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Swords Around a Throne - Napoleon's Grande Armee

By: Free Press

Type: Hardcover

Product Line: Historical Books (Free Press)


Product Info

Title
Swords Around a Throne - Napoleon's Grande Armee
Publisher
Category
Author
John Elting
Publish Year
1988
Pages
772
Dimensions
6x9x2"
NKG Part #
2147536972
Type
Hardcover

Description

Throughout history, few armies have left as great and enduring a legend as Napoleon's Grande Armee. In existence for only a decade, this powerful weapon - numbering at its peak over one million soldiers from France as well as from varied vassal and allied states - swiftly conquered vast territories across Europe and threatened to overrun more.

In this outstanding new masterwork, military professional and historian John R. Elting paints an exciting, detailed picture of the magnificent fighting force created by the genius and power of Napoleon.

Complementing the author's acclaimed Military History and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars, which described the Grande Armee's campaigns and battles, this comprehensive volume examines the inner workings of an incredibly complex human machine.

Skillfully drawing on a vast array of historical sources, Elting colorfully brings into focus the life of the Grande Armee: its origins and development, command system, organization, combat arms, and services, logistics, weapons, tactics, discipline, and its ultimate collapse.

History as engaging as a war novel, Swords Around a Throne recreates the daily life of the Grande Armee's soldiers and leaders and the conditions under which they existed and fought, including rations, pay, mud and disease, mobile hospitals, camp followers, loot, marches, baggage, uniforms, and more. Placing the reader in the boots of individuals, from yard bird conscripts to generals, Elting carries us along the Armee's path, through triumph and disaster, in peace and at war.

Sharing the experiences of the mean (and women) who served in, serviced, and supported this awesome military force, the reader meets the Emperor himself, his extra-ordinary officers such as Berthier, Caulaincourt, Ney, and others, as well as the ordinary Frenchmen and foreigners who, imbued with the Armee's unique fighting spirit, followed its eagles.

Swords Around a Throne, the result of three decades of scholarly research in the Napoleonic era in general and its military history in particular, is certain to be the definitive volume on the Grande Armee for decades to come.