Author: Alan Forrest Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 082643861X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 277
Book Description
Napoleon's soldiers marched across Europe from Lisbon to Moscow, and from Germany to Dalmatia. Many of the men, mostly conscripted by ballot, had never before been beyond their native village. What did they make of their extraordinary experiences, fighting battles thousands of miles from home, foraging for provisions or garrisoning town in hostile countries? What was it like to be a soldier in the revolutionary and imperial armies? We know more about these men and their reactions to war than about the soldiers of any previous army in history, not just from official sources but from the large number of personal letters they wrote. Napoleon's Men provides a direct insight into the experiences and emotions of soldiers who risked their lives at Austerlitz, Wagram and Borodino. Not surprisingly, their minds often dwelt as much on what was happening at home, and on mundane questions of food and drink, as on Napoleon himself or the glory of France.
Author: Alan Forrest Publisher: A&C Black ISBN: 1852855304 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 277
Book Description
This is an original piece of research into the Napoleonic wars from the perspective of the ordinary soldier, available in paperback for the first time. >
Author: Michael J Hughes Publisher: NYU Press ISBN: 0814724116 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 299
Book Description
The men who fought in Napoleon’s Grande Armée built a new empire that changed the world. Remarkably, the same men raised arms during the French Revolution for liberté, égalité, and fraternité. In just over a decade, these freedom fighters, who had once struggled to overthrow tyrants, rallied to the side of a man who wanted to dominate Europe. What was behind this drastic change of heart? In this ground-breaking study, Michael J. Hughes shows how Napoleonic military culture shaped the motivation of Napoleon’s soldiers. Relying on extensive archival research and blending cultural and military history, Hughes demonstrates that the Napoleonic regime incorporated elements from both the Old Regime and French Revolutionary military culture to craft a new military culture, characterized by loyalty to both Napoleon and the preservation of French hegemony in Europe. Underscoring this new, hybrid military culture were five sources of motivation: honor, patriotism, a martial and virile masculinity, devotion to Napoleon, and coercion. Forging Napoleon's Grande Armée vividly illustrates how this many-pronged culture gave Napoleon’s soldiers reasons to fight.
Author: Timothy Wilson-Smith Publisher: ISBN: Category : Emperors Languages : en Pages : 344
Book Description
Napoleon as a man of war was perhaps the cause of more men's deaths than any other warleader before him. The full story of the disruption caused by almost 20 years of warfare will never be told in all its harrowing detail. Across Europe villages were razed by fire and cities destroyed by cannon, monasteries closed and thousands turned into refugees. There were revolts in Ireland, possibly pro-French, and those in Southern Italy, clearly anti-French, all savagely repressed, and the loss of many small states that had dotted the map of Central Europe for centuries. Yet the terrible destruction of wartime does not tell the whole story. The men who eventually brought Napoleon down, chief among them Castlereagh and Metternich, failed to grasp that one of Napoleon's most remarkable gifts was his ability to bring about significant social change that would outlive his own defeat.
Author: Matthew D. Zarzeczny Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing ISBN: 1443843105 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 270
Book Description
Napoleon promoted and honored great men throughout his reign. In addition to comparing himself to various great men, he famously established a Legion of Honor on 19 May 1802 to honor both civilians and soldiers, including non-ethnically French men. Napoleon not only created an Irish Legion in 1803 and later awarded William Lawless and John Tennent the Legion of Honour; he also gave them an Eagle with the inscription “L’Indépendence d’Irlande.” He awarded twenty-six of his generals the marshal’s baton from 1804 to 1815, and in 1806, he further memorialized his soldiers by deciding to erect a Temple to the Glory of the Great Army, modeled on Ancient designs. From 1806 to 1815, Napoleon had more men interred in the Panthéon in Paris than any other French leader before or after him. In works of art depicting himself, Napoleon had his artists allude to Caesar, Charlemagne, and even Moses. Although the Romans had their legions, Pantheon, and temples in Ancient times and the French monarchy had their marshals since at least 1190, Napoleon blended both Roman and French traditions to compare himself to great men who lived in ancient and medieval times and to recognize the achievements of those who lived alongside him in the nineteenth century. Analyzing Napoleon’s ever-changing personal cult of “great men,” and his recognition of contemporary “great men” who contributed to European or even human civilization and not just French civilization, is original. While work does exist on the French cults of Greco-Roman antiquity and of “great men” prior to 1800, Napoleon appears only fleetingly in other discussions of the cult of great men. None of the bourgeoning historiography adequately takes Napoleon’s place in the story of this cult into perspective. This book serves as a further exploration of the cult of great men, including its place in Napoleonic and European history and the alleged efforts of its members to enlighten the earth.
Author: A. J. Doisy De Villargennes Publisher: Leonaur Limited ISBN: Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 170
Book Description
Accounts of the men of the First Empire Under the Eagles by A. J. Doisy De Villargennes Voices of 1812 by Arthur Chuquet Writings of the experiences of Napoleon's foot and horse soldiers which have been translated into English are few. There are several that have become well known and well regarded, but this book contains a delightful collection of lesser known works. With De Villargennes we experience war in the Peninsula, but the remaining episodes contain first hand accounts which all deal with the shared experience of the Emperor's disastrous advance into and retreat from Russia. Here are Oriot the Cuirassier and others telling their stories across time for today's student of the military history of the Napoleonic Age.
Author: Alan Forrest
Author: Alan Forrest
Author: Alexander Lange Kielland
Author: Alan I. Forrest
Author: Michael J Hughes
Author: Timothy Wilson-Smith
Author: Matthew D. Zarzeczny
Author: William Henry Hudson
Author: Robert McNair Wilson
Author: A. J. Doisy De Villargennes