Book Review: Marengo, T.E. Crowdy

In this excellent and exciting new book on the battle of Marengo by Terry Crowdy, published by Pen & Sword, the 'victory that placed the crown of France on Napoleon's head', as Kellerman had it (his resounding phrase also giving the book it's subtitle), we have Napoleonic history - always colourful and exciting - at its most dramatic.

The story starts with an introduction to the role of espionage in the events of 1799, a bad year for the French in Italy, before moving to the coup of Brumaire, which left Bonaparte at the helm of both the French state and the army, as First Consul. The cloak and dagger doings of the mysterious double agent Gioelli loom large in this account of events, and are appropriately intriguing.

LeJeune's fabulous painting.

Events leading up to the battle are no less dramatic, with Napoleon rather naughtily assembling a secret army, at Dijon, over which he will have personal (and unconstitutional) control, with the nominal gloss of Berthier as commander as the public fig leaf. The subsequent dramatic crossing of the Swiss Alps, and the logistical and tactical gambling that this involves, keep the excitement levels high, such that one is whisked along in the unfolding drama.

Another nice contemporary painting.

And, before one knows what has happened, rather like the men on the ground, from the humble soldiers (the memoirs of Coignet are already a useful and colourful resource) to the 'big hats' themselves, the battle of Marengo is underway. Seemingly almost accidentally, with neither side in full control of events, or with a full understanding of their opponents aims and objectives.

The death of Desaix, depicted on a rather handsome plate.

Once battle is underway, Crowdy relates the confusing ebb and flow of events with admirable clarity. And there are plenty of maps to help the reader track the potentially confusing unfolding drama. My only criticism of this book - and it's a criticism I would level at most contemporary military history books - is that, even where maps are provided, as they are in this case, they are rather plain and perfunctory looking if one compares them to the handsome old maps of yore (such as the gorgeous Alison maps partially reproduced below). And sometimes places mentioned in the text are not marked on the maps that are closest to hand. Meaning one is obliged to refer to other maps, or is left in the dark a little geographically.

Alison's attractive maps: phase one.

Phase two.

I'm still reading this, in the thick of battle, and loving it. I'll post the review anyway. But I may return to further fiddle with or augment this once I'm finished. In the meantime, however, this is highly recommended.
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Jacques Louis David's iconic Napoleon Crossing The Alps.

Ok, so I'm back to revise or update my review, having now finished this extremely impressive book.

When I posted the first part, I'd read as far as, guestimating somewhat, the point where the French were beginning to have to consider withdrawing. They'd given the Austrians a bloody nose, at the crossing of the Fontenone. But Austrian weight of numbers, and in particular artillery superiority, were beginning to tell.

As the French pull back, the further they retreat, the greater their predicament. Even an attack by the then Consular (as opposed to Imperial) Guard fails to stem the Austrian tide. The French are almost in rout, and the jubilant Austrians start relaxing their guard prematurely (elderly and reluctant C-in-C Melas declaring it's all over and he's off to bed!), when Desaix's troops arrive, and quite suddenly the fortunes of war are dramatically reversed.

Melas was in his seventies, when he led Austria against Napoleon.

The timely arrival of the French reinforcements galvanises the whole armies' resolve, disintegrating units reforming and returning to the attack. Having relaxed too soon, the Austrian centre collapses and gives way, and by late evening the French are back in possession of Merngo, athwart their enemies line of supply, with the cavalry of Kellerman and Murat harrying the Austrian rout as it flees
back towards the 'awful ditch' of the Fontenone, and beyond that the Bormida.

One of the chief factors in this sudden and disastrous turnaround, aside from the intrigues of Gioelli, was the lack of team spirit in the Austrian command. Whereas the French united behind Napoleon, and were quick to bounce back from setbacks, the Austrians bickered, failing to cooperate or support each other effectively, giving up quickly and looking to blame others.

Anton Von Zach, whose plans failed, was captured during the battle.

All in all, a terrifically exciting and informative read. And a useful addition to the enormous ever expanding literature on this colourful and endlessly fascinating era. Highly recommended.

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NOTES:

The author, Terry Crowdy.

Crowdy has a blog of his own, where you can read about his various activities, including the publication of this book (here).

Book Review: Armies of 1812, Digby Smith

NB: The pictures I've illustrated this piece with are not from the book under review.

