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Books > History > European history > 1750 to 1900
In Naples and Napoleon John Davis takes the southern Italian
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies as the vantage point for a sweeping
reconsideration of Italy's history in the age of Napoleon and the
European revolutions. The book's central themes are posed by the
period of French rule from 1806 to 1815, when southern Italy was
the Mediterranean frontier of Napoleon's continental empire. The
tensions between Naples and Paris made this an important chapter in
the history of that empire and revealed the deeper contradictions
on which it was founded. But the brief interlude of Napoleonic rule
later came to be seen as the critical moment when a modernizing
North finally parted company from a backward South. Although these
arguments still shape the ways in which Italian history is written,
in most parts of the North political and economic change before
Unification was slow and gradual; whereas in the South it came
sooner and in more disruptive forms. Davis develops a wide-ranging
critical reassessment of the dynamics of political change in the
century before Unification. His starting point is the crisis that
overwhelmed the Italian states at the end of the 18th century, when
Italian rulers saw the political and economic fabric of the Ancien
Regime undermined throughout Europe. In the South the crisis was
especially far reaching and this, Davis argues, was the reason why
in the following decade the South became the theatre for one of the
most ambitious reform projects in Napoleonic Europe. The transition
was precarious and insecure, but also mobilized political projects
and forms of collective action that had no counterparts elsewhere
in Italy before 1848, illustrating the similar nature of the
political challenges facing all the pre-Unification states.
Although Unification finally brought Italy's insecure dynastic
principalities to an end, it offered no remedies to the
insecurities that from much earlier had made the South especially
vulnerable to the challenges of the new age: which was why the
South would become a problem - Italy's 'Southern Problem'.
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.
Napoleon's soldiers marched across Europe from Lisbon to Moscow,
and from Germany to Dalmatia. Many of the men, mostly conscripted
by ballot, had never before been beyond their native village. What
did they make of the extraordinary experiences, fighting battles
thousands of miles from home, foraging for provisions or
garrisoning towns in hostile countries? What was it like to be a
soldier in the revolutionary and imperial armies? We know more
about these men and their reactions to war than about the soldiers
of any previous army in history, not just from offical sources but
also from the large number of personal letters they wrote.
Napoleon's Men provides a direct into the experiences and emotions
of soldiers who risked their lives at Austerlitz, Wagram and
Borodino. Not surprisingly, their minds often dwelt as much on what
was happening at hime, and on mundane questions of food and drink
as on Napoloen himself or the glory of France. Alan Forrest is
Professor of Modern History at the University of York.Among his
recent books are Paris, the Princes and the French Revolution
(Arnold, 2004) and (co-authored with Jean-Paul Bertaud and Annie
Jourdan), Napoleon, le monde et les Anglais (Paris, Autrement,
2004)
Poised to strike at England in the summer of 1805, Napoleon found
himself facing a coalition of European powers determined to limit
his territorial ambitions. Still, in less than one hundred days,
Napoleon's armies marched from the English Channel to Central
Europe, crushing the armies of Austria and Russia—the first step
in his conquest of Europe. In this telling new account, Schneid
demonstrates how this was possible. Schneid details how Napoleon's
victory over the Third Coalition was the product of years of
diplomatic preparation and the formation of French alliances. He
played upon the prevailing conditions of the European state system
and the internal politics of the Holy Roman Empire to improve
France's strategic position. This war must be understood in the
context of the French Revolution and its influence on major and
minor European states. In some cases, Napoleonic diplomacy returned
to France's traditional and historic relationships; in others, he
capitalized upon longstanding competition and animosities to gather
allies and create wedges. Schneid approaches the campaign from a
broad diplomatic, economic, and military perspective, including not
only the French perspective, but the points of view of the other
powers involved as well. This telling account reveals that the road
to Vienna was paved long before Napoleon's armies marched upon the
enemies arrayed against them.
From the untimely demise of the 52-year-old Peter the Great in 1725
to nearly the end of that century, the fate of the Russian empire
would rest largely in the hands of five tsarinas. This book tells
their stories. Peter's widow Catherine I (1725-27), an orphan and
former laundress, would gain control of the ancestral throne, a
victorious army, and formidable navy in a country that stretched
from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Next, Anna Ioannovna
(1730-40), chosen by conniving ministers who sought an ineffectual
puppet, would instead tear up the document that would have changed
the course of Russian history forever only to rule Russia as her
private fiefdom and hunting estate. The ill-fated Anna Leopoldovna
(1740-41), groomed for the throne by her namesake aunt, would be
Regent for her young son only briefly before a coup by her aunt
Elizabeth would condemn Anna's family to a life of imprisonment,
desolation, and death in obscurity. The beautiful and shrewd
Elizabeth (1741-61) would seize her father Peter's throne, but,
obsessed with her own fading beauty, she would squander resources
in a relentless effort to stay young and keep her rivals at bay.
