"Essential Napoleonic Books" Topic

So thanks to all who offered some interesting looking books.
My wife is going to love seeing how big my Amazon wishlist as gotten…

Connard,

I know what you mean but all good written history is revisionist otherwise it is not worth writing because it contains nothing new and just repeats what has gone before. The 'new' can be the introduction of new material or reinterpretation of existing material or both. This is perfectly valid. The term 'revisionist' has been hijacked really to mean the distorted history peddled by the holocaust deniers in particular.

But you are absolutely right no history texts should be dismissed out of hand because they needs revising. They usually contain more stuff that is still useful. Oman is a perfect example but dismiss it? I don't think so. Nothing has been written to replace it yet and I'll bet it never will.

Bill

XV … very good points. However, I disagree that a history is not worth writing if it contains nothing new.

I can think of several other worthwhile reasons for writing a history book with no new historical material or reinterpretation. For example, when:

- it collates other histories into one book (eg an anthology, or an introduction book)

- it aims at a specific audience (eg for children, or for wargamers)

- it is a work of love for someone who loves a period, but is not an historian as such (many family histories roam into this domain)

- it is more about the style of the content than what the content actually is (eg a history written by a literary author, or an artistic author)

- it is written in another form than existing books on the topic (eg a novel, a poem, a comic book)

- it collates particular details of existing histories (eg weaponry, uniforms)

- it is written for a particular purpose where the history is more of a context than content (eg an educational text book).

There are probably other worthwhile reasons too, but these are just some off the top of my head.

it gets the information back in print… thats a biggie

If you're a wargamer then this is a good book.

Napoleonic Armies A wargamers Campaign Directory 1805 -1815 by Ray Johnson . Foreword by David G chandler

link

Give you the breakdown of army organisation over the duration of the Napoleonic Wars. It Is invaluable on the reference shelf.

Arteis, Keraunos,

You have fair points and I think I would place some of them in the 'revision' category. Another exception could be where a work is translated into another language by a third party.

What is not worth writing in my view is the kind of repetition of readily available histories which is largely an exercise in copying the work of other people. Most importantly the problem with this kind of work is the danger that repetition gives credence to mistakes. It leads to conclusions like ‘Author A says such and such. This is confirmed by Authors B, C, D and E '. There is actually no confirmation of A whatsoever merely repetition and copying of A's original statement/conclusion. On investigation the ‘audit trail' reveals that A's initial source did not actually say what A claimed for it and B,C,D and E didn't bother to do their own research. The reasons for this happening are usually many, lack of objectivity, desire to achieve consensus or fear of challenging received wisdom, lack of rigor or laziness, basic lack of knowledge and other failings that add up to poor historical method.
There is still quite a lot of stuff like that out there not just in the military history field generally although it is becoming better and there has been in my view an improvement in the past couple of decades or so.

excellent choice Julian, I own this book also and praise it highly. When ever you need to quickly gain answers as to army organisation this book is invaluable.

that is a good third point – translation.

XV-B I think the purpose of the OP's question was to eliminate the poor history which you describe from ending up in his library.

The cheerleading style of 'history' are also usually best avoided – but you just don't know until you get a review from someone you trust whether the reviewer is worth listening too or not either.

One i have just thought of

Napoleon's shield and guardian

, the career of a French officer, Pierre Daumesnil
very well written by Edward Ryan, Greenhill books, 2003

I really didn't like Swords, his writing style and the Americanisms just jarred with the subject matter, just my opinion though.

Morvan : Le Soldat Imperiale , 2 volumes , available on google for free – much better than Swords

and to get a critical view on how myths were created :

Titeux : Le Général Dupont, 2 volumes, Puteaux sur Seine, 1903

Any books by authors like : Foucart, Colin, Bressonnet, Jany, De La Jonquiere, Alombert, Balagny, Titeux, Cugnac, Picard, Goetz, Mikaberize, Lynn, Coppens – to name a few.

Generally I avoid Chandler, Elting or Petre

VW – Why avoid Petre?

