Paul Britten Austin (1922–2005)

This book describes the once and future emperor’s trip up the Route Napoleon from his landing near Antibes to the moment he enters Paris. The question is, why does this book even exist? The journey along the Route Napoleon was not, in itself, significant enough to warrant book-length treatment. It ends with the statement, “To have done it [make a bloodless march on Paris] in a mere twenty days is one thing. To form a government , quite another. And much more problematic.” Perhaps the author intended to write another book about Napoleon’s effort to form a government, but was prevented from doing so by his own death in 2005.… (altro)

The preface of "1812, Napoleon in Moscow" tells it is the sequel to "1812:The March on Moscow". I did not read Paul Britten Austin's first installment. But diverse maps of Moscow's suburbs and the greater Moscow region, up to Malojaroslavetz where the "Grand Army"'s conquest of the world was stopped in its tracks prompting its strategic, decimating and fatal retreat. guide the reader throughout. All put the reader in the shoes of Napoleon's followers, from Generals to Privates.

The narrative lifts a heavy velvet curtain on what happened there in great details to intimately understand the misconception of a mission of civilization gone wrong. As the French Emperor's "coalition of the willing" march to Moscow was seen by Kutusov and the Russians as "a marauding force of Tartars under a Genghis Khan". Paul Britten Austin's writings convey something truly Neronian in the depiction of Napoleon watching, from the towers of the Kremlin , the fires lit all over Moscow by Rostopchin's agents. Yet his demoniac genius finds the time, concentration or perhaps the escape in writing the regulations of the Comedie-Francaise, Moliere's French National Theater founded by his illustrious predecessor - equally unlucky as to his legacy of a war impoverished Nation - Louis XIV.

But destiny would have that Napoleon did not end his luminous passage on our Earth trampled in the snow by the horses of Platov's 6,000 Cossaks...… (altro)