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able to complete their maneuvers
without the French seeing what they
were do ing.
" But suddenly," as one historian
describes it. "the sun with uncom–
mon brightness carne through the
mist, the sun of Austerlitz.
lt
was in
this blazing
su~
that Napoleon at
once sent a huge cavalry force under
Ma rs ha l Soult into the gap left be–
tween the center and the left of the
Austro-Russian battlefield." This
was the break Napoleon needed.
His victory was sealed.
Napoleon became the master of
Europe, sweep ing away th e
decadent and largely ceremonial
medieval Holy Roman· Empire and
establishing in its place a "revivcd' '
version - a shon-lived Roman–
European civi liza tion dominated by
France.
• Thc crucial battle of Hastings
on October 14. 1066 - in which thc
Eng lish succumbed to the Norman
French under William the Con–
querer - has been described as
' 'one of those battles which at rare
interva ls have decided the fatc of
nations.' '
In the late afternoon Harold -
last of the Anglo-Saxon kings and
commander of the English army -
was killed in battle shortly a fter
being struck in the right eye by a
chance Norman arrow shot into th e
air a t ra ndom. As evening neared ,
th e news of his death spread
throughout the English ranks. Lead–
e rless a nd demoralized, the English
were unable to rally and re-form,
and they fled the field of battle. The
Norman conquest of England was
assured, laying the foundation for
The
PLAIN TRUTH January 1977
the emergence of a united England
as a major world powcr.
• Napoleon's attcmpted come–
back from exile was foiled a t Water–
loo in 1815 by a combined British–
Prussian army under the Duke of
Wellington and General Gebhard
von Blücher. Napoleon's defeat,
however, was due in pan to a timely
pouring rain.
M. A. Arnault and C.
L.
F. Panc–
koucke, in their
Lije ami Campaigns
of Napoleon Bonaparte,
observe:
"The night of the 17th [of J une
1815) was dreadful , and scemed to
presage the calamities of the day.
The violent and incessant rain did
not allow a moment's rest to the
[French] army. The bad sta te of the
roads hindered the arrival of provi–
sions. and most of the soldiers were
without food. "
At dawn on th e 18th , the rain was
still coming down. The weather
cleared somewhat by 8 o'clock, but
thc mud forced Napoleon to post–
pone his attack le t his cavalry and
artillery become bogged down. By
thc time Napoleon o rdered the a t–
tack a t 11 :30. sorne drying had
taken place, but the condition of the
ground neverthe less favored the
troops on the defensive, namely the
British and Prussians.
French author Víctor H ugo
( 1802- 1885) observed that "the
shadow of a mighty right hand is
cast over Wa terloo; it is the day of
destiny. and the force which is
above man . produced tha t day."
Further elaborating on the source of
the French defeat, he asserted: " lf it
had not rained the night between
the 17th and 18th of June, the fu-
turc of Europe would have bec n
e
changed.... Providence required
~
on ly a little ra in, and a cloud cross-
~
ing thc sky a t a season when rain
~
was no t expected. That was suf-
j
ficient to overthrow an empire...."
~
• Dur ing the spectacular evac-
~
uation of over 300.000 British troops
~
from Dunkirk (May 26-June 3,
1940), the waters of the English
Channel wcre unusuaJJy smoo th ,
calm, and placid. This permitted
even thc tiniest boats to go back and
forth betwecn Britain and France in
safety on the ir emergency rescue
runs. Many seamen knowledgeable
of the Channel remarked at the
strangeness of the calm at that cri ti–
ca! time. Furthermore, bad weather
to thc eas t grounded the German
Luftwaffe during part of the evac–
uation, permitting the British to ge t
away in to tal safety until the G er–
mans were once again able
to
get
the ir planes airborne. Little wonder
the episode has commonly come to
be callcd " the Miracle of Dunkirk."
• Th e Allied landing on the
beaches of Normandy on 0 -Day
(June 6, 1944) is still another ex–
a mple. June
5
-
tbe day o riginally
chosen for Operation OYERLORD
(the code name for the invasion) -
was a wea therman's nightmare.
Genera l Eisenhower wrote that on
the morning of that day his camp
near P o rt s m o uth in southern
England was "shaking and shudder–
ing under a wind of almost hurri–
cane violence, and the rain traveled
in ho rizontal streaks." Continued
high winds and stormy seas were
predicted - the best allies Hitler
could have. For Eisenhower to have
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