If you're really interested in Napoleon's invasion of Russia, and I mean really interested, then this book certainly has a lot of detail about the armies involved in that monumental conflict. Well, some of the armies; the vast bulk of the weight of information is very heavily biased towards Napoleon's Grande Armée. Compared with the French army, even their main adversaries in this conflict, the Russians, aren't dealt with in such a thorough way. 

This is a shame, but there are two factors relevant to this, most people (at least in Western Europe and the U.S.) are probably - or traditionally have been - more interested in the French contingent, and the French records have survived in better condition, and were probably always better maintained in the first place (it appears the cannon fodder of post-revolutionary France at least merited better record keeping than the expendable hordes of Russian serfdom!). And the Turkish section really is wafer thin, dealing with the subject in just two pages of text, and a mere two plates!

Wafer thin Turkey...

Despite the almost scarily obsessive level of interest in minutiae, there are areas where the book falls down, at least in terms of what I wanted from it: sometimes Smith gives the composition of units in preface to uniform detail, and sometimes he doesn't (consistency on this front would've been desirable), and the 'Orders of Battle' are too generalised. Given the level of detail in some areas, it seems odd and a shame that each individual battle doesn't list the exact breakdown of forces involved, where known. One could perhaps reconstruct the composition of forces at particular battles from the info contained in the book, but I think it'd be a lot of hard work. 

Cruikshank's depiction of Boney, watching Moscow burn.

The book is full of maps, including interesting ones that show the progress (and degeneration) of each of the French Corps, and there's a copiously richly illustrated middle section, with loads of wonderful uniform plates, reproduced in very decent quality, albeit much smaller than the originals. This latter point leads to another oddity re the proofing of the book: Smith frequently asks that you 'note such-and-such', regarding unifrom details in a given illustration, although evidently these authorial admonitions weren't proofed against the actual book, in which most of the details he's referring to are invisible due to the prints being much reduced from the originals. Still, they're beautiful and useful to those who need to know this sort of thing. But, if it's Napoleonic uniforms you're into, there are other better primarily visual sources, like, for the French (albeit not specifically in reference to the 1812 campaign alone), the jaw-droppingly rich and comprehensive book of Rousselot plates Napoleon's Army 1790-1815.

A more sober view of events.

This one's even good for uniform ref.

I'd imagine this book is way too narrow in it's focus for the general reader tho', and an example of this is the way the index is organised: lists of units and military personnel are the only things listed! I have to say I thought this was a serious shortcoming - What about being able to look up particular battles for example? If you want to do this, you'll have to spend ages scanning the pages - but then it does fit into the scheme suggested by the book title. So, the focus really is on the armies, not the battles, campaigns, locations, politics, tactics or anything else. 

There is a synopsis of the campaign, which is useful to have within the book, but it doesn't add much to the scholarship on this exhaustively treated subject (even within Smith/von Pivka's own writings*). There are also more than the normal share of editorial gaffes, such as illustrations wrongly labelled, grammar and other literary mistakes, some of which are just technical typos, others seemingly words wrongly typeset, or misunderstood: the book would have benefited from better editorial handling.

Cruikshank's view of the retreat.

Gillray's even more scathing depiction.

So, unless you're either a turbo-charged military buff, or a wargamer (which can often be the same thing), this isn't likely to be for you. Despite all the critical comments I've made, all of which are a fair cop if you ask me, this is a very handy book if you're someone who feels they need to know, for argument's sake, the exact composition of Ney's III Corps, and how it fared throughout the disastrous 1812 campaign.

It is in fact actually quite difficult to rate this book, because, if this is the kind of detail you're after, then this is certainly a handy resource. But it is quite uneven, and there are even some annoying shortcomings and oversights, to my mind, not to mention plain simple editorial (i.e. proof-reading, rather than authorial) mistakes. But despite all these issues, if you're borderline obsessed with things Napoleonic, as I am, you'll probably still enjoy this.

* Digby Smith used to write under the nom de guerre Otto von Pivka!

Digby Smith, as pictured at the Pen & Sword website.

Book Review - Thunder On The Danube trilogy: John H. Gill

Vol 1 - Abensberg

This first volume sets the tone and pace for the whole trilogy. The tone is serious but relaxed, even refreshingly informal at times, and the pace is perfectly pitched between feeling brisk in terms of excitement and leisurely in terms of Gill taking his time and covering everything. Superb!

