Napoleon, France and Waterloo: The Eagle RejectedSo great is the weight of reading on the subject of the Waterloo campaign that it might be thought there is nothing left to say about it, and from the military viewpoint, this is very much the case. But one critical aspect of the story has gone all but untold the French home front. Little has been written about the topic in English, and few works on Napoleon or Revolutionary and Napoleonic France pay it much attention. It is this conspicuous gap in the literature that Charles Esdaile explores in this erudite and absorbing study. Drawing on the vivid, revealing material that is available in the French archives, in the writings of soldiers who fought in France in 1814 and 1815 and in the memoirs of civilians who witnessed the fall of Napoleon or the Hundred Days, he gives us a fascinating new insight into the military and domestic context of the Waterloo campaign, the Napoleonic legend and the wider situation across Europe. |
Contents
The Military Balance | |
The Campaign of 1814 | |
The Bourbon Restoration | |
The Hundred Days | |
Notes | |
Select Bibliography | |
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Common terms and phrases
Alison Anglo-Dutch appeared arms arrived artillery attack Austrian Barnsley battalions battle of Waterloo Blücher Bonaparte Bourbons brigade British campaign of 1814 Carnot cavalry cent jours commander Comte Congress of Vienna conscription corps course defeat Drouet Elba emperor enemy Europe example eyewitness fact favour fédérés fighting forces France French army German glory Glover Guizot Hamilton-Williams Haye Sainte Hobhouse Houssaye Hundred Days Ibid Imperial Guard infantry inhabitants issue Journal La Haye Sainte large numbers Lavallette least Letters Ligny Louis XVIII March Marshal meanwhile Memoirs military Napoleon London Napoleonic Wars Narrative National Guard officers Paris peace pendant les cent Peninsula Peninsular War political popular Poumiès prefect Prussian Quatre Bras quote régime regiment restoration Revolution Rhine royalist Royauté ou empire Saint Helena Siboutie situation soldiers Soult town Travels in France troops Vendée victory village Vive Waterloo Campaign Wellington whilst wounded wrote