How Hungary stands against the anti-Israel tide in Europe

Miklós Szánthó, Director General of the Center for Fundamental Rights in Hungary, spoke to Arutz Sheva - Israel National News at the International Pro-Israel Summit in Budapest about Hungary's continued pro-Israel stance in an increasingly anti-Israel EU.

Miklós Szánthó, Director General of the Center for Fundamental Rights in Hungary, spoke to Arutz Sheva - Israel National News at the International Pro-Israel Summit in Budapest about Hungary's continued pro-Israel stance even as other European countries turn against the Jewish State.

Szánthó said that he believes that "Hungary is the last remaining ally within the European Union of Israel, and Hungary, Budapest, is a safe haven, an island of freedom for Jews and for [all] people, for [all] commonsense people here in Hungary. What we do experience and what we do see here from a European perspective is that Western European political leaders, the globalists, including leaders of Brussels, began to wage an anti-Zionist, antisemitic campaign against Israel and against the Jewish cause, and they are targeting Hungary as well, because Prime Minister Viktor Orban stands shoulder to shoulder with Prime Minister Netanyahu and with President Donald Trump if it comes to peace and security in our regions."

He added that 'what we are doing here in Hungary is to back the cause of Israel. That's why we block and stop every and each initiative in the UN or within the EU that would harm the interests of Israel."

When asked if there is any hope of changing the anti-Israel cimate in Europe, Szánthó said that he would "try to stay politically correct," because "the situation is extremely complicated, because while Hungary defends its borders and we are trying to [protect] our country from mass illegal migration, Western European countries decided to bring hundreds of thousands or even millions of migrants to their countries, to France, to Germany, to Italy, to Spain, with a Muslim background."

He noted that this has resulted in the strengthening of the so-called red-green alliance, "an alliance of the Islamist forces and neo-Marxist progressive forces all around Western Europe, because those leftist or progressive parties, they think that they can harvest or gain the votes of those migrants. They handle them as a potential pool of voters to keep them to keep those parties in power. The problem is that what we are already witnessing in Germany, in the Netherlands, in Austria as well, that after a time, those politicians or political forces with a migration background, they will establish their very own political parties."

He stated that the situation is extremely difficult because "left-wing progressive liberal parties are trying to do gestures to the pro-Palestinian, terrorist, anti-Israeli movements in order to gain the votes of their citizens with a migration background. But the real problem will come when those ones will establish their own ethnic or religious parties in France, in Germany, in Israel, and that will pose a real threat to the Western European political system."

The Hungarian government supports US President Donald Trump's Gaza peace plan, which facilitated the return of all of the living hostages who remained captive in Gaza after two years. "Hungary has always stood for peace, and that is why it's fantastic news that there is Donald Trump in the White House, because his efforts are focused on bringing a ceasefire and peace to the Middle East, and to bring ceasefire and peace to Ukraine, what is very important for us, for Hungarians," Szánthó said.

Despite the Trump Administration's efforts, Szánthó sees Europe as playing a counterproductive role in efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East. "The problem is that the globalist forces, for example, the European Union leaders, Brussels, while they are supporting and escalating the war in Ukraine, they are the ones who are trying to defend the terrorists and supporting terrorists that are fighting a war against Israel. So the problem is that there is a leader, a new leader in the White House who tries to bring peace to every and each conflict globally, all around the world, including, of course, the Middle East. And he tries to stop the terror against Israel. And he also tries to bring peace to Ukraine. But there are other political forces, mostly progressive and left-wing neo-Marxist forces that are trying to sabotage those peace efforts. But our hope is that Trump, together with leaders like Prime Minister Netanyahu, or Prime Minister Viktor Orban, they will be able to bring peace and security to those nations."

"So I do not have any trust if it comes to Brussels, but I do have trust if it comes to Donald Trump," he said.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/417071

Iron Age Divination: Druid priests used Human Sacrifice to Predict Future Events

How Iron Age Britons performed human sacrifices to tell the future

Ancient Greek and Roman authors wrote of Iron Age human sacrifices, in which victims were stabbed and fortunes were told from the way their blood gushed out. 

Now actual physical proof of such barbaric ritual killings has been discovered in a field in Dorset, an Iron Age site that is just over 2,000 years old - part of an excavation that is offering new insights into early Britons before, during and after the Roman invasion.

