Napoleonic Foot Soldiers and Civilians PDF Download

Author: Rafe Blaufarb
Publisher: Macmillan Higher Education
ISBN: 1319242723
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
By highlighting the experiences of common soldiers and civilians, this volume by Rafe Blaufarb and Claudia Liebeskind presents a broad view of the Napoleonic Wars not found in typical military histories. The introduction recounts the key events of the wars and how they marked a shift in the modern notion of “total war” and provides necessary political and military background on the issues of recruitment and evasion, the military community, combat and its aftermath, the homefront, and demobilization. The rich collection of memoirs, letters, and popular engravings -- from familiar sources such as German infantryman Jakob Walter to an account of a French woman canteen worker -- offers contrasting voices, some offered here in English for the first time. These documents and images explore core civil-military interactions, including foraging, plunder, sexuality, violence, eating, religion, and commerce. Headnotes to the documents, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography provide pedagogical support.

Author: Jakob Walter
Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN: 0307817563
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
A grunt’s-eye report from the battlefield in the spirit of The Red Badge of Courage and All Quiet on the Western Front—the only known account by a common soldier of the campaigns of Napoleon’s Grand Army between 1806 and 1813. When eighteen-year-old German stonemason Jakob Walter was conscripted into the Grand Army of Napoleon, he had no idea of the trials that lay ahead. The long, grueling marches in Prussia and Poland sacrificed countless men to Bonaparte’s grand designs. And the disastrous Russian campaign tested human endurance on an epic scale. Demoralized by defeat in a war few supported or understood, deprived of ammunition and leadership, driven past reason by starvation and bitter cold, men often turned on one another, killing fellow soldiers for bread or an able horse. Though there are numerous surviving accounts of the Napoleonic Wars written by officers, Walter’s is the only known memoir by a draftee, and as such is a unique and fascinating document—a compelling chronicle of a young soldier’s loss of innocence as well as an eloquent and moving portrait of the profound effects of war on the men who fight it. Professor Marc Raeff has added an Introduction to the memoirs as well as six letters home from the Russian front, previously unpublished in English, from German conscripts who served concurrently with Walter. The volume is illustrated with engravings and maps, contemporary with the manuscript, from the Russian/Soviet and East European collections of the New York Public Library. Honest, heartfelt, deeply personal yet objective, The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier is more than an informative and absorbing historical document—it is a timeless and unforgettable account of the horrors of war.

Author: David A. Bell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190262737
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
This book provides a concise, accurate, and lively portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte's character and career, situating him firmly in historical context. David Bell emphasizes the astonishing sense of human possibility--for both good and ill--that Napoleon represented. By his late twenties, Napoleon was already one of the greatest generals in European history. At thirty, he had become absolute master of Europe's most powerful country. In his early forties, he ruled a European empire more powerful than any since Rome, fighting wars that changed the shape of the continent and brought death to millions. Then everything collapsed, leading him to spend his last years in miserable exile in the South Atlantic. Bell emphasizes the importance of the French Revolution in understanding Napoleon's career. The revolution made possible the unprecedented concentration of political authority that Napoleon accrued, and his success in mobilizing human and material resources. Without the political changes brought about by the revolution, Napoleon could not have fought his wars. Without the wars, he could not have seized and held onto power. Though his virtual dictatorship betrayed the ideals of liberty and equality, his life and career were revolutionary.

Author: Mark Lawrence
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 100041213X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
This work seeks to offer a new way of viewing the French Wars of 1792–1815. Most studies of this period offer international, political, and military analyses using the French Revolution and Napoleon as the prime mover. But this book focuses on military and civilian responses to French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, throughout the rest of Europe and the Americas. It shows how the unprecedented mobilization of this era forged a generation of soldiers and civilians sharing a common experience of suffering, bequeathing the West with a new veteran sensibility. Using a range of sources, especially memoirs, this book reveals the adventure and suffering confronting ordinary soldiers campaigning in Europe and the Americas, and the burdens imposed on civilians enduring rising and falling empires across the West. It also reveals how the wars liberated slaves, serfs, and common people through revolutions and insurgencies.

