Napoleon's Invasion of Russia

Book

review by Jim Arnold

by George F. Nafziger; Presidio, 1988, $45.00.

George Nafziger's writings have frequently appeared in The Courier. Readers expect a Nafziger article to present detailed, extensive information on unit organization and orders of battle. Napoleon's Invasion of Russia is true to this expectation. At 657 pages it includes a staggering 300 pages of appendices. I must concur with the words of David Chandler, who wrote the foreword, "I don't think I have ever seen so much detail in a similar work on this subject."

Two random samples illustrate this point. On page 564 I see that 217 "Gamekeeper Skirmishers" were in the ranks of the Russian 2nd Army of the West in December 1812. On page 402 an exhaustive list of the siege provisions at Danzig shows that among other things the fortress had 446 metric cwt of candlesticks! This level of detail is simply incredible. A most revealing table that highlights the terrible French losses details the casualties in some Young Guard regiments including the horrific category "Frozen to Death" (no officers, 186 men in four regiments). Another instructive table shows how the Moscow Opolochenie were distributed to various line units in October 1812. Such information suggests to this wargamer that my opolochenie be placed with line units, rather than in separate detachments, where they will be the first removed when the unit takes a loss. Meanwhile, they will add a very decorative look to the otherwise rather dull Russian uniform.

I have emphasized the appendices first because they are the book's major strength. The text itself is straightforward, matter of fact history. Except for a very good opening chapter examining the causes of the war, where the author allows himself to use his synthetic and analytic abilities to describe trends and consequences, the balance of the text is not lively reading, Units organize, march, engage, suffer, and continue. The organizational material is quite inclusive and should particularly appeal to wargamers. The combats and battles are somewhat hard to follow, which is partially due to the poor maps. This, I imagine, is the publisher's fault, and is a shame, because the author works hard to present information about little-known battles. His coverage of such engagements as Ostrowno, Trautino, and Krasnoe provides material that I, at any rate, have only seen covered in detail in somewhat obscure French sources such as Burturlin.

At $45.00, this book is not for everyone. It's clearly a labor of love by its author and will be valued by those wargamers who take their history very seriously. It might be a good group purchase for a wargames club or alterantively, you might pester your library into purchasing the book. I know from experience that it is hard to persuade publishers to produce anything but the most general of Napoleonic works. Presidio deserves credit for publishing Napoleon's Invasion of Russia.

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