Archaeologists have unearthed the skeletal remains of a young adult woman, lying face down, having been thrown on to an artificially-constructed platform, with her throat cut in an apparent public performance.

The excavation, at Winterborne Kingston, near Bere Regis, is headed by Dr Miles Russell, principal academic in Prehistoric and Roman Archaeology at Bournemouth University in Dorset, who told the Daily Mail: 'We're seeing some individual who's been executed in front of an audience. It's been done in a very theatrical way.'

The woman's brutal death echoes a report on such sacrifices by Diodorus Siculus, the Greek historian, who wrote in the 1st century BC: 'They have philosophers and theologians who are held in much honour and are called Druids… When they attempt divination upon important matters they practice a strange and incredible custom, for they kill a man by a knife-stab in the region above the midriff, and after his fall they foretell the future by the convulsions of his limbs and the pouring of his blood, a form of divination in which they have full confidence, as it is of old tradition.'

Dr Russell said: 'The Romans also wrote of such human sacrifice. They disapproved of it. They were more than happy to do it for entertainment in the arena, but they didn't like it for religious purposes - fantastically hypocritical, really.

'In the past, we've sometimes looked at these ancient texts and thought this is negative propaganda, the Romans trying to demonise their enemy. 

'It's quite clear that there is actual evidence of human sacrifice. Here we're seeing some individual who's been executed in front of an audience, thrown into a pit and then left to die.'

The excavation took place at Winterborne Kingston, near Bere Regis, in Dorset

The woman had had 'a very hard life', he said. 'Her ribs had been broken about a month before she was killed. She was about 25 to 30 years old. 

'It's difficult to know the conditions under which these people were killed. Was it a time of bad harvest? Was it a time of political danger?'

Finding one human sacrifice victim is 'spectacular', he said, but the archaeologists have realised that another woman and a man, whose remains were unearthed at the site in earlier excavations, had died in similarly brutal ways, suggesting that they too were sacrificed victims.

Dr Russell added: 'It's exactly the same kind of conditions, the same variables, the same kind of injuries. 

'They died violently, thrown down on to an artificially-constructed platform. We've got a whole series of animal bones, collected together to create a flat platform at the bottom of the pit - and then the bodies have been thrown on top of that…

'Finding three [human sacrifices] within a small area of investigation makes you think how many there [might be here]. 

'The Romans may actually have been right, that human sacrifice is something that Britons did on quite a regular basis. It's not negative propaganda after all…

'We know a lot about life in Britain after the Roman invasion. But we do not have anything written about life before, the answers to how they lived coming solely from what we find in the ground. So these discoveries are all the more significant.'

Two of the skeletons have so far been dated to between 100BC and 50 BC.

The site was originally enclosed by a ditch and rampart, a type of settlement known as a 'banjo enclosure' due to its distinctive shape.

Over five weeks, a team of staff and students from Bournemouth University excavated the site with local volunteers.

All the human remains will undergo further testing at Bournemouth and Dublin universities, to help learn more about life in early Roman Dorset.

The team will return to the site next summer to carry out further excavations of the land nearby.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15223289/How-Iron-Age-Britons-performed-human-sacrifices-tell-future-Unearthed-2-000-year-old-body-woman-25-throat-slashed-druids-rewrites-history-books.html

Human sacrifice was once widespread in Austronesian cultures, across Asia, Oceana and Africa. An illustration of an 18th century sacrifice in Tahiti is shown

A luakini heiau or human sacrifice temple in Hawaii

Aztec Skull Rack, containing skulls of sacrificial victims

A stone Tzompantli (skull rack) found during the excavations of Templo Mayor (Great Temple) in Tenochtitlan. The 'skull towers' used real human heads and were just a small part of a massive display of skulls known as Huey Tzompantli

IDF "Big Data" Unit

Inside the IDF unit that extended big data to the Iran war

The IDF intelligence, programming, cyber, communications, and data unit known as “Matzpen” (“Compass”) has had a broad reach on many fronts for the IDF for a long time.

But The Jerusalem Post has learned that it extended the full breadth of its big data capabilities over 1,500 km. away to Iran during Operation Rising Lion in June.

This was especially true for the dramatic “opening shot” by Israel, which sent Tehran reeling in the early hours of the war and both delayed and mitigated the ayatollahs’ response.

If, normally, it is challenging for Matzpen to figure out ways to get its new programs and applications to maximize the effectiveness of IDF operations in enemy territory, even as close geographically as Gaza, doing so in the Islamic Republic at such an extreme distance represented an all-new kind of challenge.

