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Napoleon's Officers: Uniforms and Equipment. Paul Dawson. Frontline. Nov. 2026 ISPN 9781036141844.

200 color illustrations.

I am planning to do a one day visit to Austerlitz in early and am looking for a guidebook to allow me to see the key parts of the battlefield.

The other option is to hire a guide.

Can anyone recommend a book and / or a guide?

Thanks!

Bob

Generals in White, vol 1: Austrian Generals of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Daniel Clarke. Helion. June 2026. ISPN 9781804519875.

Cultural History of Scottish Officers and Highland RegimentsRegiments: Martial Ardour during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Vicky Coleman. Springer. June 2026. ISPN 97830214337.

Mass Mortality, Military Movement, and the Forces of Nature in the Napoleonic Wars. Joseph Horan. Leiden Univ. Press. May 2026. ISPN 978908725043.

While reading up on Austrian politics in the 1801-05 period - very complicated, but vital for understanding what followed - inevitably the question arose of why Austria went to war when she was on her knees financially and militarily. It is a question addressed by Oskar Regele in Mitteilungen des Kriegsarchivs 21, but there seems to be an older answer in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGjjnK15pks&t=632s It has been a few (ahem) years since I took Ancient History A-level (A!), but it included the Peloponnesian War and I think I read Thucydides about three times. However, he postulates that we must 1) consider the undercurrents, not just the immediate causes, 2) look at the fear created in the declining power by the actions of the rising state, not just existing ones but how they are likely to be used in not just a hard power sense, but also economically, 3) look at…

I came across this interesting PhD: Fighting for the Habsburgs: Community, Patriotism and the kaiserlich-königliche Armee, 1788-1816 by Kurt J. G. Baird PhD of the University of York from 2022, which will be published in early 2027 as an academic book, so it is priced at £50. However, it is currently available for free on the Net at https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/31909/1/Baird_204038989_ThesisClean.pdf

After the recent thesis by Gramm on “the unfortunate General Mack” (in German) at https://phaidra.univie.ac.at/api/object/o:1249109/download , which also contains a lot of useful background political material, it is good to see increased interest in the Imperial Austrian army, especially in English. The book will include uniform plates, but also some of another set created in 1801, which illustrated various heroic acts during the Second Coalition.

The work of Ilya Berkowich and Michael Wenzel in the Vienna Kriegsarchivs, alongside printed material from a century ago, has produced a collection of statistical material,…

Hi,

I've just listened to the latest podcast and found a related map. Unfortunately its one of the "sketch type" maps of the time. In the absence of contour lines, etc. is it fair to assess the River Lamato as an obstacle that "turned" (with regard to obstacle effects) the French cavalry supporting Digonet and therefore reduced their ability to flank Cole?

Or was it just a creek that the horses could easily ford/cross?

I suppose it shows how deeply Napoleon struck into the Russian psyche when Stalin accused the successful Marshal Zhukov (notably Kursk and the capture of Berlin) of Bonapartism. This meant he was a potential ‘Red Bonaparte’, who would use his popularity for his victories and the support of the army to seize power from the Cimmunist Party. Stalin was more effective than the Directory, sending Zhukov to far corners of the USSR in 1947-49. Although rehabilitated after Stalin’s death in 1953, Zhukov was again denounced for Bonapartism by the next Communist leader, Krushchev. Politicians getting nervous about successful leaders, eh?