Volume one of Gill's trilogy starts with detailed and lengthy but nonetheless very necessary and interesting expositions of the state of things leading up to the war. Summarised as concisely as I can, it boils down to Johann Phillip Stadion egging on the Austrian pro-war faction, using Napoleon's setbacks in Spain as inspiration, against the better judgement of both Archduke Charles, to whom leading the Austrians into war would fall, and The Kaiser. Stadion and the pro-war faction were woefully out of touch with the political and military realities, such that many Austrians felt, in the words of general and rising star Joseph Radetzky, 'the campaign of 1809 was lost before it began'.

Johan Phillip Stadion (source: wikimedia commons).

Once Gill gets stuck into the campaign action you feel he's really in his element - although in fairness to him he does the political preludes just as well - and for many of his readers, lee joss especially is wargamers, this will be where the excitement and interest ratchets up a gear or three. Be warned, Gill's account is very detailed! Almost all 'actions' are covered, and names of commanders, units and places are assiduously given. This is commendably thorough, but might perhaps be a touch too much for the general reader. 

Connected to this is a problem that I feel nearly all military history books (or for that matter history books in general) suffer from, namely inadequate maps. There are plenty of decent maps here, but the number of times - and consequently the waste of time & frustration - I couldn't find a place referred to in the text on any of the maps... Well, it was quite galling, and makes taking the level of interest in detail required by the text a shade redundant at times.

However, this gripe aside, and duly noting that there are more and better maps here than in most books on similar subject matter, the remainder of what's on offer here is great. Having set the scene Gill gets stuck into the manoeuvres and combat, in great detail. Perhaps for some this 'buffish' fixation on detail might be too much, but personally I prefer it to the drier overviews of the sort given in books like Napoleon's Wars, or Clausewitz's almost unreadably stodgy account of the 1812 campaign in Russia.

Still haven't read this companion volume!

But Gill is meeting the needs of the more seriously interested reader, spreading his work over three volumes (four if you includes With Eagles To Glory, his companion piece on France's German allies), and does a great job.[2] One consequence of the level of detail is that, certainly in Volume I at any rate, a sizeable proportion - a good third in this case - of the book is given over to hyper-detailed appendices and notes, including, of vital importance to the wargamers who'll love these books, OOB, or 'orders of battle'.

As well as being almost overwhelmingly thorough, these books are well-written, Gill possessing an amiable tone and quoting diverse sources to good effect, well put together: as well as being beautifully bound and printed, there are the maps, a table explaining rank titles and abbreviations, some good black and white illustrations, and extensive notes. My only complaint on this front is that the index isn't very comprehensive. But best of all, this book - indeed the whole trilogy - is just plain enjoyable.

Personally I'd have preferred the copious notes (there are 120 pages of them!) to have been footnotes at the bottom of each page, a la Gibbons Decline & Fall, rather than gathered as they are at the back. On this, my first reading of the book, I hardly referred to them at all. But its good they're there, as one can return to them as and when one feels ready. There are also sixty pages of appendices (which is where you'll find the OOB etc.), so the detail is, to say the least, copiously comprehensive.

To summarise: vol. I deals with the diplomacy and politics that lead to the outbreak of the 1809 conflict, culminating in Abensberg, the first major battle of the campaign. Stylistically it sets you up nicely for the next two vloumes. I vividly remember how exciting I found reading this. I had planned to ration my reading of the series, but this was so gripping I read it quicker than I'd intended to, and then went out and bought the other two volumes as soon as I'd finished it!

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Vol. II - The Fall of Vienna & The Battle of Aspern

Basically a book of two halves, not counting the full third of the book given over, as with Vol. I to very thorough OOBs etc. in the appendices.

The first half picks up post Abensberg, with the bloody fight at Evelsburg a major feature, followed by Napoleon's drive on Vienna and the citys capitulation. Bonaparte, ever desirous of a swift end to a war he hadn't wanted in the first place, then encounters his own misfortune, when his hastily constructed pontoon bridges are damaged. Because of this he fails to deliver adequate reinforcements to his spearhead, leaving himself stranded on the Lobau/Mühlau bridgehead with insufficient troops, culminating in his first serious reversal after years of victories, at the battle of Aspern-Essling. 

