The Battle: A Novel [Paperback]

Patrick Rambaud (Author), Will Hobson (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 9, 2001

The winner of the Prix Goncourt and Grand Prix du Roman de l'Academie Francaise, The Battle is a brilliant, compelling novelization of the battle of Essling, Napoleon's first major defeat. The battle of Essling has long been overlooked by historians and novelists, but Rambaud, relying on research notes compiled by Honore de Balzac, has re-created the confrontation with exceptional skill.

Balzac had always wanted to write this novel, but he never moved past the research stage. Picking up where his predecessor left off, Rambaud renders the epic battle in all its pageantry, violence, and chaos. The Battle opens on May 16, 1809, as Napoleon's forces confront the assembled armies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at Essling, near Vienna. Angered by the Austrians' challenge to his rule over their land, Napoleon is determined to crush the enemy troops with the quick maneuvers that won so many previous battles. Yet the French soon find that the wide-open Austrian plains are not conducive to their techniques, as the enemy's sheer manpower begins to overwhelm them.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Among Honor? de Balzac's papers were notes for a projected novel about the battle of Essling, one of Napoleon's first major defeats. Rambaud, picking up on Balzac's ideas and suggestions, and having conducted further research on his own, has written a novel about that conflict. Balzac's plan was to deliver the battle raw, minimizing Napoleon's direct role, but Rambaud shows quite a bit of the Corsican, as well as of his marshals Lannes and Massena. A subplot features Henri Beyle, better known as Stendhal, waiting in Vienna for news of the battle and fantasizing about Anna Krauss, a delectable blonde Austrian. Rambaud follows a select group of soldiers, from Private Paradis, who just wants to get back to his father's farm, to the emperor, during two days of intense fighting that ultimately left 40,000 dead on the field. The author excels in creating scenes that rip the heroic mask off the atrocities of war: a seasoned French infantryman raping a dead Austrian girl; a doctor marking chalk crosses on the foreheads of wounded men he considers to be unsavable; the Austrians setting alight a huge mill wheel covered with pitch and sending it down the Danube River to break up the French pontoon bridge. This last tactic denies the French reinforcements and practically decides the battle. Rambaud is less able to avoid historical novel cliches: his Vienna seems plucked from an operetta, while his Napoleon is not fully drawn but characterized mainly by his tics, a lapse at odds with the colorful, ambitious scenes of combat. (May) FYI: Battle has won the Prix Goncourt and the Prix de l'Academie Fran?aise.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In 1831, French novelist Balzac began taking notes for a novel of the Battle of Essling (1809), Napoleon's first defeat on the Continent. The narrative would include "not a single woman: only cannon, horses, two armies, uniforms," with Napoleon appearing at a distance, crossing the Danube at the end of the day. Balzac never finished the book, but Rambaud has amply realized his ambition in The Battle, which won the Prix Goncourt and the Grand Prix Roman de l'Acad?mie Fran?aise. Napoleon dominates Rambaud's account: "he detested familiarity and advice: all he desired of his officers, like his courtesans, was mute obedience." Wherever the emperor goes, his household goods go, too: a mountain of linens, china and food, his iron bedstead, carpet, chandeliers, and a round of parmesan cheese to sprinkle on his soup. Future novelist Stendhal is also present as witness to the devastation of this "battle without a victor." Rambaud balances horrific battle set pieces and subtle characterizations to produce what will be a classic. Enthusiastically recommended.
-David Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (June 9, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802138101
• ISBN-13: 978-0802138101
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,014,169 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brutal ride through a 19th century battle field., April 22, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Battle (Hardcover)

This historical novel slaps its readers in the face with the reality of a grape loaded 12 pounder. We are wisked from the streets of a newly occupied city, Vienna in 1809, to the front lines of a Napoleonic battle, where in one stunning scene the emperor's guard stand to attention while a hail of fire thins their ranks, literly filling the gaps in the line by shoving away the fragments of their now destroyed commrads. Each scene is accurate, in every detail, from the horrors of 19th century medicine, to the soilder's uniforms, arms and food. One feels the panic of the helpless city as it is looted and plundered, and one can smell the cordite and hear the clash of sabers as the combat discriptions grip your heart and stomach to each line. A excellent book if only because of its ability to seem like a bit of real insight into what a event like this was at so many levels. To the common solider, the oficer, the camp follower, and to Naploeon himself. A great read

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars battle royale, May 21, 2000

By 

bill katovsky (san francisco, california USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Battle (Hardcover)

i love a good war film, but this book, a historical recreation of Napolean's defeat near two small towns in Austria, is cinematic in its intensity, drama, excitement, and horror. while it helps to know some prior biographical information about the marshals and generals who lead the troops into battle, you won't be too hard-pressed to keep straight all the details. as vivid and anti-war as "johnny got his gun" or "all quiet on the western front," you will gain a front row seat to what it was like to wage hand-to-hand combat on a warm May day in 1809. you will experience the cannons, the smoke, the blood, the confusion, the terror, the roundshot taking off soldiers' limbs, the bloodlust and anarachy on the battlefield. Napolean was a lucky and brilliant leader, whose quick tactical thinking led to surprising truimphs, but even he acknowlwedges at the end that what had defeated him was not another army or leader but General Danube--the river. A force of nature, Napolean met his match with the Danube. Just wait til he experiences the Russian winter in a few years.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Napoleon before Waterloo, May 25, 2000

By 

lvkleydorff - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Battle (Hardcover)

On May 16, 1809, the battle of Essling took place at the gates of Vienna. It lasted two days. 40'000 soldiers were killed. Napoleon, accompanied by his trusted marshals Berthier, Lannes and Massena, was on his way to Vienna. The Austro-Hungarian forces met him at the Danube, at the plain of Essling. Napoleon miscalculated the terrain and hesitated. He lost the battle. The author describes the 48 hours, meticulously researched, in incredibly vivid detail. The sound of the battle. The cannon shot ripping through the ranks of Napoleon's imperial guard. The field hospital awash in blood, amputated limbs and the dead. The surgeons' muscles giving out from sawing arm after arm, leg after leg. Soldiers fleeing across the Danube to a little island in the river, not being safe there either. An incredible carnage, interspersed with observations of the life in Vienna. The writer Stendhal and the painter Lejeune caught up in it. The author paints a picture that is incredibly vivid. It is on the same level as Plivier's "Stalingrad" in describing th command of the battle and the mortal fear of the common soldiers. In 1998, this book won the highest French literary award, the Prix Goncourt. It amply deserved it. It must be read by everyone interested in military history. Two weeks after the battle of Essling, the composer Haydn died in Vienna.