15mm Napoleonics: AB Napoleon & Staff, pt. IV

Well, whilst still not 100% finished, Napoleon and co. are getting there. I find that I enjoy working on basing. It kind of scares me, as well. I think it's all to do with my phobia of finishing stuff. I'm also having issues with aerosol spray varnishes clouding. All that really remains, however, is a very small amount of touching up. Mostly of mounts and horse tack. But also a little repainting due to clouding varnish.

This slightly more aerial view was shot in order to show a few little basing touches, like the wheel ruts on Boney's base, and the hoof-prints on several of the bases. The eagle-eyed observer might spot that these bases still have strips of masking around the edges. I'll remove these one the figures, their mounts and the bases are all completely finished. I'm not sure if I should finish the bases with grass green edging, or blue for Frenchies?

A Napo-centric focus here (note dual-Boneys: mounted and seated!).

Focus shifted to the rear of the group.

So, we have Poniatowki avec his ADC, Ney sans chapeau, also avec ADC, Napoleon (seated and mounted!), Roustam and a page, two Chausseur a Cheval bodyguards, and a couple of general purpose staff types. I had thought about one large command diorama type base (obviously not featuring both emperors!). But I think I prefer the flexibility this approach offers. I hope that by tomorrow, or Monday at the latest, these will be completely finished.

Book Review: Napoleon's Marshals, Ed. David Chandler

I don't know what you folks are like, in this respect, but, when it comes to reading books (or watching DVD series, for that matter), I like to systematically plod through; start at the beginning, and work to the end. Sometimes, however, a book lends itself to episodic study. And this is such a book.

The coveted marshal's baton. [1]

Nonetheless, even under such circumstances, I'd usually start at A and work stolidly to Z, just so as to be sure to cover all points and not miss anything. I'm pretty much the same with collections of music or film. If in this respect I'm a methodical plodder, my wife, by contrast, is a whimsical dipper. As a consequence, there are episodes of Sherlock Holmes or Poirot she's done to death (so to speak!), and others she still may never have seen.

Napoleon awards MacDonald his Marshal's baton at Wagram.

So, even when presented with the opportunity to dip in randomly, I rarely do it, and so strong is my aversion to such random reading that certain other other books that encourage this approach (I can think of two by philosopher A. C. Grayling, for example: Ideas That Matter, and The Good Book) remain on my shelves, practically unread.

However, my 'Jones' for things Napoleonic is sufficiently overpowering as to overcome this aversion. The handsome weighty hardback under review here, that has seduced me against my own principles is Napoleon's Marshals, by a collection (a who's who, in fact) of authors known for their interest in the period, under the editorial eye of Napoleonic über-buff, David Chandler.

Davou[s]t. [2]

Murat, beau sabreur, etc.

One of many things that helps me cross the threshold in this instance is the fact that one may be reading about a certain episode or period within the Napoleonic Wars - say for example Davout's incredible feat at Auerstadt, or the heroics of Ney in the retreat from Russia, the many nigh comical caperings of Murat, or Poniatowski's tragically short spell as a baton-wielder - and feel the urge to know more about that particular character.

Poniatowski.

Or, alternatively, a cumulative interest may build, as it has with me in regard to particular figures, such as Davout, for his staunch dependability, or Bernadotte for his far more volatile and Mercurial relationship with Napoleon. And in some instances, it's my general ignorance of a character, such as the oft-lauded Lannes, or Massena, of both of whom - despite noting the reverence frequently accorded their names - I have next to no knowledge at all.

At the time of posting this review I've only read the chapters on four or five of the Marshals (Murat, Ney, Bernadotte, Davout and - I think? - Berthier), and I've found them to be of quite a variable flavour, according to who wrote about who, ranging from gruffly factual to almost homely and anecdotal. Interestingly, thinking of an author like Delderfield, it struck me that even some pro historians and ex-miliatry types are as much or maybe even more given to romantic reveries as the seriously interested and knowledgeable amateur.

Bernadotte.

Massena.

A little patchy, in terms of prose quality, and quite varied in terms of levels of detail and interest - for some there's not a great deal to say, whilst for others, this format (according all 26 Marshals a roughly equal weighting of a chapter each) doesn't give enough room to go into sufficient detail - and with as much trad old-soldier's anecdote as scholarly meat... well? Having not read the entire book as yet, my current judgement is that this is, whilst not an out and out classic, still an essential addition to the Nappy Buff's library. 

