Customer Reviews

How Far From Austerlitz?: Napoleon 1805-1815

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

For someone just starting out in a study of the Napoleonic Era, "How Far From Austerlitz?" is an amazingly easy and engaging book to read. There are no endless statistics, no long percise accounts of how much powder a 12 pounder cannon used, no long commentaries on this Marshal or that. Instead the book is a quick run through Napoleon's career. The book opens many doors for the reader, which will lead to further study. It is not intended to be the "End all be all" tome concerning Napoleon. It is an introduction to the era an nothing more. What makes this book better than other introductionary works about Napoleon is Horne's anecdotes. The book is filled with interesting anecdotes, stories, and facts which are far more memorable than the weight in kilograms of a French Officer's kit. In turn, Horne's anecdotes makes the book memorable if not very detailed or in depth. Furthermore Horne's personal opinions about Napoleon and his corrolations with contemporary times, such as World War Two, made the book much more lively. It does not matter what one thinks about his opinions, the fact his book has opinions makes it more intriguing than other more statistical, but lifeless works.

Alistair Horne's "How Far From Austerlitz" traces the career of Napoleon from the apogee of his glory as victor of the battle of Austerlitz in 1805 to his final defeat and exile to St. Helena in 1815. Horne, a marvellously gifted writer and practiced popular historian, provides a highly readable account accessible to the general reader and the historical buff alike.

Horne opens with a quick review of Napoleon's dramatic rise to power and to the circumstances that led him and the Grande Armee to Austerlitz in 1805. The account of the battle itself reveals Napoleon at the peak of his powers as a political leader and general; the aftermath makes clear his failings as a diplomat and strategic thinker.

The ten years between Austerlitz and Waterloo would be marked by increasingly costly and less decisive battles and by an inability to orchestrate a general peace in Europe. Napoleon, as portrayed by Horne, is his own worst enemy in this endeavor. Repeated success in battle feeds a growing meglomania that makes him incapable of the kind of "soft" peace that might have been available to him. Napoleon will overreach himself in Spain, and more dramatically, in Russia, ultimately depriving himself of the forces necessary to defeat the coalitions he called into being by his invasions.

Horne's narrative is enourmously readable; Napoleon's fall is presented as the Greek tragedy of a gifted leader undone by his pride. Horne has the good journalist's sense for place and for people. The book is punctuated with thumbnail sketches of the various personalities who played key parts in the drama of 1805-1815, including Napoleon's marshals, his family, the other crowned heads of Europe, and his various military opponents.

This book is highly recommended to the general reader with an interest in Napoleon and his era.

If you want an entertaining experience of Napoleon, then read Alastair Horne's book. Informative and intruiging, it covers military, psychological, and personal matters of Napoleon and France smoothly, and normally in just the right amount of detail. Special attention is paid to the battle of Austerlitz itself. This, it must be said, is odd, considering that the issue the book pursues is essentially the corrupting influence of power, not a comparison of troop deployment between Austerlitz and, say, Borodino. The book has a momentum, a force of its own in which I was carried along, arresting only at Napoleon's second journey into exile. Thus the book was certainly never tedious, and was indeed exciting. Thus I believe the slight loosening of Horne's hold on the matter of inter-state and internal power relationships is made up for by his literary skill.

Alistair Horne's book is poor in it's approach to the political and social aspect of the Napoleonic saga.His comments on french internal politics are puerile and superficial.At times he seems to be at lost when confronting the post-revolutionary political scene in France,he certainly has none of the insight of a Jean Tulard.Nonetheless it is very good military history.His comments on the Grand Armée are very good and very instructive.The description of the battle of Austerlitz is masterful and the highlight of the book.All in all it is an exellent read.

"How Far from Austerlitz?" is almost exactly what I was looking for: a brief, highly readable account of the Napoleonic Wars (about which I know relatively little). Horne explains why Austerlitz was Napoleon's most brilliant battle, carried out when he and his soldiers were at their peak. Using that battle as its frame of reference, the book describes the rise and fall of Napoleon and the Grand Army.

My only complaint is that "How Far from Austerlitz?" looks at this fascinating period almost exclusively from the perspective of Napoleon and other major players. While that's fine as far as it goes, I would have preferred an "Ambrose-style" narrative that also told the story of the rank-and-file Napoleonic soldier.

Horne succeeds in bringing to life the character of the times and the people that lived them - a rare achievement indeed! His descriptions of the battles (all except Waterloo that is) are most commendable in their ability to bring the oft complex engagements to life. The only reason for not allocating a fifth star is the somewhat lacklustre rendition of the 100 days campaign and the Battle of Waterloo specifically, that is nowhere near as well portrayed as the others. Whilst a depressing time frame to all admirers of "The Ogre" it nonetheless merits accurate description...

Other than that - a fantastically written book book worthy of any Bonaparte collection.

People interested in Napoleon and the times in which he lived should pick this one up. It's definitely one of the better books to come out in the last few years.

Having read many books on Napoleon I felt that this book was a good introductory look at the man. Certainly other books go into greater detail, but for a student just becoming familiar with Napoleon this is a great start. It covers a little of everything in Napoleon's life; social, personal, and militarily. Alistair Horne is also an entertaining writer who finds the high points and clearly illustrates them in plain terms. He makes valid comparisons of battle with pre-Napoleonic wars to post-Napoleonic ones. Overall, he sets the table and further study is required to learn more about Napoleon's career. For example, very little is mentioned about his days as First Consul and the reforms he made. This is simply because the book started in 1805. Another example is the deep anxiety and yearning for legitimacy Napoleon had over being accepted by other European sovreigns. Horne mentions this but no in depth study is attempted. Finally,as stated before, this is not an advanced book on Napoleon but an excellent start to the newcomer and the old-hack will enjoy Horne's witty style and maybe a new twist or two concerning major events.

