The significance of any changes in the conduct of warfare in the Napoleonic Wars can only be fully appreciated with an understanding of the events in the wars in the later part of the eighteenth century. As such, these two books, aimed at the undergraduate history student, complement each other. Both are written by leading experts in their field, and both are highly informative and useful primers.

The Wars of Napoleon

Esdaile's work is clearly attempting to become the 'Campaigns of Napoleon' for this generation. It certainly fits into the pocket better than Chandler's great classic and is an admirable effort.

In the opening chapter, Esdaile makes sound statements on the 'Nature of the Napoleonic Wars', putting his entire work into context. His discussion of the reasons for this long period of instability and conflict affecting not only Europe, but much of the world, deals with the possible ideological, social, political, economic and military causes.

The conclusion that 'Napoleon may not have wanted to conquer the world, but he could not live with it on equal terms, responsibility for the endless conflict therefore being his and his alone' is well reasoned, but is not going to find acceptance by all, but then, that is the nature of the beast.

The major problem facing the student of this period of history is the vast quantity of documentation on the subject matter. It is probably beyond the intellectual capacity of any one person to grasp and understand every single issue, so it is unavoidable that a general work on the period is going to have the occasional weak point. Certainly the second chapter, which covers the tactical changes and innovations, a significant aspect in this period, could have been worded more precisely and accurately. Columns were not always a 'solid block', their constituent parts usually marched at fair intervals to each other. Apparently, 'in practice' it 'was never the intention' of the French to deploy into line for a fire-fight; yet there are instances of this on record. Skirmishers, were not 'troops who fought in open order as individuals', but rather fought in pairs, with one firing and the other loading, and as part of a chain under officer and NCO supervision. Squares not just were 'a line bent back upon itself to form a hollow box', indeed, in this period, they were more usually formed by closing the intervals of a column.

Esdaile's account of France as a 'Nation-in-Arms' and of the unpopularity of conscription goes a long way to exposing the myths of a popular uprising in Revolutionary France. While the good burghers may have been keen on establishing a republic, the burden of the fighting fell on the conservative and essentially counter-revolutionary peasantry. The 'Loi Jourdan' was sabotaged by the 'revolutionary' bourgeoisie buying substitutes to perform military service, and the large number of refusniks in the countryside. Government basically broke down because of resistance to conscription. Only when France gained access to the resources of her neighbours, and the pressure on domestic resources declined, did the regime start to gain some sort of popularity. Napoleon's wars of conquest were in part driven by the need to relieve France of the burdens of fighting these wars; domestic opposition declined in relation to military victories abroad.

Myth of Egalitarianism

The myth of egalitarianism in the French army of the period is dealt with well. Here, Esdaile points out that: 'of 2248 Revolutionary and Napoleonic generals, only 17 were the sons of labourers, domestic servants, or poor peasants, whilst, as for the twenty-six marshals themselves, only three had actually started their career as private soldiers. He concludes: 'With a quasi-professional army raised by blatantly unegalitarian means and a war effort geared to saving the human and material resources of the metropolis by every means available, Napoleonic France hardly constitutes a Nation-in-Arms.' It would be interesting to examine the corresponding statistics of other armies, which the writer of this review suspects would not be vastly different.

Having dealt so well with a number of myths surrounding the French army of the period, it is a shame that Esdaile does not do so for other armies of Continental Europe. Apparently, in 'most Continental armies there was so rooted a prejudice against such [light] troops'. That is not the whole story, and reference to Showalter's book reviewed above would help to put this issue in context. Here, it is apparent that the light infantry branch of the armies of Continental Europe developed throughout the eighteenth century; how it was the Austrians with their Pandours and Croats that were the innovators, and how the Prussians were obliged to take counter-measures.

One myth that Esdaile unfortunately repeats is that of the advanced age of the leadership of certain Continental armies. For some reason, the fact that army generals tend to be older than other ranks seems always to be an issue in writings on this period. The Prussian generals that fought in 1806 were, as a whole, no older than those that fought in 1870. For historians of the Franco-German War of 1870/71, the advanced aged of Prussian generals is not an issue. That certain Prussian generals of 1806 vintage again held field commands in the campaigns of 1813-15 when they had certainly not got any younger is also not an issue, but as that conflicts with the myth that the reason for the catastrophic defeat of the Prussians in 1806 was the advanced aged of the Prussian generals, then that fact is often ignored. The reasons for Napoleon's dramatic victories in the early days of his Empire cannot be explained away just by reference to the age of opposing generals.

The writer of this review found Esdaile's chapter on the 'Resistance to the French' one of the most interesting. He rightly questions the validity of the interpretation of late nineteenth century romantic historians of local and sometimes national uprisings against French occupation as being the first signs of an 'awakening of the peoples'. These uprisings were largely local in character, limited only to certain sections of the population and, unless conducted in suitable terrain, often fizzled out quickly. The fact that a post-Napoleonic Europe returned to the old older so easily and that most reformers were removed from power in a matter of a few years is a probable indication of the level of popular support for democratic nationalism in Europe at this time.

Later chapters include coverage on the 'Emulation of the French', 'Revolution and the French' and the 'Downfall of the French'. Esdaile, known for his special interest in the events in Spain in this period, undoubtedly provides us with a first rate account any analysis of this subject. However, as he mentions in the opening paragraph of his 'Bibliographical Essay', 'the average undergraduate student [in Britain] is resolutely monolingual'. Hence, Esdaile mentions only English-language sources in his essay, when there is often better material available on certain topics in languages other than English. The writer of this review found Showalter's approach to this issue better, but perhaps the method used by Blanning in his 'French Revolutionary Wars' is the best; here, this historian gives all his (non-English) sources in his chapter notes, while providing his 'resolutely monolingual' students a list of further reading (all English) at the end of his book.

Book Review: The Wars of Frederick the Great

To sum up, these works achieve their aim of providing the undergraduate student with a basic primer with which to study the subject. This reviewer found Showalter's work the more useful and informative, and Esdaile's is probably the best primer on the subject available in the English language.

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