Napoleon's Wars_ An International History, 1803-1815 - Charles Esdaile [3]
Connected with this issue is the third aim of Napoleon’s Wars. Although this is anything but clear from the conventional historiography, Napoleon did not just exist in a vacuum. Like the French Revolution before him, he rather emerged in a Europe whose international history was dominated by events, not in the West, but rather in the East. The focus of attention at the time was above all on Poland and the Ottoman Empire, and the manoeuvring that centred on these two states - the one defunct by 1800 and the other already the proverbial ‘sick man’ of Europe, albeit a sick man that was currently making real efforts to fight off his disease. These foci did not alter either for the events of 1789 or for those of 1789. What this book also attempts to do, then, is to place the Napoleonic Wars in their true context. The idea, admittedly, is not an original one: in 1995, Paul Schroeder’s magisterial Transformation of European Politics attempted much the same task. But this present work represents the first attempt to look at the Napoleonic Wars alone. Whilst Schroeder does the same thing, and doubtless much more elegantly, he does so in the context of a study that ranges all the way from 1763 to 1848, almost concealing the fact that it is one of the most important twentieth-century contributions to the Napoleon controversy.
So much, then, for rationale and justification. As ever, my debts are many. At the top of the list must stand my agent, Bill Hamilton, whose suggestion that I should write ‘a big book on Napoleon’ sparked off the process of thought that eventually led me to where I am today. Next in line come my editor at Penguin Books, Simon Winder, who has been the soul of faith, patience and encouragement alike, and his assistant, Chloe Campbell, who is truly one of the jewels in Penguin’s crown. This work being in many respects a synthesis, I should next add the staff of the British Library, the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, and finally the Sydney Jones Library at the University of Liverpool, much technical assistance also having been received from Cecilia Mackay, who carried out all the picture research, and Jane Robertson whose careful copy-editing has greatly enhanced the text. Then, too, there are my colleagues, and especially my many co-workers in the field of Napoleonic history. Graced as I am by a particularly distinguished peer group, I should here especially like to mention Marianne Elliot, Alan Forrest, Tim Blanning, Michael Broers, Rory Muir, Christopher Hall, Michael Rowe, Janet Hartley, Jeremy Black, Paul Schroeder, Enno Kraehe, Clive Emsley, Malcolm Crook, Desmond Gregory, Michael Duffy, John Lynn, Stuart Woolf, David Gates, Alexander Grab, Geoffrey Ellis, Donald Horward, Owen Connelly, Harold Parker, Jean Tulard, Phillip Dwyer, Brendan Simms, Rick Schneid and, last but not least, Gunther Rothenburg and David Chandler, both of whom sadly passed away shortly before the manuscript of Napoleon’s Wars was completed. For reasons of space, I am unable to acknowledge my many borrowings from them (and, indeed, many other scholars) in proper form, but I am none the less grateful to them all, and am well aware that without their efforts this book could probably never have been written; from many of them, too, I have received the warmest friendship, the best of company and the kindest of support and encouragement. Finally, there is my family. Camp-followers as heroic and long suffering in their way as any of the poor souls who trudged along in the wake of Napoleon’s armies, Alison, Andrew, Helen, Maribel and Bernadette have walked with me every step of the long road that has led from Amiens to Waterloo and, like their predecessors, deserve much in the way of recognition.
Lastly, a word on technicalities. All quotations have been put into modern English in terms of punctuation and spelling, whilst outdated anglicisms have in general