In the Service of the Tsar Against Napoleon
Author: Denis Davydov
Publisher:
Published: 1999
Total Pages: 234
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe only available Russian Napoleonic memoir conveying the victor's perspective on a cataclysmic conflict.
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Wars Against Napoleon
Author: General Michel Franceschi
Publisher: Savas Beatie
Published: 2008-02-04
Total Pages: 238
ISBN-13: 1611210291
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPopular and scholarly history presents a one-dimensional image of Napoleon as an inveterate instigator of war who repeatedly sought large-scale military conquests. General Franceschi and Ben Weider dismantle this false conclusion in The Wars Against Napoleon, a brilliantly written and researched study that turns our understanding of the French emperor on its head. Avoiding the simplistic clichés and rudimentary caricatures many historians use when discussing Napoleon, Franceschi and Weider argue persuasively that the caricature of the megalomaniac conqueror who bled Europe white to satisfy his delirious ambitions and insatiable love for war is groundless. By carefully scrutinizing the facts of the period and scrupulously avoiding the sometimes confusing cause and effect of major historical events, they paint a compelling portrait of a fundamentally pacifist Napoleon, one completely at odds with modern scholarly thought. This rigorous intellectual presentation is based upon three principal themes. The first explains how an unavoidable belligerent situation existed after the French Revolution of 1789. The new France inherited by Napoleon was faced with the implacable hatred of reactionary European monarchies determined to restore the ancient regime. All-out war was therefore inevitable unless France renounced the modern world to which it had just painfully given birth. The second theme emphasizes Napoleon’s determined efforts (“bordering on an obsession,” argue the authors) to avoid this inevitable conflict. The political strategy of the Consulate and the Empire was based on the intangible principle of preventing or avoiding these wars, not on conquering territory. Finally, the authors examine, conflict by conflict, the evidence that Napoleon never declared war. As he later explained at Saint Helena, it was he who was always attacked—not the other way around. His adversaries pressured and even forced the Emperor to employ his unequalled military genius. After each of his memorable victories Napoleon offered concessions, often extravagant ones, to the defeated enemy for the sole purpose of avoiding another war. Lavishly illustrated, persuasively argued, and carefully illustrated with original maps and battle diagrams, The Wars Against Napoleon presents a courageous and uniquely accurate historical idea that will surely arouse vigorous debate within the international historical community.
Russia Against Napoleon
Author: Dominic Lieven
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2009-10-01
Total Pages: 952
ISBN-13: 0141947446
DOWNLOAD EBOOK'A compulsive page-turner ... a triumph of brilliant storytelling ... an instant classic that is an awesome, remarkable and exuberant achievement' Simon Sebag Montefiore Winner of the Wolfson History Prize and shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize In the summer of 1812 Napoleon, the master of Europe, marched into Russia with the largest army ever assembled, confident that he would sweep everything before him. Yet less than two years later his empire lay in ruins, and Russia had triumphed. This is the first history to explore in depth Russia's crucial role in the Napoleonic Wars, re-creating the epic battle between two empires as never before. Dominic Lieven writes with great panache and insight to describe from the Russians' viewpoint how they went from retreat, defeat and the burning of Moscow to becoming the new liberators of Europe; the consequences of which could not have been more important. Ultimately this book shows, memorably and brilliantly, Russia embarking on its strange, central role in Europe's existence, as both threat and protector - a role that continues, in all its complexity, into our own lifetimes.
Alexander I
Author: Marie-Pierre Rey
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2012-11-15
Total Pages: 437
ISBN-13: 1609090659
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAlexander I was a ruler with high aspirations for the people of Russia. Cosseted as a young grand duke by Catherine the Great, he ascended to the throne in 1801 after the brutal assassination of his father. In this magisterial biography, Marie-Pierre Rey illuminates the complex forces that shaped Alexander's tumultuous reign and sheds brilliant new light on the handsome ruler known to his people as "the Sphinx." Despite an early and ambitious commitment to sweeping political reforms, Alexander saw his liberal aspirations overwhelmed by civil unrest in his own country and by costly confrontations with Napoleon, which culminated in the French invasion of Russia and the burning of Moscow in 1812. Eventually, Alexander turned back Napoleon's forces and entered Paris a victor two years later, but by then he had already grown weary of military glory. As the years passed, the tsar who defeated Napoleon would become increasingly preoccupied with his own spiritual salvation, an obsession that led him to pursue a rapprochement between the Orthodox and Roman churches. When in exile, Napoleon once remarked of his Russian rival: "He could go far. If I die here, he will be my true heir in Europe." It was not to be. Napoleon died on Saint Helena and Alexander succumbed to typhus four years later at the age of forty-eight. But in this richly nuanced portrait, Rey breathes new life into the tsar who stood at the center of the political chessboard of early nineteenth-century Europe, a key figure at the heart of diplomacy, war, and international intrigue during that region's most tumultuous years.