----------
NOTES:

[1] This particular example might once have belonged to Marshal Jourdan.

[2] Why his name is sometimes rendered as Davoust, as on this print, has always confused me.

Book Review: The Retreat From Moscow, Delderfield

I do enjoy Delderfield's Napoleonic history books. It's a shame there aren't more of them, really. 

I finished this one a few days ago. Having read a fair bit on this campaign, I'd say that this isn't the greatest work on the subject. Some of the original protagonists memoirs, whilst very incomplete in their coverage, are superb. And Paul Britten Austen's 'word film' trilogy on the campaign is a masterpiece. 

A page from Korolev's fascinating Great Retreat.

Indeed, a lot of fresh information has augmented our understanding of this campaign since Delderfield shuffled off this mortal coil. Huge amounts or archaeological evidence has literally been unearthed (see above pic), and the role of disease in the dissolution of the grand Armée, for example, is now much better understood. [1]

Nevertheless, this is, as usual with Delderfield, an immensely easy and satisfying read. He draws heavily on numerous sources, particularly the memoirs of Bourgogne and Marbot, with a smattering of others, some familiar, some less so. He's wonderfully old fashioned and individualist about his sources, which is a refreshing change from the ultra-competitive hyper-academic nature of so much written these days.

The Grand Armée crossing the Niemen, 1812. [2]

The title is bit misleading, inasmuch as this is the story of the whole campaign, not just the retreat. It is, as books on the subject go, a brief and light treatment, of what was a massive and complex campaign. So he concentrates on the central body of the invasion, with only peripheral space given to the flanking forces, and other details not concerning the main invasion force.

It's not a book packed with revelations, rather it's the telling of a story that fascinates, written by a man fascinated with the story. And a man with a gift for easy yet compelling prose. As such, it'd be a great introduction to the subject. 

Delderfield has his heroes, such as Ney, with the rearguard...

and his villains, such as Bernadotte, turncoat and rival...

He does challenge some popular views, particularly in justifying Napoloen's actions at certain points (e.g. deciding to go to Moscow, instead of overwintering in Smolensk, and leaving the Grand Armée to return to Paris), but he also extols some familiar stories, being particularly taken with the bravery of Ney, the loyalty of Eugéne, and disparaging of the treachery of Bernadotte and the failings of Murat.

and even clowns... Murat flirts with his Cossack admirers.

----------

NOTES:

Ronald Frederick Delderfield.

One of the homes where Delderfield resided for a period in his life, in Croydon, has been honoured with one of those blue plaques. It's a very ordinary suburban terrace! I don't know why, but I find that very pleasing.

[1] Stephen Talty's fascinating Illustrious Dead is well worth reading for more on this topic.

[2] This stunning still is from Bondarchuk's epic Russian production of War & Peace.

Film Review - Waterloo (1970), Sergei Bondarchuk, Rod Steiger et al

My DVD uses this decidedly Anglo-centric poster artwork.

The film itself

Having watched this film at least six or seven times now, I thought it was high time I took the opportunity of recording and sharing some thoughts about it. 

First off, Napoleon is a subject that has attracted and yet frustrated the movie industry for many years. From Abel Gance's experimental silent-era flop, in which he blew his entire budget on the first of what were meant to be six instalments, to Kubrick's abandoned movie project, abandoned, apparently, because the film under review in this post didn't do as well as had been hoped.

Directed by Sergei Bondarchuk (his epic Russian version of War & Peace, in which he also starred as Pierre Bezukhov, made him perfect for this role) the film starts at sea, as Napoleon leaves his Elban exile and makes a dramatic return to the throne of France. His triumphal march north and resumption of power is delivered in a very quick/truncated manner, swiftly followed by the realisation that war will be inevitable and unavoidable (there's a great scene relevant to this thread with Boney steaming in the bathtub!). 

Shortly thereafter French troops cross the river Sambre into Belgium, and before you know it we're amongst the strutting peacocks and popinjays at the Duchess of Richmond's famous ball.

A rather different poster: for the French market

it's an Eagle silhouette, rather than British flags!

Napoleon advances on foot to meet Ney's 'Royalist' troops:
Napoleon - 'Soldiers of the fifth. Do you recognise me?
[pause] If you want to kill your Emperor? Here I am.'

Müffling arrives at the ball, Wellington makes his plans (and we get the famous 'humbugged' lines), and afore ye know it, the troops are deploying on the battlefield.

