I bought this book many years ago, and still use it very frequently in referencing one of my very favorite Napoleonic campaigns. Superb battle descriptions and detailed orders of battle compliment the other.

This book is indeed "unprecedentedly detailed", in fact, way too detailed. The author is weighed down by far too many details, and trips over them quite frequently. Instead of moving with the lightning speed of Napoleon, he slothfully crawls along like Kutuzov. There is absolutely no need, in the middle of the narrative on the battle of Austerlitz, to tell us the number of effectives in EVERY regiment in the French army, on the day of the crossing of the Rhine, at mid-point in the campaign, and on the day of battle itself. It shows that the author was a good little student, and did his homework, but it weighs down the story of the battle, and slows it to a crawl, and it's the battle itself that most of us want to read about. This is can't see the forest for the trees history. This book might do service as a reference work, but for a taut, exciting account of Austerlitz, pick up Ian Castle's book.

The best Napoleonic book that I have read in years! Scott Bowden has done it again. He has provided the serious Napoleonic student with one of the best books on strategic and tactical history of perhaps Napoleon's great campaign. I recommend this book to all interested in Napoleonic history. I must have!

Having read everything I can on Napoleon's 1805 Ulm-Austerlitz campaigns, I have to rank this work as the best. The details about the organization and tactics of the armies, combined with the specifics of the Ulm and the Austerlitz campaigns which include the very detailed tactical description of the fighting (especially the combats around Ulm) simply cannot be found anywhere else. What's more, the text is complimented by a great number of maps and artwork, making the layout what I wish every military history book looked like. It is a splendid work that deserves inclusion in any Napoleonic library.

Oh, yes...a word about some of the "hit reviews" previously posted. I, too, have a copy of Sutterheim's 1807 English TRANSLATED piece on Austerlitz, and Scott Bowden is absolutely correct in his citation. Also, I had an opportunity to hear the author when he spoke in Hawai'i in 2002, and one of those talks included, in part, a detailed presentation on Napoleon. In that presentation, I saw a lot of the archival documents used by the author in putting together NAPOLEON AND AUSTERLITZ---documents that others making "hit reviews" say he never possessed. That speaks volumes about the credibility of those who posted those remarks.

JS

Bowden's Austerlitz is a fine book and I recommed it to everyone. Although author is rather anti-Russian his book is very good. After all he titled it "Napoleon and Austerlitz" and not "Tsar Alexander and Austerlitz". Right ?

The amount of information is breath-taking, the maps are excellent and extremaly detailed showing even the positions of individual battalions and squadrons. This is hard to find in other books where one see only very general positions of troops, and only positions of armies and corps and divisions.

The amount of illustrations and their quality is fascinating !

When I read on page 101 a capton "Ochakov - another Suvorov's victory" I thought for a moment that it was a little mistake that could be found even at best-researched books. Suvorov was present at the siege of the fortress under command of prince Potyomkin, but did not take part in the final storm of Ochakov in December 1788 being severely wounded in a Turkish sortie. Author defenitely mistook the storm of Ochakov with the storm of another strong Turkish fortress - Izmail, which was a really great Suvorov's victory. But as read the book more I understood that it was not a chance mistake, because Mr.Bowden demonstrated a lack of knowledge of Russian military history, and a lot of false statements proved it. Just one example - he stated, that Emperor Paul disbanded all jager units of the Russian Army and there remained only several companies. It's just not true, because in 1797 Paul reorganised ten jager corps he inherited from the Catherine the Great (each corps consisted of four battalions) into twenty small regiments. When explaining the reason for ferocity of Russian soldiers Mr.Bowden says it was the heritage of wars with Turkey and "take-no-prisoners" nature of that wars. False statement again - there were excessions in wars of XVII - early XVIII centures, but in later conflicts (wars of 1768-74 and 1787-91) excessins were rare. One example - many Turks, taken prisoner in the 1787-91 war, served at Russian galleys at the Baltic and were decorated for the bravery in actions against Sweden. And only as bad-tasted jokes can be described stories of Inspector of Russian artillery Arakcheev with his hands cutting heads of his unfortunate officers, burying them alive etc. Such anecdotes were very good for XVIII centure propaganda, but in a XXI century historic research they look rather misplaced. Generally speaking, Mr.Bowden gives his readers a picture in the "French heroes against Russian hordes" style. Historians can have their preferences, but solid works shoud not be such one-sided. Author preferred to forget (or may be ignorant of) that in 1799 Russian Army soundly defeated French armies in Italy. In that campaign with great distinction fought the same regiments that fought in 1805 - Apsheron, Butyrsk, Ryazan, Novgorod musketeers, and much maligned by Bowden Russian jagers outfought French infantry in every aspect. I'd like to ask Mr.Bowden a question - if the Russian Army was so bad as he described, how come that just in a year when Russians and French met on the battlefield again, just the same French Army after several months of bitter fighting failed to produce another Austerlitz and had a victory only after a fatal blunder by Russian C-in-C, Hanoverian mercenary Bennigsen at Friedland? "General Winter" again? Definetly not. Russian army had many faults, but it was not a band of bad-disciplined savages, led by ignorant officers as Mr.Bowden tries to convince us.

