The journalist William Howard Russell (1820 1907) is sometimes regarded as being the first war correspondent, and his reports from the conflict in the Crimea are also credited with being a cause of reforms made to the British military system. This 1865 book began as a review in The Times of the five-volume work of General Eduard Todleben (or Totleben), the military engineer and Russian Army General, whose work in creating and continually adapting the land defences of Sevastopol in 1854 5 made him a hero and enabled the fortress to hold out against British bombardment for a whole year. Russell added extracts from the original book to his review, and enlarged his commentary on the Russian text, producing a thorough and accurate synthesis, but always highlighting the central importance of the Russian work to any student of the history of the Sevastopol siege.

This new study of Napoleon emphasizes his ties to the French Revolution, his embodiment of its militancy, and his rescue of its legacies. Jordan's work illuminates all aspects of his fabulous career, his views of the Revolution and history, the artists who created and embellished his image, and much of his talk about himself and his achievements.

Thomas Creevey (1768-1838) was a Whig politician, diarist and letter-writer, whose papers provide an important source for the history of the early nineteenth century. Although a relatively poor man, he was adept at making friends with important people, and received hospitality and financial help from them. His letters are full of gossip, often indiscreet, giving a vivid picture of the society and politics of the day. They form an interesting comparison with the papers of his contemporaries, J. W. Croker, who as a Tory was in power for most of the period in question, and Charles Greville (both available in this series). Living in Brussels at the time of Waterloo, Creevey is perhaps best remembered for his description of life there during Napoleon's 'Hundred Days'. This two-volume work edited by Sir Herbert Maxwell (1845-1937) was first published in 1903. Volume 1 covers the Napoleonic Wars and the Regency.

Thomas Creevey (1768 1838) was a Whig politician, diarist and letter-writer, whose papers provide an important source for the history of the early nineteenth century. Although a relatively poor man, he was adept at making friends with important people, and received hospitality and financial help from them. His letters are full of gossip, often indiscreet, giving a vivid picture of the society and politics of the day. They form an interesting comparison with the papers of his contemporaries, J. W. Croker, who as a Tory was in power for most of the period in question, and Charles Greville (both available in this series). Creevey is perhaps best remembered for his description of Brussels during Napoleon's 'Hundred Days'. This two-volume work edited by Sir Herbert Maxwell (1845 1937) was first published in 1903. Volume 2 covers the period 1820 37, and the accession of Victoria, described here as a 'homely little being'.

The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars had an enduring influence on the collective memory of all European nations and regions, and have given them an international dimension. These essays look at how the French Wars were remembered in personal diaries, paintings and literature, allowing a comparative analysis with atransnational perspective.

The best-selling author of The Battle, Alessandro Barbero, was asked which action saved Wellington at Waterloo prior to the arrival of the Prussians. He replied: 'If I should indulge in that game, I'd say the cavalry charge which effectively broke d'Erlon's attack.' In terms of regiments the greatest contributor to that charge, made by the British heavy cavalry, was the King's Dragoon Guards (KDG), which fielded nearly half of the Household Brigade's sabres. This book tells the remarkable story of the KDG before, during and after the battle of Waterloo, drawing on private, unpublished archive material. It concludes by describing the KDGs link to their descendant regiment, 1st Queen's Dragoon Guards, of which HRH The Prince of Wales is Colonel-in-Chief.

The Crimean War, fought by the alliance of Great Britain, France, and the tiny Italian Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia alongside Turkey against Tsarist Russia, was the first 'modern' war, not only for its vast scale (France mobilised a million men) but also the technologies involved, from iron-clad battleships to rifled artillery, the electric telegraph and steam. Best known for the blunder of the Charge of the Light Brigade, the fearful conditions in the trenches at the front, and the quiet heroism of Florence Nightingale, the Crimean War saw the railway go to war for the first time. The Grand Crimean Central Railway was the brainchild of two Victorian railway magnates, Samuel Morton Peto and Thomas Brassey; in order to alleviate the suffering at the front, they volunteered to build at cost a steam railway linking the Allied camps at Sevastopol to their supply base at Balaclava. In the face of much official opposition, the railway was built and operational in a matter of months, supplying hundreds of tons of food, clothing and materiel to the starving and freezing men in their trenches. Largely worked by civilian auxiliaries, the Grand Crimean Central Railway saw the railway transformed into a war-winning weapon, saving countless thousands of lives as it did so.

