The Victories of the Armies of Revolutionary France in Italy
Less than three years after Major Bonaparte of the artillery of the army of the Republic had effected the fall of Toulon and, in so doing, made a name for himself among the most powerful men in France, he was in command of an army the purpose of which was to defeat the might of Imperial Austria. The campaigns in Northern Italy revealed in Bonaparte a master of strategy and tactics the like of which the field of conflict had thus far never seen. The ability to judge the enemy generals movements, to always be ready to deal with a threat yet to be revealed, to manage very large bodies of men and yet to put to the task in hand no more than was essentially required to achieve the objective-all these were characteristics of the method of waging war undertaken by Napoleon as his star rose ever higher in the firmament. The Austrians would be decisively out-generalled, out-fought and out-manoeuvred in this campaign which would reach its climax at one of the future emperor’s masterpieces of battle-craft-Marengo. R. G. Burton was a thorough historian who knew his subject intimately often travelling carefully over the ground of the campaigns he studied to ensure he grasped their detail. This is another interesting view of the early days of the Napoleonic epoch from Leonaur. Available in softcover and hardcover with dust jacket.