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This is a thread where we will feature a Napoleonic Book of the Monthwhich will be open for discussion.

There is no self promotion allowed on The History Book Club site.

This title has been receiving some good reviews lately:



by Gareth Glover
Description:
Lieutenant Charles Crowe's journal of the 27th Foot (Inniskillings) of the final campaign of Wellington's army is a rare work for many reasons. It is, perhaps surprisingly, the first memoir about this campaign from this famous regiment to be published. Crowe wrote a daily journal at the time, which practically guarantees the authenticity and accuracy of his account. But what makes it special is that Crowe was extremely well read and was an accomplished writer, so that when he wrote up his journal in 1842 3, he was able to embellish his basic journal, describing his thoughts, actions and words in beautiful detail. He thus turned his record of his short army career into a masterpiece of journalism. Clearly written purely for the enjoyment of his family, Crowe does not pull his punches: he censures officers both junior and senior; he talks openly of the ravages of war, and the pillaging, raping and looting; the horrors of war, describing the deaths and horrific wounds of many in lurid detail, the cowardice and stupidity; and he also describes the mundane in detail nothing is passed over. Crowe is an invaluable source to military historians on many levels, and his journal will stand proudly deservedly in the pantheon of great military memoirs.

Here is another decent book that may interest readers of Napoleonic history:


by Carole Divall
Description:
Military histories of the struggle against the French armies of the Revolution and Napoleon often focus on the exploits of elite units and famous individuals, ignoring the essential contribution made by the ordinary soldiers - the bulk of the British army. Carole Divall, in this graphic and painstakingly researched account, tells the story of one such hitherto ignored group of fighting men, the 30th Regiment of the Line. She takes their story from one of the opening clashes of the long war, the Siege of Toulon in 1793, to the decisive Battle of Waterloo in 1815. She gives us a fresh perspective on key events the men took part in - Massena's retreat from the Lines of Torres Vedras, the bloody storming of Badajoz, the retreat from Burgos, the ordeal of the troops holding the centre of Wellington's Waterloo position. The regiment's history - which she describes using some hitherto unpublished and vivid memoirs left by the men themselves and those they fought alongside - offers a fascinating insight into the life of British soldiers two centuries ago.

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "Here is another decent book that may interest readers of Napoleonic history:


by [a..."

Carole Divall really knows her stuff. She gave a great talk on Napoleon's Egyptian campaign at the UK Napoleonic Association's annual conference last autumn. Whereas I just rabbited on about researching and writing a historical novel whilst waving a few props around...

'Aussie Rick' wrote:

by "
Carole Divall

Sounds great, Rick. I think it's very important to try and show the struggle of the common man/woman in history because without them there would be none.
Terrific that the author managed to find original documents/letters/memoirs for the book.

by Adam Zamoyski

A vivid account of the disastrous invasion of Russia, its cause, the battles and the horrific aftermath. Very well written account of this campaign and you can almost hear the 1812 Overture thundering in the background!!

Hi Jill, it's an excellent account of 1812 campaign. Have you tried his other Napoleonic book:

by Adam Zamoyski

I found this quite a good book as well, the author makes it a very interesting tale.

´¡²Ô»å°ùé wrote: "'Aussie Rick' wrote:

by "
Carole Divall

Sounds great, Rick. I think..."

Hi Andre & Jonathan,

She has also recently published this book:

by Carole Divall
Description:
In this companion volume to her pioneering study Redcoats Against Napoleon, Carole Divall tells the fascinating inside story of a typical infantry regiment during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. Rather than focusing on the history of the 30th Regiment of the Line in action and on campaign, she explores its organization, traditions and hierarchy, its personnel, and the ethos that held it together.

Using primary source material, in particular surviving regimental records, War Office documents, letters and journals, Divall reconstructs the life of the 30th Foot - and the lives of the men who served in it - during a critical period in Europe's military history.

Thank you Aussie Rick for your adds to this thread.

My pleasure Bentley :)

Thanks Rick for the tip on:
Adam Zamoyski.

Another add for the TBR list!!! I think he is an excellent historian.

Glad to help Jill :)

My I highly recommend the following book as an excellent account of the Battle of Eylau:

by James R. Arnold
Description:
The autumn of 1806 witnessed one of history's foremost military geniuses, Napoleon Bonaparte, at the apogee of his power. After easily defeating the vaunted Prussian army, the Emperor Napoleon occupied Berlin. The scale of his victories stunned Europe. He and his veteran warriors appeared invincible.

Undaunted, the young Tsar Alexander sent his armies westward to confront the French. The ensuing collisions took place in Poland, one of Europe's poorest, most barren regions. Terrain, weather, and luck played critical roles. Then came a seemingly implausible reversal of fortune when an inexperienced Russian army, riven by command dissension, inflicted a pair of severe checks at Pultusk and Golymin. Napoleon's opponents rejoiced to see the 'Corsican Ogre' falter as he retired to winter quarters to lick his wounds. The Russian armies were not done. Flush with his success at Pultusk, Russian General Leontii Bennigsen assumed overall command of the Tsar's forces and launched a surprise offensive. It compelled Napoleon to abandon winter quarters and begin a grueling campaign. Napoleon's brilliantly conceived strategic envelopment miscarried.

