In celebrating the bicentennial of 1796, this magazine will focus on Napoleon's astonishing rise from relative obscurity to unprecedented power. Through his battlefield achievements, Napoleon, a Corsican of minor noble descent and a captain of artillery as late as 1792, would on 14 December, 1799 be named First Consul of France, thereby making him ruler of the most powerful country in Europe.

Napoleon was not alone in rising from insignificance to take center stage during this fascinating era. Of course, it was the Revolution and its dynamics that made this time unique in opportunity, and no full appreciation of Napoleonic history would be possible without learning about the social climate and events that made a career like Napoleon's possible.

Without the great political and military cataclysm that he found himself in, Napoleon would no doubt have joined so many others, including Robespierre and Marat, who would otherwise have passed ordinary lives, their ambitions forever stifled. With all that in mind, we present in this issue the story of Charlotte Corday, a woman who had the temerity to take history into her own hands and play her own unforgettable part when the men she admired had failed.

Napoleon magazine does not plan to fall into a pattern of predictability. While we will bring you such features as personalities, uniform studies, detailed orders-of-battle, tactical studies, etc., on a regular basis, we will also vary our features and focus from issue to issue so that we can cover the wide range of fascinating topics available, and to pursue the best writing that we can find.

For example, this issue we feature excerpts from Brent Nosworthy's forthcoming new work With Musket, Cannon and Sword. We felt our readers would appreciate this preview of a work that is both ground-breaking and controversial in its scholarly presentation of Napoleonic tactics.

We are also looking for help from our readers. By sending us letters to the editor, and by dropping us a line on e-mail, we can get a better sense of your expectations and interests. What do you like or dislike about the magazine, and what suggestions do you have? We hope to run a regular column featuring your mail and input, including answering questions whenever we can.

Furthermore, many of you are extremely knowledgeable about this period of history. We would love to include your contributions. Whether you wish to send us a small documented piece for our "Napoleonic Notebook" or a longer article, we are eager to receive your submissions.

Lastly, Napoleon magazine hopes, through our diverse coverage, to connect the disparate elements of the Napoleonic community, and to provide a forum such that our mutual passions may grow and reach new audiences. We hope to bring you the best from each of these strands, from military historians, academicians, hobbyists, collectors, and others, so that our pursuit of Napoleonic history can be richly shared and more fully realized.

Matt DeLaMater,
Managing Editor