Napoleon: A Biography

British expeditionary force, part guerrilla warfare; in fact Wellington got better cooperation from the guerrilla chiefs, terror ...

has been portrayed too often solely in terms of his peerless military talent. Supplied by sea by the Royal Navy, he could manoeu ...

If the French did not occupy territory effectively, it fell into the hands of partisans, leaving the French the task of 'cleansi ...

genuinely thought that Napoleon was the bringer of reform and enlightenment. Others take a more jaundiced view of the afrancesad ...

with the first line. These lines were a melange of strong points, artillery positions, trenches, redoubts, ditches and palisades ...

deceived and a week later recalled him to France, appointing Marmont in his stead. Napoleon, though, owed Massena a favour, afte ...

divisions from the Army of the North, giving him 6o,ooo men once more. At this Wellington once more withdrew into the Portuguese ...

secure. By the end of I8IO London was increasingly pessimistic about the prospects of being able to stay in the Iberian peninsul ...

and Italian bankers at outrageously usurious rates in exchange for bills drawing on the British government. The breakthrough was ...

simply ignored his directives. Elsewhere the Emperor never allowed the feuding of the marshals to interfere with military effici ...

do so in 1809, Napoleon was involved in a game of double or quits to show that he was irresistible anywhere in Europe. A variant ...

CHAPTER TWENTY -ONE As he sped back from Schonbrunn to Fontainebleau in the last week of October 1809, Napoleon realized that th ...

told Josephine his decision, Napoleon at first tried to get his intimates to break the unwelcome news to her. He tried to enlist ...

followed, which Napoleon was unable to assuage with a promise that he would always protect her. Disturbed by the emotional hyper ...

princess? Cold reason says yes, for the marriage to Marie-Louise did not prevent a war with Austria. In these marriage negotiati ...

Chateaubriand) and was a talented amateur mustctan: she played the piano and harp and knew the works of Mozart and Beethoven wel ...

On the night of 2 April, in pelting rain, Napoleon set out to meet the coach which was reported on the road not many miles from ...

XVI and Marie-Antoinette, when z,ooo people died in the Champs­ Elysees. His advisers tried to palliate the portent by alleging ...

Back in Paris on 1 June, Napoleon decided to pay a visit to Josephine at Malmaison (13 June), where she had recently returned af ...

There is no need to labour the contrast between Eugene de Beauharnais, always upright, loyal and a man of moral principle, and B ...