1809 Thunder on the Danube: Volume 3: Napoleon’s Defeat of the Habsburgs: Wagram and Znaim

Concluding the history of the War of the Fifth Coalition, John Gill takes the time between The Battle of Aspern and the even greater battle (second only behind Leipzig) at Wagram to focus on the other theaters of the war: Poland, Hungary, Tyrol. In Tyrol, nationalists rise up against their Bavarian (French ally) overlords at the beginning of the war to coincide with the Austrian invasion of Italy. As the invasion of Italy went south, Tyrol remained one of the bright spots of the war despite being a largely militia effort. Mr. Gill recommends his other work "With Eagles to Glory" for a further and more in-depth study of the campaign, which ends with the Bavarians and French capturing Andreas Hoffer and ending the rebellion. In Poland, Archduke Ferdinand invades but is unhappy with the prospects of fighting "a secondary front." Achieving victory against the Poles at Raszyn (the wikipedia article is completely wrong), Ferdinand negotiates the safe occupation of Warsaw. This is a major mistake, allowing the Poles to escape, and create chaos in the countryside, eventually capturing the Austrian supply lines and forcing an embarrassing withdrawal from Poland. Furthermore, Eugene and the Franco-Italian armies push into Hungary and due to terrible battlefield leadership on part of the Austrians, who blunder away strategic advantages in the land, defeat the Austrians at Raab.This is the final conclusion of his work, ending with the Battle of Wagram in which, for two days, over 300,000 men engage in one of the most horrendous battles of the Napoleonic Era. This battle was second-only to the Battle of Leipzig, and Napoleon assaulted across the Danube with lightning speed catching the Austrians by surprise. However, by night, the French assault is halted and Napoleon's famous marshal--Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, makes serious blunders on the battlefield that permit the Austrians to regroup. The Austrians counter attack on the second day, but are repulsed, but Napoleon is unable to score a decisive victory over Archduke Charles who retires the army in good order, forcing Napoleon to continue the war by pursuing him to Znaim, where an armistice is reached that saves the Habsburg Monarchy (even if Napoleon had little intention of breaking it up). Although a victory, it was, like for Austria at Essling, just a symbolic victory and Napoleon was denied another Austerlitz or Jena. For Austria however, the war marked another humiliating defeat at the hands of the French. Archduke Charles, despite falling from favor, should be given much credit for going one vs. one with Napoleon and holding his own, even inflicting a modest defeat upon the emperor. His actions to save the army, rather than risk all in a gambit, saved the Habsburg Monarchy from utter ruination. After the war, his reputation would heal over time, although he is still criticized by many German military historians.The third volume contains a 50+ page bibliography, which is nothing short of magnificent for both laymen and professionals to continue their own research into this conflict. In the end, Mr. Gill has written, in about 1,000 pages of actual text (plus another 600 pages or so of indices, references, and bibliography) the most comprehensive and accessible version of what the great English historian Gunther Rothenberg called, "The Emperor's Last Victory." This is simply the best multi-volume work on the subject! The next several generations of Napoleonic scholars will no doubt be referencing Gill's trilogy whenever they look at the 1809 War on the Danube!

