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Professor Emeritus Robert S. Quimby examines the strategic and tactical revolution that swept through the French military hierarchy in the Eighteenth Century and forged the superb instrument that became lethal in the hands of Napoleon and his generals. “The period from the opening of the War of the Spanish Succession to the meeting of the Estates-General is generally looked upon as a period of decadence in the history of the French Army. Compared with the great days of Louis XIV or with those of the Revolution and Napoleon this estimate seems correct enough. It was a period of many humiliations. The disasters inflicted upon France by Marlborough and Prince Eugene were followed by the much more humiliating failures of the Seven Years’ War. Yet the record is not without its glorious moments. During the War of the Austrian Succession, a series of brilliant successes was won under the leadership of the great Saxe. If the combat record of the French Army was, to say the least, uneven during the eighteenth century, such was not the case with its intellectual achievements. The French Army stood foremost among all those of Europe in this respect. Throughout most of the years of the century, there was a great intellectual ferment within the Army leading to major developments in ideas and in material improvement. Within a few years after the War of the Spanish Succession, books began to appear, pointing out defects in the tactics then in use and proposing changes. After the Seven Years’ War, the number of such books greatly increased. The result was to stimulate an ardent and at times acrimonious debate. Book countered book; pamphlets and memorials multiplied. Gradually, through the abandonment of more extreme ideas, a compromise was worked out. Embodied in the Ordinance of 1791, this became the basis for the tactics of the Wars of the French Revolution and of Napoleon.”-Introduction.
The Military Enlightenment brings to light a radically new narrative both on the Enlightenment and the French armed forces from Louis XIV to Napoleon. Christy Pichichero makes a striking discovery: the Geneva Conventions, post-traumatic stress disorder, the military "band of brothers," and soldierly heroism all found their antecedents in the eighteenth-century French armed forces. Readers of The Military Enlightenment will be startled to learn of the many ways in which French military officers, administrators, and medical personnel advanced ideas of human and political rights, military psychology, and social justice.
It was the century of American independence, of warfare between France and Prussia, of invading Mongols in Tibet. The most successful power anywhere was China; the largest land battles took place in India. All around the globe, using weaponry from muskets to the bow-and-arrow, conflicts raged: in a way, these were the first "world wars." Sometimes troubles on the edges of empire triggered new battles in Europe, and the balance of power shifted as France weakened and Frederick the Great established Prussia as a major new force. From the forests of New England to the Philippines, the diverse campaigns covered here portray developments in every society, on land and on sea, and reveal how new policies arose with the growth of colonialism.
The essays in this volume examine the historical place of revolutionary warfare on both sides of the Atlantic, focusing on the degree to which they extended practices common in the eighteenth century or introduced fundamentally new forms of warfare.
The author maintains that modern attitudes toward total war were conceived during the Napoleonic era; and argues that all the elements of total war were evident including conscription, unconditional surrender, disregard for basic rules of war, mobilization of civilians, and guerrilla warfare.
If there was one man, other than Napoleon himself, who determined the course of the Napoleonic Wars, it was Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, comte de Guibert, the foremost military theorist in France from 1770 to his death in 1790. Taking in the full scope of the times, from the ideas of the Enlightenment to the passions of the French Revolution, Jonathan Abel’s Guibert is the first book in English to tell the remarkable story of the man who, through his pen and political activity, truly earned the title of Father of the Grande Armée. In his Essai général de tactique, published in 1771, Guibert set forth the definitive institutional doctrine for the French army of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. But unlike many other martial theorists, Guibert, who served in the French Ministry of War from 1775 to 1777 and again from 1787 to 1789, was able to put his ideas into practice. Drawing on a wealth of primary source documents—including Guibert’s own papers and the letters and memoirs of his friends and associates—Jonathan Abel re-creates the temper of an era of great turbulence and remarkable creativity. More than a military theorist, Guibert was very much a man of his day; he attended salons, wrote poetry and plays, and was inducted into the Académie française. A fiery figure, he rose and fell from power, lived and loved fiercely, and died swearing that he would “find justice.” In Abel’s account, Guibert does at last receive a measure of justice: a thorough, painstakingly documented picture of this complex man in the thick of extraordinary times, building the foundation for Napoleon's success between 1796 and 1807—and in significant ways, changing the course of European history.
Some 12 years ago it was estimated that well over 300,000 works existed on this period and since then several thousand more have appeared. Therefore, it might be reasonably argued that there is little room for another volume. Nonetheless, this vast outpouring of literature has usually dealt with major leaders, specific battles or campaigns, and with certain branches of the service. Moreover, at least in English, the literature tends to concentrate primarily on the French or British armies. There appears to be a lack of works combining a description of the major changes and trends in the art of war, especially at the cutting edge of events, with a discussion of the French military establishment and the armies of the major opponents, British as well as continental. And while this book is only a brief survey, I do believe that it may serve as a contribution towards filling this gap in our historical knowledge of military institutions and fighting men.
Austerlitz, Wagram, Borodino, Trafalgar, Leipzig, Waterloo: these are the places most closely associated with the era of the Napoleonic Wars. But how did this period of nearly continuous conflict affect the world beyond Europe? The immensity of the fighting waged by France against England, Prussia, Austria, and Russia, and the immediate consequences of the tremors that spread throughout the world. In this ambitious and far-ranging work, Alexander Mikaberidze argues that the Napoleonic Wars can only be fully understood in an international perspective. France struggled for dominance not only on the plains of Europe but also in the Americas, West and South Africa, Ottoman Empire, Iran, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Taking specific regions in turn, Mikaberidze discusses major political-military events around the world and situates geopolitical decision-making within its long- and short-term contexts. From the British expeditions to Argentina and South Africa to the Franco-Russian maneuvering in the Ottoman Empire, the effects of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars would shape international affairs well into the next century. In Egypt, the wars led to the rise of Mehmed Ali and the emergence of a powerful state; in North America, the period transformed and enlarged the newly established United States; and in South America, the Spanish colonial empire witnessed the start of national-liberation movements that ultimately ended imperial control. Skillfully narrated and deeply researched, here at last is the global history of the period, one that expands our view of the Napoleonic Wars and their role in laying the foundations of the modern world.