The Reign Of Napoleon Bonaparte
Between the years 1805 and 1815, the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte  conquered most of continental Europe, establishing their leader, if but briefly,  as "a new Charlemagne." In the second part of his two volumes on the life of the  emperor, military historian Robert Asprey examines the armies' triumphs and  eventual defeat, following in their footsteps from Spain to Russia, and on to  Waterloo.Bonaparte, Asprey writes, aspired to forge and lead a united, peaceful Europe, a  quest that required much blood to be shed. A former U.S. marine officer, Asprey  is a reliable commentator on matters of battlefield strategy and tactics, and  his book's greatest strength is his power to invoke the feel of bloody  engagements, which include the Battle of Borodino, where more than 40,000  Russians fell in a single day (cut down, he notes, by the more than 2 million  rounds that French muskets fired); Wagram, where French forces managed to eke  out victory over their Austrian foes despite a series of costly blunders;  Corunna, where the French forces, having marched 15 and more miles a day, proved  "that there have probably been no tougher soldiers in the world"; and the  decisive action at Waterloo, where French, Belgian, German, and English armies  clashed amid thunderstorms and confusion to an end that was anything but  inevitable.Other books do a better job of treating Napoleon as a political being, but  Asprey's is one of the better recent books on Napoleon as general, and students  of military history will learn much from his account.--Gregory McNamee