Napoleon Bonaparte was bored.
It is a dangerous thing for the most powerful man on Earth to be bored. When a man like Napoleon gets bored, borders usually move. Maps get redrawn. Several thousand people usually end up dead in a muddy field in Austria.
But this time, the boredom was absolute. He had just signed the Treaties of Tilsit. He had effectively ended the War of the Fourth Coalition. He had sat on a raft in the middle of a river with Tsar Alexander I, divided up Europe like a pizza, and shaken hands. The Russian Emperor was now his ally. The Prussians were humiliated. The British were… well, the British were still annoying, but they were isolated.
For the first time in years, the guns were silent.
Napoleon sat in his opulent office in Paris, flicking a piece of lint off his white breeches. He looked at his Chief of Staff, Alexandre Berthier.
“Berthier,” Napoleon said, sighing. “I have conquered Europe. I have rewritten the laws. I have made my brothers Kings. What is left?”
Berthier, a man whose organizational skills were legendary but whose imagination was that of a filing cabinet, looked nervous. “Administration, Sire? We have the grain reports from Lyon…”
“I do not want grain reports!” Napoleon snapped, standing up. He was short, yes, but he projected the energy of a linebacker. “I want celebration. I want a display of dominance. I want to shoot something.”
Berthier’s eyes lit up. “A hunt, Sire?”
Napoleon nodded. “Yes. A hunt. But not just a hunt. The greatest hunt France has ever seen. Invite the dignitaries. Invite the Russians. I want to show them the hospitality of the Empire. We shall hunt rabbits.”
“Rabbits, Sire?”
“Thousands of them,” Napoleon declared, waving a hand. “I want the fields to teem with them. I want to stand in the center and fire until my shoulder is bruised. Make it happen, Berthier. Do not disappoint me.”
Berthier bowed low. “It will be a spectacle for the ages, Sire.”
Berthier was right. It would be a spectacle. Just not the one he intended.
The Logistics of Glory
Alexandre Berthier was the ultimate middle manager. He was the guy who made sure the Grande Armée had boots, bullets, and biscuits. He could move a corps of 50,000 men across the Alps in a blizzard.
But he didn’t know anything about animals.
He had a budget. He had a deadline. And he had a boss who accepted nothing less than perfection.
“I need rabbits,” Berthier told his aide later that afternoon. “The Emperor wants thousands.”
“Wild hares are difficult to catch, sir,” the aide pointed out. “They are fast. They are elusive. To trap three thousand of them in a week… it would require an army of poachers.”
Berthier rubbed his temples. He didn’t have time for poachers. He needed a bulk supplier. He needed the Costco of rodents.
“I don’t care where you get them,” Berthier snapped. “Go to the farmers. Go to the markets. Buy every rabbit in Paris if you have to. Just fill the cages.”
The aide saluted and ran off.
And this was the moment—the single, bureaucratic point of failure—that would lead to the most embarrassing afternoon in French military history.
You see, there is a fundamental difference between a wild hare (Lepus europaeus) and a domestic rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus).
A wild hare is a survivalist. It lives in the open. It sees a human, it thinks: Predator. Run. Death.
A domestic rabbit lives in a hutch. It sees a human, it thinks: The Big Hairless Monkey who brings the cabbage. Lunch time.
Berthier’s aide didn’t buy 3,000 wild hares. He went to the local farmers and bought 3,000 tame, fluffy, hungry farm bunnies.
He loaded them into cages. He transported them to the designated hunting grounds—a beautiful, grassy estate belonging to a Baron friend of the Emperor. He lined the cages up along the edge of the field.
Berthier inspected the line. “Excellent,” he muttered. “The Emperor will be pleased. Look at them. They are eager.”
Inside the cages, 3,000 noses twitched. They hadn’t been fed since that morning. They saw the green grass. They saw the men in fancy uniforms. And in their tiny, simple brains, a single thought formed: The buffet is open.
The Battle Begins
The day of the hunt arrived. It was a perfect French summer afternoon. The sun was shining, the champagne was flowing, and the elite of the Empire had gathered.
Generals in gold-braided uniforms stood chatting with ladies in silk dresses. Gun bearers stood ready with the finest muskets money could buy.
Then, the trumpets sounded.
Ta-da-da-daaa!
Napoleon emerged from his tent. He looked magnificent. He wore his favorite green coat, his bicorne hat positioned perfectly. He walked with that strut—the strut of a man who knows his face is going to be on the currency.
He took his position in the center of the field. He grabbed a musket from his bearer. He checked the wind.
“Release the beasts!” Berthier shouted to the gamekeepers.
This was it. The moment of glory. The gamekeepers unlatched the cage doors.
The crowd held its breath. They expected the rabbits to bolt. They expected a chaotic scramble of fur darting toward the forest, giving the Emperor a sporting chance to pick them off one by one.
The cages opened.
The rabbits did not run toward the forest.
Instead, 3,000 rabbits hopped out, looked around, saw Napoleon standing in the middle of the field, and collectively decided: That guy has the lettuce.
They didn’t scatter. They swarmed.
It started as a low rumble. Then, it became a white wave. A tsunami of fluff.
“What are they doing?” Napoleon asked, lowering his gun. “Why aren’t they running away?”
“I… I am not sure, Sire,” Berthier stammered. “Perhaps they are… stunned by your presence?”
“They are coming right at me,” Napoleon said.
He wasn’t wrong. The rabbits were moving with terrifying speed. Not in a panic, but with purpose. They converged on the Emperor like iron filings to a magnet.
“Shoo!” Napoleon shouted, waving his hand. “Go away! Run, you little idiots!”
The rabbits ignored the command. The first wave hit Napoleon’s boots.
They didn’t bite. They didn’t scratch. They snuggled.