James

vW, that's interesting that you avoid Chandler. As you probably know, I'm more into the 'look and feel' [or mythology!!!] of the Napoleonic period than the actual detailed history. But I did understand that Chandler was a respected historian of the period, whom I've never heard anyone detract? Not that I've ever read anything by him, but I'm still rather intrigued by your opinion?

By the way, I've never heard of Petre, but I thoroughly enjoyed Elting's 'Swords' as a riveting read (even if the history might now be somewhat dated [?], it was still inspiring – more than can be said for some books!).

Petre is quite dated, very much of the old school (i.e. circa WW1 old).

Chandler is sometimes seen as part of this too, although he did revise some of his earlier misconceptiosn in later books.

neither is a much-avoid in my opinion, but neither is a safe go-to single resource either.

Its worth keping in mind how much work has gone into Military history in the last thirty years which has, correctly, revised a lot of dated misconceptions.

Some of it is revisionist nonesense for the sake of 'making an arguement', or 'revealing a lost truth' but most of it is the quality application of modern academic methods and access to sources which were not previously available.

Arteis,

For FL Petre see:

link

Worth a read. Petre based his stuff on sound secondary sources but his interpretations are sometimes questionable. I think they are all still in print.

I think what VW means is that the foreign language material he mentions (foreign to the English reader anyway) on which Petre, based a lot of his stuff is better. He's right about that but you need a good command of French and German to get to grips with it. There is also better stuff written much more recently on some of the campaigns in English. Goetz on 1805 and Gill on 1809 for example.

You are right about David Chandler. He was a British historian who graduated from Keble College, Oxford and was commissioned in the British army in the days of National Service. He left the army in 1960 and joined the staff of RMA Sandhurst in the War Studies Department which he went on later to head from 1980 until 1994. His peers included Peter Young, John Keegan, Brian Bond and Christopher Duffy. He held three visiting professorships at US universities including VMI and MCU and received a DLitt from Oxford in 1991, one of only five awarded for military history in almost 100 years, which ranks higher than a PhD and is peer recognition given only to people who have a record of achievement in their particular field. Chandler is probably the most important English language military historian of the latter half of the 20th century. He wrote 27 books and I think he'd probably be preferred to be remembered for his work on Marlborough but his Campaigns of Napoleon, published in 1966, although now dated remains the only comprehensive English overview of the entire period from 1796 and was responsible for popularising the period.

Bill

The point is surely not that the work of Francis Loraine Petre is 'old', but that his Napoleonic works (published 1901-1914) were the first major publication--in English--to address the key continental campaigns (Prussia 1806, Poland 1807, the Danube 1809, Germany 1813, and France 1814) hitherto inaccessible to English-only readers. (They fed a pent-up interest in Napoleonic history that had previously only been served with the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns and memoirs.) The difficulty with Petre is that, as a 'man of his times' in the run-up to WWI, he was passionately pro-French (and correspondingly anti-German) and was heavily influenced by French sources and accounts, whilst giving German, Russian, and other language sources short shrift. Within the limited context of English-language Napoleonic historical scholarship, it could be argued that the 'impact' of Petre was to set further research and popular history on an unfortunate 'trajectory' for the next generation or two, as Petre's French-sympathetic works were very much taken as 'definitive'. I'm not sure, however, that the blame for that can be laid entirely at Petre's feet.

Defiant

I can't believe Hollins tried to fob the Armies book off as 'essential' reading. What a joke! He really is full of himself.

I'm posting now because I just received my copy of Gill's With Eagles to Glory, 2nd edition. Now there is a book that could be considered as 'essential' reading, but probably only if you are interested in the 1809 campaign and actions involving Napoleon's Allies against the Austrians.

But imagine if Gill brought out an Eagles 2, based on the COR post-1809. That might be considered another 'essential' book, again, depending on your personal tastes.

Greystreak,

A very good summary I think. I think their republication in the early 1970s may only have happened because of the interest in the period generated by Chandler's Campaigns and Elting's Atlas during the previous decade. They are certainly important milestones in the story of English language Napoleponic historiography.