Napoleon and Russia
Author: Michael Adams
Publisher: A&C Black
Published: 2014-04-09
Total Pages: 629
ISBN-13: 0826442129
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNapoleon and Russia tells, for the first time, the full story of Napoleon and his crucial relationship with Russia, from the 1790s and Bonaparte's rise to power, through the period of Austerlitz, Tilsit and the Russian invasion, to the Emperor's fall and its aftermath. In doing so, it not only puts the critical events of 1812 in their proper context as part of an even greater tale - of peace as well as war, friendship as well as enmity - but also provides fresh insight into the Napoleonic period as a whole, questioning many of the assumptions about the era prevalent in the English-speaking world. The tale boasts a cast of fascinating characters to rival any novel: the rulers, Napoleon himself, Catherine the Great, 'Mad' Tsar Paul and the enigmatic Alexander I; generals such as Ney, Murat, Davout, Suvorov, Kutuzov and Barclay de Tolly; statesmen like Talleyrand, Caulaincourt, Czartoryski and Rumiantsev; and, of course, the ordinary soldiers who fought some of the most intriguing, bloody and important campaigns in history. This is an enthralling story of fundamental importance in the history of Europe and, indeed, the world.
Napoleon in Russia
Author: Alan Warwick Palmer
Publisher: Running PressBook Pub
Published: 2003
Total Pages: 318
ISBN-13: 9780786712632
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"Napoleon is a torrent which as yet we are unable to stem,” said Field-Marshal Prince Mikhail Kutuzov in September 1812, and then he predicted, “Moscow will be the sponge that will suck him dry.” Three months earlier, on June 24, 1812, Napoleon had made his fateful crossing of the Niemen River into Lithuania with an army of 500,000 men, which by December would be depleted by war, the weather, starvation, and disease to a mere 10,000. Sucked dry, indeed. The final six months of 1812 made of Napoleon’s boldest imperial dream his most disastrous military campaign, which historian and biographer Alan Palmer recounts here with narrative immediacy, colorful detail, analytic skill, and striking insight. He follows the French forces in their long, dusty haul from Vilna to Vitebsk to Viasma; from the frightful slaughter at Borodino to Moscow’s deserted, burning streets—and then the horrors of the grueling winter retreat. But Palmer also looks beyond the savagery of blizzards and battles to bring to his vast canvas an overall picture of a campaign that tragically cost Napoleon nearly half a million men and shaped the greatest catastrophe of his career. Illustrations and maps are included.
Narrative of Events During the Invasion of Russia by Napoleon Bonaparte and the Retreat of the French Army, 1812
Author: Sir Robert Thomas Wilson
Publisher:
Published: 1860
Total Pages: 490
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNapoleon and the Struggle for Germany
Author: Michael V. Leggiere
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2015-04-16
Total Pages: 903
ISBN-13: 1107080541
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe first comprehensive history of the Fall Campaign that determined control of Central Europe following Napoleon's catastrophic defeat in Russia.
Borodino 1812
Author: Philip Haythornthwaite
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2012-09-20
Total Pages: 252
ISBN-13: 1780968817
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA highly illustrated account of the battle of Borodino, the most crucial action in Napoleon's 1812 campaign in Russia. The battle of Borodino was one of the greatest encounters in European history, and one of the largest and most sanguinary in the Napoleonic Wars. Following the breakdown of relations between Russia and France, Napoleon assembled a vast Grande Armée drawn from the many states within the French sphere of influence. They crossed the river Neimen and entered Russian territory in June 1812 with the aim of inflicting a sharp defeat on the Tsar's forces and bringing the Russians back into line. In a bloody battle of head-on attacks and desperate counter-attacks in the village of Borodino on 7 September 1812, both sides lost about a third of their men, with the Russians forced to withdraw and abandon Moscow to the French. However, the Grande Armée was harassed by Russian troops all the way back and was destroyed by the retreat. The greatest army Napoleon had ever commanded was reduced to a shadow of frozen, starving fugitives. This title covers the events of Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign of 1812 in its entirety, with the set-piece battle of Borodino proving the focal point of the book.
At Napoleon's Side in Russia
Author: Armand de Caulaincourt
Publisher:
Published: 2008
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781929631476
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIntroduction by Dr Jacques Oliver Boudin. Armand de Caulaincourt was one of the highest officials in the French Empire, riding constantly at Napoleon's side.
