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Napoleon, Master of Europe, 1805-1807
If ever a military genius' battles have been fought to a conclusion it is Napoleon's--for a century and a half, armchair strategists have replayed the Emperor's great masterpieces of Austerlitz and Jena and dissected every move (Napoleon always wins). Why, then, another scouring of this oft-trod turf? Home, author of J Savage War of Algeria 1954-1962, among others, has no particularly good reason save that Napoleon's reputation may need a little shining up and military history is exciting stuff. As he admits, he has no new insights or critical perspective to offer; just a narrative of how Napoleon got to be the master of Europe. As such, the book is more than adequate--Horne vividly recounts the details of battles, but more importantly gives the necessary background on military organization and technique that enables the full scale of Napoleon's achievements to come to light. Horne's only moral is that military victory abstracted from political objectives is inherently unstable, and merely leads on to further battles, as in Napoleon's invasion of Russia and failure to pursue peace. Presumably, there are lessons here for the French and American war-makers of recent vintage, but they might have learned them from experience. For anyone who hasn't been over this before, Home's study is a good place to start; for others, it's a well-drawn map of familiar terrain.
- GenresHistoryNonfictionFrance
232 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1979
2 people are currently reading
56 people want to read
About the author
Alistair Horne
90 books203 followersSir Alistair Allan Horne was an English journalist, biographer and historian of Europe, especially of 19th and 20th century France. He wrote more than 20 books on travel, history, and biography. He won the following awards: Hawthornden Prize, 1963, for The Price of Glory; Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Prize and Wolfson Literary Award, both 1978, both for A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962; French Légion d'Honneur, 1993, for work on French history;and Commander of the British Empire (CBE), 2003.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 3, 2020
One of my favorite experiences as a reader is coming across a book in disguise.
Make no mistake, there are a lot of them out there, these tawdry-looking things; congregating in the dustiest of old shop corners; stacked among strangers with whom they have nothing in common. You will not catch them selling themselves. Malingerers all, I'm telling you, in their tattered jackets and their dog ears, smashed and sassy in the security of their hobo camouflage. "Not me! Not me!" they snicker as your fingers slip past them, angling to be overlooked by the bougie riff-raff; the bargain hunters, the pseudo-iconoclasts. Theirs are the covers you're not supposed to judge by, and they so seem to know it. Because you do that sort of judging now and then - and you, and you, and you, and they have no time for this. They'd rather be in a plastic bin or out on the sidewalk waiting for a soulmate than featured on a shelf for some aimless naif who knows no literary hunger and needs that subtle push of promotion. These are the hard cases who will snort as you lay your money down, and rush once more to the dustiest corner they can find in your home, and dare you to come after them.
And these...these are my heroes.
Napoleon, Master of Europe has that whole Time-Life vibe. Thick, ungainly boards pasted over in rough royal blue fabric, a 1970s overblown magazine font, great blocks of text limning a hodgepodge of charts, maps, sketches and grey-on-grey portraiture - an epic fail on the sensory front. And the first fifty pages? Were atrocious. Everything was atrocious. Until it wasn't.
Best accounting of the battle of Austerlitz ever. And look! Look at this little toss-off of allusive lines from a novel:
"Even if one had to die, what did it matter? Death was beautiful in those days, so great, so splendid in its crimson cloak. It looked so much like hope...the very stuff of youth."
So, of course, I ordered the novel. And here, this extract of a letter from a sad and seasoned Napoleon to his listless Josephine:
It is not often one hears from you. You forget your friends, which is wrong. I did not know that the waters of Plombieres had the same effect as those of Lethe. It seems to me that it was drinking these same Plombieres waters that once made you say, 'Ah, Bonaparte, if ever I die, who will there be to love you?' That was a very long time ago, wasn't it? Everything passes, beauty, wit, sentiment, even the sun, all but one thing that is endless; the good I wish you, your happiness. I cannot be more loving even if you laugh at me for my pains. Goodbye, dear friend. I had the English cruisers attacked yesterday; everything passed off well...
Were any of us aware that the great Prussian Field-Marshal Gebhard Leverecht von Blucher, prior to hounding Bonaparte straight out of France, had, for a brief time, labored under the delusion that he'd been impregnated by an elephant? Or perhaps, in a nod to my occasional need for strict categorization, this simple inclusion of eight sketches depicting the eight tribal components of the Russian irregular cavalry - the Siberian Cossack, the Kalmuck, the Bashkir, the Don Cossack, etc.
There is a lot here, and it's all very odd and very wonderful.
As one might expect from a book in disguise.
Make no mistake, there are a lot of them out there, these tawdry-looking things; congregating in the dustiest of old shop corners; stacked among strangers with whom they have nothing in common. You will not catch them selling themselves. Malingerers all, I'm telling you, in their tattered jackets and their dog ears, smashed and sassy in the security of their hobo camouflage. "Not me! Not me!" they snicker as your fingers slip past them, angling to be overlooked by the bougie riff-raff; the bargain hunters, the pseudo-iconoclasts. Theirs are the covers you're not supposed to judge by, and they so seem to know it. Because you do that sort of judging now and then - and you, and you, and you, and they have no time for this. They'd rather be in a plastic bin or out on the sidewalk waiting for a soulmate than featured on a shelf for some aimless naif who knows no literary hunger and needs that subtle push of promotion. These are the hard cases who will snort as you lay your money down, and rush once more to the dustiest corner they can find in your home, and dare you to come after them.
And these...these are my heroes.