Bill

Gaz I agree,

hollins astounds me every day !!

Gill is an awesome author, I would pick him over anyone else for 1809. No one comes even close…

ditto XV Brigada's comment

@Arteis

It is just my opinion, Chandler is a good read but I prefer the works of the other authors I mentioned above.

I had the honor to chat with Chandler several times when he was still alive.

Petre is pretty hard going and his N worship was of course rather typical of the post-Entente period, when the rise of Germany was the key preoccupation.

One I thought of was Blanning: Origins of the French Revolutionary Wars, which explains it all very well.

I was amused by the attempted barb above about Gill and 1809. I wondered what, aside from a few period quotes in Ospreys, I had written about 1809 – no doubt the Tendency can illuminate us!

Defiant

I doubt there are that many authors out there that have anywhere near the required skill to even attempt anything on the scale produced by Gill. Can you imagine the amount of work, research and time required to produce such excellent texts!

Long live the Tendency!

Dave Hollins

Myself and Defiant were talking about Gill, a good author who has produced some excellent work that will, I'm sure, be hard to beat.

However, I'm sure you are not foolish enough to consider yourself in the same league as Gill, because, as you probably know yourself, you have a long, long, way to go before you can ever aspire to his level.

Dave,

All historians and writers are products of the time in which they write. It should come as no surprise that Petre was no different. I haven't read Petre for some time but I don't remember him being a particularly hard read.

Professor Tim Blanning is a very good choice indeed. He is an expert on 17th and 18th century French, Austrian and German political history. His books on the French Revolution and Revolutionary Wars are consummate examples of the professional historian's craft.

His ‘The Origin's of the French Revolutionary Wars' does provide a very good explanation of why the nations went to war and puts Napoleon's wars in context.

As far as comparisons to Gill are concerned, I ignore the Gang of Four and have them stifled. They have nothing to offer and why waste one's time trying to teach pigs to dance.

Bill

Certainly, all books should be considered in their own time context as well as their subject matter – much of the ignoring of Russo-Germanic material is down to events in the 20th century, while much of the mythology has its origins in the reign of Napoleon III.

I have Blanning on Joseph II, but haven't got round to reading yet.

I read the page without logging in, but it was amusing that in their idiocy, they shot themselves in the foot – by getting their facts wrong! They might care to look at Gill's Introductory thanks, I gather.

lol

I am amazed how Gaz, Old Bear, Myself and anyone who dares to argue with hollins and his sidekicks get labelled as the, "idiot tendency", "idiotic", and now "pigs" and other names I just can't recall right now. However, in all of our arguments with you lot, we do not stoop to the level you have and call you names, it is very childish indeed….

It is only when someone is losing an argument or frustrated that he or she will begin to throw out some name calling to ridicule the opposing side. This is due to a low emotional intelligence. I really think this is what is going on right here.

I do find it funny but really sad at the same time.

Kiley acolytes you forgot Shane. I have had that pleasure
and some of the others you have listed. But the Hollins
followers will find out in the end when they disagree
with him on something, that's the way I see it.

Regards
James

Defiant is Shane

As much as we, "Kiley acolytes" are despised by some I do not think we stoop to name calling as the other side seems to enjoy doing. At least we respect them enough not to.

p.s. when you get two personalities which are diametrically opposed such as Kevin and Dave you are going to get disagreeance and eventual conflict if at least one side allows an argument to blow out to a conflict.

When this occurs it is natural for three types of reactions from outsiders, namely to either follow one side or the other and remain neutral and indifferent. When you strongly relate to one side of an argument over the other the disagreement and debate occurs and in this situation, can esculate into full blown conflict as it has here. However, keeping the argument civil without name calling is something that should be maintained at all times, yet it seems the hollins side cannot seem to maintain their composure. The hollins acolytes are drawn to hollins because of similarities and if hollins is a person who cannot respect people well enough to remain civil and not name call then I guess it is only typical his followers will imitate him.

