This is a highly personal account of the author’s experiences in the army of Napoleon. The account starts with the author at the age of 19, and without having chosen a career, being inspired to join the cavalry after seeing a regiment of dragoons marching in Paris in 1800. The narrative traces the author’s remarkable rise through the ranks and his experiences under the command of Napoleon. The focus of the book is on military encounters, recording de Ségur’s involvement in the key battles that were to make France the dominant power of Europe in the early 19th century. Yet it is the personal details, such as Napoleon’s reaction to the tomb of Frederick the Great, discussions between Napoleon and his officers, and the author’s experiences away from the battlefield, which make this work a compelling and unique narrative of such an important period in European history.

Seeing a regiment of Dragoons process through Paris in 1800, Philippe de Ségur decided to join the French cavalry at the ripe old age of 19, swiftly becoming part of Napoleon’s headquarters staff. From then on, his career was to be unlike many of his contemporaries, for he was the son of a well-connected father and a protégé of Napoleon’s confidante, Grand-Marshal Duroc. He saw service in all of the major Napoleonic campaigns, not just a courtier, distinguished in the crucible of the cavalry charge of Somosierra and also the battlefields of Hanau and Reims. For his service under Napoleon he was forced into retirement from the army and took to writing his memoirs and historical works. His scathing attack on Napoleon’s conduct during the Russian campaign Histoire de Napoléon et de la grande armée pendant l'année 1812 provoked an uproar among Napoleonic loyalists and landed de Ségur in a duel. His further memoirs were published posthumously, a three volume account edited by his grandson, and this edited version was translated into English. Being at the hub of Napoleon’s headquarters gave him the opportunity to see into most of the major events of the era and he recorded these with wit and an impressive eye for detail. These memoirs are a must for any enthusiast of the Napoleonic period. Author — Général Comte Phillipe-Paul de Ségur, 1780-1873 Editor – Comte Louis-Phillipe-Antoine-Charles de Ségur, b. 1838 Translator – Mrs. Harriette Anne Crookesley Patchett-Martin Text taken, whole and complete, from the edition published in New York, D. Appleton and company, 1895. Original Page Count - xxvi, 440 p.

This work seeks to offer a new way of viewing the French Wars of 1792–1815. Most studies of this period offer international, political, and military analyses using the French Revolution and Napoleon as the prime mover. But this book focuses on military and civilian responses to French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, throughout the rest of Europe and the Americas. It shows how the unprecedented mobilization of this era forged a generation of soldiers and civilians sharing a common experience of suffering, bequeathing the West with a new veteran sensibility. Using a range of sources, especially memoirs, this book reveals the adventure and suffering confronting ordinary soldiers campaigning in Europe and the Americas, and the burdens imposed on civilians enduring rising and falling empires across the West. It also reveals how the wars liberated slaves, serfs, and common people through revolutions and insurgencies.

A glorious and conclusive chronicle of the wars waged by one of the most polarizing figures in military history Acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic as a new standard on the subject, this sweeping, boldly written history of the Napoleonic era reveals its central protagonist as a man driven by an insatiable desire for fame, and determined to push matters to extremes. More than a myth-busting portrait of Napoleon, however, it offers a panoramic view of the armed conflicts that spread so quickly out of revolutionary France to countries as remote as Sweden and Egypt. As it expertly moves through conflicts from Russia to Spain, Napoleon's Wars proves to be history writing equal to its subject—grand and ambitious—that will reframe the way this tumultuous era is understood.

The definitive biography of the great soldier-statesman by the New York Times bestselling author of The Storm of War—winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography and the Grand Prix of the Fondation Napoleon Austerlitz, Borodino, Waterloo: his battles are among the greatest in history, but Napoleon Bonaparte was far more than a military genius and astute leader of men. Like George Washington and his own hero Julius Caesar, he was one of the greatest soldier-statesmen of all times. Andrew Roberts’s Napoleon is the first one-volume biography to take advantage of the recent publication of Napoleon’s thirty-three thousand letters, which radically transform our understanding of his character and motivation. At last we see him as he was: protean multitasker, decisive, surprisingly willing to forgive his enemies and his errant wife Josephine. Like Churchill, he understood the strategic importance of telling his own story, and his memoirs, dictated from exile on St. Helena, became the single bestselling book of the nineteenth century. An award-winning historian, Roberts traveled to fifty-three of Napoleon’s sixty battle sites, discovered crucial new documents in archives, and even made the long trip by boat to St. Helena. He is as acute in his understanding of politics as he is of military history. Here at last is a biography worthy of its subject: magisterial, insightful, beautifully written, by one of our foremost historians.