9.25 x 6 in.  544 pages.  16 pages of plates.

When Napoleon's Grande Armée went to war against the might of the Habsburg Empire in 1809, its forces included over 100,000 German allied troops. From his earliest Imperial campaigns, German troops provided by the Confederation of the Rhine played a role as Napoleon swept from victory to victory, but in 1809 their numbers and their fighting abilities were crucial to the campaign. With Napoleon's French troops depleted and debilitated after the long struggle in the Spanish civil war, the German troops for the first time played a major combat role in the centre of the battle-line.

Aiming at a union of German states under French protection to replace the decrepit Holy Roman Empire, Napoleon sought to expand French influence in central Germany at the expense of the Austrian and Prussian monarchies, thereby ensuring France's own security. The campaign Napoleon waged in 1809 was the watershed of his career. Already beginning to show signs of the weaknesses that would emerge in 1812 and 1813, Napoleon suffered his first serious reverse as Aspern. His victory when it was at last achieved at Wagram was not the knock-out blow he had envisaged.

In this epic work, John H. Gill, a U.S. Army major serving in Washington, DC, who has visited and studied in great detail the terrain of the battlefields where the great events of 1809 were played out, presents an unprecedented and comprehensive study of this year of glory for the German soldiers fighting for Napoleon. When combat opened, they found themselves in the thick of the action. Incorporated into French divisions or organised into their own corps, they played pivotal roles in the great battles of the campaign: Abensberg, Eggmühl, Ebelsberg, Aspern, Wagram and Znaim. At Linz the Württembergers and Saxons fought a key battle on their own, with no French troops in the vicinity, and the Bavarians bore the brunt of the cruel war against the Tyrolian insurgency. If some units performed less than gloriously, others more than earned their battle honours, demonstrating courage, loyalty, endurance and tactical skill under trying circumstances.

Drawing on his extensive research into previously unexamined sources, John H. Gill examines the composition, organisation and battle history of each German contingent, presenting its quirks and qualities, its heroism or cowardice in a lively, often moving narrative. Over 80 maps, charts and tables support detailed descriptions of the German role in the titanic battles, gruelling marches and countless skirmishes that scarred the face of central Europe as Napoleon endeavoured to defeat the Austrians and at the same time repress popular rebellions.

This invaluable book, providing insights into the military, political and social history of France's German allies, is destined to become a standard work on the bookshelf of every enthusiast of the Napoleonic wars.
 

Greenhill Books  ISBN 1-85367-130-4

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