Product Description

'In war, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns. Thus it may be known that the leader of armies is the arbiter of the people's fate, the man on whom it depends whether the nation shall be in peace or peril...' ("Sun Tzu The Art of War"). We speak of Caesar who conquered Gaul, not the legions; MacArthur who landed at Inchon, not the Marines - and we speak of Napoleon, one of history's most successful generals. Major General Jonathon Riley is supremely well qualified to write on Napoleon's generalship and has written an informed and insightful account. He opens with a short treatise on generalship in order to define Napoleon's achievement before moving on to the man himself. He examines Napoleon as a strategist; as a coalition commander; Napoleon's campaigns and Napoleon on the battlefield. Areas often ignored in the context of pre-industrial warfare - logistics and counter-insurgency - are also examined. Riley proceeds to three specific case studies beginning with Napoleon's first essay in generalship and the conquest of Piedmont; Napoleon at the height of his powers at the conquest of Prussia, to Napoleon's final defeats and the Battle of the Nations in 1813.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #333829 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 227 pages

About the Author
Major General Jonathon Riley joined the British Army in 1973 and has served peacetime tours of duty in the US, Germany, Kenya and Cyprus. He taught at Sandhurst from 1984-86. He has a number of published works including several military histories and three studies of command including Napoleon and the World War 1813

Customer Reviews

Outstanding Study of Generalship
As a the very model of a modern lieutenant-general, Jonathon Riley understands the qualities necessary to succeed as a professional soldier, and he shares it here in a superb study of Napoleon's qualities as a commander. This is not another biography but a detailed treatise on the many and varied demands made on top commanders, and is as much about generalship in general, so to speak. But General Riley very clearly relates this to old Boney's career, and doesn't spare him either: it is no mere hagiography.

It is not, in fact, the first book to attempt to do this, as General Sir James Marshall-Cornwall wrote a similar work in 1967. But this is clearly superior; the analysis is far stronger and in terms of clarity, Riley's writing is the equal of that great soldier-scholar, Field Marshal Earl Wavell, whose essay on Generals and Generalship this book is reminiscent. One thing that set Napoleon apart was how he organised everything around himself in a way that would be impossible today. Unlike in a modern army, his staff had no devolved responsibilities, and he admitted that 'no plan acceptable in which I am not personally at the centre'. Napoleon also understood that 'more battles are decided by loss of hope, than loss of blood', and just like today he was principally concerned with coalitions, fighting almost continually both in and against multi-national armies.

This helps make the book intensely relevant, although Napoleon's coalitions were coercive - more Warsaw Pact than NATO. In deconstructing Napoleon's generalship the author pays homage in turn to theorists from Frederick the Great through Jomini to Field Marshal Sir Nigel Bagnall. The book's only weakness is that a reader unfamiliar with Napoleon's campaigns may struggle to follow events in the case-studies. But the book finishes with an excellent and well balanced conclusion. Having noted early on that war is a political act, Riley nails him: Napoleon, he says, `won wars, but he never won the peace'.