This book is one of the poorest books on the Napoleonic period to be published for a long time. It is written on the basis of original archival research and the preface tells us that the principal primary sources were 193 cartons of material from the French archives, from which he identifies individual documents. In the context of the allies he alludes to the Austrian Kriegsarchiv, unidentified "smaller archival collections throughout Germany", and "an extensive collection of regimental histories in the Russian army archives", which we are told are "in Saint Petersberg". On close examination, however, it is impossible to identify a single original allied source.

Chapter II to Part II describes the Russian army in 1805 and on p96 we are told that there were four standing armies. The footnote refers to Duffy's Russia's Military Way to the West p126. This actually describes a 1777 proposal by Count Aleksandrovich Rumyantsev, which was never adopted.

On pp98-99 we are given the strength of a Russian infantry battalion as "738 combatants". Turning to the reference in the footnote, von Stein's Geschichte des Russischen Heeres Vol1 p245, there are some tables to be found, but this part of Stein is concerned with the maintenance costs of various units in 1802, and 738 is actually the pay in roubles received by a lieutenant colonel in the dragoons and hussars.

On p100 Bowden discusses the composition of the Russian guard infantry. Using Stein as the source again, he alludes to an organization extant during the reign of Paul I. The page indicated in Stein contains nothing whatever to substantiate the assertion that a guard infantry regiment comprised two battalions of musketeers and one of grenadiers, or that the grenadier battalion was detached from each to form a three battalion `Guard Grenadier' regiment in the field. The `Guard Grenadier' regiment he refers to is nothing of the sort and is, in fact, the Leib-Grenadier regiment, the senior regiment of the line.

Chapter III to Part II dealing with the Austrians is more of the same.

On p124 footnote 15 refers to Gallina's Beiträge zur Geschichte des österreichischen Heerwesens, a work published in 1872, specifically `Suggestions for the drill and Evolutions of Foot'. Gallina wrote in German and no part of his work was given an English title; except by Gunther Rothenberg in his The Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army 1792-1814, at footnote 22 to p87.

There is even more compelling evidence of poaching from secondary sources on p324. In his account of the attack on Telnitz by Kienmayer, which he footnotes as coming from Stutterheim. Bowden has the 2nd Szeklers supported by the 1st Szeklers and Border (sic) Croats. Duffy, also using Stutterheim in his 1977 Austerlitz 1805, says the same thing, including the typograhical error that has the Broder Croats as the `Border' Croats.

Examination of Stutterheim, however, shows that the Austrian, a primary source who was on the spot, says that Kienmayer committed 1st Szeklers initially and that he then ordered General Carneville to advance with the remainder of his infantry. The remainder of his infantry, therefore, comprising 2nd Szeklers and Broder Croats, supported the 1st Szeklers, and not as Bowden and Duffy have it. The only explanation for this that I can think of is that Bowden copied from Duffy, claiming to have taken it from Stutterheim, but repeated Duffy's error. It could, I suppose, be a simple coincidence that Duffy and Bowden made the same transcription error, some 20 years apart.

On p432 the Soult issue crops up. Soult, it is said, suggested `Duke of Austerlitz' for himself, when titles were being dished out in 1808. Napoleon, apparently, refused him and Bowden deploys two dubious sources to support his contention that Soult did not deserve it. He then goes on to say that the suggestion that Napoleon deprived Soult of

what he was due, is a British plot to make Wellington appear better than he was and adds a gratuitous insult to Paddy Griffiths and David Chandler! This is risible rubbish

The orders of battle should be treated with care. Russian transliterations are a mess, largely Germanic in origin and presumably taken from Stein. In the case of the Austrians, where the numbers have been rounded off, of unclear provenance.