Napoleon, Master of Europe has that whole Time-Life vibe. Thick, ungainly boards pasted over in rough royal blue fabric, a 1970s overblown magazine font, great blocks of text limning a hodgepodge of charts, maps, sketches and grey-on-grey portraiture - an epic fail on the sensory front. And the first fifty pages? Were atrocious. Everything was atrocious. Until it wasn't.
Best accounting of the battle of Austerlitz ever. And look! Look at this little toss-off of allusive lines from a novel:
"Even if one had to die, what did it matter? Death was beautiful in those days, so great, so splendid in its crimson cloak. It looked so much like hope...the very stuff of youth."
So, of course, I ordered the novel. And here, this extract of a letter from a sad and seasoned Napoleon to his listless Josephine:
It is not often one hears from you. You forget your friends, which is wrong. I did not know that the waters of Plombieres had the same effect as those of Lethe. It seems to me that it was drinking these same Plombieres waters that once made you say, 'Ah, Bonaparte, if ever I die, who will there be to love you?' That was a very long time ago, wasn't it? Everything passes, beauty, wit, sentiment, even the sun, all but one thing that is endless; the good I wish you, your happiness. I cannot be more loving even if you laugh at me for my pains. Goodbye, dear friend. I had the English cruisers attacked yesterday; everything passed off well...
Were any of us aware that the great Prussian Field-Marshal Gebhard Leverecht von Blucher, prior to hounding Bonaparte straight out of France, had, for a brief time, labored under the delusion that he'd been impregnated by an elephant? Or perhaps, in a nod to my occasional need for strict categorization, this simple inclusion of eight sketches depicting the eight tribal components of the Russian irregular cavalry - the Siberian Cossack, the Kalmuck, the Bashkir, the Don Cossack, etc.
There is a lot here, and it's all very odd and very wonderful.
As one might expect from a book in disguise.
August 18, 2016
A friend of mine loaned me his book “Napoleon Master of Europe 1805-1807” by Alistair Horne. This is a large book loaded with pictures and maps, some pictures are in colour but most are in black and white. In the forward Horne states that we live in the age of debunkers and revisionist. He claims few have escaped this treatment, from Churchill to MacArthur and the revisionist is always reporting in the negative. Horne states his book does not presume to offer any new information or fresh analysis or criticism, but is simply an attempt to portray Napoleon at the peak of his success and to record how he got there. Horne does this extremely well.
As those who follow Napoleon already know there are more details about Napoleon more than any other leader. We know more about his daily life, what he liked to eat, when and how he ate; we know about his dreams and superstitions, how he behaved when angry, how he could be flattered and what he played on the piano with one finger. Napoleon governed by talking and dictating and he reveled in the freedom of the spoken words.
Horne vividly details the battles as well as the background on military organization and techniques. The book is well written and meticulously researched. He pointed out that Napoleon did away with the feudal system, was the first to promote on merit, he banned slavery and reformed the French legal system. He had the French constitution written and brought about religious tolerance as well as forced low food prices to prevent starvation by the people.
Horne is an award winning historian and expert on the military history of France. The book is 232 pages and was published by William Morrow and Company in 1979.
As those who follow Napoleon already know there are more details about Napoleon more than any other leader. We know more about his daily life, what he liked to eat, when and how he ate; we know about his dreams and superstitions, how he behaved when angry, how he could be flattered and what he played on the piano with one finger. Napoleon governed by talking and dictating and he reveled in the freedom of the spoken words.
Horne vividly details the battles as well as the background on military organization and techniques. The book is well written and meticulously researched. He pointed out that Napoleon did away with the feudal system, was the first to promote on merit, he banned slavery and reformed the French legal system. He had the French constitution written and brought about religious tolerance as well as forced low food prices to prevent starvation by the people.
Horne is an award winning historian and expert on the military history of France. The book is 232 pages and was published by William Morrow and Company in 1979.
May 2, 2021
I liked this book but found I was lost/having to look up certain people and events. This is my first Napoleon attempt. This book strictly details between 1805-1807 and his dealings in the European theater. There was a detailed analysis of the Battle of Austerlitz that I found interesting. The pictures were great.
May 15, 2019
50 pages too short or long, otherwise a perfect book. The book is an amazingly well-illustrated history of the Austerlitz campaign. I've never read a better analysis of how well-planned and hard-fought this fight was. Problem is, Horne writes past towards Tilset, summarizing in the most cursory detail the equally interesting campaigns of Jena, Auerstadt, Eylau and Friedland. He takes 4 chapters to describe in rich detail Napoleon's greatest victory (as well as Ulm, which in some ways was an even greater triumph). But then he literally describes the rout at Friesland in 1.5 pages.
I love how this book is not told from the British perspective, or even from a modern one, but instead expertly weaves a narration around the lives of those who fought on the Continent. The historian is slightly overwhelmed either by time constraint or narrative limits, but somehow, much like Napoleon, Horne overcomes his weaknesses with some very impressive strengths. Rarely does history come quite as alive with such a nicely drawn cast of characters.
I love how this book is not told from the British perspective, or even from a modern one, but instead expertly weaves a narration around the lives of those who fought on the Continent. The historian is slightly overwhelmed either by time constraint or narrative limits, but somehow, much like Napoleon, Horne overcomes his weaknesses with some very impressive strengths. Rarely does history come quite as alive with such a nicely drawn cast of characters.
July 23, 2025
Excellent book that helps you understand how Napoleon was successful.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews