Napoleon vs 1,000 Rabbits: What the Only Source Says

Napoleon, it's said, was chased off a field by hundreds of rabbits. The story is famous. Most of the details you've heard are wrong. Was Napoleon really beaten by rabbits? Every version of this story comes from one book, the memoirs of General Paul Thiébault, published in the 1890s, decades after his death. We went back to that source. It says 1,000 rabbits, not 3,000. It gives no date after Tilsit. It never has the rabbits leaping into Napoleon's carriage. And Thiébault never says he was there. In this animated documentary: • The popular version, and the one memoir it all comes from • Berthier, chief of staff and Master of the Hunt, and the rabbits bought from a hutch instead of a warren • The charge, in Thiébault's own words: "the intrepid rabbits turned the Emperor's flank" • Why tame rabbits run at people: a 2018 brain study, Japan's Rabbit Island, and why they weren't hares • The "monks tamed rabbits because a pope called them fish" myth • What the retellings got wrong: the date, the place, the 3,000 rabbits, the carriage • Napoleon's other legends: he wasn't short, Josephine's pug, and the hunting accident that cost Masséna an eye • Australia's rabbit plague and the 1,833 km rabbit-proof fence ⏱️ Chapters 0:00 Beaten by Rabbits? 0:52 The Only Source 1:55 The Charge 3:06 Why Tame Rabbits Charge 4:34 What the Retellings Got Wrong 6:08 Other Legends, Other Rabbits 📚 Educational & historical note: This video is for education and entertainment and simplifies complex history. The rabbit story is presented as what one memoir claims, checked against what the memoir actually says. Height, dates and figures are rounded from the sources below. Maps and reconstructions are schematic. No animals are shown being harmed. ⚠️ Unverified claims: the rabbit attack itself rests on a single second-hand source (General Thiébault's memoirs, published decades after his death, told as an anecdote he had heard); its date and place are not recorded (the popular "July 1807, after Tilsit" and the château of Grosbois are later guesses); the "3,000 rabbits", the carriage escape and the "wild hares" are later embellishments; Marshal Masséna blaming Berthier for the 1808 hunting accident comes from one memoir (Marbot); and the story of Josephine's pug biting Napoleon comes from one account written more than thirty years later (Arnault). These are labelled UNVERIFIED on screen. Sources: • Paul Thiébault, Mémoires du général baron Thiébault, vol. III (Plon, 1894), pp. 544–546; trans. A. J. Butler, The Memoirs of Baron Thiébault (1896), vol. II, pp. 184–186 • Irving-Pease et al., "Rabbits and the Specious Origins of Domestication", Trends in Ecology & Evolution (2018) • Brusini et al., "Domestication-driven changes in rabbit brain structure", PNAS (2018) • Fondation Napoléon, "Was Napoleon small?"; napoleon.org on Tilsit and the Grand Veneur • Marbot, Memoirs; A.-V. Arnault, Souvenirs d'un sexagénaire (1833) • CSIRO, "Biological control of rabbits"; Alves et al., PNAS (2022) 👉 Subscribe to Past Explains for more strange true history, explained with stick figures! 💬 Would you rather face Napoleon's army, or a thousand hungry rabbits? #Napoleon #History #Animation napoleon rabbits, napoleon attacked by rabbits, napoleon rabbit hunt, was napoleon beaten by rabbits, napoleon bunny attack, thiebault memoirs, berthier rabbit hunt, treaty of tilsit, napoleon myths, was napoleon short, napoleon height, little boney gillray, josephine pug fortune, massena eye hunting accident, rabbit domestication myth, okunoshima rabbit island, rabbits in australia, rabbit proof fence, weird history, strange true history, history myths debunked, history animation, stick figure history, past explains