Greenhill Napoleonic Wars Data Book

Followup

by George Nafziger

In Napoleon #15 we published a letter from Scott Bowden, author of Napoleon and Austerlitz, who criticized The Greenhill Napoleonic Wars Data Book. In response, we received this letter from George Nafziger, author of Imperial Bayonets and the 18-volume Napoleonic Studies series.

Dear Editor:

I became aware of Mr. Digby Smith's Data Book prior to its publication and had the privilege of reading select parts of the draft manuscript sent to me by the publisher for comment. I was particularly interested in looking it over because, as a collector of Napoleonic orders of battle, I was particularly aware of how difficult such an undertaking would be. I cannot say that I found either the manuscript or the finished work perfect in every sense. However, despite the inevitable errors that come into such a work because of contradictions in source material and the extreme difficulty of finding anything on some battles, I was extremely pleased and impressed by the effort that Mr. Smith has made.

If I were asked to enumerate weaknesses, of course, it would have to be that the Data Book's sources are limited and there was little use of archival documents. On the other hand, I have seen the French archives and know how little is sometimes available. I am also aware that the Prussian archives and those of many of the smaller German states were destroyed during World War II by the Allied bombings. This forces the author of such a work to turn to secondary sources published before 1939 to find material on many battles, and the authors of those secondary works were not necessarily as concerned with listing the orders of battles of the opposing forces as we might like today.

Mr. Smith worked under a severe handicap and has done an outstanding job of amassing a tremendous amount of data. Yes, the data is inconsistent in its level of detail and there are, no doubt, errors in it. Then again, I have never read (nor written) a book that did not have a couple of errors in it.

The Data Book, as it stands, is an incredible collection of information. It purports to list every battle fought, from the big ones like Leipzig to the smaller skirmishes no one has ever heard about. There are innumerable battles listed in the Data Book that are totally unknown to me and that alone makes it a valuable resource. I was impressed enough to not only obtain a copy for my personal use, but have also strongly recommended the Data Book to others interested in the period. It is my opinion that we should thank Mr. Smith for his effort.

Napoleonic Library: Reviews of selected books

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