Rating: 
Summary: Exactly what I was looking for...
Review: Napoleon and Austerlitz is THE best account of Napoleon's 1805 Campaign bar none. The author does an excellent job of combining the vast documentary evidence from all sides. The book has an American Civil War "feel" to it, with a focus on regimental combat, while still keeping the "big" picture. Also, the author is not afraid to criticize opinions of major figures in Napoleonic Military history like David Chandler. All in all a must-get book for anyone interested in Napoleonic History.
Rating: 
Summary: Flashy but flawed
Review: Nicely presented, but heavily reliant on French sources. Even then, injudiciously choosen to the point that Col. Elting disavows the use of Thiebalt in the forward. Completely at sea when discussing Allies, it is based on secondary sources missing some important ones, and often presenting footnotes that are irrelevant, anachronistic, or flatly contradictory to the text they preport to support. Egregious errors in the technical information. Attack on Chandler distasteful, attack on Griffith completely incoherent as Griffith essentially agrees about Soult!
Rating:
Summary: A Model for Military History
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Best Campaign/Battle History of Any Napoleonic Conflict
Review: Scott Bowden's NAPOLEON AND AUSTERLITZ is, by far, the best combat narrative of any Napoleonic conflict yet written. The author's extensive use of the French army archives and resulting gleaning of the after-action reports therefrom, is a welcome breath of fresh air amidst a field of poorly-written, heavily anti-Napoleon biased works dominated by British historians. I wish every Napoleonic campaign and battle history was this well researched and thoughtfully analyzed. Bowden's work is a masterpiece, and I look forward to his subsequent volumes.
Rating:
Summary: Simply the Best
Review: 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. :)
Rating:
Summary: The best campaign history
Review: The book is excellent. It is very difficult to find an author that is not just interested in the emperor but also give a full account of the participation of the marshalls in the campaign. Specially interesting is the description of the efforts of Marshal Ney in the Ulm operations and the comments about the performance of Soult as " master tactician". The description of the behavior of the Russian liberators to their Austrians allies is also very good. I recommend this book to everyone interested in the Napoleonic Wars. I hope the sequence: Napoleon and Jena, be available as soon as possible.
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent !
Review: This book contains excellent maps, organization of the armies, even their characteristics. I fully agree with the reader from Rancho Mirage. Why the British monopolized the Napoleonic history ? I can understand why some don't like Bowden's point of view of the diplomatic wars (with the perfidious Albion ready to fight Napoleon to the last drop of Austrian and Russian blood). I recommend this entertaining and historically acurate book to anyone.Ps. Chandler is grossly overplayed, his "Dictiobnary of Napoleonic Wars" contains many errors. Siborne and Chesney are better.
Rating: 
Summary: Poorly researched
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Poorly researched
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: The most detailed description of Napoleon's greatest victory
Review: This is a beautiful and detailed look at Napoleon's Grand Armee during the peak years of conquest. The book contains many illustrations/maps and is well researched. I've never read a better account of the Ulm/Austerlitz campaign.
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