The movie dutifully (and spectacularly) covers most of the major actions: the opening 'feint' against Hougoumont, D'Erlon's massed infantry attack, with the British/Allied cavalry charge riposte, many bombardments of the batteries (Bondarchuk seems to have had a 'thing' for artillery scenes!), the French cavalry washing around Allied squares, the arrival of the Prussians, and the final attack of the Guard, etc.

The scale of the production is truly amazing. Legend has it that for the duration of the filming of the battle scenes the multinational multilingual army assembled for the film was amongst the largest 'standing armies' in Europe. The bulk of the extras were Russian soldiers, and troops were drilled according to contemporary 'evolutions'. The battlefield was recreated pretty meticulously, in the Ukraine.

Yet another different poster in English.

The cast is pretty stellar; Rod Steiger's Napoleon is actually very good. I must admit I didn't like him in the role instantly. But the more I watch the film, the better I think he is. Christopher Plummer is great as a very charming if somewhat clichéd aristocratic Wellington, and many of the supporting roles are well cast/played (the actor playing Blücher looks exactly right!). 

Bondarchuk's direction is, on the whole, excellent, and clearly no expense was spared staging and filming the amazing battle scenes. Appropriate use is made of contemporary martial music, and the stirring menacing score, which helps build tension as we approach the battle, is also worthy of mention. 

Sadly, despite all that it has going for it, the film didn't do as well at the box office as was anticipated, and that's not helped Napoleon reach the big screen (or little screens either, for that matter) in the years since. How different the situation is on the literary front, where there's a seemingly inexhaustible Krakatoa of works that continually belch forth on this perennially popular subject!

Would that someone with pots of of money might take the whole era on! My dream team would be: Spielberg, Jackson and Scott, sharing roles as executive producers, and  poss even as co-directors, with Scott (his film The Duellists is one of the most beautiful depictions of the Napoleonic era) as production designer. And they could use Kubrick's researches, so he could get a credit as the ghost in the machine!

[pic]

Historical accuracy

On the topic of historical accuracy, here's a link to a site dedicated to listing movie bloopers and the like, which has an entry on Waterloo. Near-miss trivia nuts might be tickled by the fact the movie is catalogued as entry 1813. What a pity it couldn't have been 1815! There is also a list of historical inaccuracies at the Wikipedia entry for the film. And the website TV Tropes has a slightly different angle on this whole area, which is interesting. 

Given that all this info's already out there, I'll leave it - more or less - at pointing people towards those links. I will, however, mention just one or two things: the famous ball on the eve of the battle was held in a coachmaker's barn, so probably didn't look quite as grand as the candle-lit ballroom of the film. In attempting to recreate the famous painting of the charge of the Scots Greys (Scotland Forever, 1881, by Lady Butler), we're given a very cinematic vision of a cavalry charge. Woe betide any plucky highlander foolish enough to try hanging onto the stirrups of those thundering steeds! And lastly, given how much artillery action we're treated to, some consistency would've been good; as it is the cannons sometimes recoil, and sometimes don't. 

[pic/video]

But, for me, although there are many fine moments, there's one single shot of such extremely evocative magnificence - French troops of all the main arms, cavalry, artillery and infantry, cross a river (I assume the Sambre?) in the rain; the camera starts with an aerial panoramic view, pans across the bridge, and ends on an under the bridge view of troops fording the river - which snuffs out any such quibbles. To see the military splendour of the age of the 'big battalions' so wonderfully realised is, frankly, priceless.

And another poster variation! This one for

the Prussian, sorry, the German market.

An extended director's cut?

There has also been speculation about whether a longer version of the film exists, with some suggesting (over at TMP, for example), that there may have been a four-hour long Russian 'director's cut'. I took the bit between my teeth, so to speak, and wrote via email to Mosfilm, and received a rather disappointing reply from a lady named Elena Orel, of the Mosfilm International Relations and Distribution Dept:

'Please be advised that Mosfilm holds the right to the film WATERLOO, 1969,

director Sergey Bondarchuk, for Eater [sic] Europe territories. I should inform

you that there is only one version of this film of 2 hours 17 minutes.'

I don't hold that this is necessarily a final and definitive end to the quest for a longer version [1]. But it doesn't exactly fuel hopes!

One of the intriguing publicity stills that suggest certain scenes were cut.

