|
Books > History > European history > 1750 to 1900
The Napoleonic Wars have an important place in the history of
Europe, leaving their mark on European and world societies in a
variety of ways. In many European countries they provided the
stimulus for radical social and political change - particularly in
Spain, Germany, and Italy - and are frequently viewed in these
places as the starting point of their modern histories. In this
Very Short Introduction, Mike Rapport provides a brief outline of
the wars, introducing the tactics, strategies, and weaponry of the
time. Presented in three parts, he considers the origins and course
of the wars, the ways and means in which it was fought, and the
social and political legacy it has left to the world today. ABOUT
THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford
University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every
subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get
ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts,
analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make
interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
In the second volume of this epic work, John H. Gill traces
Napoleon's progress as he sought to complete his victory over the
Habsburgs. The war had erupted on April 10th with Austria's
invasion of Germany and Italy. After just two weeks, Napoleon had
battered the Habsburg Archduke Charles in a series of bruising
defeats. This volume begins with Napoleon astride the Danube at
Regensburg. He faced a critical strategic choice - whether to
pursue the injured Austrian main army into Bohemia or march
directly for Vienna, the seat of Habsburg power. After electing to
target Vienna, his troops defeated the Austrians in the brutal
Battle of Ebelsberg, allowing him to enter the city on May 13th.
However on the far side of the Danube, he then suffered a dramatic
loss at the gruelling, two-day Battle of Aspern. While his Danube
forces recovered from this setback, the Emperor cleared trouble
from his strategic flanks. Gill describes in vivid detail the
hopeful Habsburg invasion of Italy, led by the 27-year-old Archduke
Johann, and the fierce French counter-offensive under Napoleon's
stepson, Eugene de Beauharnais (also aged 27). In a series of
encounters across Italy, de Beauharnais rebounded from initial
defeat to advance triumphantly into Austrian territory, shattering
and scattering Johann's army. In the wake of Aspern, while the
Austrians vacillated, Napoleon gathered every man, horse and gun
around Vienna, setting the stage for the gigantic spectacle of the
Battle of Wagram, the final chapter in the story of the 1809 war.
This is the first comprehensive studyof Gerhard Scharnhorst in any
language. Other than the author's The Enlightened Soldier:
Scharnhorst and the Militarische Gesellschaft in Berlin, 1801-1805
(1989), there exists no other work on Scharnhorst in English. Of
the major German works, Das Leben des Generals von Scharnhorst
(1869/71), written by Hanoverian historian Georg Heinrich
Klippel,was a popular biography with no critical analysis. In
keeping with the political correctness of his time, Klippel failed
to include a single document from Scharnhorst's voluminous papers
that was disparaging toward the social, political, and military
cultures in Hanover. Seventeen years later, Prussian historian Max
Lehmann published his study of Scharnhorst (1886/87), which
corrected many of the flaws in Klippel's work, but failed to
provide any critical analysis of Scharnhorst's modernization,
especially as it applied to Prussia. Like Klippel, Lehmann complied
with the political correctness of his time in Prussia and Germany.
Rudolf Stadelmann, Scharnhorst: Schicksal und Geistige Welt (1952),
is an incomplete fragment that offers some interesting insights.
Scharnhorst: The Formative Years uses the previous German studies
as a starting point to present many unpublished discoveries about
his youth, his education and training, his extensive service in
Hanover, and the modernization program Scharnhorst sought to
implement in Hanover, and later realized in part in Prussia.
Any miniature wargame is greatly enhanced by realistic and
evocative scenery and buildings, but commercial ready-made pieces
can be expensive. Building your own can be a cost-effective and
very rewarding alternative, another hobby in itself, but it can be
hard to know where to start. Wargames Terrain and Buildings is a
series of books aimed at giving wargamers the skills, techniques
and guidance they need to create their own stunning and practical
model buildings. In this volume, master modeller Tony Hardwood
shares his years of experience and presents the reader with a wide
range of projects for the Napoleonic era. With the aid of
step-by-step photographs, he guides the reader through building and
finishing each of these models, which are organized in three
sections of increasing complexity and encompass a range of scales
and different materials. Nine projects are included but the
techniques and skills demonstrated along the way, along with
valuable advice on tools, construction materials and paints, can be
adapted and applied to a much wider range of structures to grace
your battlefields.
When Denmark introduced compulsory education in 1814, the city of
Copenhagen responsed by regulating the already existing private
school system. Roughly half of the school age population went to
some kind of school and of those the overwelming majority attended
private schools, most of which were run by women. The book tells
the story of these women, their schools and pupils on the 150
private schools from 1790-1820. Carol Gold's contention is that
these private schools and their teachers were much better than is
presently assumed in Danish historiography. The teachers were all
literate; they could read and most of them could write. The
education provided for girls ranged from the basics of reading,
writing and arithmetic plus needlework in the beginner schools, to
the "scientific" subjects of history, geography, natural sciences
and foreign languages in the more advanced academies. Furthermore,
the schools formed the basis of the Copenhagen school system which
was established at the b
Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) is best known for his masterpiece
of military theory On War, yet that work formed only the first
three of his ten-volume published writings. The others, historical
analyses of the wars that roiled Europe from 1789 through 1815,
informed and shaped Clausewitz's military thought, so they offer
invaluable insight into his dialectical, often difficult
theoretical masterwork. Among these historical works, one of the
most important is Der Feldzug von 1799 in Italien und der Schweiz,
which covers an important phase of the French Revolutionary Wars.
