Napoleon's Military Machine Operations Manual (Haynes Manuals)

Having very little knowledge of how warfare was carried out in the age of Napoleon I bought this book as a primer. I was very impressed with the presentation of the information. Very nice illustrations accompany the text. If you want to get a basic idea about how war worked in the early 1800's I would recommend this book. I will certainly buy more books in this series.

This volume is a great disappointment. At 172 pages it is not long enough to give any information in depth, and there are errors that could have been eliminated with the use of more sources than are listed in the bibliography.For example, some artillery errors include:-on page 89 showing a French howitzer and labeling the picture a 6-pounder. And further stating the the 6-pounder was unsuccessful in replacing the 4- and 8-pounders.-a train conductor of the Guard artillery train on page 86 is inaccurately stated to be an officer when he is an enlisted man.-French artillery companies are inaccurately named batteries, as on page 87. The term battery for a company-sized French artillery unit did not come into general use until ca 1827 with the new Valee artillery system.-on page 95 the 'ready box' of ammunition is stated to have been carried on the limber, when it was actually carried on the field piece between the trail cheeks and only placed on the limber in action after emplacement.-Neither Senarmont, Druout, nor Lauriston are mentioned when they commanded large artillery batteries at Friedland, Lutzen, or Wagram. This should have been included in the tactics section to illustrate the innovative artillery tactics of the French.There are too many reenactor photographs instead of period illustrations and that detracts from the volume. These illustrations do not help illustrate the Grande Armee and the two photographs of reenactors supposedly in square are poor. The one at the top of the page is small, but you can see that they actually attempted to look like a square, but the photograph at the bottom does not. It does, however, illustrate a 'knot' of infantrymen around their eagle which might have taken place with a rallied unit that had suffered heavy casualties.There are excellent prints and paintings in the volume, but there are more excellent ones that could have been used to illustrate what the author was trying to get across.Finally, in the rather short bibliography, there are some dubious and/or unreliable sources are listed in the bibliography, such as:-Bourrienne's ghost written 'memoir.'-Jomini's Art of War.-Marmont's memoirs.-Nosworthy's Battle Tactics.-Jonathan Riley's Napoleon as a General.'By now with all of the scholarship of the last fifty years readily available, references such as Bourrienne and Jomini have been thoroughly researched and found wanting for various reasons.John Elting's Swords Around a Throne, the Esposito/Elting West Point Atlas, and Chandler's Campaigns of Napoleon were apparently not used, along with various artillery references and manuals and Morvan's Le Soldat Imperiale. This was an excellent opportunity to write and publish an excellent volume on the Grande Armee, but the opportunity was lost, unfortunately.

A good general book on Napoleon's army. Campaigns are not detailed (actually all the wars of the coalition are done in about 10 pages). IT gives you the basics and gives a little more space to the various types of units, uniforms, and tactics. In some cases more illustrations needed (he describes headgear and doesn't show one type he mentions). As a general reference it will not replace the larger classic volumes by better known authors that cover Napoleons generals or his campaigns, but it is a good small reference, but a bit overpriced.

Napoleon's military machine est un ouvrage qui traite d'une manière concise et complète d' un vaste sujet . Il est destiné en priorité à fournir les connaissances élémentaires à tous les nouveaux venus qui s'intéressent à la question . Les connaisseurs le trouveront trop sommaire, néanmoins les très nombreuses illustrations en couleurs, photos de groupes de reconstitution et gravures anciennes, rendront sa consultation très agréable à tous . Tous les aspects des armées du Ier empire sont étudiés : organisation, commandement, stratégie et tactique, uniformes, vie en campagne etc ... Malgré deux ou trois petites erreurs dans les légendes des illustrations, ce livre constitue une très bonne introduction à l'histoire de l'armée de Napoléon Ier .

The book is a decent reference as a supplement to other more academic sources.