A five-day all-out pursuit finally brought the Russians to bay on the snow covered ground of Eylau. Here over 140,000 French and Russian soldiers fought a terrible battle. They displayed surpassing courage and moments of inspired leadership, and committed costly blunders as victory trembled in the balance. The battle inflicted nearly 60,000 casualties, leaving thousands of dead and wounded littering the exposed slopes as frozen darkness descended. Then and thereafter, both sides claimed victory, but what was absolutely clear was that for the first time in his career Napoleon had met a foe capable of resisting his sweeping strategic thrusts and tactical flourishes.

This book has been followed up by a new account of the Battle of Friedland:

by James R. Arnold & Ralph R. Reinertsen
Description:
February 1807 found one of history's foremost military geniuses, Napoleon Bonaparte, retreating with his battered army from the bloody, inconclusive Battle of Eylau. It was the first significant setback experienced by the Emperor Napoleon. The battle dimmed the aura of invincibility surrounding the emperor and his Grande Armée. For the first time in his career Napoleon had met a foe capable of resisting his sweeping strategic thrusts and tactical flourishes. For the Grande Armée, an uncertain future spent in Poland's winter wastelands loomed.

Eylau emboldened Napoleon's foes, most importantly Tsar Alexander and the commander of his field army, General Leontii Bennigsen. The tsar's army issued from the fortress of Königsberg to drive the French west. His offensive gained territory until it encountered firm resistance that showed Napoleon's veterans had not lost their fighting prowess. The exhausted armies entered winter quarters while the Russian tsar and French emperor summoned tens of thousands of fresh troops to the front. Simultaneously, Russia and Prussia dispatched envoys to their coalition partners in an effort to coordinate a series of strokes designed to topple the apparently faltering French emperor.

The allied combinations failed, their efforts thwarted by the inherent problems of coalition warfare. It was left to French and Russian soldiers to determine Europe's fate. A ten-day span in June 1807 witnessed a fluid series of combats and battles culminating in Napoleon's decisive triumph at the Battle of Friedland. Occurring a mere four months after Eylau, Friedland represented a stunning reversal of fortune. Then came Tilsit, where Napoleon masterfully dictated terms to the humbled king of Prussia and rearranged the map of Europe with his new ally, Tsar Alexander.

Using primary sources gleaned from libraries and archives in Europe and the United States, Napoleon's Triumph describes Napoleon's amazing reversal of fortune. It relates the winter battles that blunted the Russian offensive and then turns to the complex, dramatic Siege of Danzig. Renewed campaigning in the spring witnessed yet another surprise Russian offensive. But for the leadership of Marshal Michel Ney, Bennigsen would have removed a major French piece from the strategic chessboard. Instead came Napoleon's counteroffensive leading to the Battle of Heilsberg, Napoleon's least-understood major battle. The decisive triumph at Friedland occurred four days later, an encounter heretofore shrouded by biased interpretations, one designed to burnish Napoleon's image, the other to explain away a bad Russian defeat.

Lavishly illustrated with portraits, drawings, paintings, and maps, and supplemented with detailed appendices on the strengths and composition of the rival forces, Napoleon's Triumph provides an original interpretation of the 1807 campaign.

This could be a worthy discussion book:

Voices From the Napoleonic Wars

by Jon E. Lewis

Synopsis:

Voices from the Napoleonic Wars reveals in telling detail the harsh lives of soldiers at the turn of the eighteenth century and in the early years of the nineteenth - the poor food and brutal discipline they endured, along with the forced marches and bloody, hand-to-hand combat.

Contemporaries were mesmerised by Napoleon, and with good reason: in 1812, he had an unprecedented million men and more under arms. His new model army of volunteers and conscripts at epic battles such as Austerlitz, Salamanca, Borodino, Jena and, of course, Waterloo marked the beginning of modern warfare, the road to the Sommes and Stalingrad.

The citizen-in-arms of Napoleon's Grande Armée and other armies of the time gave rise to a distinct body of soldiers' personal memoirs. The personal accounts that Jon E. Lewis has selected from these memoirs, as well as from letters and diaries, include those of Rifleman Harris fighting in the Peninsular Wars, and Captain Alexander Cavalie Mercer of the Royal Horse Artillery at Waterloo. They cover the land campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars (1739-1802), the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) and the War of 1812 (1812-1815), in North America. This was the age of cavalry charges, of horse-drawn artillery, of muskets and hand-to-hand combat with sabres and bayonets. It was an era in which inspirational leadership and patriotic common cause counted for much at close quarters on chaotic and bloody battlefields.

The men who wrote these accounts were directly involved in the sweeping campaigns and climactic battles that set Europe and America alight at the turn of the eighteenth century and in the years that followed. Alongside recollections of the ferocity of hard-fought battles are the equally telling details of the common soldier's daily life - short rations, forced marches in the searing heat of the Iberian summer and the bitter cold of the Russian winter, debilitating illnesses and crippling wounds, looting and the lash, but also the compensations of hard-won comradeship in the face of ever-present death.

Collectively, these personal accounts give us the most vivid picture of warfare 200 and more years ago, in the evocative language of those who knew it at first hand - the men and officers of the British, French and American armies. They let us know exactly what it was like to be an infantryman, a cavalryman, an artilleryman of the time.