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  • Napoleon’s Conquest of Europe: The War of the Third Coalition
  • Dale Lothrop Clifford
Napoleon’s Conquest of Europe: The War of the Third Coalition. By Frederick C. Schneid. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2005. ISBN 0-275-98096-0. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xii, 192. $44.95.

Napoleon’s 1805 campaign will always fascinate historians, and Frederick C. Schneid’s joins a long list of books on the subject. What distinguishes this treatment is its brevity and the fact that two-thirds of the text is devoted to an extensive discussion of the political and diplomatic context, as far back as 1792, leading up to the War of the Third Coalition. In this attempt to set the well-known campaign in the far less well-known history of intricate diplomatic maneuvers among great and smaller European powers lies both its strength and its weakness.

The book begins with an attempt to characterize Napoleon, always a difficult undertaking: he “was Mars. He was Alexander, Caesar, and Charlemagne. He was the eternal [End Page 947] conqueror...,” and ultimately an enigma, a combination of eighteenth century rationalism and ambitions characteristic of nineteenth century romanticism (p. 1). In terms of this book, however, Schneid’s analysis of the Emperor has less to do with his personality than with his role as a Clausewitzian statesman-commander, operating to achieve his goals in both diplomatic and military theaters. Schneid argues that we cannot adequately understand Napoleon’s actions in 1805 without a clear sense of the circumstances which developed from British and continental politics long predating his rise to power, and of the situation he inherited from the Revolution and the Directory.

The book adopts an interesting approach to the diplomatic background, focusing in turn on each of the central issues of the 1803-5 period and unraveling its roots. Chapters 2 and 3 center on Spain, whose silver and naval resources were important to the campaign against England. Despite Spanish reluctance to ally with Bonaparte, the Franco-Spanish relationship cannot – and could not then – be separated from the longer history of the Bourbon Family Compact and consequent English distrust of Spain. The next two chapters examine Napoleon’s use of the opportunities created by modernization within the Holy Roman Empire and the resulting changes in borders and sovereignty. Napoleon effectively exploited the tensions between key south German states and both Austria and Prussia. Chapter 6 introduces the role of Italy and the Mediterranean, drawing on the author’s earlier work on the Italian campaigns.

The cash nexus plays a central role in Schneid’s analysis of international politics. He portrays a complex web of indemnities, subsidies, contributions, and loans underlying the shifting diplomatic commitments of the era. The level of detail is sometimes exhaustive, but the result is to restore a sense of the multifaceted contingency of events during this era.

The last part of the book details the battles of Ulm, Caldiero, and Austerlitz. The author writes brisk operational history, made even clearer by Jack Gill’s well-drawn maps. Schneid avoids ascribing victory to Napoleon’s genius. Logistics occupies an important role in the discussion, as does his opponents’ lack of effective planning and communication. Ultimately, Schneid argues, Napoleon’s victory was won as much in prewar diplomacy as on the battlefield.

Shoddy editing weakens Schneid’s solid work. Numerous annoying misspellings, typographical errors, and misplaced apostrophes clog the text, and the treaties of San Ildefonso are consistently rendered San Ildefenso. In a book which is otherwise handsome, Praeger’s editors have done a great disservice to its author and its readers.

Dale Lothrop Clifford
University of North Florida
Jacksonville, Florida
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