Napoleon's Wars: An International History, 1803-1815 [Paperback]

Napoleon's story has been told again and again and there is a veritable industry set around the Napoleonic wars, but this book aims to be different. It doesn't go over old ground recording every detail of Napoleon's campaigns and battles (indeed there are none of the usual maps and diagrams of the famous battles) but seeks to show the effect Napoleon had on Europe at the time and the consequences of his actions. There are some lovely colour plates and some useful maps of various bits of Europe, but ironically by taking this less obvious path the author loses some of the impact of the period and some passages drag a little. On the whole though this is still a readable book but better informed students of the period will have to put it in it's appropriate place in the Napoleonic library.

A superb book. The author shows an understanding of the period that is unrivalled in any other general history of the Napoleonic wars. International relations, rather than military developments, are the focus of the work and even those with a longstanding interest in this era will emerge enlightened. It is, moreover, writen in an engaging, accessible and often entertaining style.

If warmongering was Napoleon's chief strength, it was also his downfall. If thoroughness is Esdaile's... Well, read on (and read the book of course) and make your own mind up!

I have to confess to finding this book somewhat disappointing. There were times when I ploughed through it gleefully, but there were also times when I found myself slogging doggedly on, in an 1812 frame of mind. It is a very good book in many respects, Esdaile compiles and synthesises huge amounts of Napoleonic scholarship, resolutely following his own line* (particularly in examining Napoleon's character, to determine whether it was a primary cause and motivating force in relation to this age of conflict), but at times it's the very all-embracing thoroughness of the book that become the problem; because his scale and scope are huge and wide, it can feel fragmented and dry. However, Esdaile certainly succeeds in compressing information on numerous more obscure theatres (e.g. the Balkans, the Near East and Ottoman Empire, and the Americas, including the Caribbean and South America, in addition to the better documneted North American conflict), as well as the more commonly covered Euro-centric stuff, into a single volume. But, at times, busy discussing one thing, Esdaile darts off to cover something else, happening around the same time but in another theatre: sometimes, but not always, the two are clearly related, with developments in one theatre affecting possibilities in another, and the way this bigger picture emerges is amongst the books definite strengths. But this jumping around does disrupt the narrative flow.

Another problem arising from this lofty overview (Speaking of which, Esdaile quotes Napoleon: 'I strike from too great a height.' Fuel for the comedic view of Napoleon's crusade as the working out of an inferiority complex?) is the loss of engaging ground level detail, battles for example, frequently becoming no more than names. I imagine many (perhaps most?) readers of Napoleonic history, whether scholarly or just generally interested, relish the details of the often epic campaigns and battles. But, as Esdaile points out, there's plenty of that kind of material out there already. In preferring to trace the broader arcs of grand politics, Esdaile sacrifices this Holy Cow of the military buff. It's become standard practice these days for books like this to draw heavily on primary sources, and Esdaile is no slouch in this respect, but his protagonists are almost exclusively bigwigs from the upper echelons, with their eyes on posterity, very little detail coming from the groundlings. This is in keeping with his grand overview approach, but it does make for a drier reading experience. Personally speaking, I think books like this benefit from broader social representation. A good example of a book that not only manages this, but adds the oft-overlooked voice of womankind is Amanda Foreman's excellent A World on Fire. To convey what I'm trying to get at, I hope an artistic analogy isn't deemed too fanciful: Esdaile's book is, perhaps, a little like a Vermeer that's missing a character. The contextual information, rugs, maps, walls, furniture etc., is immaculately if coolly recorded, but some of the personal detail and human interest, literally and metaphorically (e.g. this can be considered to include details of individual battles as well as details of individual characters) is missing.

Admirable for putting Napoleon back in his proper contextual place in history, Esdaile is perhaps slightly too bent on debunking the mythic/heroic Napoleon he characterises as the 'bogeyman' of modern Europe. Certainly amongst the people I know Napoleon has long been recognised as a warmongering imperialist despot, and not particularly to be admired! But equally, one has to concede that advancement via merit through the ranks of Napoleon's army, and in the secular French society of his time, was a more common thing than it was in the ranks of such 'Ancien Regime' powers as England. On the other hand, Boney introduced conscription. One could argue that his troops, in the parlance of modern Europe, were stakeholders in a potentially more liberal state. In Britain, on the other hand, we avoided conscription, not from magnanimity, but because to introduce it would perhaps foment the rebellion and a change in the social order that upper echelons here dreaded, especially having seen what happened in France. But, against all this horse-trading, ultimately Esdaile points out that 'Boney was a warrior', as the old song had it, and only in acting collectively could Europe defeat him and end the bloodshed. From this viewpoint Napoleon ends up in the odious company of Hitler, as destroyer of the peace.

The theme of Napoleonic character analysis, which by the end of the book feels more like character assasination, in seeking to answer a fundamental question at the core of his book - 'Was Napoleonic Europe...proof of the 'great-man' theory of history?' - finds Esdaile again in difficult territory. Seemingly irritated by traditions of pro-Napoleonic history and biography, his recurring criticisms of Napoleon eventually sound almost personal! Rather like Napoleon himself, whose contradictions - 'I have always commanded' and 'I have never really been my own master; I have always been governed by circumstances' - and whose 'ruinous quest for glory' dominate this book, Esdaile tries to have it both ways. Yes Napoleon was a singular man, whose almost primeval force of character shaped events: 'it was the emperor's determination to eschew compromise... that made them [the Napoleonic wars] what they were'. But no, 'the history of Naploeon did not constitute the history of the world, or indeed, even Europe'!

Esdaile himself says 'academic historians rarely attract the audience they deserve', and, whilst he succeeds in conveying what he terms the 'pan-European dimension' of these wars, with a locus more centred around Poland and the crumbling Ottoman empire than is normal in Napoleonic histories (indeed, at one point Esdaile states that Russo-Persian altercations, at the time a considered a 'sideshow', may retrospectively be deemed to have 'had greater long-term geopolitical effect than anything that happened in Western Europe'), his book, alas, may not change that state of affairs. Nothing if not polemic and thought provoking, this is a very informative, well researched, and detailed book, and one can see it earning it's rightful place in current Napoleonic scholarship. But for the generally intrigued non-specialist Esdaile's very thoroughness, and concern with the broader historical picture, may make this a bit on the dryly academic side. My head gives this a five star review, my heart three stars, so I'll compromise and go with four.

Some good quotes:

Napoleon to his brother Jerome: "There is only one thing to do in this world, and that is to keep acquiring money and more money, power and more power. All the rest is meaningless." The idealistic young revolutionary!

On his cynical utility of religion: "It was by declaring myself to be Catholic that I finished the war in the Vendée... If I governed a nation of Jews I would re-establish the Temple of Solomon."

In a rare moment of modesty: "They do me too much honour if they believe that everything I have done was premeditated. I have seen myself forced into actions I should never have dreamed of. It is a general human weakness to assume definite plans everywhere."

Esdaile on C18/19th attitudes to power politics and diplomacy: "conquest was a moral duty from which all would benefit, and war, by extension, an act of benevolence." One would like to think we've moved on from such ideas, but when you look at how states justify their warlike actions... perhaps we haven't learned from our own history?

* This said, others before him, notably Chandler, have presented Boney in a similarly unflattering light.