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Napoleon
- Thread starter mervyn
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I really want to go see it at the cinema: hoping it'll hang around long enough for me to have a free few hours one evening 
- May 29, 2015
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I’ve read Andrew Roberts very detailed biography, and imo the film is totally accurate in terms of the sequence of events. What the french have complained of is that he didn’t fire a cannon at the Sphinx during the Egyptian campaign as depicted in the film. OK it was done purely for cinematic effect to show what a ruthless bugger he was. I can live with that.
As I said, I've not seen it, but there were ... mutterings ... about the film depicting the invasion of Russia taking place in the winter, when it took place in the early summer. The weather was still good by the time they got to Moscow (and found it on fire) and waited there, expecting a Russian emissary to come with a peace offer ... which never turned up. That delay too them into November and the first snows, which hampered his return to France.
Like I said, I haven't seen it so can't vouch as to whether that's the case in the film, but that was one (rather major) historical error which I've seen mentioned on the interweb.
- May 29, 2015
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This reminds me of the film about Alan Turing, The Imitation Game. In the film the Bletchley centre is portrayed as having just come up at the 11th hour with the all important code break in time to identify U Boat plans and general military intelligence which helped change the outcome of the war. A few years ago I attended a lecture from Alan Turing’s nephew, who gave a fascinating account of his uncle’s life. It transpires that far from coming up with the code break at the last minute, this occurred during 1937/8. However sticking to the facts would have taken all the tension out of a very good movie.
Polish mathematicians made the first break on Enigma in the mid 1930s and passed their findings onto Bletchley Park just before the war began in 1939, but by then Enigma has been updated. Alan Turing was present at the first wartime codebreak in 1940.
I don't often do this but 'Alan Turing' is only his user name on Pasoti.
His real name is Marian Rejewski.
His real name is Marian Rejewski.