The Coalition Crumbles, Napoleon Returns focuses mainly on the
campaigns in Switzerland, where the cracks that finally fractured
the alliance between Russia and Austria and led to the defeat of
the Second Coalition first opened. Moving from strategy to battle
scene to analysis, this first English translation of volume 6 of
Clausewitz's collected works nimbly conveys the character of
Clausewitz's writing in all its registers: the brisk, often
powerful description of events as they unfolded and the critical
reflections on strategic theory and its implications. The Coalition
Crumbles, Napoleon Returns features Suvorov's astonishing march
through the St. Gotthard Pass and major actions such as the Second
Battle of Zurich and the Battle of Mannheim. The nature of the
campaign highlighted the contrast between the opposing armies'
different strengths and weaknesses and the problems of fighting as
part of a coalition. This book will expand readers' experience and
understanding of not only this critical moment in European history
but also the thought and writings of the modern master of military
philosophy.
This is the story of a Spanish army, commanded by the Marques de La
Romana, which was sent to Denmark by Napoleon in 1807, whilst
France and Spain were allies bound by the Treaty of San Ildefonso,
signed in 1796. When relations between the two countries broke down
in May 1808 they were soon at war with each other, and La Romanas
host became, in effect, a captive army in the hands of the French.
When Spain looked to forge an alliance with Britain against her
erstwhile ally, they found the British government only too eager to
help. The Royal Navy's dominant presence in the Baltic provided a
ready opportunity to seal the new alliance and, once the political
groundwork had been laid, plans for a daring rescue of the
entrapped Spaniards by Vice Admiral Keats' squadron were drawn up.
However, whilst efforts were being made by the British to
accumulate and prepare a sufficient amount of shipping to carry out
the operation, difficulties soon arose in making contact with La
Romana in order to convey to him the intentions of the Spanish and
British high commands. This almost led to disaster, and the whole
operation was saved only by some remarkable strokes of fortune, and
the magnificent leadership provided by Keats and La Romana. Until
now this remarkable and little-known story has had little coverage
in the various histories written about the Peninsular War, and what
has been said about it in the Anglosphere has been confined to a
description of events taken almost solely from a British
perspective. Now, with access to a comprehensive collection of
documents in the Spanish archives, it is possible to tell the story
of the Spanish contribution to the successful operation in the
Baltic, when the greater part of La Romana's army was evacuated
from Danish Baltic territory during the summer of 1808. Due to
circumstance and bad fortune, a significant part of the Spanish
army was left behind during the Royal Navy's action, and there is
an interesting story told about what became of these men, related
via the personal accounts left by two of the soldiers who did not
return to Spain with La Romana.
William Brown's autobiography is a unique historical document,
since he is the only memoirist to have come to light from the ranks
of the 45th (1st Nottinghamshire) Regiment of Foot for the period
of the Peninsula War - a regiment that was one of Wellington's
longest-serving and most valiant in that turbulent era, a proud
member of Sir Thomas Picton's 'Fighting' Third Division. William
was born in Kilmarnock in 1788, the son of a poor cobbler, but
seems to have been given a good education since the narrative is
clear and lively, with many learned literary references. Like many
young men, William Brown originally volunteered into the militia,
Britain's second-line army intended for home defence only. And like
a goodly percentage of these young men, he found that the life
more-or-less agreed with him, and willingly took the bounty on
offer to volunteer into the regular army a few weeks after
Wellington's victory at Talavera. In the next five years he served
at Busaco, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, Madrid, Vittoria,
Orthez, and Toulouse, and his descriptions of these actions provide
worthy additions to our knowledge of these great battles. William
seems to have been generally a reliable soldier, often 'on command'
doing ancillary regimental service involving a degree of trust,
including service as an officer's batman. His outrage at the antics
of his fellow-soldiers in the sack of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz is
palpable. Nonetheless, he occasionally seems to have slipped into
questionable behaviour and comes across in the text as a bit of a
'likeable rogue'. His romantic pursuits also get plenty of coverage
in the text. William's pen-portraits of commanders such as Picton,
Kempt, Pakenham, and Brisbane are revealing, and he was not slow in
criticising his senior battalion officers or their actions; nor
indeed is the Duke of Wellington above William's barbed criticism.
Maps are provided to allow the reader to understand the route
travelled within Portugal and Spain by William and the 45th
Regiment in those turbulent years, and the whole text is annotated
by historian Steve Brown, an expert on the 45th and its deeds in
the Napoleonic era.
This, the fourth volume in Andrew Field's highly praised study of
the Waterloo campaign from the French perspective, depicts in vivid
detail the often neglected final phase the rout and retreat of
Napoleon's army. The text is based exclusively on French eyewitness
accounts which give an inside view of the immediate aftermath of
the battle and carry the story through to the army's disbandment in
late 1815\. Many French officers and soldiers wrote more about the
retreat than they did about the catastrophe of Waterloo itself.
Their recollections give a fascinating insight to the psyche of the
French soldier. They also provide a first-hand record of their
experiences and the range of their reactions, from those who
deserted the colours and made their way home, to those who
continued to serve faithfully when all was lost. Napoleon s own
flight from Waterloo is an essential part of the narrative, but the
main emphasis is on the fate of the beaten French army as it was
experienced by eyewitnesses who lived through the last days of the
campaign.
|
|