Changes in the air

Although computer programs and data reside mainly in the digital universe, which ignores geographic borders, there are still various kinds of physical infrastructure needed to facilitate those programs and data traveling to other areas.

IDF Chief-of-Staff Eyal Zamir speaks to Air Force personnel amid Israeli strikes on Iran, June 14, 2025 (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

Israel had never tried to carry out a massive and extended operation with constant updates about where the last Israeli bomb dropped and where the last Iranian ballistic missile was fired from in a country as far away as Iran.

But new techniques and programs that Matzpen developed for more extended warfare in close enemy territory were reverse-engineered to apply them to countries at much farther distances.

Of course, senior IDF sources have indicated to the Post that each program and data stream may need unique algorithms and solutions to function, whether in Gaza, Lebanon, or Iran.

Matzpen could be working on a couple of dozen new applications at a time to improve the IDF’s offensive and defensive capacities.

If developing complex new applications to confront new challenges could take months or years, now the IDF can develop such new programs at much faster rates.

But the bottom line for Matzpen’s commanders is that IDF field commanders should feel like they are dealing with a familiar technological world that is user-friendly and empowers them to better carry out the war’s strategy and tactics. This is as opposed to slowing them down with having to learn too many new technological interactions.

These field commanders should have no idea how hard Matzpen’s commanders and their soldiers are working behind the scenes to produce new applications to analyze and collate big data intelligence collection campaigns from the full spectrum of new IDF data clouds, many of which have distinctive purposes and interactions.

Likewise, when the IDF shares intelligence with the Mossad and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), and vice versa, Matzpen wants to make sure that its programming is so flawless and seamless that different agencies and their spies will barely spend time thinking about how a mountain of data arrived at their fingertips.

Changes in the field

A major point of Matzpen’s applications is to stream data fast to all the different higher and lower field commander levels regarding the precise location of enemy forces.

This has been a growing trend even before the current war, but the sheer number of Gazans, both fighters and civilians, who were constantly moving around during different stages of the Gaza invasion, was a whole new challenge.

The IDF was using drones on a large scale for both surveillance and attacks before October 7, but still nowhere near the volume and scale it has used them during the current war.

Managing the spike of additional warnings from enemy attacks and quickly matching the location of the enemy attack with an appropriate IDF drone or other platform for counterattacking with almost no delay has been an all-new challenge.

This means constantly sending incredible amounts of data from new sensors to drone teams and other platforms to help them “hunt” down enemy fighters at much faster speeds than was ever possible in prior wars.

This issue is strategic and not only tactical because when the IDF has counter-struck Hamas, Hezbollah, or Iranian rocket and missile teams at much faster speeds, it has helped “convince” other teams not to bother firing to stay alive.

Another issue that Matzpen’s big data and programming abilities have helped with is reducing friendly fire incidents.

At this point, Matzpen’s applications help map out friendly forces to such a precise extent that – while friendly fire accidents still happen – it is usually not because soldiers don’t know where other units are during routine maneuvers.

Rather, it is generally only in cases where some soldiers are pinned down so badly that they cannot even physically interface properly with whatever data might be available.

These same big data capabilities are also used by the IDF to provide commanders with rapid access to multiple possible military plans for achieving a mission goal.

Matzpen also provides data to the IDF Home Front Command to help decide how to respond to various ballistic missile, drone, and rocket threats, and to develop new capabilities for maximizing when and how to use Israel’s varying multi-layer defense capabilities.

Besides the military, Matzpen’s applications are sometimes also used for the general public. This can mean to better gather and analyze open-source intelligence (OSINT) or to provide more data and faster to average citizens about aerial threats.

IDF's ChatGPT goes operational

Moreover, Matzpen has developed the IDF’s own version of ChatGPT and chatbots, which IDF personnel can speak to verbally to interact with and to achieve new goals.

This IDF ChatGPT is uniquely sensitive to military terms and culture, both in terms of inputs and in its responses, to maximize clarity and efficiency for field commanders.

The IDF chatbot has also significantly advanced how much IDF field commanders can move around and interact with evolving data during mobile operations, as opposed to only being able to connect with their data sources when in a more stationary headquarters area.

Matzpen also makes sure that its applications cannot be easily hacked or accessed by outside actors and will keep certain references to intelligence sources in coded terms, the same way that humans might interact using codes to refer to their sources.

