Russia Against Napoleon: The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace

Russia Against Napoleon: The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace by Dominic Lieven

The view we have of the Napoleon in Russia is influenced by Tolstoy. View writers have gone to the Russian sources to understand what happened from the Russian view. This book attempts to remedy that. It goes into details regarding the battles campaigns and society of Russia. The details were so extensive that I missed the big picture. Russians were often in their regiment for the long haul. They had a great deal of loyalty to their group. They worked to beat Napolean.

The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History

The Napoleonic Wars is a long book that covers the Napoleonic Wars as well as all the world history that immediately related to it. Napoleon himself only plays a minor part in the story. There are shifting alliances among other European countries. The European nations at the time had colonies throughout the world. Thus, the various conflicts among the nations spread through the entire world.

Napoleon rose to power after the French Revolution. The revolution started out as an attempt to ensure freedom for the people. Alas, this freedom ended up with people that did not like the "right" freedom losing their heads. Eventually, the best way to be "free" was to have a strong leader that could force other people to be "free." Napoleon filled this void. He was a keen military leader and took advantage of this opportunity to take over the army and eventually declare himself emperor. All of the idealism of the revolution simply resulted in the replacement of one despot with another. (Oh, and a few million people died in the process.) Alas, this pattern has seemed to repeat itself again and again as the "people" throw out the despot only to end up needing a new despot to force the "will of the people". A violent progressive revolution is a dangerous thing.

The events of the Napoleonic war caused massive changes in other parts of the world. A number of colonies switched hands during the time. Many took that opportunity to proclaim their own independence.  It was not a direct process. There were rises and falls before the revolutions finished playing out. France, Spain and Britain were somewhat involved, but also busy with the European battles. Asia was also involved, with China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia all touched by these wars. The United States also grew with the Louisiana purchase. International trade was impacted by the wars as countries tried to block others from trading. Slavery was initially banned by the French, but Napoleon was convinced to maintain it. (The Haitian government created after a slave rebellion was blackballed by much of the world.)

Back in Europe, Napoleon created a large (if temporary) unification of Europe. In some sense, it was a preview of the European Union that would come in the future. There were some bad economic decisions in the process. However, in the end it was primarily overextension of military quests that did in Napoleon. 

Napoleon was exiled, then came back. He seemed to have a chance, but just was not quite up to his old self. This time he was exiled a little more thoroughly. France was also punished more thoroughly with more territory lost than at the end of the previous peace. The author posits that the way tides had turned, Napoleon would have eventually met his defeat no matter what had happened. He just made some mistakes that caused it to happen earlier. Britain seemed to be the big European winner. After the huge number of deaths, there was a lot more respect for conservative leadership. The ideals of the French revolution did continue to hold some sway, they just progressed a little slower.

Illustrious Dead

Illustrious dead is a nice history of the Napoleanic Invasion of Russia with an emphasis on the role that disease (especially typhus) played. It also has plenty of background on how typhus works and is caught.

From the intro, I thought it would focus on the disease. Instead, it presents a chronology of Napolean's Russian campaign, spending time to emphasize how typhus was a prime factor in Napolean's defeat. The Russian leaders were portrayed as largely incompetent generals who mostly got lucky. Napolean's army was one of largest assembled. This lead to some logistical problems. However, more critical was the dying off that occurred, mostly due to typhus. Typhus spreads via lice. War provides the ideal situation for them to spread, as it keeps people in close quarters under harsh conditions. Typhus and cellular mitochondria arose from a common ancestor, and have both been around for millions of years. Typhus has been very resilient through years adapting just enough to survive without causing too much damage. Today, it can be treateted with antibiotics or a vaccine. However, it still is prone to third world epidemics.

The book strikes a nice balance between war and medical history. Without the disease Napolean may have taken over all of Europe. Without Malaria, he may have taken over all of America. How would the world be different today if it were not for the diseases?