This is an easy to read history of Napoleon's descent from the peak of his success, at the battle of Austerlitz, to his final defeat at Waterloo. The author notes a key lesson of such a study (page xxvi):

". . .it is the old repeated maxim of conquest leading only to further conquest; dictators and nations can win striking victories, but still lose wars--and the peace. Then follows the exhaustion, failure, or death of the dynamic leader, and everything collapses. Wellington understood. 'A conqueror, like a cannon ball,' he observed, 'must go on; if he rebounds, his career is over.' Napoleon and Hitler never perceived this. . . ."

The book begins with a brief description of Napoleon's rise. Then, campaigns from 1805 to 1815 are described. A nice aspect of this book is a series of useful maps, to help make sense of the key battles over time.

The procession of battles begins with major Napoleonic victories at Ulm and Austerlitz. The book does a nice job of explaining how the combination of Napoleon's skills and the skills of some of his key commanders simply was were too much for such inferior commanders as General Mack on the opposing side. Both battles were smashing victories for the French, and may have represented the high water mark of their success on the battlefield.

In 1805--the year of Ulm and Austerlitz--the naval battle at Trafalgar also occurred, and that forever ended any hope of victory at sea. There were other victories to come, but by the time of the win at Wagram (in 1809), these were becoming "hairsbreadth Harry" victories, where the French won but did not destroy the enemy--and led to heavy French casualties. Thereafter, the poor results for France in Spain and the disastrous result of the doomed Russian invasion foreshadowed the ultimate defeat of Napoleon.

Leipzig in 1814 and Waterloo in 1815 ended the Napoleonic era. Overreach. As Horne notes (page 375): "Yet even if Waterloo had been won by Napoleon, it would almost certainly, in view of the overwhelming forces closing in on him, have been followed sooner or later by the ultimate defeat." A lesson that is difficult for major powers to learn. There comes a time when continued efforts at even greater triumphs may lead to ultimate defeat.

Let me begin by saying that I am a huge fan of Alistair Horne's, not that he needs my endorsement to cement his place in the front rank of historians produced in the twentieth century. Some of his works are literally the best historical narratives ever written, such as "A Savage War of Peace" and "To Lose a Battle." That said, this is not the venerable Mr. Horne's most inspiring work. I found that the book suffered from a certain lack of focus and cogency.

The purpose Mr. Horne gave for writing the book was to apply a fresh perspective as to how and why Napoleon and his Grande Armee could go from the dominance of Austerlitz to destruction at Waterloo in just under a decade. However, the reader may find that Horne often wanders from the stated objective set out for "How Far From Austerlitz?" as he provides detailed descriptions of major Napoleonic battles from Ulm to Jena and Moscow to Dresden. And the author is quick to compare and contrast the experience of the Napoleonic Wars to the Second World War, especially focusing on the similarities between Napoleon and Hitler. I enjoyed (but others might be irritated) by Horne's frequent historical analogies, such as likening the British expeditionary forces in Spain and at Waterloo to the British Expeditionary Forces of World War I and World War II, while the successful British retreat and evacuation from Corunna in 1808 is held up as comparable to Dunkirk.

So what brought Napoleon from the heights of Austerlitz to the barren rock of St. Helena? Horne emphasizes three causes to Napoleon's ultimate defeat, although he never really lays them out cleanly and clearly.

First, he gives more credit to the British economy for the defeat of Napoleon than the vaunted British Navy. He writes that British gold enabled England to better endure the effects of the Continental System and underwrote much of the seven coalitions that battled the French over twenty-three years. If, at any time, the British economy had collapsed, Horne suggests that the contest would have been over.

Second, Horne accentuates the impact of the disastrous Russian campaign of 1812 and the inability to replace the estimated 180,000 horses lost in that epic retreat. Horne argues that the manpower and leadership losses were severe and certainly damaging, but were not necessarily catastrophic to the Napoleonic war machine. The loss of horses, on the other hand, was devastating. The horse supply could simply not be replaced and much of Napoleon's previous success, in Horne's opinion, had relied on the mobility, intelligence, and logistical advantage that horses gave to the Grand Armee.

Third, and by far most important, is Horne's argument that Napoleon was a military giant and diplomatic pygmy. Thus, not surprisingly, Talleyrand figures prominently in this book. Horne suggests that had Napoleon listened to his master diplomat he may have achieved much of his ambitious dreams on the continent in the long run. The problem with Bonaparte's victories, Horne often claims, is that at first they were either too easy (Ulm) or too sweeping (Austerlitz), and then they were too hard and closely fought (Eylau and Friedland) to encourage accommodation with the defeated. When Talleyrand resigned after yet another victor's peace at Tilsit, Horne argues that the long train of Napoleon's defeat was ultimately set in motion. "Military supremacy and conquest cannot of themselves buy political success. If only Bonaparte had listened to Talleyrand..."

Horne ends the book with a comment that is particularly intriguing given the state of world affairs in 2008 (although the book was published in a very different time - 1998).

"Yet, if the prolonged struggle over Napoleonic hegemony has any lesson, or moral, useful to Britain [and presumably the United States] today, it is perhaps the value of coalitions. Muddled and inefficient as they may be, two world wars and a cold war show that, in the long run, they win wars - and possibly prevent them. Powers, however strong, that exist alone, isolated, are usually doomed."

All told, this is a solid narrative of the Napoleonic campaigns of 1805 to 1815, but it could have benefited from less military history and a better articulation and defense of the author's thesis on Napoleon's fall, as that was what he claimed to strive for in the book in the preface.