“The personage who for twenty years (1796-1815) was to monopolise the attention of the whole world was, when the French Revolution broke out, an unknown lieutenant of artillery.”
The career and imperial reign of Napoleon Bonaparte altered Europe irrevocably.
Borders changed. Old Empires crumbled. Britannia ruled the waves but the French dominated land warfare.
Europe in the Age of Napoleon is a concise introductory history in how the events of Europe shaped Napoleon, and how he in return shaped Europe.
The French Revolution tore through the military as it had through the civilians. Many aristocratic officers fled or were executed. A new breed of officer rose: that promoted by merit not money.
Napoleon, a young artillery officer sympathetic to the Revolution, had a tumultuous early career.
His skill at leading the artillery against the British at the siege of Toulon gained him promotion and praise.
However, his political connections to the doomed Robespierre lead to imprisonment. Although released, the young and talented Napoleon found himself without a command and plunged into poverty.
Showing ruthlessness against an uprising, Napoleon was finally dispatched to a command Italy. On the battlefields of Lombardy, the Austrians soon lost to the cunning of Napoleon Bonaparte.
How did a battlefield general recently saved from poverty become Emperor of France?
How did Napoleon bring down the ancient Holy Roman Empire?
And how did this new age of French politics shape Europe?
First published in 1927, Mowat neatly details the influence Bonaparte had on the transformation of Europe in this concise account. Intertwining the history of Revolutionary France with the life of Napoleon, Mowat constructs a comprehensive account of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era.
Praise for Robert Balmain Mowat
“Mr Mowat’s book, it may safely be prophesied, will have a wide popularity among teachers of history; and it will inform also readers desiring a good general survey of the Hanoverian century in England.” — Times Literary Supplement.
“This book will be extremely welcome. It is widely comprehensive and yet concise. The information which it provides is various, precise, lucid, and stimulating. It is a book which can be read either lightly or seriously, and in either case with satisfaction.” — HAROLD NICOLSON, Daily Telegraph.
“Professor Mowat has written many books; this is probably his best. Here we have a study of the nineteenth century which goes deeper than the usual political history … A most valuable contribution to historical understanding.” — New Statesman.
Robert Balmain Mowat (1883-1941) was a Scottish historian born in Edinburgh. His father was a bookseller who became the director of Edinburgh publishers W. and R. Chambers. Mowat became a Professor of History at the University of Bristol in 1928. His books range from the Ancient World to the Victorians.