Author: Charles J Esdaile
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429835485
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 634

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Book Description
First published in 1995 to great critical acclaim, The Wars of Napoleon provides students with a comprehensive survey of the Napoleonic Wars around the central theme of the scale of French military power and its impact on other European states, from Portugal to Russia and from Scandinavia to Sicily. The book introduces the reader to the rise of Napoleon and the wider diplomatic and political context before analysing such subjects as how France came to dominate Europe; the impact of French conquest and the spread of French ideas; the response of European powers; the experience of the conflicts of 1799–1815 on such areas of the world as the West Indies, India and South America; the reasons why Napoleon’s triumph proved ephemeral; and the long-term impact of the period. This second edition has been revised throughout to include a completely re-written section on collaboration and resistance, a new chapter on the impact of the Napoleonic Wars in the wider world and material on the various ways in which women became involved in, or were affected by, the conflict. Thoroughly updated and offering students a view of the subject that challenges many preconceived ideas, The Wars of Napoleon remains an essential resource for all students of the French Revolutionary Wars as well as students of European and military history during this period.

Author: Claudia Liebeskind
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
This study analyses religious changes in Sufism in South Asia in the modern period. It sets out the detailed workings of three different sufi traditions in Awadh and charts their responses to the growth of the colonial state, as well as to the emergence of Muslim movements of revival and reform and the spread of western education.

Author: David A. Bell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199321671
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
This Very Short Introduction might prove disappointing to those expecting an introduction to a very short man. Dispelling the myth of Napoleon Bonaparte's short stature, as well as the other rumors and legends, David A. Bell provides a concise, accurate, and lively portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte's character and career, situating him firmly in historical context. This book emphasizes the astonishing sense of human possibility--for both good and ill--that Napoleon represented. By his late twenties, Napoleon was already one of the greatest generals in European history. At thirty, he had become absolute master of Europe's most powerful country. In his early forties, he ruled a European empire more powerful than any since Rome, fighting wars that changed the shape of the continent and brought death to millions. Then everything collapsed, leading him to spend his last years in miserable exile in the South Atlantic. Bell underscores the importance of the French Revolution in understanding Napoleon's career. The revolution made possible the unprecedented concentration of political authority that Napoleon accrued, and his success in mobilizing human and material resources for war. Without the political changes brought about by the revolution, Napoleon could not have fought his wars. Without the wars, he could not have seized and held onto power. Though his virtual dictatorship betrayed the ideals of liberty and equality, his life and career were revolutionary.

Author: A. Forrest
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230583296
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars affected millions of people's lives across Europe and beyond. Yet the extent to which the constant warfare of the period 1792-1815 shaped everyday experience has been little studied. This volume of essays discusses the formative experience of these wars for men and women, as soldiers, citizens and civilians.

Author: Cornelius Ryan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439127018
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 749

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Book Description
The classic account of the final offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich. The Battle for Berlin was the culminating struggle of World War II in the European theater, the last offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich, which devastated one of Europe’s historic capitals and marked the final defeat of Nazi Germany. It was also one of the war’s bloodiest and most pivotal battles, whose outcome would shape international politics for decades to come. The Last Battle is Cornelius Ryan’s compelling account of this final battle, a story of brutal extremes, of stunning military triumph alongside the stark conditions that the civilians of Berlin experienced in the face of the Allied assault. As always, Ryan delves beneath the military and political forces that were dictating events to explore the more immediate imperatives of survival, where, as the author describes it, “to eat had become more important than to love, to burrow more dignified than to fight, to exist more militarily correct than to win.” The Last Battle is the story of ordinary people, both soldiers and civilians, caught up in the despair, frustration, and terror of defeat. It is history at its best, a masterful illumination of the effects of war on the lives of individuals, and one of the enduring works on World War II.

Author: Clive Emsley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131761027X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
Napoleon had a profound impact on the development of both France and Europe, and his career had repercussions across the wider world. His career had all the elements of a classical tragedy: having begun with spectacular military and civil achievements, it ended in exile on the tiny Atlantic island of St Helena. Almost two centuries after Napoleon’s death, historians continue to argue about his aims, his achievements and his legacy. In this thoroughly revised and updated new edition, Clive Emsley brings these historiographical debates up-to-date, and broadens his study to include discussion of the cultural and social impact of the Napoleonic era. This new edition: offers a succinct summary of Napoleon’s career examines his impact on France and Europe, as well as including a new chapter on the impact of the Napoleonic adventure on the wider world considers the relationship between Napoleon and the French Revolution outlines the difficulties in assessing his career explores the current debates surrounding Napoleon contains an expanded selection of primary source documents, ranging from state papers to police reports. A Chronology, Glossary and Who’s Who of key characters are also provided, making this an indispensable textbook for students of nineteenth-century French and European history.