From Napoleon's invasion of 1812 to the Wars of Liberation and beyond, seen from the common Russian soldier's perspective. This volume is composed of three accounts previously unavailable in English. Detailed annotations illuminate a seldom understood army and nation during one of the pivotal episodes in European history. Pamfil Nazarov was a peasant from Tver who was conscripted in 1812 but rather than head east to join the army in its campaign against Napoleon, he travelled to St. Petersburg and was selected for the Russian Imperial Guard. As a Jager of the Finland Regiment he went on to witness such events as the Battle of Leipzig and the fall of Paris. Nazarov's memoirs also briefly describe the Russo-Turkish War of 1828, the Polish Uprising of 1830, and culminate in his voluntary induction into the monastic ranks of the Orthodox Church. Ivan "Menshoy" Ostroukhov similarly came from the peasantry of Tula and had prospects as a merchant before his household was chosen to produce a conscript. Also like Nazarov, he was inducted into the Guard, serving with the Uhlans as a choral singer in its reserve squadron. His autobiography ends prematurely, possibly due to the author's death. Rafail Zotov, on the other hand, was a formally educated noble from St. Petersburg who could speak German and was familiar with astronomy and literature. He volunteered to serve as a junior officer in the militia when the French invaded. His preconceived notions of war and military service were challenged, and his abilities as a leader tested by his experiences on the hard marches through the north to the battles of Polotsk and Berezina and on to the siege of Danzig in 1813. Russia has a long and rich history and its self-identity is built on many episodes and myths, but none are so often dramatized, by Russians and Westerners alike, as Napoleon's invasion in 1812. Now for the first time the voice of the common Russian caught up in those continental events is available in the English language. Contains an introduction by the translator, footnotes throughout with citations and bibliography, and multiple illustrations of relevant persons and events.

Orlando Figes' Crimea is a powerful history of the Crimean War, the conflict that dominated the nineteenth century. The Crimean War one of the fiercest battles in Russia's history, killing nearly a million men and completely redrawing the map of Europe. Pitting the Tsar's empire against an alliance of Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire, it was the first conflict to use photography, the telegraph and newspapers; a war over territory, from the Balkans to the Persian Gulf; a war of religion, driven by a fervent, populistbelief by the Tsar and his ministers that it was Russia's task to rule all Orthodox Christians and control the Holy Land; it was the original 'total war'. Orlando Figes' vivid new book reinterprets this extraordinary conflict. Bringing to life ordinary soldiers in snow-filled trenches, surgeons on the battlefield and the haunted, fanatical figure of Tsar Nicholas himself, Crimea tells the human story of a tragic war. 'Lucid, well-written, alive and sensitive, it tells us why this neglected conflict and its forgotten victims deserve our remembrance' Oliver Bullough, Independent 'Figes paints a vivid portrait of a bloody and pointless conflict ... he knows more about Russia than any other historian' Max Hastings, Sunday Times 'A fine, stirring account' Mark Bostridge, Financial Times 'A wonderful subject, on every level, and with Orlando Figes it has found the historian worthy of its width and depth' Norman Stone, Standpoint 'Figes is a first-class historian, as his splendid new book amply demonstrates' Dominic Sandbrook, Daily Telegraph Orlando Figes is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of Peasant Russia, Civil War, A People's Tragedy, Natasha's Dance, The Whisperers and Just Send Me Word. His books have been translated into over twenty languages.

At a time when Napoleon needed all his forces to reassert French dominance in Central Europe, why did he fixate on the Prussian capital of Berlin? Instead of concentrating his forces for a decisive showdown with the enemy, he repeatedly detached large numbers of troops, under ineffective commanders, toward the capture of Berlin. In "Napoleon and Berlin, " Michael V. Leggiere explores Napoleon's almost obsessive desire to capture Berlin and how this strategy ultimately lost him all of Germany.

Napoleon's motives have remained a subject of controversy from his own day until ours. He may have hoped to deliver a tremendous blow to Prussia's war-making capacity and morale. Ironically, the heavy losses and strategic reverses sustained by the French left Napoleon's Grande Armee vulnerable to an Allied coalition that eventually drove Napoleon from Central Europe forever.