The Biography contains a list of the works which, presumably, were consulted in writing the book. These include Mercer's Journal of the Waterloo Campaign and Bowden's own Armies of Waterloo! On page 525 there is an entry by an author called Derselbe, who apparently wrote Die Schlacht bei Austerlitz. `Derselbe' actually means `the same' or `ditto' in German. The only explanation I can think of is that he has simply lifted the entry from somebody else's bibliography without knowing what it meant. This tends to raise questions about the provenance of large parts of this book and probably explains mistakes in information extracted from German material, such as Stein.

Finally the maps. Absence of scale bars and a compass rose make them useless. This book is badly researched, biased and wrong in so many details that is it just best ignored.

This book is one of the poorest books on the Napoleonic period to be published for a long time. It is written on the basis of original archival research and the preface tells us that the principal primary sources were 193 cartons of material from the French archives, from which he identifies individual documents. In the context of the allies he alludes to the Austrian Kriegsarchiv, unidentified "smaller archival collections throughout Germany", and "an extensive collection of regimental histories in the Russian army archives", which we are told are "in Saint Petersberg". On close examination, however, it is impossible to identify a single original allied source.

Chapter II to Part II describes the Russian army in 1805 and on p96 we are told that there were four standing armies. The footnote refers to Duffy's Russia's Military Way to the West p126. This actually describes a 1777 proposal by Count Aleksandrovich Rumyantsev, which was never adopted.

On pp98-99 we are given the strength of a Russian infantry battalion as "738 combatants". Turning to the reference in the footnote, von Stein's Geschichte des Russischen Heeres Vol1 p245, there are some tables to be found, but this part of Stein is concerned with the maintenance costs of various units in 1802, and 738 is actually the pay in roubles received by a lieutenant colonel in the dragoons and hussars.

On p100 Bowden discusses the composition of the Russian guard infantry. Using Stein as the source again, he alludes to an organization extant during the reign of Paul I. The page indicated in Stein contains nothing whatever to substantiate the assertion that a guard infantry regiment comprised two battalions of musketeers and one of grenadiers, or that the grenadier battalion was detached from each to form a three battalion `Guard Grenadier' regiment in the field. The `Guard Grenadier' regiment he refers to is nothing of the sort and is, in fact, the Leib-Grenadier regiment, the senior regiment of the line.

Chapter III to Part II dealing with the Austrians is more of the same.

On p124 footnote 15 refers to Gallina's Beitrýge zur Geschichte des ýsterreichischen Heerwesens, a work published in 1872, specifically `Suggestions for the drill and Evolutions of Foot'. Gallina wrote in German and no part of his work was given an English title; except by Gunther Rothenberg in his The Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army 1792-1814, at footnote 22 to p87.

There is even more compelling evidence of poaching from secondary sources on p324. In his account of the attack on Telnitz by Kienmayer, which he footnotes as coming from Stutterheim. Bowden has the 2nd Szeklers supported by the 1st Szeklers and Border (sic) Croats. Duffy, also using Stutterheim in his 1977 Austerlitz 1805, says the same thing, including the typograhical error that has the Broder Croats as the `Border' Croats.

Examination of Stutterheim, however, shows that the Austrian, a primary source who was on the spot, says that Kienmayer committed 1st Szeklers initially and that he then ordered General Carneville to advance with the remainder of his infantry. The remainder of his infantry, therefore, comprising 2nd Szeklers and Broder Croats, supported the 1st Szeklers, and not as Bowden and Duffy have it. The only explanation for this that I can think of is that Bowden copied from Duffy, claiming to have taken it from Stutterheim, but repeated Duffy's error. It could, I suppose, be a simple coincidence that Duffy and Bowden made the same transcription error, some 20 years apart.

On p432 the Soult issue crops up. Soult, it is said, suggested `Duke of Austerlitz' for himself, when titles were being dished out in 1808. Napoleon, apparently, refused him and Bowden deploys two dubious sources to support his contention that Soult did not deserve it. He then goes on to say that the suggestion that Napoleon deprived Soult of

what he was due, is a British plot to make Wellington appear better than he was and adds a gratuitous insult to Paddy Griffiths and David Chandler! This is risible rubbish

The orders of battle should be treated with care. Russian transliterations are a mess, largely Germanic in origin and presumably taken from Stein. In the case of the Austrians, where the numbers have been rounded off, of unclear provenance.

