Author: Philip J. Haythomthwaite
Publisher: Spellmount, Limited Publishers
ISBN: 9780750969758
Category : France
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Haythornthwaite brings his reputation as a leading Napoleonic historian to bear on the examination of all parts of the French army: the cavalry, infantry, artillery, Imperial Guard, staff and supporting services. Napoleon's innovations and tactics are described, from Austerlitz to Waterloo, demonstrating the reasons for his success and decline.
Author: Michael J Hughes
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814724116
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299
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Book Description
“A fascinating study exploring the motivation of French soldiers during the Napoleonic Era, and the process through which they became Napoleon’s men.”—Frederick C. Schneid, author of Napoleon’s Conquest of Europe The men who fought in Napoleon’s Grande Armée built a new empire that changed the world. Remarkably, the same men raised arms during the French Revolution for liberté, égalité, and fraternité. In just over a decade, these freedom fighters, who had once struggled to overthrow tyrants, rallied to the side of a man who wanted to dominate Europe. What was behind this drastic change of heart? In this ground-breaking study, Michael J. Hughes shows how Napoleonic military culture shaped the motivation of Napoleon’s soldiers. Relying on extensive archival research and blending cultural and military history, Hughes demonstrates that the Napoleonic regime incorporated elements from both the Old Regime and French Revolutionary military culture to craft a new military culture, characterized by loyalty to both Napoleon and the preservation of French hegemony in Europe. Underscoring this new, hybrid military culture were five sources of motivation: honor, patriotism, a martial and virile masculinity, devotion to Napoleon, and coercion. Forging Napoleon’s Grande Armée vividly illustrates how this many-pronged culture gave Napoleon’s soldiers reasons to fight. “Hughes offers a tight and well-grounded exposition and analysis of French military culture in the Napoleonic period in which military honour is presented as a dynamic element.” —Journal of European Studies “Hughes’s book not only contributes to our understanding of the military success of Napoleon’s army, but also elegantly employs cultural history methods to better understand army operations and sustained troop motivations.” —Julia Osman, History: Reviews of New Book
Author: Owen Connelly
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742553187
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
Renowned for its accuracy, brevity, and readability, this book has long been the gold standard of concise histories of the Napoleonic Wars. Now in an updated and revised edition, it is unique in its portrayal of one of the world's great generals as a scrambler who never had a plan, strategic or tactical, that did not break down or change of necessity in the field. Distinguished historian Owen Connelly argues that Napoleon was the master of the broken play, so confident of his ability to improvise, cover his own mistakes, and capitalize on those of the enemy that he repeatedly plunged his armies into uncertain, seemingly desperate situations, only to emerge victorious as he "blundered" to glory. Beginning with a sketch of Napoleon's early life, the book progresses to his command of artillery at Toulon and the "whiff of grapeshot" in Paris that netted him control of the Army of Italy, where his incredible performance catapulted him to fame. The author vividly traces Napoleon's campaigns as a general of the French Revolution and emperor of the French, knowledgeably analyzing each battle's successes and failures. The author depicts Napoleon's "art of war" as a system of engaging the enemy, waiting for him to make a mistake, improvising a plan on the spot-and winning. Far from detracting from Bonaparte's reputation, his blunders rather made him a great general, a "natural" who depended on his intuition and ability to read battlefields and his enemy to win. Exploring this neglected aspect of Napoleon's battlefield genius, Connelly at the same time offers stirring and complete accounts of all the Napoleonic campaigns.
Author: Bruno Colson
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191508764
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 493
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Book Description
This is the book on war that Napoleon never had the time or the will to complete. In exile on the island of Saint-Helena, the deposed Emperor of the French mused about a great treatise on the art of war, but in the end changed his mind and ordered the destruction of the materials he had collected for the volume. Thus was lost what would have been one of the most interesting and important books on the art of war ever written, by one of the most famous and successful military leaders of all time. In the two centuries since, several attempts have been made to gather together some of Napoleon's 'military maxims', with varying degrees of success. But not until now has there been a systematic attempt to put Napoleon's thinking on war and strategy into a single authoritative volume, reflecting both the full spectrum of his thinking on these matters as well as the almost unparalleled range of his military experience, from heavy cavalry charges in the plains of Russia or Saxony to counter-insurgency operations in Egypt or Spain. To gather the material for this book, military historian Bruno Colson spent years researching Napoleon's correspondence and other writings, including a painstaking examination of perhaps the single most interesting source for his thinking about war: the copy-book of General Bertrand, the Emperor's most trusted companion on Saint-Helena, in which he unearthed a Napoleonic definition of strategy which is published here for the first time. The huge amount of material brought together for this ground-breaking volume has been carefully organized to follow the framework of Carl von Clausewitz's classic On War, allowing a fascinating comparison between Napoleon's ideas and those of his great Prussian interpreter and adversary, and highlighting the intriguing similarities between these two founders of modern strategic thinking.
