Book Review
Generallieutenant Johann Nicolaus von Luckner
Reviewed by Peter Hofschröer
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"Generallieutenant Johann Nicolaus von Luckner und seine Husaren im siebenjährigen Kriege".
At long last, a life of this famous German cavalry commander of the Seven Years War and later French revolutionary general is now available! Luckner's military career began in the Bavarian infantry before transferring to the hussars in 1744. An adventurer by heart, Luckner's favoured military activity was in the war of outposts, and that indeed is for what he is best known. From 1757 to 1763, he served in the Hanoverian army, making his mark as a partisan leader. With this experience from the Seven Years War, he then joined the service of the French king, influencing military thinking in the final days of the ancien règime. As a general of the revolutionary army, he fought the Austrians on the Upper Rhine before being transferred to the Netherlands. Here, he enjoyed little success and fell foul of the revolutionary authorities, with the usual consequences. His career thus came to a tragic and sudden end. Luckner's influence on the development of military tactics in the latter half of the 18th century shows where the 'new style' of warfare of revolutionary France really did originate - in the partisan warfare of Central Europe during the Seven Years War in which the Austrian army played the major role. This book clearly demonstrates that the phenomena of the French light infantry was nothing new. The armies of Central Europe had had decades of experience in its use before the Revolution reinvented the wheel. All those who adhere to the dogma of the hordes of liberated Gallic skirmishers baffling the outdated Prussian and Austrian infantry of the Napoleonic Wars should first read this book. Horstmann's standards are high, his research thorough and his attention to detail impressive. A must for all those interested in how tactics in Europe really developed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. More Reader's Reviews
Die Vorgeschichte, Gründung und fröhe Entwicklung The Glory Years 1805-1807 Napoleonic Weekend (video) Wellington's War L'Epopee Napoleonienne 1815: The Waterloo Campaign The Eagle Back to Table of Contents -- First Empire #40 Back to First Empire List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by First Empire. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com |