Napoleon Bonaparte is revered as one of the greatest military commanders of all time, but even he was helpless against fluffy little bunnies.
Napoleon’s chief of staff, arranged the festivities with anywhere from a few hundred to 3,000 rabbits and expected them to behave as normal when they were uncaged on a field.
Berthier was not particularly knowledgeable about rabbits, and when the cages, set on the edges of a huge field, opened, the animals bombarded Napoleon and the others in the vicinity. These domesticated, floofy-eared mammals were not scared of humans and believed it was feeding time, so the throng of rabbits ran towards Napoleon and his men, searching for tasty morsels.
the intrepid rabbits turned the Emperor’s flank, attacked him frantically in the rear, refused to quit their hold, piled themselves up between his legs till they made him stagger, and forced the conqueror of conquerors, fairly exhausted, to retreat and leave them in possession of the field
The rabbits did not relent. They chased the commander and continued attacking even as Napoleon clamored into his velvet seat. Some even made their way into his horse-drawn carriage. Humiliated and stunned by the events, Napoleon did not retain his composure until he was driven far out of range of the chaos (and after throwing the bunnies that made it into his carriage out of the window).
The reason for the creatures’ aggression? Berthier bought tame rabbits from a farmer rather than trap wild ones and, because they hadn’t been fed that day, the hungry bunnies swarmed the men they assumed were there to feed them.
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