It would seem that there certainly were scenes that didn't make the final cut, some of which exist only thanks to press-photos. Thanks to the TMP discussions on the topic I can post a link here to Deadhead's gallery of tantalising stills of some of these potential lost scenes.

The picture I reproduce above, showing Napoleon on horseback, comes with an interesting anecdote; Steiger was terrified by the skittishness of the white horse he was sat on. Justifiably so, as it turned out, as it bolted with him still in the saddle! This in turn links neatly to one of the worst aspects of the film, which are the several scenes where certain characters, e.g. Steiger's Napoleon, or Michael Wilding as Sir William Ponsonby, are filmed clearly pretending to ride a horse, very unconvincingly.

More photos like the ones linked to above,  including several of the same, can be viewed here: David Hurn's Waterloo film production photos (1969)

A Spanish language poster for the film.

And finally, try and avoid the 'pan and scan' version of this beautiful film, which spoils the visual glory somewhat by zooming in and slipping and sliding around the picture space. I don't know how you could tell this in advance. I only know that my version (part of a four film Orson Welles set*) is the original and best format, and that a version I watched at a pal's was the mutilated one.

* I'm glad they bundled this film in with the other movies in that collection, in which Welles is the main star, despite his role in Waterloo being little more than a cameo!

-----

NOTES:

[1] In my researches for my monthly classic album column, Recycled, for Drummer magazine, I often found that major labels had little or no idea about some of their older and more obscure catalogue items. Mind you, Waterloo is hardly obscure, even if it is now quite old (it's only very slightly older than me!). But what I'm getting at is that Mosfilm may be wrong, and there may be a longer version out there somewhere, even if not in their archives. That was how Kevin Brownlow was able to eventually cobble together Abel Gance's Napoleon, thanks to prints in the collections of unofficial sources.

Book Review: March of the Twenty Six - R. F. Delderfield

Informative and fun, if somewhat simple and broad-brushed.

It's not uncommon for reviewers to note that Delderfield is not what most people would call a scholarly author, in the contemporary sense. Personally I don't find that this detracts from the main merits of this short and highly enjoyable book, the chief of which is that it's a rip-snortingly good read. Compared with, for example, the dry as dust Napoleon's Wars this is a book ten-thousand times more likely to promote further interest and reading in Napoleonic history, even if Esdaile's book is more scrupulously comprehensive and scholarly.

Berthier, Napoleon's right hand man.

Delderfield's book is more like the many memoirs of the era itself - colourful, exciting, engaging, full of anecdote (a good one new on me was learning that at one battle, amongst a Cossack force of 20,000 cavalry that attacked Marshal MacDonald, there was a contingent of Bashkirs armed with bows and arrows!), and unabashedly partisan, consequently requiring that it be taken with a generous pinch o' salt/snuff - and in my view is none the worse for it.

Indeed, he reflects on these issues briefly in his postscript 'The Sources Of This Book': 'Some of these memoirs are absorbing, some accurate but dull, some lively but unreliable.' Having just read a fairly large tranche of serious, scholarly Napoleonic material Delderfield's relaxed enthusiasm comes as a welcome dose of flavoursome humanity. Reading this book is like being regaled by a knowledgeable, witty, and avuncular 'buff'; if you're interested in the subject, great fun.

Delderfield is clearly attracted, as are most with an interest in this period, to the colour, excitement, romance, grandeur (and alongside these things, fascinated also by the squalor, terror, and horror, naturally) of monumental struggles on epic scales. Such people and events lend themselves readily to the almost surrealistic exaggerations one sees in the works of contemporary cartoonists like Cruikshank and Gillray.

Murat according to British caricaturist Cruikshank!

Murat, renowned cavalry leader, and 'dandy king', as he himself might've preferred to be viewed!?

Whilst Delderfield doesn't take his portrayals quite that far - he doesn't caricature them quite so brazenly, tho' he gets close - one does sense a simplification and stylisation, which renders the characters of the marshals in broad brush strokes, perhaps like colourful 'commedia dell'arte' type figures, in the stagey drama of Napoleonic Europe. Broers struggles manfully with this in his depiction of bandits-cum-rebels in his book Napoleon's Other War, which only goes to show that not to see these figures in such lights is perhaps to miss some of these reasons we find them interesting in the first place.

Bernadotte: from private soldier to King of Sweden... impressive! Delderfield doesn't like him tho'!

