"Book on Aspern-Essling" Topic

Hi everybody.
I recently watched the Napoleon 2002 miniseries and was fascinated by the battle of Essling scene, and since then have been looking desperately online for a good book about the battle. Thunder on the Danube looked good, but it is too comprehensive for my tastes and I want a book just on Essling.
I ended up ordering on Amazon the Men and Battles book Essling-Napoleon's First Defeat and it will be delivered Monday. It was 20 dollars, and it's only 80 pages long. I have read some books in the series before, and was recently disappointed by one that was just about uniforms and order of battle. But I own the Fontenoy book in this series and it was just as detailed as an Osprey book. So is the best book to have on the battle? It's kind of pathetic that it's hard to find one book on Essling, yet Waterloo has hundreds of titles.

Osprey's Aspern & Wagram 1809 by Ian Castle is good

Gill – Thunder on the Danube best account in English on the whole campaign and detailed coverage of the battles.

He said "Thunder on the Danube looked good, but it is too comprehensive for my tastes and I want a book just on Essling."…..so, he's not interested in that book……

My bad, comes for trying to deal with TMP between clients at work.

138SquadronRAF: It's ok, I appreciate you just trying to be helpful. Thunder on the Danube would be good if I liked the whole campaign, but to be honest the only intriguing battle to me during the 1809 campaign is Aspern-Essling. It has urban warfare, bloody infantry charges, and fighting along a river like that in the Civil War. It truly deserves an entire comprehensive book in English.
I've been looking at reviews of the book I purchased and all rate it favourably, so I think I made the right choice. The Men and Battles books by Histoire and Collections are pretty good, almost like Osprey Campaign books. It is only the large hardback Napoleonic titles I would recommend avoiding if you want a detailed account of the battles, because those are pretty much entirely just uniforms and orders of battle, with very little details on the actual battles themselves.

138 squadron, wasn't trying to be nasty or anything, just pointing out that wasn't the book for him.

Harold T Parker's "Three Napoleonic battles" the 2nd battle dealt with is Aspern-Essling

Not a history book but Patrick Rimbaud's novel 'The Battle' centres on Aspern-Essling and is well-worth a read: link

Also, just occurred to me, while it's not solely about Aspern-Essling, Robert M. Epstein's "Napoleon's last victory and the emergence of modern war" has a significant section on Aspern-Essling"

I must admit that the translation of my book "Essling première défaite de Napoléon ?" was a shame :-(((
But you should find all that is needed in an unexpensive booklet written from a living french historian with the help of austrian one's.

From Paris

Gboue

I have Gilles Boué 's book about Essling on my shelf, maybe not "the" definitive study on the battle, but certainly good value for money (15.50 euro original French version) The French text is very readable, lots of variety in the illustrations and some comprehensive maps, certainly a good starting point for studying the battle, recommended

Haitiansoldier

Gilles Boue's book is good value, considering it is available for around £12.00 GBP And it is full of maps, uniforms, colour photos and prints and orders of battle. My version has an English text.

However, the book is only 83 pages long, so it is very much like an Osprey Campaign title. The Osprey Campaign No 33 Aspern & Wagram by Ian castle contains 96 pages. But considering 50% content of Boue's book consists of photos, maps and prints etc, it is worth comparing to John Gill's account (Chapter 3) in his 1809 Thunder on the Danube, Volume 2. It runs for 69 pages with only 8 half page maps within that chapter.

I found both titles worked really well together and I would certainly recommend them.

Thanks Gazzola.
The Gilles Boue book came yesterday and it looks pretty good. I really like the illustrations and narrative.
I'll try to read Thunder on the Danube, but if I do purchase it will be once the price on Amazon goes down.

Haitiansoldier

Check my 1809 blog reference here:

link