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1814: The French Campaign (Great Battles of the First Empire)
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| List Price: | £35.50 |
| Price: | £24.85 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Delivery on orders over £5. Details |
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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Average customer review:
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #184841 in Books
- Published on: 2005-11-30
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 176 pages
Customer Reviews
Beautifully illustrated, but impossible to read
This is a book you'd buy for the pictures. They're gorgeous - by far the best feature of the tome.
Unfortunately as a campaign history it leaves a lot to be desired. The text was obviously written in French, then translated - very badly. In places it looks like the publishers used Babelfish rather than a professional translator. It makes it all but impossible to follow, and some of the choices of phrases are laughable - or rather they would be if the book didn't cost so much.
The Orders of Battle are interesting, but - at least for the Allies - they're scanty, and littered with errors, from simple spelling mistakes to the omission of whole Corps. As a result I found it difficult to work out who was doing what, and where. The maps themselves didn't help much - the cartographer used the same symbols to show the location of a Corps as he did for a Division, a Brigade or even a Regiment.
I can recommend this book for the illustrations (worth buying just for that if you're a Napoleonic enthusiast), but this is far from being the definitive account of the campaign it purports to be. Therefore I can't recommend it.
