Napoleon and Austerlitz

An Unprecedentedly Detailed
Combat Study of Napoleon's Epic
Ulm-Austerlitz Campaigns of 1805

Book Review

Reviewed by Bob Coggins

Author: Scott Bowden
Pages: 528
Illustrations: 32 diagrams and 424 black and white illustrations, including period portraits, paintings, weapons, uniforms, flags, and photos of the battlefields today. There are also dozens of tables within the chapters on ranks, comparative capabilities of artillery, etc. Maps: 111, from grand strategic, to operational showing corps movements, to tactical with individual regiments, battalions and batteries noted.
Footnotes: 1,273
Appendices: 11 extremely detailed orders of battle down to infantry battalions and cavalry squadrons including strength totals and number of cannon.
Bibliography: 193 cartons of documents in the French army archives in Vincennes, plus eight other archival sources in Paris, Vienna, Moscow, etc., 10 official histories and regulations, 60 memoirs and correspondence, and 167 secondary works.
Index: None! (an omission by the publisher)
Publisher: The Emperor's Press, Chicago
Publication Date:1997
Binding: Cloth (hardbound))
ISBN: 0-9626655-7-6
Price: $49.95
Summary: Napoleon and Austerlitz covers in incredible detail the creation of the Grande Armée and its first campaign under recently-crowned Emperor Napoleon. The various personalities, weapons, tactics, organization, as well as major and minor battles leading to the decisive French victory at Austerlitz in December 1805, are presented in a well-written and at times controversial book with an extraordinary number of maps and illustrations.

Scott Bowden's earlier works on Napoleonic warfare, Armies of the Danube 1809, Armies at Waterloo and Napoleon's Grande Armée of 1813, have been noted for extremely accurate and detailed orders of battle. This is the result of Bowden's research in European archives using primary source documents, and the information presented in Napoleon and Austerlitz continues this high standard.

Interestingly, Bowden reveals that the French Army outnumbered the Allied Army at Austerlitz — for years historians have believed the opposite. The author's extensive use of first person accounts also adds drama to the story.

Encompassing the entire 1805 campaign in Austria (including Ulm), Napoleon and Austerlitz is divided into four parts with an appendix for orders of battle. Part I is devoted to the French Army, addressing its organization, training, equipment and tactics. (The section on artillery is of particular value, especially regarding the reasons for Napoleon's decision to adopt new artillery equipment.)

Part II deals in a similar way with the armies of France's opponents, Russia and Austria. Part III addresses the Ulm Campaign, including detailed accounts of the combats of Hohenreichen, Wertingen and Günzberg, and the battles of Haslach-Jungingen and Elchingen, culminating in the humiliating surrender of Austrian commander Mack at Ulm. Part IV covers the Allied retreat to Bohemia, including the battles of Dürenstein, Schöngrabern, etc., with an account and analysis of the great battle of Austerlitz itself in December.

The layout of Napoleon and Austerlitz should set the standard for future books on battles and campaigns. The text is abundantly supplemented with charts, tables, diagrams and maps. Particularly helpful are the extra wide page margins that accommodate maps, schematics and portraits next to the appropriate text.

The maps use easily identifiable icons to represent combat formations as well as terrain. The contour lines are crisply drawn and give the reader a clear picture of the variance of elevation, and every combat formation on every map is identified. What is disappointing, however, is that many of the maps do not furnish a ground or elevation scale.

Bowden provides insight into command and control and how both the Grande Armée and the Allied Army actually worked at various levels. The author also examines the relationships between the various senior generals. The author's assessment of Napoleon's performance is effusive, but not without criticism — particularly with regards to French logistics. Unfortunately, Bowden's pro-French perspective and criticism of other historians, notably British authors David Chandler and Paddy Griffith, has produced a backlash against the book. Part of the controversy centers around what French Marshal Soult did or did not do at Austerlitz. Soult is one of the men whom the Duke of Wellington defeated in Spain and has been regarded by some historians as one of Napoleon's more capable marshals.

Bowden's assessment of Marshal Soult is less kind, charging that other than ordering his divisions to advance on the Pratzen, the Marshal appears to have taken no active part in the battle until mid-afternoon. The author then proceeds to question Soult's military ability, pointing out that certain English historians have good reason to exaggerate it. While such an opinion is certainly debatable, the resulting controversy has obscured the fact that this book is perhaps the best account of the 1805 campaign available.

Napoleon and Austerlitz is volume one in a series called "The Glory Years 1805-1807" and, with the exception of the astonishing lack of an index (making it nearly impossible to use the book easily as a reference source), it is hoped that future volumes are as well done.

Napoleon and Austerlitz

Pro and Con

"A superb accomplishment...it is the finest history not only of Ulm and Austerlitz, but also of any other battle I have ever read." Harold T. Parker, author of Three Napoleonic Battles "It is therefore very refreshing...to get a serious book about Napoleon at his zenith, and Scott Bowden has done it in fine style."

Robert M. Epstein, The Journal of Military History We received these opinions from Jack Allen Meyer, a noted colleague of Owen Connelly at the University of South Carolina, who takes exception to Bowden's pro-French attitude:

"Detail 'junkies' will be overjoyed....However, the book is marred by the author's excessive bias in favor of the French....It is in these two chapters...dealing with the formation of the Third Coalition, that Bowden's prejudice is most obvious. [The impression is that] all of the coalition commanders are incompetent toadies answering to egocentric rulers who haven't a clue, and leading troops who are not really sure which foot to step off on at the beginning of a maneuver. Certainly some of this is accurate but not to the extent that Bowden might make it appear. French casualties, while lower than those of the coalition armies, were not insignificant in the campaign.

"Bowden's characterization of the British as devious plotters, willing to risk their money but not their men to defeat the 'Corsican Ogre' no doubt has caused an outbreak of apoplexy among British historians. The British opposition to Napoleon's program of imposing "French Enlightenment" on the rest of Europe is anathema to Bowden. The British leadership may not have been saints, but, horrors! neither was Napoleon. "In spite of these flaws this book is without a doubt the current definitive work on the Austerlitz campaign."

Napoleonic Library

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