Napoleon, 1812
The Road to Moscow

Video Review

Reviewed by C.J. Allen

Cromwell Productions

I must confess that I was extremely excited when I first saw this video on sale at the Nationals in London earlier this year. It seemed that, at last, somebody had produced a video that might be of interest to Napoleonic wargamers and historians.

However, having now watched it several times, my feelings about this video are somewhat mixed. On one level, it is a good, basic introduction to the campaign and the period for the general viewer but it will be of little use to the average wargamer, never mind those with a specialised interest in the period.

The video itself, after a rather long introductory advertisement for the other titles in the series, lasts for rather less than an hour and covers the background to the campaign, the French invasion, the occupation of Moscow and the terrible retreat. The accent is very much on the activities of the French main army and its opponents, with very little mention of the, for me, far more interesting manouverings and actions of the flanking forces.

The story, narrated by Robert Powell, is illustrated by scenes from the epic Russian version of "War and Peace", which features a very odd looking Napoleon and some quiter wonderful scenes of French troops along with far too many of their 5th rate opponents (not that I'm biased!). Along with these, there are also several shots of paintings of the period, few of which are connected with the campaign, although it must be admitted that the ones used, although fairly well known, are impressive.

The two most irritating parts of the video for me were the sequences featuring Dr David Chandler, which appeared to have been shot without the benefit of lights, and the quotations from Bourgognes's memoirs, spoken in French by somebody immaculately dressed in the uniform of a sergeant of the Fusilier Grenadiers, over which Robert Powell gives a translation. This totally ruined the effect and the powers that be would have done much better to leave the quotations in French and merely provide sub titles for those who require them.

Use is also made of, to quote from the advertising blurb, "the most advanced 3-D computer mapping techniques available." Obviously these techniques are highly expensive as well as advanced, which may explain why they make such little use of them.

One final gripe is that the picture quality, on my copy at least, is not marvellous, especially in the War and Peace scenes, although this may be due to the standards of Soviet cinematography rather than any fault of the producers of this video.

The video is accompanied by a paperback book which, basically, covers the same story in almost identical words to the video and is definitely not a threat to Nafziger, Riehn, Foord or Duffy.

Despite these complaints, and the rather gratuitous presence of some WWII tanks half way through, the video does, as stated earlier, provide an adequate, easily accessible, introduction to the period for the novice, although quite how he is to get hold of it is another question as, unlike the titles in the series that cover campaigns of the British army and are to be marketed by W. H. Smiths, it only appears to be available via mail order from certain retailers or at wargames shows.

For the serious Napoleonic enthusiast the package may be an entertaining novelty item but is unlikely to have any useful value as it is far too simplistic and lacking in detail. My advice is to save your money and put it towards one of the aforementioned books or some figures.

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