592 pages, 204 x 264 mm (8X10 inches). Actions and Losses in Personnel, Colours, Standards and Artillery, 1792 -1815

Based on over twenty years of research, this massively detailed andoutstanding reference work provides comprehensive coverage of every action in every campaign in Europe and the Middle East of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.  The author, Digby Smith, writes:

"This work lists over 2,000 skirmishes, raids, ambushes, clashes, battles, blockades, sieges and capitulations which took place in and around Europe and in Egypt between the years 1792 and 1815.  For each action I provide as detailed an entry as possible on the participation and losses of units involved.  The details given in the entries include the date and precise location of each action, who won, the names of the opposing commanders, the actual regiments which took part in the fighting (i.e. fired shots at the enemy and took casualties), the total involved on each side, the losses incurred in killed, wounded, missing and the loss of any trophies (cannon, colours and standards).  Where appropriate I have also included a brief comment to highlight significant events, errors or consequences of the action concerned.  All such comments reflect my own opinions and serve to place the action in context.  An exception to these rules are the so-called 'skeleton actions', indicated by the alpha code 'XX', which were either part of the French civil war in the Vendee or did not involve the main protagonist, France.  For these actions only the totals involved and the losses incurred are given.  I have made a conscious and determined attempt to emphasise the participation of the many minor contingents from the smaller nations of Europe which fought on both sides of these epic struggles and highlight their oft neglected role in this dramatic and wide-ranging conflict."

Hence you will appreciate what an incredible work of reference THE GREENHILL NAPOLEONIC WARS DATA BOOK is.  Digby Smith adds:

"This book has been designed to permit the reader easy access to any desired action and includes an alphabetical index of the actions detailed for quick reference.  The main listing of the actions is, however, entirely chronological.  The chronological layout of the work gives a clear overview of the range and intensity of the military activity in time and permits one to place events in the context of conflict in Europe as a whole and in direct relation to other campaigns.  All too frequently the consequences of an action in one theatre of war brought far-reaching changes to the course of events in another."

Describing the research that went into creating this astonishing work, he says:

"Completing a work of this scope and detail has been a massive and absorbing task.  Despite having been actively engaged in studying the Napoleonic military era (1805-1815) closely for over twenty years, the task of resolving the many uncertainties in the battle participation of the various nations, even for this well-documented period, has absorbed much time.  This is the largest and most complex book that I have produced to date and without having committed the last few years to full time, solid research and presentation this work would never have been written.

The much-neglected Revolutionary Wars (1792-1801), with hundreds of engagements and patchy documentation, presented an even greater challenge; and was a task which I doubt I could have completed without the helpful assistance of many friends and acquaintances.  Their advice led to numerous literary 'mining expeditions', some more, some less profitable.  What did emerge, however, was the realization that this period contains a large number of fascinating actions every bit as dynamic as any in the subsequent Napoleonic era.  Perhaps the best of these is the odyssey of the Russians under Suvorov in northern Italy and Switzerland in 1799.  There are still areas in which material has proved elusive, particularly concerning the French in 1794, 1795 and 1797, but sufficient data is available to give an insight into the course of military events throughout twenty-three of the most fascinating years in the political and military history of Europe and learn many surprising aspects of the operations - particularly of Napoleon Bonaparte in the earlier years of his military and political career."

THE GREENHILL NAPOLEONIC WARS DATA BOOK is a monumental contribution to the understanding of the conflict from the leading publisher of books on the Napoleonic Wars.

Colonel John R. Elting (U.S. Army, Ret.):

"This genuinely impressive work comes into current Napoleonic publications something like a foraging elephant through a cabbage patch. If its size is impressive, its contents are more so. Digby Smith has made an earnest effort to chronicle every sizeable European military engagement, including the forces involved and their losses, from 1792 through 1815. His listing of these exchanges of ball cartridge even covers the constant Turkish-Russian Balkan squabbles and Czar Alexander's gracious extension of Russian rule into Finland - conflicts which left scant and dubious records.

The author's comments on serious actions will no doubt stimulate the sniping proclivities of some of our more specialised historians.  None the less, this is a valuable reference work, honestly conceived and conscientiously assembled.  It has the great advantage of placing the reader in the nineteenth-century equivalent of a head of state's war room - you can follow both the general progress of their wars and the overall military situation at any given time.

This is especially effective in the book's coverage of the Peninsular War. Here, Wellington's long-and-loud-trumpeted successes in western Spain can be plainly contrasted with the repeated English defeats along the eastern coast, showing how the French could long hope for eventual success.  Of course, you can get this same information by reading through Oman's HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR, but here this information comes quickly and handily and in sharper, immediate contrast.

Whenever possible, the author has included orders of battle, some of them very detailed.

This should be a fixture in every library specialising in military history. Serious students of the Napoleonic period will find it a good volume to have handy."

Digby Smith, also known to Napoleonic enthusiasts as Otto von Pivka, is a highly respected scholar of this period and author of numerous books including ARMIES OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS and NAVIES OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS.

Greenhill Books    ISBN 1-85367-276-9

Click here to order The Greenhill Napoleonic Wars Data Book!