From Valmy To Waterloo Extracts From The Diary Of Capt Charles Francois

Excerpt from From Valmy to Waterloo: Extracts From the Diary of Capt. Charles Francois, a Soldier of the Revolution and the Empire; Translated and Edited I do not reckon the shot wounds and sabre cuts which Francois received in these night combats, lighted up by fire-pots. When the wounds are healed, he enters the famous corps of Dromedaries, and wears a white turban on his head, and is clad, when in full uniform, in a tunic of sky-blue cloth with red trimmings. These scouts covered their twenty or thirty leagues a day, and their mounts went as much as six days without drinking, when they were pursuing Mourad Bey. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The cannonade of Valmy (1792) ranks as one of the most significant battles of all time for its strategic results: the defeat of the Prussian invasion heralded the beginning of the French Republic. At the field of Waterloo in 1815, no less a battle ended once and for all the ambitions of Napoleon to dominate Europe under French hegemony. Throughout this period of strife and struggle, which would change the map of Europe forever, Capitaine François fought under the banners and eagles of France, a callow youth at the time of Valmy, a grizzled veteran by the time of Waterloo. His story stretches from the plains of Northern France, through the frozen wastes of Russia, the sunburnt sands of Egypt and to the rotting prisoner hulks of Spain. François was by his own account a ruthless, fearless fighter but tempered with a passionate and phlegmatic nature; of the many memoirs of Napoleon’s troops, few are filled with such adventure and anecdote. An excellent from the ranks of Napoleon’s army. Author — Capitaine Charles François (1774 or 5-1853.) Preface — Jules Arsène Arnaud Claretie (1840-1913.) Translator — Robert B. Douglas Text taken, whole and complete, from the edition published in 1906, London, by Everett and Co. Original Page Count – 332 pages.

Over the course of more than three centuries of Romanov rule in Russia, foreign visitors and residents produced a vast corpus of literature conveying their experiences and impressions of the country. The product of years of painstaking research by one of the world’s foremost authorities on Anglo-Russian relations, In the Lands of the Romanovs is the realization of a major bibliographical project that records the details of over 1200 English-language accounts of the Russian Empire. Ranging chronologically from the accession of Mikhail Fedorovich in 1613 to the abdication of Nicholas II in 1917, this is the most comprehensive bibliography of first-hand accounts of Russia ever to be published. Far more than an inventory of accounts by travellers and tourists, Anthony Cross’s ambitious and wide-ranging work includes personal records of residence in or visits to Russia by writers ranging from diplomats to merchants, physicians to clergymen, gardeners to governesses, as well as by participants in the French invasion of 1812 and in the Crimean War of 1854-56. Providing full bibliographical details and concise but informative annotation for each entry, this substantial bibliography will be an invaluable tool for anyone with an interest in contacts between Russia and the West during the centuries of Romanov rule.

“A mesmerizing account that illuminates not just the Napoleonic wars but all of modern history . . . It reads like a novel” (Lynn Hunt, Eugen Weber Professor of modern European history, UCLA). The twentieth century is usually seen as “the century of total war.” But as the historian David A. Bell argues in this landmark work, the phenomenon actually began much earlier, in the era of muskets, cannons, and sailing ships—in the age of Napoleon. In a sweeping, evocative narrative, Bell takes us from campaigns of “extermination” in the blood-soaked fields of western France to savage street fighting in ruined Spanish cities to central European battlefields where tens of thousands died in a single day. Between 1792 and 1815, Europe plunged into an abyss of destruction. It was during this time, Bell argues, that our modern attitudes toward war were born. Ever since, the dream of perpetual peace and the nightmare of total war have been bound tightly together in the Western world—right down to the present day, in which the hopes for an “end to history” after the cold war quickly gave way to renewed fears of full-scale slaughter. With a historian’s keen insight and a journalist’s flair for detail, Bell exposes the surprising parallels between Napoleon’s day and our own—including the way that ambitious “wars of liberation,” such as the one in Iraq, can degenerate into a gruesome guerrilla conflict. The result is a book that is as timely and important as it is unforgettable. “Thoughtful and original . . . Bell has mapped what is a virtually new field of inquiry: the culture of war.” —Steven L. Kaplan, Goldwin Smith Professor of European history, Cornell University

A stunning look at Napoleon's campaign across the Iberian peninsula from historian Charles Esdaile. At the end of the 18th century Spain remained one of the world's most powerful empires. Portugal, too, was prosperous at the time. By 1808, everything had changed. Portugal was under occupation and ravaged by famine, disease, economic problems and political instability. Spain had imploded and worse was to come. For the next six years, the peninsula was the helpless victim of others, suffering perhaps over a million deaths while troops from all over Europe tore it to pieces. Charles Esdaile's brilliant new history of the conflict makes plain the scope of the tragedy and its far-reaching effects, especially the poisonous legacy that produced the Spanish civil war of 1936-39.