- Hardcover: 240 pages
- Publisher: Greenhill Books; First Edition edition (27 Jan 1994)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1853671584
- ISBN-13: 978-1853671586
- Product Dimensions: 18.8 x 13 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,073,135 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The name of David Chandler is likely to be familiar to anyone with interests in military history in the English language. His specialities are the campaigns of the first Duke of Marlborough and those of Napoleon Bonaparte. This book contains a collection of essays published on Chandler's retirement from Great Britain's Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. Several of them have never been published elsewhere, while those which have are only to be found in small-circulation journals. The selection is carefully made to span the full period of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, without attempting to be a single-volume history of them. Thus there are articles about the causes of the outbreak of the wars, about the nature of the Battle of Marengo (perhaps the best article of all), about Austerlitz, Maida, the Peninsular War, the Russian campaign and Napoleon's fall. I suppose that a certain degree of knowledge is assumed of the reader; references are made, for instance, to Archduke Charles and the Battle of Wagram, which are not otherwise discussed in this volume. The reader new to this territory should not be deterred, but should probably have the same author's "Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars" to hand while reading this book. Chandler's style is always readable, if occasionally a touch repetitive. His knowledge of history outside his main subjects does seem questionable, as the odd incorrect date or misquotation implies, but on Napoleonic matters he is not merely encyclopaedic, but also deeply considered. His assessment of the role of the partisans in the defeat of the French occupiers of Iberia is excellent in this respect. Chandler is no starry-eyed admirer of Bonaparte and shows that he has little stomach for those who are, but he is not beating a nationalist drum, either. Certainly, he is an admirer of the Duke of Wellington, but he places the British contribution to Napoleon's defeat carefully in its context (if anything, he underestimates it). The book displays a few examples of inept proof-reading, but nothing disastrous. All in all, this collection should appeal to anyone who can read English and has an interest in the Napoleonic Wars.
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2 reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Less Than the Sum of it's Parts
1 Mar 2011
Format:Hardcover
Sadly, this book is proof that sometimes a thing is less than the sum of it's parts. The essays are drawn from presented papers, speeches, and in one case the foreword of another book. There is some redundancy in the articles as they weren't originally intended to be read one after another, so some of the text in selected articles sets up the same situation as another. There are some gems, the essay on the British invasion of Egypt being one, a subject usually ignored because it was after Napoleon had left. Also the essay concerning Wellington in Spain is very good as an overview.
I would cautiously recommend this book to those who don't mind the extra content and are willing to put in the effort.
I would cautiously recommend this book to those who don't mind the extra content and are willing to put in the effort.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Thoughts and Actions...
23 Jun 2000
Format:Paperback
This is the best book David Chandler has written, put together, or edited, or all three. The book consists of 16 essays on the period. They are presented in the usual crisp narrative we have come to expect from David Chandler. The chapters are presented in chronological order and range from the reconquest of Egypt in 1801 through the battles of Maida and Sahagun to the strange but fascinating tale of an undergroom in 1815. The two best chapters, in my opinion, are on Maida 1806 and Marengo in 1800. Chandler covers Maida in a much more thorough, accurate manner than Oman did in his Studies in the Napoleonic Wars. The chapter on Marengo covers, not the fighting on the battlefield of June of 1800, but the frustrating writings of the three versions of the battle by the French.
In the essay on Marengo Chandler tells of Colonel Pascal Vallongue of the Depot de Guerre, an honest officer trying to do his duty, and producing a generally accurate version of Marengo in 1803. First pleasing Napoleon, the then First Consul orders a changed rewrite that has the battle going exactly as planned. All copies of the original are ordered burned, but a War Ministry clerk saves one by hiding it under his blotter.
The report is changed yet again, and Chandler lays out the sequence of confusing events in such a way that it is clearly understood how and why it was done and who was responsible for the `evolution' of Napoleon's ordered rewrite of history.
The weaknesses of the volume are the last two chapters where Chandler again attempts to analyze Napoleon as well as comment on a 'Jominian Legacy.' In my opinion, he largely fails here, and it is another attempt to try and fit a square peg in a round whole, attempting to reconcile Napoleon's method of waging war into a formula.
The use of anything by Jomini can be judged as suspect, not only for Jomini's obvious character flaws, but also because of Jomini's myriad inaccuracies, which fatally hurts the author's analysis.
Still, this is a most valuable book that should be read by all students of the period. It is entertaining, lively, and except for the last two chapters, some of the best work Chandler ever produced.
In the essay on Marengo Chandler tells of Colonel Pascal Vallongue of the Depot de Guerre, an honest officer trying to do his duty, and producing a generally accurate version of Marengo in 1803. First pleasing Napoleon, the then First Consul orders a changed rewrite that has the battle going exactly as planned. All copies of the original are ordered burned, but a War Ministry clerk saves one by hiding it under his blotter.
The report is changed yet again, and Chandler lays out the sequence of confusing events in such a way that it is clearly understood how and why it was done and who was responsible for the `evolution' of Napoleon's ordered rewrite of history.
The weaknesses of the volume are the last two chapters where Chandler again attempts to analyze Napoleon as well as comment on a 'Jominian Legacy.' In my opinion, he largely fails here, and it is another attempt to try and fit a square peg in a round whole, attempting to reconcile Napoleon's method of waging war into a formula.
The use of anything by Jomini can be judged as suspect, not only for Jomini's obvious character flaws, but also because of Jomini's myriad inaccuracies, which fatally hurts the author's analysis.
Still, this is a most valuable book that should be read by all students of the period. It is entertaining, lively, and except for the last two chapters, some of the best work Chandler ever produced.
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