During the Napoleonic Wars, Sicily was of some tactical importance, and a British garrison was established there in 1806. For the next five years domestic and diplomatic affairs became increasingly complicated, and at last, in 1811, Lord William Bentinck was sent out to restore order. Dr Rosselli's account of his unsuccessful mission is a story of strange people and strange events. The main characters in the drama are colourful enough: King Ferdinand, lazy, irresponsible and likely to withdraw at the sign of trouble to his shooting lodge at La Ficuzza, leaving the affairs of state in the hands of his son; Queen Maria-Carolina, devoid of all common sense, enfeebled by opium and full of violent distrust of British interference; Prince Francis, a broken reed, weak-willed, vacillating, afraid of his parents, as much as of Bentinck; and the politicians of Palermo, occasionally scheming and ambitious, but more often too naive to be reliable.

The French Prefectoral Corps was Napoleon's creation. Building on the framework of local government inherited from the Revolution, he installed a rigidly centralized administrative system, running from the Sub-Prefect in the arrondissement, through the Prefect in the department, to the Minister in Paris. The return of the Bourbons threatened this organization. There was the upheaval of the years 1814 15, and as the mechanics of parliamentary government evolved in the years after the Second Restoration, the Corps acquired a political importance which necessarily affected the prefectoral career. There was also a change in rectruitment. To staff this indispensable organ of government the Bourbons called on men of their own choice and service, in particular members of the pre-revolutionary nobility. Dr Richardson has analysed the history of the Prefectoral Corps during the sixteen years of the Restoration.

In this groundbreaking work of literary and historical scholarship, Keith Gandal shows that Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner were motivated, in their famous postwar novels, not by their experiences of the horrors of war but rather by their failure to have those experiences.
These "quintessential" male American novelists of the 1920s were all, for different reasons, deemed unsuitable as candidates for full military service or command and the result was, Gandal contends, that they felt themselves emasculated--not, as the usual story goes, due to their encounters with trench warfare, but because they got nowhere near the trenches or the real action. By bringing to light previously unexamined archival records of the Army, The Gun and the Pen demonstrates that the frustration of these authors' military ambitions took place in the forgotten context of a whole new set of methods employed in the mobilization for the Great War--unprecedented procedures that aimed to transform the Army into a meritocratic institution, indifferent to ethnic and class difference (though not racial, or black-white, difference). For these Lost Generation writers, the humiliating failure vis-a-vis the Army became a failure to compete successfully in a rising social order and against a new set of people. And it is that social order and those people--these effects of mobilization, and not other effects of the war--that the novels considered here both register and re-imagine.
Gandal's incisive readings of the famous fiction of this era against the backdrop of ethnicity, meritocracy, and sexuality closes with a coda on selected works from the 1930s, including prose by Djuna Barnes, Nathaniel West, and Henry Miller. Provocative and original, The Gun and the Pen restores these seminal novels to their proper historical context and proffers a radical revision of our understanding of the impact of World War I on twentieth-century American literature.

Napoleon: The End of Glory tells the story of the dramatic two years that led to Napoleon's abdication in April 1814. Though crucial to European history, they remain strangely neglected, lying between the two much better-known landmarks of the retreat from Moscow and the battle of Waterloo. Yet this short period saw both Napoleon's loss of his European empire, and of his control over France itself. In 1813 the massive battle of Leipzig - the bloodiest in modern history before the first day of the Somme - forced his armies back to the Rhine. The next year, after a brilliant campaign against overwhelming odds, Napoleon was forced to abdicate and exiled to Elba. He regained his throne the following year, for just a hundred days, in a doomed adventure whose defeat at Waterloo was predictable. The most fascinating - and least-known - aspect of these years is that at several key points Napoleon's enemies offered him peace terms that would have allowed him to keep his throne, if not his empire, a policy inspired by the brilliant and devious Austrian foreign minister Metternich. Napoleon: The End of Glory sheds fascinating new light on Napoleon, Metternich, and many other key figures and events in this dramatic period of European history, drawing on previously unused archives in France, Austria, and the Czech Republic. Through these it seeks to answer the most important question of all - why, instead of accepting a compromise, Napoleon chose to gamble on total victory at the risk of utter defeat?

