This book was first published in French in 1979 and it shows its age. It consists of 17 chapters starting, as one would expect, with the invasion camps on the Channel coast in 1805 and culminating with the return to France of Napoleon's body in 1840. The maps are clear and easily understood but they are all at the back of the book which makes them inconvenient to refer to. Ordinarily this would be a disadvantage but as the text, where the description of military operations is concerned, is so brief in comparison, it is of little consequence.

According to the publisher's notes on the cover "the reader is taken through the career of Napoleon's Grande Armee in thorough, well researched detail." This is thoroughly misleading. Further on we are told "Students of the art of war, Napoleonic strategies and tactics, European history and military action will eagerly add this volume to their library." Well they might but they will be very disappointed. It is also supposed to be of particular interest to "wargamers, modellers and re-enactment groups." I found little, if anything, in it that could be construed as of special value to any of these groups.

The reason for the discrepancy is simple. The author and the publishers are at odds over what the book is about. Georges Blond himself states that he tried to look at the men "in close-up, beyond the legends to which they themselves have contributed". This is a much better descnption because it is the characters, be they high or humble in status, that this book is concemed with above all else. The bibliography reflects this and there is a comprehensive list of contemporary diaries and memoirs, some very well known and some less so. The larger part of the author's reference material dealing with other aspects, however, is disappointingly tertiary, or even fourth-hand, and rings all sorts of alarm bells.

The essence of the text, then, is about people, essentially the soldiers. It is based on contemporary diaries and memoirs but one wonders about the words Blond puts in the mouths of some of the characters. The soldiers in the camps at Boulogne, for example, are made to say "Let's get at the red-coats. And the English tarts." I do not feel comfortable with this method of imparting atmosphere, if tbat is what it is. It is more appropriate to a work of fiction, The Exploits of Bngadier Gerard perhaps. Unfortunately, Georges Blond, or at least his translator, is not Arthur Conan Doyle. This kind of creative writing has no place, in my view, in a serious work of history. Be that as it may, one is certainly left with an impression of the men but, laced with the author's apparently vivid imagination, and because the book is not footnoted, its accuracy is hard to determine.

It is when the book strays into the analysis of campaigns and military operations, at every conceivable level, that it leaves a lot to be desired. It the first place, despite the title and publishers statement, it is not solely about the Grande Armee and more importantly the descriptions of military operations are too brief to be useful. Most serious, however, are the numerous generalisations and inaccuracies. We are told, for example, that at Austerlitz the "entire Grande Armee" was doped with alcohol." This is simply not credible. The Prussian army in 1806 was, apparently, "50 years out of date." This sort of rubbish does nothing to explain the inadequacies of the Prussians in this campaign.

There is more. The French defeat at Vimeiro was apparently brought about by the British use of a mass of artillery and because the British infantry were veterans of India. We are now in the realms of fairy tales. In the chapter on 1809, we are told that after Wagram the Grande Armee "pursued the routed Austrians". This is simply untrue. Finally, the description of the attack of the Guard at Waterloo does not correspond with the accounts of either Bntish or, more importantly bearing in mind this is a French author, French primary sources. Merde indeed. So it goes on.

This book is advertised as a detailed history of the campaigns of the Grande Armee. It is nothing of the sort. The re-enacter might find some of the descriptions of camp life interesting I suppose. So might we all. The wargamer who wants to understand something of the science and art of Napoleonic warfare will find it valueless. Similarly, the modeller will not find anything in its pages of direct relevance. Who, then, is it of interest to? The casual reader perhaps, who will probably like it because it's an easy read, but so is Playboy (so I am told).

This book is about the men of the Grande Armee, and a good many other French armies too. The author certainly displays an affection for his subject but one is bound to say that there is very little said about the tens of thousands of allied soldiers that formed a significant proportion of all Napoleon's armies, grande or otherwise, increasingly from about 1806 onwards. This is a book to read once, if you must, and lay aside. It is not even a near miss, in my view, and should certainly be treated with a great deal of caution. If neither Chandler's The Campaigns of Napoleon nor Elting's Swords Around Throne existed then one might say La Grande Armee was worth having. Fortunately they do and, therefore, it isn't.

--John Cook