A second smaller 'half' then details the events in Northern Italy, as Archduke Johann and Viceroy Eugene come to blows. Again it's reiterated, as on p. 269 that 'Vienna's choice of war under the circumstances prevailing in 1809 was an error of grand-strategic magnitude.' The excellent standard of volume I is maintained, and the level of detail remains obsessively impressive, if at times a little overwhelming. For me the centrepiece of this volume is Gill's brilliant blow-by-blow account of Aspern-Essling, which is really gripping stuff.

As with Vol. I, upon finishing this I was eager to get stuck into the next one!

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Vol. III - Wagram & Znaim

As Gill says in the preface to his third volume, his is a traditional campaign narrative and, given that war 'is fundamentally about combat... solid battle narrative is indispensable'. Indeed. Wargamers will be pleased to read this! And fortunately this is also an area in which Gill excels. 

Vol. III starts with action in the peripheral/flanking theatres, some of which, for example the violence and brigandage in the Tyrol, begs further exploration [3]. Gill covers even these 'sideshows' with care and attention, and many great ground level details emerge, showing that when he says 'solid battle narrative is indispensable' he means it. Just one particular example that I really enjoyed was when, in a very minor engagement in the Tyrol, the French/Allied commander, Jean-Baptiste Dominique Rusca had to 'resort to the unusual command and control expedient of dropping his instructions to waiting orderlies in small packets weighted with stones', as he directed his meagre forces from the commanding view of a tower in Klangenfurt!

Equally fascinating as these little details are the pictures Gill paints on the grander scale, such as Napoleon's turning of the isle of Lobau into a veritable military city, complete with defences, logistics (with forges and bakeries as well as lodgings, hospitals and munitions magazines), roads and even street lamps! Having got a bloody nose at Aspern-Essling, attempting his typically impetuous - and in this instance under-prepared - lightning strike, he did things very thoroughly second time around. This included using 'estacades', which were rows of pilings sunk into the Danube, whose purpose was to stop the crossings being wrecked by flotsam and jetsam as had happened prior to and during Aspern Essling. 

And the two largest bridges themselves (Gill includes a black and white illustration of a print after the painting by Jacques Francois Joseph, the original of which can be seen at Apsley House, AKA The Wellington Museum, in London) were so well-built and finished that they were deemed more than just sturdily functional but, painted and hung with lanterns, elegant! Boney's himself effused 'General Count Bertrand has executed works that excite astonishment and inspire admiration.' Comparing the dynamism of the French efforts with the sluggish, pessimistic confusion of the Austrians, one senses that the campaign was already over. Gill articulates this himself perfectly: 'The contrast with his Hapsburg opponents is striking. Where the French built their own boats and bridges, the Austrians complained that none were to be found.'

The chapter on Wagram is superb, balancing fine detail with the bigger picture in exemplary manner. There are so many little details that one could cite, but you'd be better off reading them yourself, rather than me trying to recite them. I will mention the intervention of the weather on numerous occasions, a feature which is so significant it gives the series it's evocative double-entendre title, and is further cited in several chapter sub-headings ('A night out of Macbeth', 'Thunder in Bayreuth', etc.) and, together with the varied landscapes gives great character and vivacity to Gill's narrative.

All in all, an excellent ending to a fantastic trilogy.

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NOTES:

[1] Charles Esdaile goes into great detail, but only as regards diplomacy, whilst the vast majority of Clausewitz's account is little more than a list of detailed troops movements which, without good maps, is as good a way to develop a migraine as I know of.

[2] For the interested layman books like Zamoyski's 1812, or Barbero's Waterloo are absolutely perfect, being perfectly balanced, beautifully written, and concise and easy to read. This book has all the qualities mentioned here, except brevity!

[3] After reading this trilogy I ordered Napoleon's Other War, by Michael Broers, which covers this and many other guerilla actions of the Napoleonic period. I reviewed that on the Amazon UK website for anyone interested: Napoleon's Other Wars, Michael Broers. It's an excellent book, but I was a touch disappointed that there wasn't more on the whole Andreas Hofer period, and related Austria 1809 episodes. Gill's accounts are at least as (and perhaps more?) informative on this topic.