Alexey Yermolov S Memoirs

Yermolov is a legend in Russia. A man who rose from obscurity to command armies and conquer provinces, he was the epitome of a military man of action. To his enemies he was a byword for brutality, but, to his homeland, a hero. His memoirs are as dramatic as his rise to fame and fortune. Disgraced and exiled by Emperor Paul he was brought back into service only to witness Russian defeat at the battle of Austerlitz in 1805. Honoured and advanced by his new patron, the dashing Emperor Alexander, Yermolov then made rapid progress. He witnessed firsthand Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 and went on to see revenge completed when the Russians marched into Paris in April 1814. Yermolov was a talented general who captured the spirit of his times in his engaging memoirs. His acidic wit, acute powers of observation and grasp of drama make his memoirs stand out as a unique source on the Napoleonic Wars.

Yermolov (1777-1861) or Ermolov as the CiP data calls him, kept a detailed journal during the Napoleonic wars, which later served as the basis for his memoir. In addition to that 1812 Patriot War, he remembers his adolescence, the campaigns in Poland 1806-07, and his time as governor of Georgia and the war in Chechnya. American historian Mikaberidze is a specialist on Napoleonic Europe. Distributed in the US by the David Brown Book Company. Annotation :2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

The second installment in this series is the memoirs of Ilya Timofeyevich Radozhitskii, who served with distinction during the Napoleonic Wars and wrote his memoirs shortly after the wars ended, with excerpts appearing in press in the early 1820s.In 1812, he served in the 3rd Light Company of the 11th Artillery Brigade of the 6th Infantry Corps, and distinguished himself during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. He was wounded at Ostrovno, and witnessed the battles of Smolensk, Lubino (Valutina Gora) and Borodino, lamented the surrender of Moscow and distinguished himself at Vyazma. From October to December 1812, he was an eyewitness to the catastrophe that engulfed the Grande Armée. The memoirs, which Leo Tolstoy consulted extensively while writing his famous "War and Peace," are fascinating for their vivid descriptions and insights into Russian army life and wartime experiences.

The fourth installment in this series is the memoirs of Moritz von Kotzebue, the son of the famous August von Kotzebue. After being captured at Polotsk in August 1812, Kotzebue spent the next year and a half in the French captivity as he was moved first to Germany and then to France. His memoir is fascinating for its vivid, and occasionally witty, descriptions of his experiences.

The Napoleonic Wars saw almost two decades of brutal fighting. Fighting took place on an unprecedented scale, from the frozen wastelands of Russia to the rugged mountains of the Peninsula; from Egypt's Lower Nile to the bloody battlefield of New Orleans. Volume II of The Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars provides a comprehensive guide to the Napoleonic Wars and weaves together the four strands – military, naval, economic, and diplomatic - that intertwined to make up one of the greatest conflicts in history. Written by a team of the leading Napoleonic scholars, this volume provides an authoritative and comprehensive analysis of why the nations went to war, the challenges they faced and how the wars were funded and sustained. It sheds new light not only on the key battles and campaigns but also on questions of leadership, strategy, tactics, guerrilla warfare, recruitment, supply, and weaponry.

Russia played a decisive role in the Napoleonic wars and the success in the struggle against France allowed Russian leaders to profoundly influence the course of European history. Over the last 200 years, the Napoleonic era has been discussed and analysed in numerous studies, but many fail to fully portray the Russian side of events due to the relative scarcity of Russian sources in English. Only a handful of Russian memoirs have been translated, while dozens remain unknown outside Russia. This book seeks to fill this gap by providing, in English, previously unavailable memoirs of Russian participants. Defeat at Leipzig in 1813 had driven Napoleon back across the borders of France, and in January 1814 the Russians, Austrians, Prussians and their other German allies stood poised to cross the Rhine. But the French Emperor was far from beaten, and the ensuing campaign saw desperate fighting, with the outcome very much in the balance. This book is the first to bring together dozens of letter, diaries and memoirs of Russian participants of the 1814 Campaign. Reading these documents we see both what Russian officers and soldiers experienced during the final months of the three-year-long campaign as well as their joy at defeating Russia’s most dangerous enemy. We follow them not only through the heat of battle but also on delightful tours of Paris which they describe as the pleasure and entertainment capital of the world.

A Russian war hero who defeated Napoleon and became a mythic military figure. Alexander Mikaberidze's latest book is the first modern English-language biography of Mikhail Golenischev-Kutuzov, the famed Russian Field Marshal and central character of Leo Tolstoy's epic War and Peace. One of the most important military minds of the period, he is credited with defeating Napoleon and saving Russia, though his fame is not limited to the Napoleonic wars. As it often happens with national heroes, Kutuzov gradually became larger than life, a messianic character who led Holy Russia against the evils of the Revolution and anarchy; the Soviet leaders later exploited his personality for even more grandiose schemes. The real Kutuzov was gradually replaced by a mythical character who appeared at a time of great danger to save Russia. The impact of this propaganda can be still seen in modern Russia: In 2000, the public opinion poll showed that majority of the Russians consider Kutuzov as the Person of the 19th Century, far ahead of famous writers Alexander Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy, composer Peter Tchaikovsky or scientist Dmitry Mendeleyev, while the 2017 public opinion poll placed Kutuzov in the top twenty of the most distinguished historical personalities in world history (slightly behind Napoleon). As much as Kutuzov is venerated in Russia, he remains an overlooked figure in the West, with Western historiography comprising of just a handful of titles in English, French or German, the vast majority of them translations of older Soviet works or derived from them. This book provides a new biography of the field marshal, examining his personal life and military/diplomatic accomplishments, and relying on a wide range of primary and secondary sources as well as Russian archival material. Mikaberidze offers a fresh look at the historical figure whose character remains elusive but whose accomplishments are irrefutable.