Napoleon Bonaparte's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812 saw his massive "Grande Armée" almost destroyed by hunger, enemy attacks and the brutal winter. But now, scientists have identified another deadly force that left the French army on its knees — two previously unsuspected diseases.
Researchers already believed that infectious disease played a role in the French army's destruction, and it was long thought that typhus and trench fever killed thousands of French soldiers. But a new analysis of a mass grave in Lithuania filled with the skeletons of French soldiers hasn't found traces of any of the bacteria that cause these diseases.
