Editor's Note: Distinguished historian Colonel Elting, author of Swords Around A Throne, has been kind enough to give us his impressions on two recent books of note.

The Eagles' Last Triumph

The Eagles' Last Triumph: Ligny by Andrew Uffindell, London, Greenhill Books (available in the US from Stackpole Books), 1994, is the story of the Battle of Ligny. An excellent book for the first four-fifths of its length. It takes over the task of asserting the Prussians' claims to have played a decisive part in the Waterloo Campaign.

It is exact and unsparing in covering the strengths and weaknesses of the Prussian Army, and of its commanders. It rather rhapsodizes over Blücher, which in part is only delayed justice, but omits that gentleman's tendency to casually disregard his own parole after his surrender to the French in 1806, or his violations of the armistice in 1813.

Gneiseneau also is praised, though his over-all conduct during the 1815 campaign (contrary to his general reputation) would have appalled the militia generals who tried to defend Washington, D.C. in 1813.

Once Waterloo has been fought, however, the author goes wild: the French army is "destroyed;" Gneiseneau's improvised pursuit (which lasted only a few hours) was comparable to Napoleon's after Jena; Blücher practically ended the war single-handed. (In fact, Blücher had his head in a sack and would have been a gone goose if the French government had been willing to fight.)

That aside, this is a good book on one of the more neglected aspects of the Waterloo Campaign.

Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research

In addition, I cannot too strongly urge the readers to include in their study of the Battle of Waterloo "An Infamous Army" by C.T. Atkinson, in the British Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Summer 1950, pages 48-53. This is the best in-depth, level-headed appraisal of Wellington's army I have ever seen. It should surprise many. More Englishmen (including my friend David Chandler) should take a look at it.

Napoleon's Last Victory and the Emergence of Modern War.

Napoleon's Last Victory and the Emergence of Modern War by Robert M. Epstein, University Press of Kansas, 1994, is a much more pretentious work, based on the author's theory that modern warfare began during the 1809 campaign, where large armies--organized into corps--fought over wide fronts, and it became impossible to win a campaign/war by a single knock-out battle of the Austerlitz variety. [See review in EE&L #9]

All this is expressed with much of the fashionable school babble concerning "distributed maneuvers" and symmetrical/asymmetrical armies, and like atrocities against plain English. Mr. Espstein has a first hand knowledge of Napoleonic warfare, and his coverage of Eugene's secondary campaign in Italy is probably the best yet written. It is surprising then that his account of the main campaign has the appearance of being hurriedly thrown together then glued on as an afterthought. It contains a number of errors that a little research might have avoided. He has also invented corps numbers for the Army of Italy which did not have numbered corps. As partial compensation there is some interesting new material on the Walcheren expedition.

[Editor's Note: To the reader interested in the Campaign of 1809, we also recommend Crisis on the Danube James Arnold, Paragon House, New York, 1990, which covers - very objectively - the first part of that campaign. Two other books are well worth mentioning. Prince Eugene at War by Robert M. Epstein which covers the Campaign of Italy in 1809, and Armies on the Danube, 1809 by Scott Bowden and Charles Tarbox. Both works are available from the Emperor's Press.]

More Napoleonic Library Book Reviews:

The Waterloo Campaign: June 1815
Waterloo New Perspectives: The Great Battle Reappraised
Colonel John R. Elting comments on some recent books
Napoleon at Dresden: The Battles of August 1813
The Used Book Lover's Guide to the South Atlantic States
How to Study and Read Military History