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.

The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars raged in Italy for 23 years. In that time, no fewer than eight campaigns involving hundred of thousands of troops were mounted in the Italian peninsula, as France and Austria struggled over this secondary, but still vitally important theater of war. As Frederick Schneid demonstrates in this groundbreaking work, control of Italy was rightly seen by Napoleon as an important means of applying strategic pressure on the Austrians, while simultaneously providing security for France's vulnerable southern flank. As the first in-depth consideration of the struggle for strategically key region, this book places the Italian campaigns into their proper historical context.

Beginning with a geo-strategic overview of the Italian peninsula and its place in French and Austrian calculations, Schneid moves on to a careful consideration of the major campaigns that began in 1805, 1809, and 1813. These include studies of the battles at Caldiero, Wagram, and Mincio. The book also provides appendices with complete orders of battle for each campaign.

This edited volume explores conscription in the Napoleonic era, tracing the roots of European conscription and exploring the many methods that states used to obtain the manpower they needed to prosecute their wars.

The levee-en-masse of the French Revolution has often been cited as a Revolution in Military Affairs, but was it truly a revolutionary break with past European practices of raising armies, or an intensification of the scope and scale of practices already inherent in the European military system? This international collection of scholars demonstrate that European conscription has far deeper roots than has been previously acknowledged, and that its intensification during the Napoleonic era was more an evolutionary than revolutionary change.

This book will be of much interest to students of Military History, Strategic Studies, Strategic History and European History.

This edited volume explores conscription in the Napoleonic era, tracing the roots of European conscription and exploring the many methods that states used to obtain the manpower they needed to prosecute their wars.

The levA(c)e-en-masse of the French Revolution has often been cited as a a ~Revolution in Military Affairsa (TM), but was it truly a a ~revolutionarya (TM) break with past European practices of raising armies, or an intensification of the scope and scale of practices already inherent in the European military system? This international collection of scholars demonstrate that European conscription has far deeper roots than has been previously acknowledged, and that its intensification during the Napoleonic era was more an a ~evolutionarya (TM) than a ~revolutionarya (TM) change.

This book will be of much interest to students of Military History, Strategic Studies, Strategic History and European History.

Upon France's defeat of the vaunted Prussian army at the Battle of Valmy in 1792, German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe remarked, ""From this place and from this day forth commences a new era in the world's history."" The pronouncement proved prescient, for this first major victory emboldened France's revolutionary government to end the monarchy and establish the first French Republic - with dramatic consequences for the wars that soon roiled the continent. In nine essays by leading scholars, European Armies of the French Revolution, 1789-1802 provides an authoritative, continent-wide analysis of the organization and constitution of these armies, the challenges they faced, and the impact they had on the French Revolutionary Wars and on European military practices. The volume opens with editor Frederick C. Schneid's substantial introduction, which reviews the strategies and policies of each participating state throughout the wars, establishing a clear context for the essays that follow. Drawing on the latest research and thought, each contributor focuses on the army of a particular power: France, Prussia, Austria, Russia, Britain, Spain, the German principalities, the Italian states, and the Ottoman Empire. Their essays examine the system, tactics, operations, and strategies that each army adopted and developed in the Revolutionary Wars. The authors explore the conflicts' wider influence on these policies and practices, along with significant battles and actions. Unique in its approach and reach, this volume offers a thorough and closely observed view of the composition, scope, and purpose of the European armies at the turn of the nineteenth century. It enhances and extends our insights into how the military powers of the post-French Revolutionary era - and thus, the era itself - took shape.

It is only in the past two decades that scholars have breached the language barrier in Germany, Austria, and Russia, permitting a comprehensive reexamination of the Napoleonic Wars. This new volume in the Essential Bibliography series examines the changing nature of Napoleonic historiography in the English-speaking world and provides the student and scholar an invaluable guide to those changes.