The greatest snowball fight in history
The release date for Ridley Scott’s Napoleon is fast approaching. I’ve been thinking about an episode in Napoleon’s childhood when the Emperor-in-making displayed the first signs of his unrivalled leadership qualities.
At the Brienne military academy in France between the years 1783 and 1784, a fourteen-year-old Napoleon staged one of the greatest snowball fights in history.
He divided the young soldiers into two camps, one would build a snow fortress, the other would lay siege. Napoleon led the attacking group.
Strict rules were introduced, snowballs were stockpiled, prisoners were captured. Some of the snowball fights lasted up to ten days.
Napoleon had entered the academy an outcast. The other boys harboured a special hatred for the young man from Corsica. But following the battle, his leadership and fighting abilities proven, he was accepted amongst his peers.