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Serbia
A short, concise overview of Napoleon's campaigns from Toulon to Waterloo with an interesting thesis. It is not intended to be detailed or analyse the campaigns in-depth.
The narrative starts off with noting that a more accurate title for the book would be ''Scrambling to Glory''. Connelly's thesis, at least on paper, is that Napoleon was a military genius who had plans that fell apart once battle commenced, forcing Napoleon to improvise. This ability to improvise and adapt to the situation, or ''scramble'', made Napoleon win his battles and gave him a reputation for military brilliance.
The book follows Napoleon from his birth throughout his military campaigns to the end of his life, focusing on his military career and giving side theatres small mentions in relation to the campaigns that Napoleon personally participated in. The first chapters follow Napoleon from his birth to his appointment to command of the Army of Italy. They come across as a rather unoriginal recounting of the well-known history with several anecdotes and quotes from Napoleon to accompany the narrative.
The First Italian Campaign partially stands at odds with the thesis of the work, seeing as Napoleon had a plan that succeeded. Napoleon managed to drive the armies of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia away from each other, defeating Sardinia separately. Connelly gives most of the credit for the battles to Napoleon's divisional commanders rather than Napoleon himself. While commanders such as Massena and Augereau do deserve credit and did play vital roles in several battles, taking away all the credit from Napoleon is something I find a bit over the top.
The next chapters cover Napoleon's Egyptian Expedition, the Marengo Campaign and the War of the Third Coalition. The coverage of the first two campaigns is a brief, but unoriginal recounting with the Third Coalition being more notable. I found this particular chapter to be inaccurate with several errors, in particular the influence of Archduke Ferdinand in the Ulm Campaign.
The rest of the book is a concise recounting of the rest of the campaigns, written in a brief but readable manner. Several statistics appear, but with no footnotes or analysis to confirm them. These include the population of France, army sizes, occasional financial numbers and several others.
The book is readable and moves quickly, but only covers the basics of each campaign. Several inaccuracies appear such as some statistics, the claim that the Austrians never attempted to adopt a supply system of living off the land, the influence of Archduke Ferdinand in the Ulm Campaign among others. By themselves, these can be dismissed as small errors that make one raise an eyebrow but do not damage the work, however they do eventually add up and take away from the book when all of them are considered.
The thesis that Napoleon was a scrambler is never properly set forward and Connelly's argument isn't clear. In situations when Napoleon's behaviour does suit the argument of him being a scrambler, this is pointed out. In situations where events do not suit the argument there is nothing to be said and the narrative simply continues on. This makes the thesis of the work come across as a set of nitpicks rather than a general argument with the result being that the argument never seems to form.
With all this said, the book comes off as a concise, readable but unoriginal overview of Napoleon's campaigns with a thesis that is interesting in principle but is poorly argued in practice. It makes for enjoyable reading but is nothing remarkable.
Final Rating: 5/10
The narrative starts off with noting that a more accurate title for the book would be ''Scrambling to Glory''. Connelly's thesis, at least on paper, is that Napoleon was a military genius who had plans that fell apart once battle commenced, forcing Napoleon to improvise. This ability to improvise and adapt to the situation, or ''scramble'', made Napoleon win his battles and gave him a reputation for military brilliance.
The book follows Napoleon from his birth throughout his military campaigns to the end of his life, focusing on his military career and giving side theatres small mentions in relation to the campaigns that Napoleon personally participated in. The first chapters follow Napoleon from his birth to his appointment to command of the Army of Italy. They come across as a rather unoriginal recounting of the well-known history with several anecdotes and quotes from Napoleon to accompany the narrative.
The First Italian Campaign partially stands at odds with the thesis of the work, seeing as Napoleon had a plan that succeeded. Napoleon managed to drive the armies of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia away from each other, defeating Sardinia separately. Connelly gives most of the credit for the battles to Napoleon's divisional commanders rather than Napoleon himself. While commanders such as Massena and Augereau do deserve credit and did play vital roles in several battles, taking away all the credit from Napoleon is something I find a bit over the top.
The next chapters cover Napoleon's Egyptian Expedition, the Marengo Campaign and the War of the Third Coalition. The coverage of the first two campaigns is a brief, but unoriginal recounting with the Third Coalition being more notable. I found this particular chapter to be inaccurate with several errors, in particular the influence of Archduke Ferdinand in the Ulm Campaign.
The rest of the book is a concise recounting of the rest of the campaigns, written in a brief but readable manner. Several statistics appear, but with no footnotes or analysis to confirm them. These include the population of France, army sizes, occasional financial numbers and several others.
The book is readable and moves quickly, but only covers the basics of each campaign. Several inaccuracies appear such as some statistics, the claim that the Austrians never attempted to adopt a supply system of living off the land, the influence of Archduke Ferdinand in the Ulm Campaign among others. By themselves, these can be dismissed as small errors that make one raise an eyebrow but do not damage the work, however they do eventually add up and take away from the book when all of them are considered.
The thesis that Napoleon was a scrambler is never properly set forward and Connelly's argument isn't clear. In situations when Napoleon's behaviour does suit the argument of him being a scrambler, this is pointed out. In situations where events do not suit the argument there is nothing to be said and the narrative simply continues on. This makes the thesis of the work come across as a set of nitpicks rather than a general argument with the result being that the argument never seems to form.
With all this said, the book comes off as a concise, readable but unoriginal overview of Napoleon's campaigns with a thesis that is interesting in principle but is poorly argued in practice. It makes for enjoyable reading but is nothing remarkable.
Final Rating: 5/10
