By highlighting the experiences of common soldiers and civilians, this volume by Rafe Blaufarb and Claudia Liebeskind presents a broad view of the Napoleonic Wars not found in typical military histories. The introduction recounts the key events of the wars and how they marked a shift in the modern notion of “total war” and provides necessary political and military background on the issues of recruitment and evasion, the military community, combat and its aftermath, the homefront, and demobilization. The rich collection of memoirs, letters, and popular engravings -- from familiar sources such as German infantryman Jakob Walter to an account of a French woman canteen worker -- offers contrasting voices, some offered here in English for the first time. These documents and images explore core civil-military interactions, including foraging, plunder, sexuality, violence, eating, religion, and commerce. Headnotes to the documents, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography provide pedagogical support.

A grunt’s-eye report from the battlefield in the spirit of The Red Badge of Courage and All Quiet on the Western Front—the only known account by a common soldier of the campaigns of Napoleon’s Grand Army between 1806 and 1813. When eighteen-year-old German stonemason Jakob Walter was conscripted into the Grand Army of Napoleon, he had no idea of the trials that lay ahead. The long, grueling marches in Prussia and Poland sacrificed countless men to Bonaparte’s grand designs. And the disastrous Russian campaign tested human endurance on an epic scale. Demoralized by defeat in a war few supported or understood, deprived of ammunition and leadership, driven past reason by starvation and bitter cold, men often turned on one another, killing fellow soldiers for bread or an able horse. Though there are numerous surviving accounts of the Napoleonic Wars written by officers, Walter’s is the only known memoir by a draftee, and as such is a unique and fascinating document—a compelling chronicle of a young soldier’s loss of innocence as well as an eloquent and moving portrait of the profound effects of war on the men who fight it. Professor Marc Raeff has added an Introduction to the memoirs as well as six letters home from the Russian front, previously unpublished in English, from German conscripts who served concurrently with Walter. The volume is illustrated with engravings and maps, contemporary with the manuscript, from the Russian/Soviet and East European collections of the New York Public Library. Honest, heartfelt, deeply personal yet objective, The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier is more than an informative and absorbing historical document—it is a timeless and unforgettable account of the horrors of war.

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.

This book provides a concise, accurate, and lively portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte's character and career, situating him firmly in historical context. David Bell emphasizes the astonishing sense of human possibility--for both good and ill--that Napoleon represented. By his late twenties, Napoleon was already one of the greatest generals in European history. At thirty, he had become absolute master of Europe's most powerful country. In his early forties, he ruled a European empire more powerful than any since Rome, fighting wars that changed the shape of the continent and brought death to millions. Then everything collapsed, leading him to spend his last years in miserable exile in the South Atlantic. Bell emphasizes the importance of the French Revolution in understanding Napoleon's career. The revolution made possible the unprecedented concentration of political authority that Napoleon accrued, and his success in mobilizing human and material resources. Without the political changes brought about by the revolution, Napoleon could not have fought his wars. Without the wars, he could not have seized and held onto power. Though his virtual dictatorship betrayed the ideals of liberty and equality, his life and career were revolutionary.

This study analyses religious changes in Sufism in South Asia in the modern period. It sets out the detailed workings of three different sufi traditions in Awadh and charts their responses to the growth of the colonial state, as well as to the emergence of Muslim movements of revival and reform and the spread of western education.

The British troops who fought so successfully under the Duke of Wellington during his Peninsular Campaign against Napoleon have long been branded by the duke’s own words—“scum of the earth”—and assumed to have been society’s ne’er-do-wells or criminals who enlisted to escape justice. Now Edward J. Coss shows to the contrary that most of these redcoats were respectable laborers and tradesmen and that it was mainly their working-class status that prompted the duke’s derision. Driven into the army by unemployment in the wake of Britain’s industrial revolution, they confronted wartime hardship with ethical values and became formidable soldiers in the bargain These men depended on the king’s shilling for survival, yet pay was erratic and provisions were scant. Fed worse even than sixteenth-century Spanish galley slaves, they often marched for days without adequate food; and if during the campaign they did steal from Portuguese and Spanish civilians, the theft was attributable not to any criminal leanings but to hunger and the paltry rations provided by the army. Coss draws on a comprehensive database on British soldiers as well as first-person accounts of Peninsular War participants to offer a better understanding of their backgrounds and daily lives. He describes how these neglected and abused soldiers came to rely increasingly on the emotional and physical support of comrades and developed their own moral and behavioral code. Their cohesiveness, Coss argues, was a major factor in their legendary triumphs over Napoleon’s battle-hardened troops. The first work to closely examine the social composition of Wellington’s rank and file through the lens of military psychology, All for the King’s Shilling transcends the Napoleonic battlefield to help explain the motivation and behavior of all soldiers under the stress of combat.

First published in 1995 to great critical acclaim, The Wars of Napoleon provides students with a comprehensive survey of the Napoleonic Wars around the central theme of the scale of French military power and its impact on other European states, from Portugal to Russia and from Scandinavia to Sicily. The book introduces the reader to the rise of Napoleon and the wider diplomatic and political context before analysing such subjects as how France came to dominate Europe; the impact of French conquest and the spread of French ideas; the response of European powers; the experience of the conflicts of 1799–1815 on such areas of the world as the West Indies, India and South America; the reasons why Napoleon’s triumph proved ephemeral; and the long-term impact of the period. This second edition has been revised throughout to include a completely re-written section on collaboration and resistance, a new chapter on the impact of the Napoleonic Wars in the wider world and material on the various ways in which women became involved in, or were affected by, the conflict. Thoroughly updated and offering students a view of the subject that challenges many preconceived ideas, The Wars of Napoleon remains an essential resource for all students of the French Revolutionary Wars as well as students of European and military history during this period.

This Very Short Introduction might prove disappointing to those expecting an introduction to a very short man. Dispelling the myth of Napoleon Bonaparte's short stature, as well as the other rumors and legends, David A. Bell provides a concise, accurate, and lively portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte's character and career, situating him firmly in historical context. This book emphasizes the astonishing sense of human possibility--for both good and ill--that Napoleon represented. By his late twenties, Napoleon was already one of the greatest generals in European history. At thirty, he had become absolute master of Europe's most powerful country. In his early forties, he ruled a European empire more powerful than any since Rome, fighting wars that changed the shape of the continent and brought death to millions. Then everything collapsed, leading him to spend his last years in miserable exile in the South Atlantic. Bell underscores the importance of the French Revolution in understanding Napoleon's career. The revolution made possible the unprecedented concentration of political authority that Napoleon accrued, and his success in mobilizing human and material resources for war. Without the political changes brought about by the revolution, Napoleon could not have fought his wars. Without the wars, he could not have seized and held onto power. Though his virtual dictatorship betrayed the ideals of liberty and equality, his life and career were revolutionary.

The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars affected millions of people's lives across Europe and beyond. Yet the extent to which the constant warfare of the period 1792-1815 shaped everyday experience has been little studied. This volume of essays discusses the formative experience of these wars for men and women, as soldiers, citizens and civilians.

The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic period was the defining moment for modern European history. Using primary texts, this volume explains the upheavals, terror, and drama that restructured politics and society on such a large scale.