They swarmed around his legs, begging for food. They climbed over his polished boots. They stood on their hind legs, pawing at his white breeches, looking for carrots.
“Fire!” Napoleon yelled, panic rising in his voice.
He fired his musket into the ground. Bang!
Usually, a gunshot sends animals fleeing in terror. But these were farm rabbits. They were used to noise. They assumed the loud bang was the dinner bell.
The gunshot only attracted more of them.
“Get them off me!” Napoleon screamed.
The humor of the situation began to dawn on the generals. Marshal Ney, the “Bravest of the Brave,” was hiding a smile behind his hand. The ladies were giggling.
But for Napoleon, this was not funny. This was a loss of control. And Napoleon hated losing control.
He kicked out. “Allez! Go!”
He swatted at them with the butt of his rifle. But for every rabbit he pushed away, three more took its place. It was a hydra of cuteness.
“Help him!” Berthier shrieked to the staff. “Defend the Emperor!”
The Flanking Maneuver
The hunt had turned into a skirmish.
The gun bearers rushed in, using their whips and sticks to try and part the sea of rabbits. But the rabbits were relentless. They were hungry, and they had identified the short man in the funny hat as the Alpha Provider.
The rabbits split into two columns. It was a tactical maneuver that would have made Alexander the Great proud.
One column kept Napoleon pinned from the front, swarming his shins. The other column flanked him, circling around the back to cut off his retreat toward the refreshment tent.
“They are flanking us!” one of the aides yelled. “Sir, the rabbits have turned the flank!”
Napoleon was now waist-deep in bunnies. They were climbing his coat. One particularly ambitious rabbit—a large white buck—managed to leap onto the Emperor’s shoulder. It sat there, nibbling on the gold epaulette of his uniform.
The crowd was no longer giggling. They were roaring with laughter. The Emperor of France, the Scourge of Europe, the man who had brought Kings to their knees, was being defeated by the Easter Bunny’s extended family.
“Retreat!” Napoleon yelled. “Fall back to the carriage!”
It was the first time in his career he had ordered a retreat in the face of an enemy.
He dropped his gun. He turned and ran.
Picture it: The most feared military mind of the 19th century, sprinting across a green field, flailing his arms, pursued by a horde of three thousand hopping, wiggling, nose-twitching monsters.
He reached the Imperial Carriage. The driver, wide-eyed, opened the door.
Napoleon dove inside. “Drive! Drive you fool!”
He slammed the door shut.
He slumped back against the velvet seat, breathing hard. He brushed rabbit fur off his jacket. He was safe. The fortress of the carriage protected him.
Or so he thought.
He looked down.
There, sitting on his lap, were two rabbits. They had jumped in through the window before the carriage started moving.
One of them looked up at him, twitched its nose, and seemed to ask, So, are we going to Russia, or what?
Napoleon picked up the rabbit and threw it out the window.
“Go!” he screamed at the driver.
The carriage lurched forward, leaving a cloud of dust and a confused army of rabbits in its wake.
The Aftermath
The ride back to Paris was long and silent.
Berthier sat opposite Napoleon. He was sweating. He knew his career was hanging by a thread. He waited for the explosion. He waited for the Emperor to scream, to fire him, to exile him to some rock in the middle of the ocean.
Napoleon stared out the window. He picked a piece of white fur off his sleeve.
He didn’t scream. He looked thoughtful.
“Berthier,” Napoleon said finally.
“Yes, Sire?” Berthier squeaked.
“That was…” Napoleon paused. He looked at his hands, the hands that had redrawn the map of the world. “That was a disaster.”
“It was a logistical error, Sire,” Berthier pleaded. “The aide… he bought domestic rabbits. They thought you were the farmer. It won’t happen again.”
Napoleon let out a short, sharp laugh. It wasn’t a happy laugh. It was the laugh of a man who has peered into the abyss of the universe and realized the universe has big, floppy ears.
“Do you know what the irony is, Berthier?” Napoleon asked.
“No, Sire.”
“I defeated the Austrians. I defeated the Prussians. I defeated the Russians. I have faced cannon fire, cavalry charges, and bayonets. I have never been afraid.”
Napoleon leaned forward.
“But back there… for a moment… when the white one looked me in the eye…”
He shuddered.
“They were unstoppable. They had no fear. They had no leader. They just… swarmed. If the Prussians fought like those rabbits, I would be speaking German right now.”
Berthier didn’t know what to say. “They were just hungry, Sire.”
“We are all just hungry, Berthier,” Napoleon said philosophically. “Rabbits want carrots. Men want power. And in the end, we all just hop blindly toward the hand that feeds us.”
The carriage rattled on toward Paris.
Epilogue: The Rabbit Complex
History books are written by the victors, which is why the “Battle of the Bunnies” is often relegated to a footnote. Napoleon didn’t like to talk about it. Berthier definitely didn’t talk about it.
But the psychological scar remained.
Some historians argue that Napoleon’s later invasion of Russia failed because of the winter. Others say it was overextended supply lines.
But there is a theory—a quiet, whispered theory among the cynical—that the great Emperor lost his edge that sunny afternoon in July 1807.
Because once a man has run away from a bunny rabbit, he can never truly take himself seriously as a God of War again.
Years later, when Napoleon was finally defeated at Waterloo and exiled to the lonely island of St. Helena, he spent his days gardening.
One day, a visitor asked him what he feared most in his life. Was it Wellington? Was it the British Navy? Was it the loss of his legacy?
Napoleon leaned on his hoe. He looked at a small patch of lettuce in his garden.
“No,” the former Emperor said softly. “I fear the mob. The mindless, hungry mob. The ones who love you too much, until they consume you.”
Just then, a small wild hare hopped into the garden.
The conqueror of Europe dropped his hoe and walked briskly back inside the house, locking the door behind him.
