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Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) is best known for his masterpiece of military theory On War, yet that work formed only the first three of ten volumes of his published writings. The others, historical analyses of the wars that roiled Europe from 1789 through 1815, informed and shaped Clausewitz’s military thought, so they offer invaluable insight into his dialectical, often difficult theoretical masterwork. Among these historical works, perhaps the most important is Napoleon’s 1796 Italian Campaign, which covers a crucial period in the French Revolutionary Wars. During this campaign the young, largely unknown Corsican, in his first command, led the French Army to triumph over the superior forces of the Austrian and Sardinian Armies. Moving from strategy to battle scene to analysis, this first English translation nimbly conveys the character of Clausewitz’s writing in all its registers: the brisk, often powerful description of events as they unfolded; the critical reflections on strategic theory and its implications; and, most bracing, the dissection and sharp judgment of the actions of the French and Austrian commanders. From the thrill of the Battle of Montenotte—the youthful Bonaparte’s first offensive—to the remorseless logic of Clausewitz’s assessments, Napoleon’s 1796 Italian Campaign will expand readers’ experience and understanding of not only this critical moment in European history but also the thought and writings of the modern master of military philosophy.
Drawing on underutilized military records in Austrian, French, and Italian archives, Cuccia delves into these important conflicts to integrate political and social issues with a campaign study. Unlike other military histories of the era, Napoleon in Italy brings to light the words of soldiers, leaders, and citizens who experienced the sieges firsthand.
The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars raged in Italy for 23 years. In that time, no fewer than eight campaigns involving hundred of thousands of troops were mounted in the Italian peninsula, as France and Austria struggled over this secondary, but still vitally important theater of war. As Frederick Schneid demonstrates in this groundbreaking work, control of Italy was rightly seen by Napoleon as an important means of applying strategic pressure on the Austrians, while simultaneously providing security for France's vulnerable southern flank. As the first in-depth consideration of the struggle for strategically key region, this book places the Italian campaigns into their proper historical context. Beginning with a geo-strategic overview of the Italian peninsula and its place in French and Austrian calculations, Schneid moves on to a careful consideration of the major campaigns that began in 1805, 1809, and 1813. These include studies of the battles at Caldiero, Wagram, and Mincio. The book also provides appendices with complete orders of battle for each campaign.
In the center of Mantua, in northern Italy, a covered bridge stretches over the narrow Rio where vendors sell fish from pushcarts just as locals did more than two hundred years ago when Napoleon Bonaparte laid siege to the city. Four cannon balls protruding out of an adjacent wall offer a tacit monument to the sufferings of townspeople during the 1796–1797 siege, when the city, held by Austrian troops, finally fell under French control. Two years later, Mantua was again barraged, this time by a combined Austrian and Russian army, which took it back after four months. In Napoleon in Italy, Phillip R. Cuccia brings to light two understudied aspects of these trying periods in Mantua’s history: siege warfare and the conditions it created inside the city. Drawing on underutilized military records in Austrian, French, and Italian archives, Cuccia delves into these important conflicts to integrate political and social issues with a campaign study. Unlike other military histories of the era, Napoleon in Italy brings to light the words of soldiers, leaders, and citizens who experienced the sieges firsthand. Cuccia also shows how the sieges had consequences long after they were over. The surrender and proposed court-martial of François-Philippe de Foissac-Latour, the French general in charge of Mantua in 1799, sheds new light on Napoleon’s disdain for defeat. Foissac-Latour faced Napoleon’s ire, expulsion from the army, and harsh public criticism. Napoleon in Italy is not only the story of Mantua’s strategic importance. Mantua also symbolized Napoleon’s voracious determination to win and Austria’s desperation to retain its possessions. By placing the sieges of Mantua in an eighteenth-century international context, Cuccia introduces readers to a broader understanding of siege warfare and of how the global impacts the local.
In January 1794 the French 'Army of Italy' was commanded by General Dumerbion and he acknowledged a great debt to his 25-year-old commander of artillery – Napoleon Bonaparte. The French Revolution had resulted in major changes in the military system, conscription created a national army and new tactics and initiatives allowed an officer of such promise as Napoleon to rise quickly through the ranks. By 1796 he was the general commanding the French in Italy and at the conclusion of fourteen months campaigning he was the decisive military personality of his age. Philip Haythornthwaite examines Napoleon's campaigns in Italy, and the uniforms of his soldiers are illustrated in eight colour plates by Richard Hook.
Napoleon's conquests were spectacular, but behind his wars, is an enduring legacy. A new generation of historians have re-evaluated the Napoleonic era and found that his real achievement was the creation of modern Europe as we know it.
In Naples and Napoleon John Davis takes the southern Italian Kingdom of the Two Sicilies as the vantage point for a sweeping reconsideration of Italy's history in the age of Napoleon and the European revolutions. The book's central themes are posed by the period of French rule from 1806 to 1815, when southern Italy was the Mediterranean frontier of Napoleon's continental empire. The tensions between Naples and Paris made this an important chapter in the history of that empire andrevealed the deeper contradictions on which it was founded. But the brief interlude of Napoleonic rule later came to be seen as the critical moment when a modernizing North finally parted company from a backward South. Although these arguments still shape the ways in which Italian history is written,in most parts of the North political and economic change before Unification was slow and gradual; whereas in the South it came sooner and in more disruptive forms.Davis develops a wide-ranging critical reassessment of the dynamics of political change in the century before Unification. His starting point is the crisis that overwhelmed the Italian states at the end of the 18th century, when Italian rulers saw the political and economic fabric of the Ancien Régime undermined throughout Europe. In the South the crisis was especially far reaching and this, Davis argues, was the reason why in the following decade the South became the theatre for one ofthe most ambitious reform projects in Napoleonic Europe. The transition was precarious and insecure, but also mobilized political projects and forms of collective action that had no counterparts elsewhere in Italy before 1848, illustrating the similar nature of the political challenges facing all thepre-Unification states.Although Unification finally brought Italy's insecure dynastic principalities to an end, it offered no remedies to the insecurities that from much earlier had made the South especially vulnerable to the challenges of the new age: which was why the South would become a problem - Italy's 'Southern Problem'.
Little has been written about the defense of the Kingdom of Northern Italy, and this is the first study in English to detail the two-year conflict (1813-1814) within the larger context of the Napoleonic Wars. The French commander responsible for the defense was Eugene Beauharnais, stepson of Napoleon and son-in-law of the King of Bavaria. Outnumbered three to one, Beauharnais fought an outstanding defensive campaign, covering all of Napoleon's southern front while Napoleon faced off against the main allied armies as they invaded France. This was only Beauharnais's third command, and as a result of his less than stellar performance in his two earlier posts, he had acquired a poor reputation as a leader. Nafziger and Gioannini explain, however, that in this instance Beauharnais proved himself once and for all as the commander of an independent army, defending one of the most important parts of the French Napoleonic Empire. He made full use of geography, keeping his army in being, rather than risking it to seek a decision in the field. Because his stepson held the plains of Italy, Napoleon was able to concentrate his energies upon the evacuation of Germany and to demonstrate his military prowess in France.