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The Campaigns of Napoleon (Hardcover)
[Buy it!] | David G. Chandler | USD 112.49
(Sun May 26 05:45:03 2024) | AbebooksAU | AussieBookSeller | ISBN10: 0025236601, ISBN13: 9780025236608, [publisher: Prentice Hall (a Pearson Education company), Hemel Hempstead] Hardcover Hardcover. In this engrossing, (The New Yorker) vivid, and intensively researched volume, esteemed Napoleon scholar David Chandler outlines the military strategy that led the famous French emperor to his greatest victoriesand to his ultimate downfall.Napoleonic war was nothing if not complexan ever-shifting kaleidoscope of moves and intentions, which by themselves went a long way towards baffling and dazing his conventionally minded opponents into that state of disconcerting moral disequilibrium which so often resulted in their catastrophic defeat. The Campaigns of Napoleon is a masterful analysis and insightful critique of Napoleon's art of war as he himself developed and perfected it in the major military campaigns of his career. Napoleon disavowed any suggestion that he worked from formula (Je n'ai jamais eu un plan d'operations), but military historian David Chandler demonstrates this was at best only a half-truth. To be sure, every operation Napoleon conducted contained unique improvisatory features. But there were from the first to the last certain basic principles of strategic maneuver and battlefield planning that he almost invariably put into practice. To clarify these underlying methods, as well as the style of Napoleon's fabulous intellect, Chandler examines in detail each campaign mounted and personally conducted by Napoleon, analyzing the strategies employed, revealing wherever possible the probable sources of his subject's military ideas. Writing clearly and vividly, [Chandler] turns dozens of persons besides Napoleon from mere wooden soldiers into three- dimensional characters (The Boston Globe) and this definitive work is a fine book for the historian, the student, and the intelligent reader (The New York Review of Books). Napoleonic war was nothing if not complex — an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of moves and intentions, which by themselves went a long way towards baffling and dazing his conventionally-minded opponents into that state of disconcerting moral disequilibrium which so often resulted in their catastrophic defeat." "The Campaigns of Napoleon" is an exhaustive analysis and critique of Napoleon's art of war as he himself developed and perfected it in the major military campaigns of his career. Napoleon disavowed any suggestion that he worked from formula "("Je n'ai jamais eu un plan d'ope rations")," but military historian David Chandler demonstrates this was at best only a half-truth. To be sure, every operation Napoleon conducted contained unique improvisatory features. But there were from the first to the last certain basic principles of strategic maneuver and battlefield planning that he almost invariably put into practice. To clarify these underlying methods, as well as the style of Napoleon's fabulous intellect, Mr. Chandler examines in detail each campaign mounted and personally conducted by Napoleon, analyzing the strategies employed, revealing wherever possible the probable sources of his subject's military ideas. The book opens with a brief account of Bonaparte's early years, his military education and formative experiences, and his meteoric rise to the rank of general in the army of the Directory. Introducing the elements of Napoleonic "grand tactics" as they developed in his Italian, Egyptian, and Syrian campaigns, Mr. Chandler shows how these principles were clearly conceived as early as the Battle of Castiglione, when Napoleon was only twenty -six. Several campaigns later, he was Emperor of France, busily constructing the "Grande Arme e." This great war machine is described in considerable detail: the composition of the armies and the "e lite" Guard; the staff system and the meth Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability.
[Truganina, VIC, Australia] [Publication Year: 1973]
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