Customer Reviews

Aspern & Wagram 1809: Mighty Clash Of Empires (Campaign)

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I'll admit it -- I'm a Napoleonic novice. I've been drawn to the period by the epic scope of the wars, the brilliance of the generalship, and all the pretty uniforms.

Most of the works I've read on the period (and they're not many) have been extremely dry. The Osprey Campaign series tends to lose sight of the forest for the trees; there's lots of detail about where the voltiguer company of the 1er ligne spent the time between 1307 and 1418, but not much sense of the ebb and flow of battle.

Not so with this book. The detail is still there, but the reader comes away with a true appreciation of the fortunes of both armies in the 1809 campaign.

The orders of battle will prove very useful for wargamers, as they provide the strengths of the various units.

The only real drawback to this work is the lack of personalities. We get some small glance inside the mind of Charles, but Napoleon and the lesser generals are never fleshed out. I'd have liked some commentary on their various views of the fighting.

This is one of the better Ospery titles. In less than 100 pages it manages to provide an overview of the 1809 campaign as well as some detail of the actual fighting at two of its most important battles. The maps and illustrations are first-rate. Having just visited both battlefields in question near Vienna I wish in retrospect that I had brought this book along. It would have been a handy field referecne guide.

The 1809 campaign was Napolean's last great victory. It marked the beginning of the decline of the Empereur's army, while showing that the quality of its leadership was still inspired. Caught off guard by the initial Austrain declaration of war, Archduke Charles misses an early opportunity to defeat the French forces in Bavaria in detail and allows the French emperuer to reogranize and quickly counter-attack. The Austrians are thrown down the Danube after several hard fought battles which sees them chastend, but not destroyed. Ultizing a corps structure for the first time, the Austrains are clumsy, but more resiliant than in the past.

At Aspern-Essling Napolean expereinces the nearest thing to a defeat in his entire career so far. Archduke Charles and the Austrain army must be given credit where credit is due, despite the fact that they allowed the French to escape from a near impossible situation. Napolean's decision to recklessly cross the Danube with inadquate forces in order to press for a quick victory nearly backfired completely. The Ospery title provides nice details on the horrific fighting that took place in both villages over the course of the two days of fighting. Not much of the origianl villages remain today, except for the church and cemetary in Aspern, and the famous granery in Essling. The epic wounded Lion monument in Aspern gives testimony to the heavy cost of this battle to both sides. We get nice descriptions of the death of marshall Lannes on the second of the battle, and how the French Guard was nearly pummeled into oblivion by the massed Austrian batteries.

A good carry over leading up to the events of wagram a few weeks shows the extent of French preparations. For his second crossing Napolean was not going to take any chances. Wagram also gets nice coverage, and much of the extent of the actual battle remains for the visitor today. The positions of the various villages, Anderklaa, Kagran, Leopoldau and Deautsch-Wagram are still pretty much where they were in 1809. Their actual size has not chnanged all that much, and most have simple monuments for the epic clash of arms which occured there. At Wagram Napolean achieved a hard-fought victory. For its size the battle was the largest to date, almost 300,000 combatants. Larger battles a few years later would soon take away this distinction, but Wagram provides an early example of the kind of large sized battlefield thatwas to become commonplace. The victory was significant, but not overwhelming. The Austrains still managed to withdrawal in good order. Even the Emporeur thought their performance was improved, remarking to one wag who thought they were second rate: "obviously you were not at Wagram." Signifiant praise from Napoelan.

This Ospery title puts it all together nicely, and is a fine companion work for either the wargamer of battlefield tourist. Recommended.

This book serves as a very good introduction to its topic for anyone having only an hour and half or so to dedicate to the subject. It starts out by providing the geopolitical context and motivation of the powers involved. It then provides an overview of the armies involved and the highest level commanders as well as the lower ranks. It is weak, however, in covering the middle ranking officers (i.e., quality, morale, etc.). Also, weapons are weakly covered. The book is also weak when it comes to providing color plates of officers and infantry of the powers invovled (unlike most Osprey books on the Napoleonic Wars). Hence for figurine and model builders not of much value.

The book then goes on to provide a narrative as to how the battle transpired, why it transpired in that manner and what the consequences were. The major weakness here is that the author does not even mention that one of the reasons (if not the most important) why Napoleon could not win a decisive victory was that the size of the forces involved prevented him from excercising personal command (this was the largest battle in history up to that time - some 300,000 men were involved). Napoleon's inability (or lack of desire to pre-delegate) was what really prevented him from achieving the decisive victory he so badly had needed.

A handy source. Great maps, a very good order of battle, nice photos of battlefield today. This is the place to start if you are going to wargame one of these battles. A nice companion to works by Petre or Arnold.

Aspern & Wagram 1809: Mighty Clash of Empires (Osprey Military Campaign, No 33)by Ian Castle, David G. Chandler (Editor)is a good overview of the battle that was the follow up to Austerlitz and Napoleon great victory. The battles described in the book in themselves are not that exciting or interesting, but when read in the proper historical context are well worth the read.

The book is written in the traditional style in a very readable format. One gets the bascis of the conflict as well as the basic whys and wherefores. All in all this is a positive read.

I am a little bit surprised, I thought that British author can be interested only at Waterloo. I agree with the other customer, this book is for beginners.

This is a beverage. The REAL MEAL is Arnold's work!