Weather and Warfare

The war in Kosovo demonstrated dramatically that weather affects every aspect of battle. The impact of weather on war has long been recognized. In The Art of War, circa 500 B.C., Sun Tzu advised, "Know the ground, know the weather; your victory will then be total." Vice Adm. Scott A. Fry echoed these words 2,500 years later when he told reporters during a briefing on Operation Allied Force that the Serbs had two main allies—geography and weather.

• In 480 B.C., storms at sea broke up the "bridge of boats" across the Hellespont, turning back the army of Xerxes, the emperor of Persia, from its march to invade Greece.
• In 1588 storms off the coasts of Scotland and Ireland wrecked many ships of the Spanish Armada as they retreated after Spain's failed invasion of the British Isles.
• In June 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia with 500,000 men, only to withdraw five months later in snow and bitter cold with fewer than 10,000 surviving troops.
• During World War II, storms forced Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to delay the Normandy invasion one day.

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