The Biography contains a list of the works which, presumably, were consulted in writing the book. These include Mercer's Journal of the Waterloo Campaign and Bowden's own Armies of Waterloo! On page 525 there is an entry by an author called Derselbe, who apparently wrote Die Schlacht bei Austerlitz. `Derselbe' actually means `the same' or `ditto' in German. The only explanation I can think of is that he has simply lifted the entry from somebody else's bibliography without knowing what it meant. This tends to raise questions about the provenance of large parts of this book and probably explains mistakes in information extracted from German material, such as Stein.

Finally the maps. Absence of scale bars and a compass rose make them useless. This book is badly researched, biased and wrong in so many details that is it just best ignored.

Scott Bowden's unprecedentedly detailed combat study of Napoleon's epic Ulm-Austerlitz campaigns of 1805 is simply the best. Nothing that has been published regarding the momentous events of 1805 can compare to it. I'd give it 10 stars if I could. :)

Scott Bowden's unprecedentedly detailed combat study of Napoleon's epic Ulm-Austerlitz campaigns of 1805 is simply the best. Nothing that has been published regarding the momentous events of 1805 can compare to it. I'd give it 10 stars if I could. :)

I think it is a welcome change to see a pro-french work about Napoleon. I'm tired of the British hegemony on world history and it is quite refreshing to hear a different side to history.

At first glance the book appears to be a very detailed examination of the Grand Armee as it was constituted in 1805. However, upon deeper reading, this weighty tome reveals a superficiality that is deeply disturbing, particularly when the author characterizes himself as a foremost Napoleonic historian. Its very detail, right down to the color of the collar of the 14th Legere drum majors' dog, is its undoing. So much of the detail, particularly with respect to Allied forces, personalities and circumstances, is suspect, when it is not completely inaccurate.

For example, the book continually ridicules the Allies for not using division columns and continually lauds the French for doing so. Indeed it strongly implies that lack of division columns contributed to the Allied defeat. The author does not seem to understand the period usages of the terms "company", "platon", "peloton", or "zug" in the context of a "division". Otherwise, he would know the Russians and Austrians (and everyone else) used columns of divisions since at least the 1780s.

Tactical detail is trivialized by rather juvenile references to either the French "blowing through" opposing forces or Allied forces "vaporizing", without giving any meaningful situational analysis. This is very hard to understand since the primary sources contain a wealth of information on the battlefield evolutions of all the forces. One must conclude that, although cited, the source material was not read.

This is probably the first attempt at a comprehensive history of the Ulm/Austerlitz campaign. It is, however, flawed and must be used with care.

There are mistakes both on the French and on the allied side, most of which have already been covered in some detail. There are some, however, that can be traps for the enthusiast, researcher, and historian.

Thiebault's memoirs, which were ghost written after his death, were relied on too much in this book. The theory presented by them that Soult was a coward is ridiculous. Soult's nickname was 'Hand of Iron' and he was respected by such officers as Ameil, which would have been impossible had he been cowardly.

This book is too pro-French. While all of us do tend to pick sides and 'root' for them so to speak, this time, for me at least, it was too much. The French, and Napoleon, weren't perfect, far from it. The Grande Armee was better trained and better led in this campaign, but there were errors made, especially by its generals, two of whom come to mind immediately, Murat and Dupont. The account needs to be more balanced, and the anti-English bias needs to go, or at least toned down some.

This book is a gallant attempt at an immense campaign study, a campaign that quite literally swept the length of Europe. Hopefully, the follow on volumes were be more carefully researched and written.

Mr. Bowden (while offering a good analysis of the Grande Armee in 1805), has done questionable research on both the armies of Russia and the Habsburg Dynasty. Without these components, it is impossible to write a meaningful account of Austerlitz and the actions that preceded it.

This book is fare for wargaming hobbyists who primarily seek pictures, maps and orders of battle. For the scholarly enthusiast, a definitive work on 1805 has yet to be done.

Scott Bowden's battle narative is superb. Readers are taken to the fields at Ulm-Austerlitz and led by clear, forceful narrative (aided by splendid maps), through the battles as virtual partcipants. This is military history as it ought to be written and the emphasis on the French is refreshing and overdue. Buy the book, not only for a good read, but also for sound Napoleonic history.