Napoleon’s Russia (1812)

I kick-started the motherland campaign 

to block trade routes to ebullient Albion.

I intended their resources to drain,

without the swift assault of a legion.

With half a million troops, I sought to subdue 

this vast wintry land of Europe’s far east.

Its plains shrank in my conqueror’s eye view,

whilst my dreams dwarfed it to my subdued list.

With valiant troops, I annexed the Kremlin.

For a score and sixteen days I held sway

until the scorched earth kept my troops at bay,

as Cossacks took their heavy toll with shelling.

My dreaded myth was by attrition tried,

as freezing plains did my grand armee embalm.

I did retreat as my lofty dreams died

with troops my own ambition did disarm.

Joseph C Ogbonna is a prolific poet, a former high school teacher, and an amateur historian. Some of his works have been published by Synchronized Chaos, Spillwords Press, Micromance, PoetryXhunger, Waxpoetry Magazine, Ihram, Borderless, Orenuag Journal, North of Oxford, all your poems and stories magazines.

He also has two self-published volumes to his credit. His poems ‘Napoleon to Josephine and Josephine to Napoleon,’ were aired by the BBC Radio 3 to mark the bicentenary of the death of Napoleon Bonaparte.