Producing all of these distinct applications requires huge time, resources, and monetary investments for Matzpen to always be developing many new applications.

In addition, the IDF’s operational chat connects to a form of Google Drive, but also has digital and physical adjustments to vet and secure data, which are super robust and can be carried out at scale.

Satellite data

Regarding satellite and other surveillance data, the Post has learned that there is a special digital architecture that passes around data from satellites and surveillance photos taken from aircraft.

There is a platform called MAPIT, which connects to other platforms to make the photos appear realistic, and it can achieve the mapping out of certain areas on a regularly updated basis.

Previously, the Defense Ministry revealed that Israel was able to surveil hundreds of thousands of square kilometers in Iran per day.

Providing updates on this data is carried out in three dimensions and is then integrated with other tactical operating systems.

Matzpen has helped streamline the process of providing this visual intelligence data to field commanders in real time.

IDF Intelligence Directorate head Maj.-Gen. Shlomi Binder addressing an operations room amid Israel's strikes on Iran as part of Operation ''Rising Lion,'' June 13, 2025. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

More on defense

The war finally brought the drone surveillance capabilities to a different level of maturity. When an organization connects them to supremacy in digital infrastructure, a critical mass of sensors, and all of the history of those who previously used the drones, it achieves startling, cutting-edge new operational capabilities.

In that vein, Matzpen programs now help provide incredible amounts of prior history on tactics that were used to defend a previous area. The digital data storage directory records all warnings in real time, from any drone and any other flying platform, and relays the warning to the forces who need it in real time.

On the “active defense” side, Matzpen programs are tracking the placement and finding of improvised explosives (IEDs) with much greater precision than any military has ever done before.

Providing exact coordinates – a few meters one way or another – for where IEDs are located or for areas that have been cleared by bulldozers or other units as not having IEDs, can mean the difference between life and death for troop personnel carriers and tanks maneuvering into a new battle space.

In the cyber defense arena, Matzpen provides some of the applications and infrastructure that other divisions of the IDF use to keep the military from getting hacked, though they spend more time facilitating IDF attack capabilities.

As the IDF prepares to move from wartime into peacetime, one can only guess what new kinds of challenges will be thrown at Matzpen for addressing different security threats based on their particular nuances.

But whatever challenges will be thrown at it, Matzpen’s team of programmers has shown they are ready to tackle just about any new challenge.

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-871733

New Book: The Road to October 7

An attack 1500 years in the making

Fern Sidman interviews Dr. Rafael Medoff about his new book, The Road to October 7, published by the Jewish Publication Society & University of Nebraska Press.

Q: What do you mean when you say that there was a very long road leading to the attack of October 7?

Medoff: The horror of October 7 can’t be separated from the centuries of anti-Jewish violence that preceded it. The Hamas killers and gang-rapists were following closely in the footsteps of those who have been torturing and murdering Jews around the world since medieval times. There are obvious similarities in their methods, ideology, and the hate-filled education on which the killers were reared.

Q: When you say “hate education,” do you see a common thread in different educational systems through the centuries?

Medoff: Education is one of the important common denominators in anti-Jewish violence, historically. When the medieval Crusaders were children, they were taught that all contemporary Jews deserved to be punished for the death of Jesus. Pogromists in Czarist Russia and Chemelnicki’s Ukraine were taught the same thing. The Palestinian Arab terrorists who rampaged through Hebron in 1929, like those who rampaged through southern Israel in 2023, were raised in schools and mosques where they were taught that Jews are evil and need to be destroyed.

Q: What about the Nazis? How did they weaponize education?

Medoff: As soon as the Nazis rose to power, they changed Germany’s school curricula to reflect Nazi beliefs and purged all teachers who failed to go along. An entire generation of young Germans-like entire generations of Palestinian Arabs-was inculcated with violent antisemitism.

And Nazi education did not stop at the end of the school day. After school hours, millions of German children were active in the Hitler Youth movement. Later, Hitler Youth members were involved in many atrocities during the Holocaust. Alumni of Hamas and Palestinian Authority schools and summer camps carried out October 7.

Q: Is this part of the eternal “nature vs. nurture” debate, regarding how children develop?

Medoff: I would put it this way: No child is born an antisemitic murderer. The ideas that lead to such behavior have to be taught. For a group of people to carry out the methodical, large-scale torture, rape and massacre of defenseless Jewish civilians, they have to be inundated, for years, with hateful ideas in their schools, homes, and religious institutions.