In the two hundred years since the Battle of Waterloo countless studies examining almost every aspect of this momentous event have been published - narratives of the campaign, graphic accounts of key stages in the fighting or of the role played by a regiment or by an individual who was there - an eyewitness. But what has not been written is an in-depth study of a division, one of the larger formations that made up the armies on that decisive battlefield, and that is exactly the purpose of Philip Haythornthwaite's original and highly readable new book. He concentrates on the famous Fifth Division, commanded by Sir Thomas Picton, which was a key element in Wellington's Reserve. The experiences of this division form a microcosm of those of the entire army. Vividly, using a range of first-hand accounts, the author describes the actions of the officers and men throughout this short, intense campaign, in particular their involvement the fighting at Quatre Bras and at Waterloo itself.

This outstandingly vivid and accessible book, written by one of Britain's leading historians, provides the essential overview of Napoleon's career. Beginning in revolutionary France with a brilliant young Lieutenant who still styled himself Napoleone di Buonaparte, Holmes examines every facet of his subject's military career: his astonishing victories at the Battle of the Pyramids, Marengo, Jena and Austerlitz, through to defeat and exile under the immense weight of the great powers who were determined to stop the man who would be emperor of Europe.

More than 200 years ago - under the inspiration and leadership of Bonaparte - a revolutionary French Army invaded Egypt, then part of the Ottoman Empire; this presence lasted beyond Bonaparte's own departure and subsequent rise to power as First Consul. It ended with another invasion - this time by the British - and the repatriation in France of what was left of the 'Army of the Orient'. The birth of Egyptology; the rise of modern Egypt; the demise of the Ottoman Empire; and start of 'the great game' have all been often told and studied, but what is less well known is that as the French found themselves stranded in a foreign land - profoundly alien to them in culture and climate - they had to adapt to survive. Egypt was a proving ground for many officers and ordinary soldiers who were to rise to prominence during the Napoleonic period. Some of Napoleon's future inner circle - like Davout, Savary and Lasalle - were first spotted by the young Bonaparte in Egypt, and although initially unplanned as such, it turned out to be the first attempt by the French to build a colony on the African continent. It especially led the French Army to adopt totally new clothing and equipment; to organise native units; and even to draft men from faraway Darfur into its own ranks. Drawing from a wealth of original primary material - much of it never published or even seen before - this study focuses on the French Army of the Orient and its organisation, uniforms, equipment and daily life. It aims at providing a renewed and updated image of the French soldier, as told by the surviving archives, memoirs and rare contemporary iconography.

Waterloo was the last battle fought by Napoleon and the one which finally ended his imperial dreams. It involved the deployment of huge armies and incurred heavy losses on both sides; for those who fought in it, Dutch and Belgians, Prussians and Hanoverians as well as British and French troops, it was a murderous struggle. It was a battle that would be remembered very differently across Europe. In Britain it would be seen as an iconic battle whose memory would be enmeshed in British national identity across the following century. In London news of the victory unleashed an outburst of patriotic celebration and captured the imagination of the public. The Duke of Wellington would go on to build his political career on it, and towns and cities across Britain and the Empire raised statues and memorials to the victor. But it was only in Britain that Waterloo acquired this iconic status. In Prussia and Holland its memory was muted - in Prussia overshadowed by the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig, in Holland a simple appendage to the prestige of the House of Orange. And in France it would be portrayed as the very epitome of heroic defeat. Encapsulated in the bravery of General Cambronne and the last stand of the Old Guard, remembered movingly in the lines of Stendhal and Victor Hugo, the memory of Waterloo served to sustain the romantic legend of the Napoleonic Wars - and contributed to the growing cult of Napoleon himself.

This book examines Prussia's response to Napoleon and Napoleonic expansionism in the years before the crushing defeats of Auerstadt and Jena, a period of German history as untypical as it was dramatic. Events are analyzed at the level of high politics, foreign policy and the reform of the executive. The book also addresses matters of general theoretical concern such as high politics, geopolitics and the "primacy of foreign policy". In doing so it goes beyond anything that has been attempted before, and presents a comprehensive and nuanced picture of Prussia before 1806.

