[War & Business] The Exoneration Granted by "General Frost"

An illustration from the early 20th-century French pictorial newspaper 'Le Petit Journal,' personifying the cold during World War I as the Cold General. [Image source= National Library of France website]

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunwoo Lee] The term "Dongjanggun" (General Frost), which frequently appears in the media whenever a cold wave hits during winter, originally emerged in 1812 when reporting on Napoleon's failed Russian campaign. At that time, British media wrote sarcastic articles stating that although Napoleon won every battle against the Russian army, he was ultimately defeated by the "general frost." During the Meiji Restoration period, Japanese people translated this literally as "Fuyushogun (冬將軍)," and the term was introduced to Korea as well.

However, the Japanese distorted the meaning of "Dongjanggun" to imply an exoneration for Napoleon's failure in the Russian campaign. They created the logic that although Napoleon and the French army, unaware of Russia's cold, had devised plans, strategies, and tactics before the battle, they lost due to the sudden severe cold wave. This was in line with the feudal-era East Asian dynastic practice of attributing a king's or emperor's defeat to a natural disaster as a form of divine mandate.

In fact, military history points to the failure of supply management, not "Dongjanggun," as the cause of Napoleon's defeat in the Russian campaign. The 700,000-strong army mobilized for the 1812 Russian campaign faced severe supply problems even before crossing the Russian border. Despite the shortage of food caused by reduced farmland due to prolonged wars and compounded by the Continental Blockade causing economic hardship, Napoleon ordered the forced requisition of food supplies from the regions his troops would pass through.

Napoleon's original goal was to crush the Russian army with a large force and end the war before the cold winter arrived. Therefore, from spring to summer, he gathered 700,000 young men conscripted from all over Europe in Poland. However, since Europe's economy was still primarily agricultural at the time, pulling all these young men out of the farming season worsened the food shortage.

The conscripted French troops died from starvation and epidemics on their way to Poland, and even before invading Russia, over 240,000 soldiers?more than 30% of the entire army?had already perished. The French army actually encountered "Dongjanggun" in Russia six months after this disaster.

The failure of supply strategy, overshadowed by "Dongjanggun," led to countless tragedies in World War II. Japanese generals, neglecting the importance of logistics, always used natural disasters as an excuse, during which over three million Japanese youths died.

Currently, it is no exaggeration to say that the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) plays the role of "Dongjanggun," granting exoneration to all government affairs as a natural disaster. Governments worldwide explain that all economic and social problems will be resolved once COVID-19 is overcome, but it remains to be seen what excuses will be made after the pandemic ends.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.