Author: Chris McNab
Publisher: Haynes Publishing UK
ISBN: 9781785212215
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The Grande Armee of Napoleon Bonaparte is widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest fighting forces ever deployed. With it the French scored a streak of historic victories that gave them an unprecedented grip on power over the European continent. At its peak it was made up of 680,000 men, a huge multi-national force of officers, infantry and cavalry, artillery and support services masterminded by a superior and highly flexible system of corps, divisions, brigades and regiments, commanded by officers in which Napoleon placed a huge degree of trust and autonomy to operate within the outlines of his strategic objectives. Looking closely at how this military machine was constructed and mobilized, Napoleon's Military Machine Operations Manual examines all aspects of the Grande Armee, from individual soldiers, what they wore, ate, slept in and were paid, to the chain of command, recruitment and training, intelligence and comms, and logistics and battle tactics. The legacy of Napoleon’s army is assessed, as is how his organization and management initiatives influenced national armies around the world in ways that can still be seen today.
Author: Scott Bowden
Publisher: Da Capo Press, Incorporated
ISBN: 9780962665516
Category : France
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Armies of the Napoleonic Wars Research Series is a factual in-depth study of the armies, battles, and leaders of the Age of Napoleon. "The principal purpose of the volume is to bring together the most information practical on the raising and formation of Napoleon's war machine, its level of training, combat effectiveness and the opinions of strengths and weaknesses made by the people closest to the army - the officers and ministers themselves." This volume includes extensive, detailed parade states of the army throughout 1813 and is purposely written in a succinct manner which relates to the subject matter. A detailed history of Napoleon's Grand Armee of 1813, this volume is an absolute must for any Napoleonic enthusiast, historian or wargamer; a gold mine of information, insights, and the key for understanding the crucial campaign of 1813.
Author: Roger Knight
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141977027
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 757
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Book Description
From Roger Knight, established by his multi-award winning book The Pursuit of Victory as 'an authority ... none of his rivals can match' (N.A.M. Rodger), Britain Against Napoleon is the first book to explain how the British state successfully organised itself to overcome Napoleon - and how very close it came to defeat. For more than twenty years after 1793, the French army was supreme in continental Europe, and the British population lived in fear of French invasion. How was it that despite multiple changes of government and the assassination of a Prime Minister, Britain survived and won a generation-long war against a regime which at its peak in 1807 commanded many times the resources and manpower? This book looks beyond the familiar exploits of the army and navy to the politicians and civil servants, and examines how they made it possible to continue the war at all. It shows the degree to which, as the demands of the war remorselessly grew, the whole British population had to play its part. The intelligence war was also central. Yet no participants were more important, Roger Knight argues, than the bankers and traders of the City of London, without whose financing the armies of Britain's allies could not have taken the field. The Duke of Wellington famously said that the battle which finally defeated Napoleon was 'the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life': this book shows how true that was for the Napoleonic War as a whole. Roger Knight was Deputy Director of the National Maritime Museum until 2000, and now teaches at the Greenwich Maritime Institute at the University of Greenwich. In 2005 he published, with Allen Lane/Penguin, The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson, which won the Duke of Westminster's Medal for Military History, the Mountbatten Award and the Anderson Medal of the Society for Nautical Research. The present book is a culmination of his life-long interest in the workings of the late 18th-century British state.
Author: George Nafziger
Publisher: Presidio Press
ISBN: 0307538818
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 705
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Book Description
“An impressive source book on the conflict, high on information and data.”—Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research September 7, 1812, is by itself one of the most cataclysmic days in the history of war: 74,000 casualties at the Battle of Borodino. And this was well before the invention of weaspons of mass destruction like machine guns or breech-loading rifles. In this detailed study of one of the most fascinating military campaigns in history, George Nazfiger includes a clear exposition on the power structure in Europe at the time leading up to Napoleon’s fateful decision to attempt what turned out to be impossible: the conquest of Russia. Also featured are complete orders of battle and detailed descriptions of the opposing forces.
Author: Robert M. Epstein
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
Presenting a significant new interpretation of Napoleonic warfare, Robert M. Epstein argues persuasively that the true origins of modern war can be found in the Franco-Austrian War of 1809. Epstein contends that the 1809 war -- with its massive and evenly matched armies, multiple theaters of operation, new command-and-control schemes, increased firepower, frequent stalemates, and large-scale slaughter -- had more in common with the American Civil War and subsequent conflicts that with the decisive Napoleonic campaigns that preceded it. - Jacket flap.
Author: Alexander Mikaberidze
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1848849702
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 567
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Book Description
On 7 September 1812 at Borodino, 75 miles west of Moscow, the armies of the Russian and French empires clashed in one of the climactic battles of the Napoleonic Wars. This horrific - and controversial - contest has fascinated historians ever since. The survival of the Russian army after Borodino was a key factor in Napoleon's eventual defeat and the utter destruction of the French army of 1812. In this thought-provoking new study, Napoleonic historian Alexander Mikaberidze reconsiders the 1812 campaign and retells the terrible story of the Borodino battle as it was seen from the Russian point of view. His original and painstakingly researched investigation of this critical episode in Napoleon's invasion of Russia provides the reader with a fresh perspective on the battle and a broader understanding of the underlying reasons for the eventual Russian triumph. This book as just receive second prize by the Literary Committee of the International Napoleonic Society. A total of twelve distinguished works were carefully evaluated and Dr. Mikaberidze’s volume has met the rigorous criteria established by the Committee. The quality of the publication, especially in the area of research, originality, style and analysis, represents a significant contribution to Napoleonic Studies.