Q: Recently you’ve written articles about the Palestinian Authority’s summer camps. How do those camps fit into the bigger picture?

Medoff: Last year, the Palestinian Authority ran 65 summer camps, attended by 65,000 boys and girls. What goes on in the camps is a continuation of what goes on during the school year, but with a summer flavor. While American kids are playing ball and making arts and crafts in their summer camps, Palestinian Arab kids train for real war-some of the camps include actual military training.

American campers paint pictures of animals and flowers. In PA camps, the kids paint maps of all of Israel labeled “Palestine.” The kids in American summer camps idolize sports figures. Palestinian Arab campers are taught to idolize suicide bombers, airplane hijackers, and the butchers who carried out the Munich Olympics massacre. You can bet some of the perpetrators of October 7 attended PA or Hamas summer camps.

Q: Another parallel between antisemitic violence in past centuries and the Hamas attack, which you explore in The Road to October 7, is the parading of what you call “trophy victims.”

Medoff: Going back to medieval times, we find descriptions of pogromists parading the corpses of their Jewish victims. It’s a way of boasting of the killer’s “achievement.” And it’s also a way of inflicting a final indignity on the victims, by demonstrating complete physical supremacy, even in death.

Parading victims has been a very common feature in the history of Palestinian Arab violence against Jews. Modern technology has given us a new twist on this old horror-perpetrators of the October 7 atrocities used their cell phones to livestream what they were doing to the Jews.

Q: Let’s talk about the responses in America to the Hamas attack and the Gaza war, which you discuss in detail in The Road to October 7. How do you account for the extreme positions taken by groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch?

Medoff: It’s important to remember that Amnesty and HRW were deeply biased against Israel long before October 2023. Back in February 2022, for example, Amnesty issued a report falsely accusing Israel of “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing.” And HRW smeared Israel with the false “apartheid” charge even earlier than that, in April 2021. So with their longstanding predisposition to attack Israel, it’s no surprise that they would continue that pattern after October 7, regardless of the facts.

Q: What about American feminist groups? Wouldn’t you think they would have been concerned about the barbaric Hamas attacks on Israeli women?

Medoff: According to their own declared principles, groups such as MeToo International and the National Organization for Women should have been the first to denounce the October 7 atrocities. Instead, they at first said nothing, then they stalled, then they issued weak both-sides-are-guilty statements. It appears that their political biases take priority over their feminist principles.

Q: In The Road to October 7, you unveil your new research concerning American universities that developed friendly relations with Nazi Germany. How does that connect to the pro-Hamas protests on campuses today?

Medoff: The common denominator is their leaders’ indifference to antisemitism. In the 1930s, Harvard, Columbia, George Washington University, Wesleyan and others ignored Nazi antisemitism as they built friendly ties with the Hitler regime, which included inviting Nazi representatives to speak on their campuses. In the aftermath of October 7, these same universities ignored the waves of antisemitism by some of their own students, including the genocidal calls for the annihilation of millions of Israeli Jews.

Q: There’s always some lag time between when a book is written and when it’s published. Has anything happened recently that would change what you wrote in The Road to October 7 when you finished the manuscript?

Medoff: Sadly, everything that has happened in recent months has only reaffirmed what I documented in the book. The new details of Hamas’s starvation of Israeli hostages only proves, again, its incredible barbarism.

Antisemitism, sometimes thinly disguised as anti-Zionism, has become increasingly acceptable in the mainstream culture. The Palestinian Authority continues to act as a cheerleader for Hamas, and is indoctrinating young people to carry out another October 7. And some American feminist groups continue to betray their own principles by refusing to speak out against Hamas atrocities against Jewish women.

Q: The situation sounds hopeless.

Medoff: I know it sometimes feels that way. But despite it all, I remain basically optimistic. The Jews have endured much worse over the centuries, yet we survived and ultimately have thrived despite it all. Today there is a strong Jewish state and a strong Jewish army. Think about that in the context of what the Jewish people suffered just eighty-five years ago, when Jews were weak and stateless, and you realize how blessed we are today.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/416866

Technion Creates New Adhesive That Seals Wounds in Seconds

Technion scientists create adhesive that seals wounds in seconds

These new “PTLA bioadhesives” are made from natural tannic acid, polylysine, and other components. Through precise 3D printing, the team can customize these adhesives for different needs, ensuring high reproducibility and tailored applications.

