The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars raged in Italy for 23 years. In that time, no fewer than eight campaigns involving hundred of thousands of troops were mounted in the Italian peninsula, as France and Austria struggled over this secondary, but still vitally important theater of war. As Frederick Schneid demonstrates in this groundbreaking work, control of Italy was rightly seen by Napoleon as an important means of applying strategic pressure on the Austrians, while simultaneously providing security for France's vulnerable southern flank. As the first in-depth consideration of the struggle for strategically key region, this book places the Italian campaigns into their proper historical context.Beginning with a geo-strategic overview of the Italian peninsula and its place in French and Austrian calculations, Schneid moves on to a careful consideration of the major campaigns that began in 1805, 1809, and 1813. These include studies of the battles at Caldiero, Wagram, and Mincio. The book also provides appendices with complete orders of battle for each campaign.

Napoleon's Italian Campaigns: 1805-1815

History

Schneid, Frederick C.

Europe

Praeger

Poised to strike at England in the summer of 1805, Napoleon found himself facing a coalition of European powers determined to limit his territorial ambitions. Still, in less than one hundred days, Napoleon's armies marched from the English Channel to Central Europe, crushing the armies of Austria and Russia―the first step in his conquest of Europe. In this telling new account, Schneid demonstrates how this was possible. Schneid details how Napoleon's victory over the Third Coalition was the product of years of diplomatic preparation and the formation of French alliances. He played upon the prevailing conditions of the European state system and the internal politics of the Holy Roman Empire to improve France's strategic position.
This war must be understood in the context of the French Revolution and its influence on major and minor European states. In some cases, Napoleonic diplomacy returned to France's traditional and historic relationships; in others, he capitalized upon longstanding competition and animosities to gather allies and create wedges. Schneid approaches the campaign from a broad diplomatic, economic, and military perspective, including not only the French perspective, but the points of view of the other powers involved as well. This telling account reveals that the road to Vienna was paved long before Napoleon's armies marched upon the enemies arrayed against them.

Napoleon's Conquest of Europe: The War of the Third Coalition (Studies in Military History and International Affairs)

It is only in the past two decades that English-speaking scholars have fully breached European language barriers, permitting a comprehensive reexamination of the Napoleonic Wars beyond the limitations of English-, French-, and German-dependent works. This new volume in the Essential Bibliography Series examines the changing nature of Napoleonic historiography and provides the student and scholar an invaluable guide to those changes.

Napoleonic Wars: The Essential Bibliography (Essential Bibliography Series)

Historical Study & Educational Resources

POTOMAC BOOKS

The culmination of decades of nationalist aspiration and cynical Realpolitik, the Second War of Italian Unification saw Italy transformed from a patchwork of minor states dominated by the Habsburg Austrians into a unified kingdom under the Piedmontese House of Savoy. Overshadowed by subsequent conflicts, the war saw the first widespread use of railroads in war and the first battlefield deployment of rifled field artillery, as well as the last major battle in world history where all the forces involved were under the personal command of their monarchs. The savage nature of the fighting led to the foundation of the Red Cross and the establishment of the Geneva Conventions, while the colorful uniforms and aggressive doctrine espoused by the French Army in particular were to influence those on both sides of the American Civil War. Beyond the battlefields, the outcome of the war represented a culminating triumph for the Piedmontese prime minister, Camillo di Cavour, whose success in winning and retaining French and British support for his plans for Italian unification has provided a model for the leaders of junior partners allied to world powers ever since.
Between April and July 1859 the first stage of the war pitted Napoleon III's French armies and their Piedmontese allies against the Habsburg Austrian forces that had invaded Piedmont. A series of bloody clashes culminating in Solferino-San Martino, the largest battle on European soil since Leipzig in 1813, resulted in decisive defeat for the Austrians and the end of the war in the north. Ten months later the second stage of the war began as the legendary Italian nationalist Giuseppe Garibaldi landed in Sicily with 1,000 volunteers, intent on overthrowing the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. After ejecting the Bourbon forces from Sicily Garibaldi crossed to the mainland and marched on Naples, the capital. The rapid collapse of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies took everyone by surprise; Cavour feared Garibaldi would capitalize on this victory and march on Rome, but Cavour and Garibaldi agreed to unify their halves of Italy and their respective armies. The remnants of the Bourbon armies finally surrendered in February 1861 and Piedmont's king, Victor Emmanuel, was crowned king of Italy a month later.
Unlike many existing accounts, which approach the events of 1859-61 from a predominantly French perspective, this study draws upon a huge breadth of sources to examine the conflict as a critical event in Italian history. A concise explanation of the origins of the war is followed by a wide-ranging survey of the forces deployed and the nature and course of the fighting - on land and at sea - and the consequences for those involved are investigated. This is a groundbreaking study of a conflict that was of critical significance not only for Italian history but also for the development of 19th-century warfare.

The Second War of Italian Unification 1859–61 (Essential Histories, 74)

Osprey_Publishing

Die Schlacht bei Roßbach

Querengässer, Alexander

Heyn, Oliver

Riemer, Robert

Füssel, Marian

Military

Zeughaus Verlag GmbH

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