Napoleon's Italian Campaigns 1805-1815

Subjects:

• Military Studies » Military History
• History » European History -- Early Modern/Renaissance

Reviews:

• As a detailed study of a specific theater in Napoleon's dominance of Western Europe, Schenid's book is both excellent and long overdue.
  —Army History Winter 2006
• In contrast to most treatments of Napoleon's career, which rarely deal with events in which he himself was not personally in command, Napoleon's Italian Campaigns deals with military events in a theater that, after 1801, saw no operations by the "Corsican Ogre." The author thus literally "rescues" from virtual oblivion the long neglected events in Italy, where several major campaigns occurred. Prof. Schneid treats the 1805, 1809, and 1813-1814 campaigns against Austria, and the conquest of Naples, 1805-1806, and the subsequent guerrilla war that left that kingdom unsettled throughout the period, as well as Murat's quixotic bid for domination of the Peninsula in 1815. Beyond question the most complete one volume treatment of the Napoleonic era in Italy.
  —NYMAS Newsletter Winter-Spring 2003
• ...people interested in the minutiae of Napoleonic warfare will find it appealing, and it does serve to fill a significant gap in our knowledge of Napoleonic warfare...the Italian wars were much more than footnotes in the story of Napoleon's defeat.
  —The Journal of Military History January 2003
• Schneid offers an analytical account of the Napoleonic Wars in Italy, emphasizing not only the armies, generals, strategies, tactics, and battles in this theater of war but also the motivations and rationales of the respective participants. His aim is to offer a clearer picture of the Austrians, Neopolitans, and British generals and their armies, particularly how they conducted their campaigns against the Franco-Italian forces of imperial France. A lengthy appendix lists the orders of battle and presents line-drawn battlefield maps.
  —Reference & Research Book News August 2002

Table of Contents:

• Foreword
• Prologue: Italy, Wars and Geography
• The Conquest of the Italian Peninsula, 1805-1806
• The Origins of the Campaign, Armies and Generals
• Planning, Preparations and Opening Moves
• The Battle of Caldiero
• The Conquest of Naples
• The Defense of Italy, 1809
• Armies, Generals, and Strategy
• From Sacile to the Piave and Beyond
• The Battles of Raab and Wagram
• The Fall of Napoleonic Italy, 1813-1815
• Rebuilding the Armies
• From War Plans to War
• The Battle of the Mincio
• Murat's Hundred Days
• Epilogue: War from Italy
• Appendix I: Orders of Battle 1805-1806
• Appendix II: Orders of Battle 1809
• Appendix III: Orders of Battle 1813-1814
• Appendix IV: Orders of Battle 1815
• Bibliography