Napoleon's Conquest of Europe: The War of the Third Coalition

(Hardback)

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Poised to strike at England in the summer of 1805, Napoleon found himself facing a coalition of European powers determined to limit his territorial ambitions. And yet, in less than one hundred days, Napoleon's armies marched from the English Channel to Central Europe, crushing the armies of Austria and Russia - the first step in his conquest of Europe. The author explains how Napoleon's victory over the Third Coalition was the product of years of diplomatic preparation and the formation of various alliances. The war must be understood in the context of the French Revolution and its influence on major and minor European states, and Napoleon played upon the prevailing conditions and the internal politics of the Holy Roman Empire to improve France's strategic position. In some cases, he returned to France's traditional relationships; in others, he capitalized upon longstanding rivalries to gather allies and create wedges between enemies. In this book, the campaign is approached from broad diplomatic, economic, and military perspectives, with reference to not only the French point of view but also those of the other powers involved. The author shows how the road to victory was paved long before Napoleon's armies marched upon the enemies arrayed against them.

Reviews

"Schneid increases his stature among the rising generation of US historians of the Napoleonic Wars with this comprehensively researched and economically presented analysis of the War of the Third Coalition. Demonstrating command of a broad spectrum of sources, he smoothly integrates policy formation, diplomatic interaction, and military operations in a work meriting recognition as a standard introduction to the war that made Napoleon master of Europe." -- Dennis Showalter, Professor of History, Colorado College, author of The Wars of Frederick the Great and Tannenberg: Clash of Empires:"

Author Bio

Frederick C. Schneid is Professor of History at High Point University. He is the author of Napoleon's Italian Campaigns, 1805-1815 (Praeger, 2002) and Soldiers of Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy: Army, State and Society, 1800-1815 (1995). He serves on the board of directors of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe and is southern regional director for the Society for Military History.