EUCOM Battle Knowledge Centers

Arranged by themes such as leadership, innovation, deception, and courage under fire, Overy presents engaging essays on each battle that together provide a rich picture of how combat has changed through the ages, as well as highlighting what has remained consistent despite advances in technology. The battles covered here offer a wide geographic sweep, from ancient Greece to China, Constantinople to Moscow, North to South America, providing a picture of the dominant empires across time and context for comparison between various military cultures.

This book describes the historical context and goals of each conflict, with detailed statistics and information on every aspect of each battle.

Presenting a history of the Napoleonic Wars, this book argues that Napoleon was the master of the broken play, so confident of his ability to improvise, cover his own mistakes, and capitalize on those of the enemy that he plunged his armies into uncertain, seemingly desperate situations, only to emerge victorious as he blundered to glory.

Austerlitz was Napoleon's greatest victory, but it was also the beginning of the end. The success blurred his tactical vision and although there were victories after it, the apogee had been reached and the process has begun which resulted in the 1812 Russian campaign and Waterloo, his last battle.

Though Napoleon Bonaparte's unquenchable thirst for military adventurism eventually cost him both his throne and his freedom during the Napoleonic Wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the French Emperor was not easily defeated even when most of Europe's nations united against him. Two military setbacks on a scale unprecedented in history until then were required before the high tide of Napoleon's success began to ebb towards the final denouement of the Hundred Days and the famous battle of Waterloo. The incredible losses inflicted on Napoleon's Grand Army by the ill-fated invasion of Russia in 1812 constituted the first setback to switch the Corsican's life journey from the road of success to that of defeat and exile. A huge, veteran, highly experienced force, the French Army of Napoleon perished on the rain-soaked tracks and sun-seared plains of Russia. Napoleon eventually committed over 400,000 men to his Russian project, but at the end of a relatively brief campaign, only about 40,000 men returned alive to Germany, and the Russians took some 100,000 prisoner and largely absorbed them into the Russian military or population. The remainder died, principally from starvation but also through enemy action and the bitter cold of early winter. The failed Russian invasion set the stage for the second defeat at Leipzig, which essentially sealed the fate of Napoleon's empire.