Finally, Catherine the Great (1762-96) would overthrow (and later
order the murder of) her own husband and rightful heir. Astute and
intelligent, Catherine had a talent for making people like her,
winning them to her cause; however, the era of her rule would be a
time of tumultuous change for both Europe and her beloved Russia.
In this vivid, quick-paced account, Anisimov goes beyond simply
laying out the facts of each empress's reign, to draw realistic
psychological portraits and to consider the larger fate of women in
politics.Together, these five portraits represent a history of
18th-century court life and international affairs. Anisimov's tone
is commanding, authoritative, but also convivial--inviting the
reader to share the captivating secrets that his efforts have
uncovered.
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.
Osprey are confident in boasting that this remarkable three-part
study will transform the research material available to the
English-speaking student of the Peninsular War (1808-1814). Most
know that Wellington's Portuguese troops were praised as the
'fighting cocks' of his army; fewer appreciate that they
represented between half and one-third of his entire forces.
Similarly, most uniform historians have been limited to a few
half-understood paintings by Dighton, and brief notes from
secondary sources. Rene Chartrand's recent primary research in
Portuguese and British archives now offers a wealth of important
new material. An excellent book - groundbreaking in its
originality.
Describes the life, achievements, rise to power, and influences of the military leader who crowned himself Emperor of the French and established dominance over Europe.
It was not until the emergence of the ideologies of Zionism and
Socialism at the end of the last century that the Jewish
communities of the Diaspora were perceived by historians as having
a genuine political life. In the case of the Jews of Russia, the
pogroms of 1881 have been regarded as the watershed event which
triggered the political awakening of Jewish intellectuals. Here
Lederhendler explores previously neglected antecedents to this
turning point in the history of the Jewish people in the first
scholarly work to examine concretely the transition of a Jewish
community from traditional to post-traditional politics.
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.
This narrative account of three Napoleonic battles adheres rather
closely to the Aristotelian configuration of evolving tragedy. The
historian succeeds in presenting herein events and character not
only in historical reality but also in unities employed by the
artist or tragedian. For a beginning of this lively, military
story, Harold T. Parker chooses a portrayal of Napoleon at the
height of his power, the battle of Friedland. The middle episode is
concerned with Napoleon in his first serious personal check, the
battle of Aspern-Essling. To complete the unity and to conclude the
tragic progression, the author resurveys the episode of Napoleon's
final defeat at the battle of Waterloo.
As 1794 opened, Revolutionary France stood on a knife's edge of
failure. Its army and navy had been shaken by the revolution, with
civil war and famine taking its toll on their resources. Seeking to
bring a revitalizing supply of food from its Caribbean colonies and
the United States, the French government decided to organize a
massive convoy to bring the New World's bounty to France. However,
in order to succeed in their mission, the French Navy would have to
make a deadly crossing over the North Atlantic, an ocean patrolled
by the Royal Navy, the most powerful navy force in the world, whose
sailors were eager to inflict a damaging defeat on Revolutionary
France and win their fortune in prize money. Illustrated throughout
with stunning full-colour artwork, this is the full story of the
only fleet action during the Age of Fighting Sail fought in the
open ocean, hundreds of miles from shore. Taking place over the
course of a month, the inevitable battle was to be a close-run
affair, with both sides claiming victory. To the French, it was le
Bataille du 13 prairial, a notable day in their new, scientific
Revolutionary calendar. For the British, it was the Glorious First
of June.
Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (19th February, 1792 - 22nd, October,
1871), KCB, DCL, LLD, FRS, FGL, etc., was one of the founders of
modern geology. Using discernible fossil communities he established
the Silurian, Permian, and, with Adam Sedgwick, the Devonian
stratigraphic systems of geology. He extended his fieldwork to
Europe and the Russian Empire and thus demonstrated the
universality of the fossil-based stratigraphic systems that he had
delineated in Britain. He gained fame by predicting gold in
Australia, based on his findings in Russia where his coal
discoveries (made at the behest of the Czar) helped spur Russian
railway development. Roderick Impey Murchison was twice president
of the Geological Society of London, and was President of the Royal
Geographical Society four times. He also served one term as
President of the British Association and became the Director
General of the British Geological Survey. He was awarded the
Wollaston Medal of the London Geological Society, the Copley Medal
from the Royal Society and the Brisbane Medal from the Royal
Society of Edinburgh. Sir Roderick established the Murchison Medal
and fund, which is awarded each year by the Geological Society of
London and the position of Chair of Geology and Mineralogy at the
University of Edinburgh. Sir Roderick was also a member of the
scientific academies of France, Russia, Germany, Sweden, Denmark,
and Belgium among others. His leadership in geography was honoured
by having numerous geographical places on earth named Murchison.'