..". an imaginative and dispassionate re-examination of thesignificance of the Mongol Conquest and its aftermath for Russia's historicaldevelopment." -- Slavic Review

"On all counts Russia andthe Golden Horde infuses the subject with fresh insights and interpretations."-- History

"Combining rigorous analysis of the majorscholarly findings with his own research, Halperin has produced both a much-neededsynthesis and an important original work." -- LibraryJournal

"Halperin's new book combines sound scholarship and aflair for storytelling that should help publicize this all too unfamiliar tale inthe West." -- Virginia Quarterly Review

"It is a seminalwork that will be repeatedly cited in the future... " -- TheHistorian

..". ingenious and highly articulate... " --Russian Review

This work provides a detailed narrative of the civil war in the Vendee region of western France, which lasted for much of the 1790s but was most intensely fought at the height of the Reign of Terror, from March 1793 to early 1795. In this shocking book, Reynald Secher argues that the massacres which resulted from the conflict between "patriotic" revolutionary forces and those of the counterrevolution were not the inevitable result of fierce battle, but rather were "premediated, committed in cold blood, massive and systematic, and undertaken with the conscious and proclaimed will to destroy a well-defined region, and to exterminate an entire people." Drawing upon previously unavailable sources, Secher argues that more than 14 per cent of the population and 18 per cent of the housing stock in the Vendee was destroyed in this catastrophic conflict. Secher's review of the social and political structure of the region presents a different image of the people of the Vendee than the stereotype common among historians favorable to the French Revolution. He demonstrates that they were not archaic and superstitious or even necessarily adverse to the forward-looking forces of the Revolution. Rather, the region turned against the Revolution because of a series of misguided policy choices that failed to satisfy the desire for reform and offended the religious sensibilities of the Vendeans. Using an array of primary sources, many from provincial archives, including personal accounts and statistical data, Secher argues for a demythologized view of the French Revolution. Contrary to most 20th-century academic accounts of the Revolution, which have either ignored, apologized for, or explained away the Vendee, Secher demonstrates that the vicious nature of this civil war is a key event that forces us to reconsider the revolutionary regime. His work provides a significant case study for readers interested in the relationships between religion, region, and political violence.

This book was written to provide an in-depth study of the Danish and Norwegian armies of the Napoleonic Wars. The goal was to provide a working document which is as accurate as possible, covering the uniforms of these armies, their weapons and their evolution as well as their colours and a look at their basic tactics. Although this is principally a uniform book, historical background is also provided to place the details in their context. This second volume looks in depth at the regular cavalry and field artillery covering all aspects, organisation, uniforms, arms and equipment, in particular cannon, limbers, and wagons, with 54 original full colour plates. The fortress and coastal artillery are not forgotten, as with one of the longest coastlines in Europe compared to the size of the country it was more important than in most countries. Unlike the few other works in English this book has been conducted with the assistance of respected Danish historians, as well as Norwegian and German historians.

Waterloo is one of the most famous battles in history and it has given rise to a vast and varied literature. The strategy and tactics of the battle and the entire Waterloo campaign have been analysed at length. The commanders, manoeuvres and critical episodes, and the intense experiences of the men who took part, have all been recorded in minute detail. But the organization, structure and fighting strength of the armies that fought in the battle have received less attention, and this is the subject of Philip Haythornthwaite's detailed, authoritative and engaging study. Through a close description of the structure and personnel of each of the armies he builds up a fascinating picture of their makeup, their methods and their capabilities. The insight he offers into the contrasting styles and national characteristics of the forces that came together on the Waterloo battlefield gives a fresh perspective on the extraordinary clash of arms that ended the Napoleonic era.

This is the first full-length biography of Judah Leib Gordon (1830-92), the most important Hebrew poet of the 19th century, and one of the pivotal intellectual and cultural figures in Russian Jewry. Setting Gordon's life and work amidst the political, cultural, and religious upheavals of his society, Stanislawski attempts to counter traditional stereotypical readings of Eastern European Jewish history. As a prominent and passionate exponent of the Jewish Enlightenment in Russia, Gordon advocated a humanist and liberal approach to all the major questions facing Jews in their tortuous transition to modernity--the religious reform of Judaism, the attractions and limits of political liberalism, the relations between Jews and Gentiles, the nature of modern anti-Semitism, the status of women in Jewish life, the possibility of a secular Jewish culture, the nature of Zionism, and the relations between Jews in the Diaspora and the Jewish community in the Land of Israel. His personal story is a fascinating drama that both symbolizes and summarizes the cultural and political challenges facing Russian Jewry at a crucial time in its history, challenges that remain pertinent and controversial today.