I have deliberately refrained from detailing the lives of the subjects, I'd recommend reading this and the David Chandler helmed Napoleon's Marshals for more info (after which books on the individuals might be the next port of call). But I will say - as Andrew Roberts also effusively noets in his recent TV series on Napoleon - that the energetic release of talent in the Napoleonic meritocracy was an amazing moment: that the second son of a barrel-cooper could rise so high and so fast (Ney), or that another young man could go from private soldier to the founder of a hereditary monarchy still sitting on the Swedish throne (Bernadotte) is surely remarkable, and not unworthy of our interest?

So, yes, do by all means read such more in-depth scholarly works on the marshals as are out there. But read this as well. It's well-written, comprehensive - it's an enjoyable overview of Napoleon's life and campaigns as much as the story of the marshals - and most of all, it's fun.

Marshal Ney, Prince of Moscow, Bravest of the Brave, etc.

----------
NOTES:

Astute observers might note that three marshals I've chosen to illustrate here with portraits - i.e. all burn Bernadotte - came to rather sad ends: Berthier in what might've been suicide (or was he pushed out for that window?), and Murat and Ney in front of firing squads.

Murat, according to the memoirs of his wife - and Napoleon's sister - Caroline, saying 'Soldats! Faites votre devoir! Droit au cœur mais épargnez le visage. Feu!' or 'Soldiers! Do your duty! Straight to the heart but spare the face. Fire!'

Ney was executed in, and indeed was the 'star' victim of, what is known as the 'White Terror', or the meting out of Royalist revenge on regaining power. He to was allowed to give hisn own executioners the order to fire (famously refusing a blindfold). After all the fuss Royalists made about the murder of the Duc d'Enghien - a central plank in the 'black legend' that they used to defame Napoleon - this is surely an example of nakedly crass hypocrisy!?

A very poignant painting, Gérôme's 1868 work La Mort du Maréchal Ney.

Book Review: Journal of the Russian Campaign of 1812 - Fezensac

De Fezensac isn't as gifted or evocative a writer as say Coignet or Bourgogne, but nonetheless, as another piece in the patchwork of primary sources on Russia 1812, his journal of that campaign is, for me, essential reading.

My copy is the edition from the Ken Trotman Military History Monographs series. A simple but handsome paperback, it reproduces a translation by Col. Knollys, of the Scots Guards [1]. Originally published in 1852, only forty years after the momentous events it describes, veterans of the era were still alive, and the campaign of 1812 remained a vivid and and fascinating living memory. Even now, over 200 years later, and despite the participants themselves being long gone, I personally find their stories are still as vivid and fascinating as ever.

Knollys prefaces the Journal with a lengthy sketch of most of the 1812 campaign, which, at over 120 pages, is almost as long as the Journal itself [2]. This is both generally useful, as scene setting if you don't know the overall campaign, and as a refresher if you do, and also addresses specifics that connect with De Fezensac's account. 

As well as Knollys' lengthy introduction, the book benefits from a very nice and reasonably large - considering the size of the book itself (a small paperback) - fold-out map. This isn't the clearest of maps, but it does have most of the key places marked on it. This map is not only useful, but is also a very beautiful old-fashioned thing, highly evocative of the era it describes.

The Prince of Neuchatel, aka Louis-Alexandre Berthier.

In his own preface, De Fezensac explains that his Journal, not originally intended for wider publication [3], is a book of two parts: the first concerns his period as an ADC to the Prince of Neuchatel, i.e. Berthier, Napoleon's right hand man and organisational mastermind, whilst the second sees him as Colonel in command of the 4th Regt of line infantry, in Marshal Ney's III Corps.

In 'Part The First', he narrates the auspicious outset of the campaign, with the seemingly easy conquest of Lithuania, and follows the long road as the triumphant progress of the invading army begins to look a bit shaky, as the French and their allies begin to melt away, even though the Russians won't give battle. [4] 

And so he progresses, narrating his staff level view. This part of the narrative is more generalised and comprehensive, quite naturally given his position in the army, than the latter half, where he takes a more local ground level view. Although the top brass, and Napoleon especially, are often described by Fezensac as out of touch with the harsher realities of the developing campaign - even at this early stage - it wasn't all cushy for the 'big hats' and their staff: as early as p. 14 he observes that 'The generals and other officers bivouacked like the rest of the army.' 

He continues as ADC to Berthier, of whom he gives a brief but candid and predominantly very positive pen portrait, as far as Borodino. After Borodino, on arriving at Mojaisk, and due to the very considerable losses at that ever so bloody battle, known to Fezensac and his French comrades as the Battle of Moskowa, he is given command of the 4th Line Infantry regiment.