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This being the final volume of John Gill's magisterial trilogy on Napoleon's 1809 campaigne I see this as the perfect time too review this brilliant work. This is the best and most complete work on any campaigne of the period from 1792-1815. Only Oman's Peninsular history matches it in detail. This trilogy is a model of what military history should be. Well written, balanced, detailed. The maps are both plentiful and exceedingly well done. I want to thank the publisher for being willing to devote three volumes to this study. Without this space the writer would not have been able to give us this story in it's completeness. I also wish to thank the author for being expeditious in his writing of this book. It's been about two years I think between the first and last volume of this trilogy. I am reaching a point in life where I don't have decades to wait for a multi-volume history to be completed. A little background on my history with this book. For decades the only work in english on the 1809 campaigne was Petre's "Napoleon and the Archduke Charles", the best of Petre's five volumes on the Napoleonic Wars. This was a good if dated account. The most modern account had been James Arnold's two volume work. While Arnold's work was more modern and had better maps each volume was only 200 pages and thus added little detail to Petre's work, and certainly didn't replace it as the best english language account of this campaigne. A few years ago while scanning greenhill books website I came upon a description of a two volume history of the 1809 campaigne by John Gill. When I saw the first volume was listed at 300+ pages I got excited at the prospect of a more detailed account of this campaigne, that is until I noted that the volume carried to the end of the battle of Aspern-Essling which kind of doused my enthusiasm since it wouldn't be anymore detailed than Petre and Arnold's books had been. But always on the lookout for a new book on a campaigne I anxiously awaited the books January publication. When that time came I could find no information on how to buy the book or whether it was even going to be published. Maybe a year or so later I saw it on Amazon's site but information was vague about the books lenghth or any useful about it. It was only when the book was about to be published that it was mentioned that this was going to be a three volume study Each volume is 300 pages of text, with the final a little bit more. The first volume covers the political machinations leading up to the war and then covers the April campaigne in Bavaria. The beginning of this campaigne is one of the most difficult to follow because of Berthier's bungling and Napoleon's unclear orders to him. For the first time I got a clear understanding of what happened in these early days of the campaigne and the peril in which the French army put itself. I knew I was onto something special with this book when the operations of Kollowratt's two corps were gone into in detail. In most studies of this campaigne the operations of these two corps, operating out of Bohemia, are just glossed over but we get a good account of what they were doing and their potential impact on the campaigne as a whole. This is my favorite volume of the three because it consists of a lot of little battles that come together in a major campaign and crushing defeat for the Austrians. Volume 1 flows smoothly into volume 2 without any need to recount what had happened previously. I hate when writers feel the need to waste space recounting what had happened in a previous volume. In a sense you could say that this trilogy falls into three parts, with the first part deeling with the principal campaign down the Danube up to Napoleon's defeat at Aspern-Essling. The first 200 pages deal with this part, and the first volume, while the next 250 pages deals with the secondary theatres. The last 100 pages of volume two deal with the Italian theatre while the first 150 pages of volume three cover the polish,dalmation and hungarian theatres. The final 150 pages of the book deals with the great battle of Wagram and the events leading to the end of the War. If there is anything to be critical about in this book (and to me it's not a problem) it's that these books are not the last word on the battles of Aspern-Essling and Wagram. Eighty pages is devoted to each battle. The former gets two battle maps while the latter gets three battle maps. This is not to say that he slights these battles, both are well covered, but that this is not one of those books where 90% of the space is given to the big battles and everything else is summarized. This is a history of the campaigne as a whole and not just of the two big battles. Some people may find out more about the Italian campaign than they wish to know, or the Polish or the Dalmation. My feelings are that you'll always be able to find accounts of the two big battles, but to me it's the small operations that make this book for me. I've already mentioned the operations out of Bohemaia, but before this book I'd never even heard of the battle of Linz, covered in volume 2. I always wanted to know more about what was going on in Poland, and now I know. This is not a thesis history where an author has an axe to grind or is pushing some theory. This is a plain vanilla history of a campaign in which the author tells the story from both sides and lets the domino's fall where they may. If the Austrian's come out worst it's because they deserve to, they ran a terrible campaigne. Napoleon is not treated here as a tyrant or is he idolized. He's treated as The Last Great Captain (in my opinion) in history. I hope the author won't sue me for quoting from the last paragraph of his final book. "All of this, of course, lay in the future. None of it was inevitable, and none of it was obvious as 1809 came to a close. The conclusion of the war opened new opportunities for Napoleon and for the other powers. The road to Moscow and Leipzig was only one of many paths to the future." I hate it when historians see a particular event as leading inevitably to some other particular event years down the road. Nothing that occurred in 1809 set us inexorably on the road to Waterloo or any other result. Given Napoleon's megolomania he and his empire were probably doomed in the long run, but many things could have changed that or determined when it happened. As the author above said his victory offered many paths to the future and choices to be made, I congratulate the author for not falling into the trap of implying that a particular path was pre-ordained. I hate it when the term definitive is applied to a book, as anything that can be done once can be done better and in more detail by someone else. I prefer to use a term someone used to describe Albert Castel's history of the Atlanta campaign, A Category Killer. That is how I would prefer to describe Mr. Gill's brilliant trilogy, A Category Killer. It will be a brave or foolhardy author who in the future decides to write a book on Napoleon's 1809 campaign. I personally could ask for nothing else on the subject as Mr. Gill has written it all.

A detailed account that cuts through the"fog of war". It shows how intelligence and communication can be the deciding factors between evenly matched armies.

This book is packed full of research information for the serious student or fan of the Napoleonic era. It also is a good read. I like the E-book for the search functionality.

Excellent condition!

As complete a history as possible. Excellent analysis of the war. The only improvement would have been. More detailed campaign mapps.,

Well worth the read!

