Soldiers get proper funeral 200 years on
About 3,000 French soldiers finally received a proper funeral today in a hilltop cemetery in Lithuania’s capital Vilnius, where they froze or starved to death during Napoleon’s catastrophic invasion of Russia two centuries ago.
Lithuanian leaders, French diplomats and other representatives of the former Soviet republic’s diplomatic corps oversaw the consecration of the remains - discovered two years ago in a nearby mass grave seen at the time as a major archaeological find.
The French Ambassador to Lithuania, Jean Bernard Harth, said the day was a time to reflect on the unity of Europe.
“Napoleon was on a quest for a united Europe, but it failed because it attempted to unite a continent by force,” he said just before a band played the French and Lithuanian national anthems. “Today, we see this dream of a united Europe coming true because it’s done peacefully.”
A granite, wall-like monument to the soldiers – among the last remnants of a French force that had numbered over 500,000 men – was also blessed by priests at the burial site.
Hundreds of blue, white and red flowers – the colours of the French flag – were strewn around it.
When bulldozers uncovered the French soldiers’ remains at a housing development in 2001, many thought they were dissidents executed by secret police during Soviet rule.
The area had been a major Red Army base, a fact that spurred on this initial theory.
When Napoleon’s army marched into Lithuania bound for Moscow, it was one of the largest forces ever assembled.
Six months later, what was left of it, 40,000 men, retreated to Vilnius in bitter winter weather.
Cold and starving, some are said to have raided medical schools in Vilnius to eat preserved human organs.
Others reportedly gnawed on leather belts.
Archeologists said there should be at least 20,000 other skeletons of French troops buried in and around Vilnius and that they intend to keep searching for them.