A latter day Montesquieu-Fezensac, in 1950, beneath an unknown Napoleonic painting.

Sadly Fezensac is a rather shadowy elusive figure. I was unable to find any pictures of him at all. I did find serval pictures of relatives. One was even closer to Napoleon, being involved in the domestic affairs of the Bonapartes (he's portrayed in a rather sentimental picture - which I've included towards the bottom of this post - showing Napoleon dandling the king Of Rome on his knee at breakfast!). The Montesquieu-Fezensac family as a whole was an ancient aristocratic one, which suffered quite badly during the revolution. That said, some of them survived and thrived, as the family connections with Napoleon's regime shows. And later in the C19th Proust would base a central character in his epic novel, À la Recherche du Temps Perdu (known in English as In Search of Lost Time, or Remembrance of Things Past), on another member of the clan, which is, in turn, why we have the above picture.

Turning briefly from the narrative to Fezensac: as mentioned in the above aside, re my inability to find any images of our author, another and later member of the wider family - the aesthete and dandy Robert de Montesquiou, 'a scion of the famous French Montesquiou-Fézensac Family', [5] was destined to be immortalised by Proust. 

As a result of this, Life magazine ran a feature on his descendants, describing them as 'Personalities Duc De Fezensac - Family Proustian France, 1950'. The picture above comes from this feature, and shows a male member of the family on a rather grand staircase below an imposing painting, depicting sappers (of the Imperial Guard?) tending to what appears to be a very young and apparently mortally wounded officer. [6]

Returning now to Fezensac's narrative, the larger 'Part The Second' is where an already interesting story becomes really fascinating. From the occupation and eventual evacuation of Moscow, to his part in the rearguard work on the gruelling and bloody retreat, it's pretty clear De Fezensac prefers to be in active service rather than on the staff. The excitement of his now more direct involvement is ably and effectively communicated in his narrative.

Perhaps the most thrilling, moving and compelling part of his story is the famous episode during the retreat when the meagre tattered remains of III Corps become separated from the rest of the army. Under Ney - who more than earns his soubriquet 'the bravest of the brave' - the ever shrinking Corps makes a harrowing bid for liberty by crossing to the opposite bank of the Dnieper and fighting their way back to the tail end of the wreck of the Grand Armée.

Marshal Ney Supporting the Rear Guard during the Retreat from Moscow by Adolphe Yvon, 1856.

The bravery of Ney and III Corps doesn't end there, but is continually manifested, as the other various Corps also melt away on the retreat. At the back of the book appendices give the 'distribution and numbers' of the Grand Armée as it crossed the Niemen, and then later the returns for survivors and losses. If Fezensac's account leaves you reeling drunk with the sense of the terrible suffering these troops and their followers experienced, the dry looking but awful facts that these numbers bespeak make for sobering reading.

Eventually Fezensac arrives home, via his regiment's depot, but it is hardly the heroic return that his jubilant and confident departure had presaged: 'I arrived alone in the night, on a dung-cart, wrapped in a wolfskin...' But not only is he alive, he even has the satisfaction of emerging from his ordeal with praise from the praiseworthy (which is high praise indeed). He cites, with evident pride, a letter from Marshal Ney that describes his service on the campaign in glowing terms.

“Napoléon Ier, Marie-Louise et le roi de Rome” (the empress brings her son to her husband who is having breakfast; behind: Controller É. P. de Montesquiou-Fézensac with wife and the nurse Mme.Auchard). 1812, by Alexandre Menjaud.

Fezensac's Journal is not the best memoir of this campaign, or this era, but nonetheless it is very good, and it is certainly well worth reading.

----------

NOTES: 

[1] I see that Leonaur have brought out editions in paperback and hardback, minus the Knollys segment. I'd quite like to read that version, and see how it feels compared with having read Fezensac after having read Knollys!

[2] In Knollys' lengthy disquisition he makes a number of pointedly disparaging remarks about military histories by civilians, with particular reference to Walter Scott's then highly popular and successful multi-volume work. For my review of the current incarnation of this latter (in heavily abridged form), a book I must say I thoroughly enjoyed reading, click here.

[3] As with the writings of many veterans of famous campaigns, the work seems to have been commenced as a personal aide-memoir, but then worked upon and shared with family and friends. And finally, when the result of these efforts meets with interest and approbation, finished with a view to publication.