This third book of the three parts-history brings you to follow the periferical campaigns of Hungary, Poland, Dalmatia, and the useless english invasion of the Walcheren Island before to make you assist to the great battles of Wagram and Znaim that conclude the Napoleonic campaign against Austria on 1809, with the help of the outstanding maps.All the movements of the armies involved , it is analyzed with care , as the psycologies of the various generals.Even this book bring to you an huge amount of historical knowledge, indeed, in the Appendix, you can find: the orders of battle for both armies for the campaigns of Hungary ( Viceroy Eugène / Archduke Johann ) , Poland ( Prince Poniatowski/ Erzhrzog Ferdinand ) , Dalmatia ( General Division Marmont / General Major Von Stoichevich) , Walcheren ( King of Holland /Earl of Chatham) and a lot of other battles including , for sure, the battles of Wagram and Znaim.On every page of this work you can see the 15 years of historical research that the author had spent, so that you can't miss this.

As Gill says in the preface to his third volume, his is a traditional campaign narrative and, given that war 'is fundamentally about combat ... solid battle narrative is indispensable'. Indeed! And this is an area in which Gill excels.Vol. III starts where Vol II left off, filling in details regarding actions in the peripheral theatres, some of which, for example the violence and brigandage in the Tyrol, begs further exploration (I've just ordered Napoleon's Other War, which I'm told covers this and many other guerilla actions of the Napoleonic period). Gill covers even these 'sideshows' with care and attention, and many great ground level details emerge, showing that when he says 'solid battle narrative is indispensable' he means it.Just one particular example that I really enjoyed was when, in a very minor engagement in the Tyrol, the French/Allied commander Rusca had to 'resort to the unusual command and control expedient of dropping his instructions to waiting orderlies in small packets weighted with stones', as he directed his meagre forces from the commanding view of a tower in Klangenfurt!As fascinating as these little details is the picture Gill paints on a grander scale, such as Napoleon's turning of the isle of Lobau into a veritable military city, complete with defences, logistics (there are forges and bakeries as well as lodgings, hospitals and munitions magazines), roads and even street lamps! Having got a bloody nose at Aspern-Essling, attempting his typically impetuous and in this instance under-prepared lightning strike, he did things very thoroughly second time around. This included using 'estacades', which were rows of pilings sunk into the Danube, whose purpose was to stop the crossings being wrecked by flotsam and jetsam as had happened prior to and during Aspern Essling.The two largest bridges themselves (Gill includes a black & white illustration of a print after the painting by Jacques Francois Joseph, the original of which can be seen at Apsley House, aka The Wellington Museum, in London) were so well-built and finished that they were deemed more than just sturdily functional but, painted and hung with lanterns, elegant! Boney himself effused 'General Count Bertrand has executed works that excite astonishment and inspire admiration.' Comparing the dynamism of the French efforts with the sluggish, pessimistic confusion of the Austrians, one senses that (as already been noted more than once) the campaign was already over. Gill articulates this himself perfectly: 'The contrast with his Hapsburg opponents is striking. Where the French built their own boats and bridges, the Austrians complained that none were to be found.'The chapter on Wagram is superb, balancing fine detail with the bigger picture in exemplary manner. There are so many little details that one could cite. The intervention of the weather on numerous occasions, a feature so significant it gives the series it's evocative double entendre title, is further cited in chapter sub-headings ('A night out of Macbeth', 'Thunder in Bayreuth', etc.) and, together with the varied landscapes gives great character and vivacity to Gill's narrative. Having shared some detail, I'll leave it at that. Wagram isn't the end of the war though, it takes the action at Znaim to bring the Austrian war party to the negotiating table.These books are beautifully printed, well designed and layed out, with copious additional material (I didn't read much of the appendices, or study the OOBs - Orders Of Battle - too closely, though I will doubtless refer to the info at some stage), superbly written and structured, and benefit massively from an abundance of useful well laid out maps (a real weakness in many books in this area). Just wonderful!My original plan had been to read one book, wait a few months, and then buy and read the next (even at Amazon's discounted prices they're not cheap, but they're worth every penny), but such was my enjoyment that I ended up buying and reading all three volumes over the summer months of 2012. And what an immense pleasure it was!If only all books on the Napoleonic wars were so good! Very highly recommended.

This book is an excellent read. Looks at the Danube campaign as a whole. There are not many books on this campaign, but this one is an excellent account. It is a shame that the war with Austria which tied up Napoleon's resources and men and lasted years does not get the same coverage as Waterloo which only lasted 100 days.If you are a follower of the Napoleonics wars then this book is a must read.

Well researched and readable campaign history providing some startling insights into the 1809 campaign. Definately one for the more thoughtful military history buff.

Very good culmination of excellent 3 part series. Lots of detail.