Unlike conventional adhesives, these hydrogels stick strongly to wet tissue, sealing wounds within just five seconds and outperforming many commercial and recently reported advanced bioadhesives.

Thermal-induced shape memory property allows these applications via minimally invasive surgery. What sets PTLAs apart is their exceptional performance under extreme conditions, making them suitable for emergency medicine, battlefield care, and harsh environmental applications. “Nature is like a medicine chest with treatments for all kinds of conditions. One just has to discover them.”

“Many research groups have tried to make such adhesives, but we are the first to implement tannic acid for this and make polymers with the same chemistry that allows the production of molecules for this purpose.”

Tannic acid is a natural polyphenolic compound found in abundant plants, such as oak bark, hemlock, tea, grapes, and coffee. In terms of biological functions, it can inhibit the growth of various viruses and bacteria, as well as scavenge free radicals to reduce the release of inflammatory cytokines.

It also promotes the proliferation and migration of fibroblasts – connective tissue cells responsible for producing and maintaining the extracellular matrix that provides structural support to organs and tissues – and stimulates the production of collagen, thereby accelerating wound healing.

Tannic acid has been added to formulations of numerous adhesive materials as an additive assembled through physical interactions to enhance adhesive capability, but adhesion under wet conditions, especially on wet tissue surfaces, has been difficult to achieve. Unfortunately, when this adhesive was applied to wet tissues, its stickiness decreased by more than 20 times.

“We saw from medical literature that there can be surgical complications with staples and sutures, so we tried different models underwater. Our bioadhesive works speedily under extremely harsh environmental conditions, including low and high temperatures, underwater, and under high pressure. It can be prepared in just seconds. If an artery or vein is cut, the bleeding needs to be stopped as soon as possible. We would like to study its use for burn patients in the future. 

Additionally, PTLAs offer superior infection resistance, thanks to their antimicrobial and antioxidant properties. In severe cases, uncontrolled wound infections can spread into the bloodstream, leading to sepsis. Many people die from infections during the first days after surgery.

“Their self-gelling feature allows easy application as a dry powder, supporting long-term storage and practical use in diverse healthcare settings,” he added. “In the future, drugs could be included in the adhesive to promote healing,” said the Technion chemist.

“All-in-one PTLAs pave the way for improved tissue adhesion, hemostasis (the biological process that prevents and stops bleeding from a damaged blood vessel by creating a plug to seal the injury), and healthcare. They present transformative potential as bio-tapes, bio-bandages, bio-sealants, bio-carriers, etc., and set the stage for next-generation bioadhesive design.”

Physicians and scientists in Israel and abroad have reacted to the news with much excitement, and the new technology should interest the IDF Medical Corps as well.

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-871577

Napoleon's Retreat From Moscow

What REALLY killed Napoleon's army as they fled from Russia: Study of soldiers' teeth finds two deadly pathogens that 'ravaged French troops amid doomed invasion'

It was the defeat that spelled the beginning of the end for Napoleon.

The French emperor's failed invasion of Russia in 1812 left more than 500,000 troops dead, with many long believed to have died from a mixture of the cold, starvation and disease.

Now, experts who studied teeth of soldiers found in a mass grave have identified the exact pathogens that likely contributed to the army's downfall.

Although historical accounts point to typhus having killed thousands of men, scientists at France's Institut Pasteur found no trace of it in the remains of 13 men buried in Vilnius in what is now Lithuania.

Instead, the team of scientists discovered a bacterium that causes the similar paratyphoid fever and another that can cause relapsing fever, an infection transmitted by lice. 

Both diseases can give sufferers a high fever, fatigue and digestive problems. 

The study authors believe their simultaneous presence contributed to the French troops's worsening state, especially as they were already weakened by cold, hunger and a lack of sanitation. 

Lice are known to have ravaged the French troops throughout the failed invasion.

Napoleon's failed invasion of Russia left more than 500,000 troops dead. Above: A depiction of Napoleon at the head of the French army as it retreats from Moscow

Experts who studied teeth of soldiers found in a mass grave have identified the exact pathogens that likely contributed to the downfall of Napoleon Bonaparte's army after the failed invasion of Russia

Of the 13 exhumed soldiers, the teeth of four tested positive for Salmonella enterica, the bacterium that causes paratyphoid fever.

