Reading Recommendations for Napoleonic Campaigns and Warfare ?

[HarryInk]

GunnerJim that's GREAT!  Thanks a million.

I can recommend John Gill's popular 1809: Thunder on the Danube v.1 which I've been ploughing through.  Fairly good job with maps in it.

I've jsut started Charles Esdaile's provocative 'Napoleon's Wars'.  It's proving a welcome revisioning of the wars from outside the charmed circle of Nappy-philes and phobes which a larger contextual view of international relations throughout the 18th century through to Nappy.

[Uhlanen]

"The war of the two Emperors" by Curtis Cate. Covers Napoleons invasion of Russia. Found it to be a very good read although it didn't go into nearly the detail or depth I prefer about the various battles but provided some very interesting insights into the reasons behind the invasion and Napoleons mind set at the time as well as the problems encountered by the French in terms of weather and resupply.

" Artillery of the Napoleonic wars" By Kevin F. Killey.   A decent starting point for a study of the Artillery of the era.

[EylauHurricane]

Another very interesting book is, if you are interested in the Peninsular War:

"La Corogne-Les Aigles en Galice"  de N. Griffon de Pleineville (ed. Le Livre Chez Vous, in French, 609 pages;  I don't know if an English edition is avalaible).
A complete description of the organisation of the British and French Armies, the political background,  the fighting retreat of Sir J.Moore and the battle of Corunna, with very detailed OOBs (the French OOB of Corunna battle is the most detailed and complete I've ever seen) with lot of very high quality illustrations, very good maps and photos of battlefields at present days (for instance Sahagun, Benavente, Cacabelos, Corunna). The book is interesting because it's the first extensive one by a French author!!! A bit expensive, but according of me it' a must!

Bye

EylauHurricane

[dieseltaylor]

I cannot recall where I read it but Napier's six volumes on the Peninsula WAr were said to be unreliable as to fact sand were written some time after the events described.

Missing from the list is Haythornthwaite's "Weapon and Equipment of the Napoleonic Wars" and slightly less relevant "The Armies of Wellington"

I have only read the first and it is excellent detail - including the warning about first hand narratives which view a very small portion of a battle, and memoirs written decades after the event!

[nix]

Napier was said by some of the Tory establishment of his time to be too much of an admirer of Napoleon and to be promoting a too liberal interpretation of events in his histories. He did consult extensively with Soult and correspondeed with other french generals of the war when writing his own work. His first volume was published in 1828, 20 years after the events but this is like saying a history of the second world war published in the 1960s is unreliable becasuse of that time delay. It is true the history sparked some controversies at the time as the reputations of certain officers who were still alive were brought into question by the work. In general it is a good read and as a primary source document of someone who fought in the war it is important. As are the other memoirs which were published at this time. But then they must be read with attention to possible biases and misrememberings and compared with works such as diaries written close to the time of the action, as must any works of history: Unfortunately there is no such thing as the definitive true account as far as the history of the war is concerned!

check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Francis_Patrick_Napier for useful background info

[HarryInk]

Did so. Thanks.  Very interesting.

[lodi57]

I must add for you English speaking guys surely the best book ever written on 1806 campaign by the French infantry captain Pascal Bressonnet (in 1909), translated in English and annotated by Scott Bowden :

"Etudes tactiques sur la campagne de 1806 (Saalfeld, Jena, Auerstaedt)" or  "Napoleon's Apogee: Pascal Bressonnet's Tactical Studies 1806 - Saalfeld, Jena and Auerstadt"

This book is one of the major written on a napoleonic campaign. On the other hand, it is very expensive.

[HarryInk]

But beautiful.  Someone also posted a link to a google copy of the book in french.  The maps are very detailed and I expect you can get online translators to give you a rough translation of the french too!  I'll try and find it after work.

[dieseltaylor]

http://www.archive.org/
and try
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=napoleonic wars&page=1

The Archive has over 7 pages of relevant material and some is in Italian, German, Russian and French - a huge resource. There is also an audio lecture in multiple parts on Napoleon and a charge sounded by a survivor of the Charge of the Light Brigade on a Battle of Waterloo trumpet. Sent shivers down my spine.

There are some novels also but not many.

If someone has already highlighted this resource my apologies.

[Jean Lafitte]

One of the finest works of the period is that of BRESSONNENT covering the campaign of 1806. 

This GREAT book has been translated into English and published by The Military History Press.

I own a copy and it is wonderful. WELL WORTH the money.


http://militaryhistorypress.com/Apogee.php

[HarryInk]

Can I also recommend the three books written by Maude - Leipzig, Jena and Ulm.  I bought the Jena volume recently and the Leipzig and Ulm books are available online.  Excellent read from a very practical military critic of the tpre-WW1 era (who therefore had some idea of the practical realities of what cavalry was all about).

[HarryInk]

I am now reading Dominic Lieven's "Russia Against Napoleon" that covers the 1812-1814 period.  He is a bit of a russophile but it is a brilliant work and a huge corrective to all the francophile accounts of the campaign I've read.  It clarifies so much regarding Russian attitudes & policies --- and fundamentally that Europe was essentially an annoying but unavoidable distraction from the main southern axes of Russian expansion (vs Persion, the Ottomans & the Balkans).  HUGELY recommended.

[Uhlanen]

Two of Peter Hofschroer's books:
1815 The Waterloo campaign...... Wellington his German allies and the battles of Ligny and Quatre Bra

1815 The Waterloo campaign.....The German Victory

[Gunner24]

I have them both, excellent books.

[HarryInk]

Can anyone suggest an excellent source for the Italian campaigns?   

Also, can anyone suggest a goodie for non-Napoleon revolutionary campaigns?  Recently listened to Hilaire Belloc off www.librivox.org - http://librivox.org/the-french-revolution-by-hilaire-belloc/ - and it piqued my interest.