Product Description

At a time when military commanders in Europe were royal princes and dukes, Napoleon's marshals were often the sons of peasants or clerks. And they were usually half the age of their opponents - whom they thrashed soundly with almost monotonous regularity. This is the story of Ney, Murat, Soult, Davout, Bernadotte, Massena, Lannes, Marmont and Augereau. It took, for instance, only 23 days for the entire Prussian army to be defeated and one of the French marshals, Augereau, had the pleasure of taking prisoner the feared Prussian Guards, a regiment he had deserted 20 years earlier in order to become a dancing master. A.G. Macdonell is also the author of "England, their England".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #67285 in Books
• Published on: 1996-11-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 325 pages

Customer Reviews

This book is a fascinating study of the Napoleonic Legend.
This book is almost unique amongst books of the Napoleonic period, in that instead of focusing on Napoleon and his actions, it tends to concentrate on the men around him. The book looks in depth at what his trusted Marshals were doing in each year of the Napoleonic Wars. That said, a Napoleon fan should not be put off, Napoleon is still the crux round which the other characters rotate.

Though the book and some of it's theories are now showing it's age, it is still immensely enjoyable. It is not very in depth, just summarising the events on the battlefields, and it is not truly a military history in that regard. It looks at the characters and how they interacted. It is fascinating to learn of the little disputes that erupted between the Marshals, and the book is full of interesting little stories.

In a strange way, it is the last chapter, the one that focuses on the Marshals after Napoleon which is the most interesting. It recounts the actions from the restoration of the Bourbons through to the death of Marmont in 1853, something which very few books have covered, and it is this that makes it the most refreshing. The book genuinely makes you feel joy and sorrow for the Marshals at certain points.

In short, this book is immensely readable, and though it shuns detail in favour of making a good story, it is well worth it. With this book, you really do believe in a great Napoleonic legend. Brilliant.

Entertaining and informative
One would't expect a book written in the thirties to be as readable and entertaining as this. And of course there is the subject matter. Anyone thinking that the Napoleontic wars were only fought by the man himself will have his or her eyes opened in this book. The marshals were a colourful bunch to say the least, and their influence on the rise and fall of Napoleon's empire are vividly brought to life. And a writer who tells us that the murder of marchal Brune by a vindictive mob cannot even be justified by the quality of the poetry he wrote in his spare time, is my kind of historian.

A penetrating but light-hearted study - very enjoyable
If all history books were written in A.G. Macdonell's style, there would be a lot more amateur historians about! For my money, this book is far more entertaining than most of the fiction I have read, and I felt that odd mixture of emotions when I finally closed it: awe and amazement at the incredible feats of that unique band of men, amusement at some of the tricks they got up to, and a deep regret that the story was over. The only book that I can compare to this one is Fletcher Pratt's "A short history of the American Civil War", a longer and perhaps even more ably-written overview of events some 60 years later. They really do not write that way any more!

If "Napoleon and his Marshals" could be summed up in a single word, it would have to be "humanity". Its pages are crowded with the best and worst of human nature: fantastic bravery, rich imagination, unbelievably hard work and dogged persistence, rubbing shoulders with spite, arrogance, jealousy, occasional cowardice, and - surprisingly enough - sheer downright incompetence. Even Napoleon was far from perfect: on one occasion, he put first Berthier, then Murat, in charge of the Grande Armee and its nearly 200,000 men; and then forgot both appointments and tried to run the show himself. Confusion reigned, with three sets of orders flying around and corps commanders jerked around like puppets on strings. Then there was the almost unbelievable folly of leaving over 200,000 men achieving next to nothing in Spain, while invading Russia 2000 miles away - the very antithesis of Napoleon's basic principle of war, concentration.

The first surprise is how many marshals there were: 18 in all, including less-well known names such as Moncey, Brune, Mortier, and Bessieres, as well as illustrious ones like Murat, Massena, Ney, and Davout. According to Macdonell, Davout was the best of them all and "the only pupil Napoleon ever had". Massena, the victor of Zurich in 1799, was next. Murat was the greatest cavalry leader who ever lived, while Ney, "the bravest of the brave" was the most loyal and unyielding (until his loyalty was tried too far).

On one level it is a fabulous, riotous tale of grand strategy, clever tactics, forced marches, massive battles, and coups d'etat. Cunningly interwoven with the main story, Macdonell gossips away delightfully, giving us pen-portraits of all the marshals as well as many others, and highlighting the individual weaknesses that counterbalanced their great strengths. After a while it begins to look as if the whole rise and fall of Napoleon was a moral lesson in the nemesis that is inevitably attracted to character flaws. But it also becomes clear that, for Macdonell at least, the whole enterprise was fundamentally unsound and contained the seeds of its own destruction. The more battles Napoleon won, the more he had to win. By marrying his family off to European royalty and nobility, and scattering titles in an attempt to set up a new dynasty, he created unbearable stresses that eventually tore his Empire apart before it got out of infancy.

If you have the slightest interest in history, military matters, or just the peaks and valleys of human nature, this book is a must-read!