And the teeth of a further two were found to contain Borrelia recurrentis, the bacterium responsible for relapsing fever.

The new study provides the first genetic evidence of two causes of the deaths of French troops that were previously unsuspected.

The exact number of deaths they were responsible for remains a mystery.

And the scientists did only use a limited sample size. The 13 bodies examined came from a grave containing more than 3,000 soldiers' remains.

However, the study does reveal a correlation between historical descriptions of the symptoms suffered by Napoleon's army and those that are typical of paratyphoid and relapsing fever.

Lead author Nicolas Rascovan said: 'It's very exciting to use a technology we have today to detect and diagnose something that was buried for 200 years.'

The study is published today in the journal Current Biology.

A button found amid French soldiers' remains during the excavation of the mass grave in Vilnius in what is now Lithuania

When the Russians refused to surrender, Napoleon and his starving men were forced to retreat West amidst the country's fierce winter

Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon in Ridley Scott's 2023 film, riding through the Kremlin

Napoleon's men made it to Moscow but were forced to retreat when the Russians refused to surrender.

They were faced by plummeting temperatures as winter set in.

By the time they made it back to France, only 110,000 of the original contingent of 650,000 men were still alive.

Napoleon began his invasion of Russia after defeat against Britain, Spain and Portugal in the Peninsular War.

In that conflict, up to half a million of Napoleon's men had been killed or wounded.

The assault into Russia began in late June 1812. But by the time the French reached Moscow, thousands were starving or freezing to death, as others succumbed to disease or dehydration.

The Russian forces - fighting under the banner of Tsar Alexander I - adopted a scorched earth policy in the hope of driving the French out.

When the Russian surrender failed to materialise, Napoleon ordered his troops to retreat.

As they fled Russia, the French forces were repeatedly attacked by native troops and also beset by lack of fresh supplies and the horrendous weather.

Soon after arriving back in France, Napoleon's former allies turned on him. At the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, a coalition of forces that included Russian, British and Prussian troops, Napoleon's forces were defeated.

A further 100,000 men were killed or wounded on the French side.

The French emperor was forced to abdicate a year later when Russians, Austrians and Prussians captured Paris.

He was exiled to Elba but escaped from the Mediterranean island in February 1815, after less than a year away from power.

Having sailed back to France to reclaim the throne, he dared the French army to arrest him.

After they rallied behind him, he went on to lead his forces against the Duke of Wellington's army at the Battle of Waterloo.

That fight ended in defeat too for the French leader, and he returned to Paris a defeated man.

Having surrendered, he was sent away to exile a second time, this time to the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic.

He spent six years there before dying from is believed to have been stomach cancer in 1821.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-15224301/What-REALLY-killed-Napoleons-army-fled-Russia-Study-soldiers-teeth-finds-two-deadly-pathogens-ravaged-French-troops-amid-doomed-invasion.html

Napoleon 

Napoleon in his coronation robes, by François Gérard

Even as Emperor, he still cheated at board games. 

The dictator was famous for the black bicorne hat that he wore as part of his grand uniform

More than two centuries after his death, the Emperor still casts a mighty shadow. Parisian streets and stations are still named after his battles, while the Arc de Triomphe (pictured), built to celebrate his victory at Austerlitz, remains one of the great symbols of French patriotism

French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron stand in front of the tomb of French Emperor Napoleon during a ceremony marking the 200th anniversary of his death

He laid a wreath at the tomb of Napoleon, who destroyed the French republic with a putsch then plunged Europe into a series of disastrous wars

At Borodino, 60,000 cannonballs were fired. There were 43,000 immediate casualties and 140,000 further deaths from wounds and disease, statistics that would remain a record until World War I

The bloody battle of Bordolino is pictured

Napoleon spent his final days in exile on St Helena

Longwood House, the property where Napoleon was held captive on St Helena

The refurbished Longwood mansion

Napoleon died on the remote island of St Helena

Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte's humiliating retreat from Moscow in 1812 during bitter winter weather claimed the lives of many of his troops

Lack of food and fodder for the horses, hypothermia from the bitter cold and persistent attacks upon isolated troops from Russian peasants and Cossacks led to great losses in men, and a general loss of discipline and cohesion in the army. A drawing of the retreat from Moscow

Napoleon Bonaparte at the Moscow Kremlin, Russia, watching the great fire of Moscow