Featured battle : Naples

Part of The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

Date : 14 June 1799 - 15 June 1799

Republicans in Naples had invited the French to assist them in defending their city against royalists. The French were not popular and the strength of the Royalist forces grew. The Royal Navy gave support by attacking the forts into which the French had been driven. The Republicans finally surrendered to the senior British officer, Captain Foote. Nelson on his arrivel nine days later abbrogated the agreement, showing a merciless dark streak in his nature.

Marengo

T. E. Crowdy
We have always known the plot of the story of the battle of Marengo reads more like fiction than fact. By 1630hrs on the 14th June 1800 the Austrians had won the battle of Marengo, their Commander in Chief left the battlefield to his deputy. By 2300hrs the Austrians had been routed and the French had won. Here, by the skin of his teeth, the myth of Napoleon’s invincibility was born. The hero triumphs in the end.
T. E. Crowdy’s Marengo is not a novel but an excellent factual account. However he fills out the facts with detail and evocative descriptions which grip the reader as a good novel should. For example, pg.168, as he writes about Napoleon’s guards he can ‘see’ them and then the reader can too. It is obvious that Crowdy has done a massive amount of research and tried to place it before the reader with integrity and where necessary he has explained his dilemma. His note 4 to chapter 10 should be mandatory in every account of Napoleonic battles.
The book has 316 pages, 41 appropriate mono or coloured plates, a useful set of end notes and an extensive bibliography. As to the maps, 17 of them, I can only make my usual criticism of the absence of scale for the first six. Also included are five and a half pages of description of the topography of the battle field which gives the third dimension to the maps. Who can see what from where is an important factor on any battlefield.
This is a book has both story and information it can be both studied and enjoyed. We highly recommend it to all levels of readership

Pen & Sword Military, 2018