Aug. 26—When Napoleon arrived in Moscow on September 14, 1812, he presumed that on that day, or the next, he would be greeted by an official delegation presenting to him Russia’s conditions for surrender. When, instead, the next day, he was greeted by multiple fires that nearly burned down the entire city of Moscow, he, nevertheless, clung to the assumption that Alexander I was merely delaying the inevitable. It was only when, in mid-October, the first snowflakes began to fall, and no terms of surrender had yet arrived, that Napoleon dimly sensed what he still did not wish to apprehend. His 600,000 army would be annihilated, not by the opposing Russian (and Prussian) military force, not even by “General Winter,” but by himself. Today’s NATO triumphalists should take note, but they will not.