
but not at all calling you ridiculous for the theory
does Iron have plans. Yeah, I'm sure they do. Then
the enemy is oftentimes not nearly as defeated as you
pretend he is. That's just that's the danger of these things.
(33:27):
You can see. Look, it's Napoleon in Moscow, but you're defeated.
I'm not suing for peace. What do you mean you're
not suing for peace? I mean, I mean you're capital what. Yeah, No,
I'm good. He has to agree that he's defeated. If
he doesn't, you have to make him or a band
(33:47):
in the whole thing. Whether there's no, you can't just
sit there. We'll see what happens. We're gonna see what happens.
It's a big, ugly mess. Just remember to keep praying,
and definitely keep praying for the safety of our troops,
certainly a sailors. There's a lot of sailors on the
water in hostile territory right now, and there are things
flying in the air, and we haven't had a terrible
(34:09):
story just yet, and I certainly hope we don't. But
make sure you keep our troops in your prayers. All right,
all right, I'm gonna talk about generalized victim campaigns, communist plans,
if they win. Oh, that's so much more still to
come in the final hour. Hang on,
Host
Jesse Kelly
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