Victory Garden

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The Victory Garden is a modern legend , which is spread among other things in university chemistry classes and the source of which can no longer be traced.

According to legend, the "Victory Gardens" - mounds covered with earth made from the bodies of fallen soldiers - were an invention of Napoleon Bonaparte and were used to make saltpetre from the corpses for the extraction of black powder . The reason for the so-called innovation is said to have been the lack of gunpowder on the campaigns during the Napoleonic Wars .

One version of this modern saga is as follows:

After a battle, the bodies of the fallen were picked up and brought together. They were then showered with urine and covered with a layer of earth. Nitrate bacteria decompose the ammonium (NH ₄ ⁺ ) from the urine to nitrate (NO ₃ ^- ), whereby saltpeter is formed, which crystallizes as a salty crust on the surface of the mound. This saltpetre was used specifically for the extraction of black powder.

Even if the link between the chemical reaction described and the Napoleonic wars is still used in lectures and exams in chemistry to embellish the course content, there is no evidence for the use of such a method by Napoleon's Grande Armée .