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Reviewed by:
  • Artillery of the Napoleonic Wars, 1792–1815
  • Owen Connelly
Artillery of the Napoleonic Wars, 1792–1815. By Kevin F. Kiley. Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2004. ISBN 1-85367-583-0. Maps. Illustrations. Figures. Tables. Glossary. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. 318. $34.95.

Kevin Kiley has produced a reference book that should be useful to military historians, especially those not intimately familiar with the artillery and artillerymen of the Napoleonic period. Many a writer has "gone wrong" in recounting battles by assuming that Bonaparte's guns (or his enemies') had greater range than they did (on average 1,000 yards). The Glossary (pp. 301- 10) alone is a welcome gift.

There are seventeen tables providing information on matters from the weight of guns to the allocation of artillery to Russian brigades. Table 2 (pp. 38-39) lists the field artillery of France, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Saxony, [End Page 552] by caliber (weight of shot), elevation, charge, range at first graze, and extreme range. However, one must read the "fine print" on all the tables. On Table 2, the ranges are for "graze fire," where balls are fired to hit short of maximum range and bounce toward the enemy. The gun barrels are at angles (elevations) of zero to two degrees (except for howitzers).

In addition to the tables, there are twenty-six pictures, fifty-two line drawings of the guns of all nations, and carriages, limbers, caissons, and machinery for manufacturing them; also types of ammunition, crew drills, maps of battles, and more, plus fifteen appendixes with related information.

The most readable chapters are those where Kiley celebrates the triumphs of great artillerymen of the period: French General Alexandre Senarmont, who charged the Russians with artillery at Friedland (pp. 185ff.); and Austrian Colonel Josef Smola (pp. 202ff.), whose 200-gun battery at Aspern-Essling (1809) helped give Napoleon his first defeat; Captain Norman Ramsay with the British Horse Artillery who charged the French at Fuentes d'Oñoro in Portugal (pp. 212ff.); Antoine Drouot at Lützen (1813), who attacked with artillery and blew out the Allied center (pp. 234ff.); General Jean-Baptiste Eblé, an artilleryman who built the bridges over the Berezina (1812), allowing Napoleon one last victory in Russia.

Kevin Kiley, who calls West Point his alma mater and is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, seems oblivious to certain rules of the history profession. He has not used archival sources or acknowledged permission to publish his illustrations and tables. I do not hold that against him, however, since he seems to have used every book available that discusses the artillery of the Napoleonic period. He has produced a worthwhile book, packed with data and reflecting his enthusiasm for the history of artillery and love of the guns and the men who fight them.

Owen Connelly
University of South Carolina
Columbia, South Carolina
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