It sounds like something out of a cartoon, but Napoleon Bonaparte—the fearsome military strategist—was once overrun by a mob of bunnies.

In the early 1800s, after signing the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, Napoleon’s chief of staff, Alexandre Berthier, organized a celebratory rabbit hunt. The plan was to release hundreds (some accounts say thousands) of rabbits into a field, where Napoleon and his men would hunt them for sport.

But something went hilariously wrong.

Berthier’s staff had purchased domesticated rabbits—not wild ones. So when the cages were opened, instead of scattering in fear, the bunnies charged straight at Napoleon and his men, likely expecting food rather than facing fire. The horde of fluffy invaders swarmed the hunting party.

Napoleon, famously calm on the battlefield, reportedly tried to shoo them away, then retreated to his carriage as they kept coming. The rabbits even tried to follow the carriage as it drove off. The event became known, semi-seriously, as "Napoleon's Bunny Defeat."