Notice however, Kevin NEVER stoops to such a base level and neither do we. We might ridicule the other side and jump on them when we can but we are civil enough not to stoop to their level of vitriol.

Defiant

Yes, Kevin does act like a gentleman in all matters, and the difference stands out. Hollins and his followers could learn a lot form him in how to act on posts.

But I laugh at Hollins' posts now because in his mind, if you like anything about Napoleon, as an enthusiast, author or wargamer, you are obviously a worshipper. I think he may be a bit of a control freak, which could explain why he can't cope with people disagreeing with him and negative reviews. His followers may be suffering from the same condition.

XV Brigada

Your post has made it clear now as to why you like Hollins. You both like to teach pigs to dance! Funny hobby, but there you go.

sounds like the only profession he might be able to carry out to a satisfactory level of performance?

If Caeser is looking for a good overview of the artillery, he chould of course buy Dawson, Dawson and Summerfield, (also victims of a hatchet job review). It seems that the same author of that hatchet job and regular ones against my own work has been found out once again on the Gribeauval barrel lengths thread on the Discussion page, (along with making things up and generally getting his facts wrong!).

One should be wary of hatchet job reviews, especially by people declaring something is "wrong" as their own suppsoed expertise might be rather lacking!

Oddly enough I like Petre because I find him an enjoyable and easy read and his maps are numerous and well done. Sure his accounts are biased and new sources have since come to light, but I found his works an excellent starting place for the campaigns he covered. His works are also freely available for download for the most part.

When I read Petre back in the late 70s, I found the 1809 campaign hard to follow as the maps were poor. It is not bad, because at least he did bother to use Angeli for example on 1809.

One should be wary of hatchet job reviews, especially by people declaring something is "wrong" as their own suppsoed expertise might be rather lacking!

My advice is people should be much more wary of authors who go onto amazons and give their own books 5 star reviews. I know who I think is dishonest here…

I wouldn't play with any of you guys.

In Dave Hollins world you have to remember certain factors:

1) If you disagree or find fault with his work or ask a question about his postings which contradicts what he writes in his own books, you will automatically be classed as a member of the Tendency.

2) If you write a positive review about his work, nothing will be mentioned, not even a thank you. That's gratitude for you. But if you dare write a negative review, it is, of course, a hatchet job. You are out to get him and will even buy titles that contain his work, just to get at him. And again, you will automatically be classed as a member of the Tendency.

3) If he feels like writing a 5 star Vainity Review, even though he knows it is wrong and it is frowned upon by other authors and book sellers, it doesn't matter. And again, if you dare to complain about it, you will automatically be classed as a member of the Tendency.

Being a member of the Tendency is, of course, being normal and not being a Yes man who accepts everything someone says, just because they said it. But these factors suggest that it might be better to leave Mr. Hollins to his fantasy world, where he obviously thinks he is important and that people think he is a good author. And I'm sure his followers will happily support his delusions. That's really nice of them. Not realistic, but nice.

Long live the Tendency!

Petre offers reasonably detailed complete campaign histories, a very good starting point, plus as stated they are available as free download courtesy of Google books.

Napoleon's conquest of Prussia—1806
Francis-Loraine Petre, published John Lane, 1914 – 319 pages
link
link
link
link
link
link
link

Napoleon's campaign in Poland, 1806-7: a military history of Napoleon's first war with Russia:
Francis-Loraine Petre, published S. Low, Marston and company, limited, 1901 – 339 pages
link
link
link

Napoleon & the Archduke Charles: a history of the Franco-Austrian campaign in the valley of the Danube in 1809.
Francis-Loraine Petre, published J. Lane, 1909 – 413 pages
link

Napoleon's Last Campaign in Germany, 1813
with seventeen maps and plans, , Francis-Loraine Petre, London 1912
link

Napoleon at Bay, 1814; with maps and plans
Francis-Loraine Petre, London 1914
link

From some old notes, so hopefully links still work

great links Mark, thanks