[4] Stephan Talty has written an excellent and very interesting book, The Illustrious Dead, about how Napoleon and the Grand Armée can, in a very real and meaningful sense, be described as having been vanquished not so much by either the Russians or the harsh winter weather, but the Typhus microbe.

[5] The quote is from Wikipedia. An illustrious and well-connected family, in addition to their connections with Napoleon and Proust, they at times also used the name D'Artagnan, with another member of the family also enjoying a second and fictional life, as the inspiration for another literary creation, this time from the pen of Dumas.

[6] Just as I could find no pictures of our author, I was unable to find out who the guy pictured in this black and white photo is (or was), or anything about the painting.

Book Review: 1812, Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow - Adam Zamoyski

One of the most exciting and engaging reads on this perenially fascinating apocalyptic campaign.

Some while ago I was in a proper frenzy of reading about the Russian 1812 campaign. It's the chief subject in my ever growing Napoleonic library, and I intend to read and review all the books on the subject I can.

It seems almost mandatory nowadays that histories of the 1812 campaign such as this - from Alexander Spring's Patriotic War to the numerous Alexander Mikaberidze titles, such as The Battle of Borodino - are not complete without making bold claims to 'exclusive' use of Russian documents not translated or cited before.

For french speakers: an interview with the author, in which he displays his admirable command of French.

This claim to exclusive use of original sources is duly trotted out amongst the varied claims to greatness made on Zamoyski's behalf, on the back cover blurb, along with the oft-repeated fact that he's fluent in six languages. Of course I'm very impressed by both claims, as evidence of scholarly accomplishment, although I must confess that reading or hearing the latter every time Zamoyski is mentioned gets a bit galling after a while! 

Not being a professional historian myself I can't really comment on how true it is that there's lot of original research here. It wouldn't surprise me though, as Zamoyski's book is certainly very rich in contemporary anecdote, and all the better for it. What I can say with certainty, however, is that the copious use made of these first-hand accounts is amongst the most effective I've enjoyed to date.

A beautiful map from the series by Alison,

this one depicting Krasnoi.

Fortunately what we have here is a rare example of a book that lives up to (perhaps even exceeds?) the hyperbole bestowed upon it. 

Amongst the many books I continue to devour on Napoleonic subjetcs, all too many are either a bit dry, often in an attempt to be comprehensive, or else overly enthusiastic in a 'military buff' vein, and therefore not very balanced. Zamoyski, however, is spot on: both critical of, and suitably awed by, all the things that make this story so compelling. From the high politics and grand if illusory dreams of some of the chief protagonists, to the collapse of humanity into bestial brutality in battle and on the march, he always hits exactly the right note, allowing the reader to respond to the unfolding events in their own way.

One of the iconic images of Russia, 1812: Ney with the rearguard.

There are so many episodes, on every scale, from the mammoth battles, to the tiniest details of acts both heroic and heinous, that capture one's imagination. And Zamoyski has the gift of retelling the story in a way that is engaging without being intrusive. He also covers everything in a way that balances all the potential components as harmoniously as one could hope for, couching important details in their broader contexts, and beginning and ending the book in a way that eases you in and out of a narrative so compelling you don't really want it to end. Masterful!

Adolf Northern's painting of Napoleon during the retreat.

I love this sort of history book, and found myself more or less glued to it on a daily basis - constrained only by such intrusions as work, eating, sleeping, etc! -  until finishing it just moments before I started typing my first draft of this review (quite some time ago now). On finishing the book I felt a mixture of exhaustion and exaltation. Thankfully one's journey as a reader allows one to vicariously experience this mind (and limb) numbing episode from the comfort of a nice settee!

I've refrained from trying to relate any content, as Zamoyski does it so well you really ought to buy the book and enjoy him delivering the tale. But I'll end by mentioning that, very close to the end of the book, he relates how one disappointed Frenchman decided to rewrite history - an early example of the sort of thing that has subsequently developed into the now fecund genre of 'alternative history' - his story diverging from reality at the point where Napoleon retreats from Moscow. I won't give away this alternative history, but I will say that this single paragraph alone practically justifies the price of the book, and this is a book literally stuffed with such treasures.

Faber du Faur's images of the retreat are superb, if sometimes rather harrowing. Here French troops bivouac amidst burned-out buildings and calcinated corpses, near Mozaisk.