Analysis of DNA from the teeth of soldiers buried in a mass grave in Vilnius, Lithuania, has revealed that Napoleon's troops suffered from paratyphoid fever and relapsing fever during their disastrous retreat from Russia in 1812. The findings, published in the journal Current Biology, provide new insights into the diseases that plagued the Grande Armée.
Researchers from the Institut Pasteur used shotgun sequencing to examine DNA from 13 soldiers. They found that one soldier was infected with Borrelia recurrentis, the bacterium that causes louse-borne relapsing fever, and four others carried a strain of Salmonella enterica responsible for paratyphoid fever, a disease spread through contaminated food or water. One soldier may have had both infections.
Previous studies using a different technique had identified typhus and trench fever among the soldiers, but the new analysis found no traces of those pathogens. The researchers suggest this could be due to DNA degradation or low bacterial loads, rather than the absence of those diseases.
Lead author Nicolás Rascovan noted that while cold and hunger were the primary causes of death, the identification of these diseases adds to the historical understanding of the soldiers' suffering. The symptoms described in historical accounts, such as fever and diarrhoea, align with the newly identified infections.
Historian Dr Michael Rowe of King's College London welcomed the study, saying it provides insights that historians alone could not achieve. However, he cautioned against attributing the army's collapse solely to weather and disease, emphasising the role of Russian military strategy.