There is even a crater on the moon named Murchison to acknowledge
his pioneering accomplishments in geology. However, before he was a
famous geologist, geographer and 19th century British and European
scientific leader, Roderick Murchison had a very different dream;
he grew up wanting to be a career army officer, and desired to
eventually attain the rank of General of the British Army. He spent
the 10 years between ages 13 and 23 in uniformed pursuit of that
goal. The Murchison Diaries covering the Napoleonic Wars have been
edited by his descendant Dr. Arthur Murchison . The diaries begin
with Ensign Murchison carrying his regiments (36th Regiment of
Foot) Colours into the bloody gun smoked chaos of a Spanish
battlefield, French cannon and musket balls striking soldiers near
him. Lieutenant Murchison survived the horrible retreat to Corunna
and a frightening stormy sea voyage back to Britain. He served as a
general's aide de camp in politically corrupt Bourbon Sicily during
months of a booming artillery battle across the Messina Straits
while he copied dispatches, studied opera music, watched a double
hanging and made love. After a narrow escape from Algerine pirates
he returned to Britain and Northern Ireland where he was again his
general's aide-de-camp. After Emperor Napoleon's first abdication
in 1814 Captain Murchison visited France and found himself fleeing
from Napoleon and his gathering army. Wanting to get back on the
promotion-generating battlefield, he became a cavalry officer but
was disappointed because he did not see the final battle at
Waterloo.
This beautifully illustrated guide by master draughtsman and
Napoleonic expert Carl Franklin draws together extensive research
and previously unpublished information to provide a new insight
into the field artillery and uniforms of the Napoleonic Wars. The
evolution of this new form of artillery is shown in full detail for
the first time, and its use is fully examined. Particular attention
is given to the ammunition, drills, harness, supporting equipment
and uniforms of the period, and each type of field artillery is
fully illustrated. 'Fire,' Napoleon himself proclaimed, 'is
everything; the rest does not matter.' British Napoleonic Field
Artillery helps to test the veracity of that statement and is an
essential reference for all those interested in Napoleonic history.
C.E. Franklin was born in London in 1934. He joined the Royal Air
Force in 1951, spending much of his later appointments as an
engineer specialising in guided weapons. On leaving the service in
1984 he joined British Aerospace. He retired in 1990 and now spends
most of his time in research and writing. He is the author of
British Rockets of the Napoleonic and Colonial Wars 1805-1901 and
British Napoleonic Uniforms: A Complete Illustrated Guide to
Uniforms, Facings and Lace. He lives in Lea, Lincolnshire.
A leading expert examines one of Napoleon's most decisive but least
analysed victories In early July 1809 Napoleon crossed the Danube
with 187,000 men to confront the Austrian Archduke Charles and an
army of 145,000 men. The fighting that followed dwarfed in
intensity and scale any previous Napoleonic battlefield, perhaps
any in history: casualties on each side were over 30,000. The
Austrians fought with great determination, but eventually the
Emperor won a narrow victory. Wagram was decisive in that it
compelled Austria to make peace. It also heralded a new, altogether
greater order of warfare, anticipating the massed manpower and
weight of fire deployed much later in the battles of the American
Civil War and then at Verdun and on the Somme.
Combining impeccable scholarship and literary elegance, David
Wetzel depicts the drama of machinations and passions that exploded
in a war that forever changed the face of European history. The
clash of two extraordinary personalities-Otto von Bismarck and
Napoleon III-drives this engrossing account of the events leading
up to the Franco-Prussian War, one of the most momentous and
decisive conflicts in the history of Europe. An accomplished and
eloquent historian, David Wetzel tells how this utterly avoidable
war unfolded in the brief, eventful days of July 1870, ushering in
an era of power politics that would reach its apocalyptic climax in
World War I. Hotheaded militarists, high-minded statesmen, scheming
opportunists, impassioned nationalists, and sensationalist
newspapers all played their part as the European powers of the
era-France, Germany, England, Austria, Spain, Italy, and
Russia-jockeyed for advantage. Amidst this swirl of national and
personal ambitions Wetzel brings Bismarck, Napoleon III, and their
intimate circles to life, depicting for present-day readers the
tremendous strains working upon them, their preoccupations,
motives, judgments, and their ultimate decisions. Indispensable
reading for every student of the nineteenth century, A Duel of
Giants offers a wealth of telling detail drawn from personal
memoirs, official records, cabinet minutes, journalistic accounts,
private notes, and public statements, presented in dramatic and
enjoyable style.
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