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In the summer of 1789, a revolution broke out in France. No previous movement had so profoundly shaken the foundation of society as the one championing ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’.
Siege warfare followed most of the practice established before, but a larger use of guns, the improvement of gunpowder and sometimes orders to fight to the last stand led to an escalation in violence. This was enhanced too by the growing involvement of civilians, especially in Spain, which gave a more exacerbated dimension to the fights
Fighting in the Napoleonic Wars was in the continuity of the eighteenth century and even the two preceding ones. Major changes in weapons on a large scale would not occur before the years 1850. Generals and officers were still nurtured by the military writers of the eighteenth century, but among these writers some had envisioned what war could become if large-scale ‘operations’ were conducted and if armies grew in size. With the Revolution and the dictatorial power Napoleon inherited from it, France set the tone for waging war with more intensity, in the movement of armies as well as in tactics on the field of battle. Other powers simply had to follow, but interior conditions and social imperatives resulted in partly adaptations and half-measures.
The Napoleonic Wars saw almost two decades of brutal fighting. Fighting took place on an unprecedented scale, from the frozen wastelands of Russia to the rugged mountains of the Peninsula; from Egypt's Lower Nile to the bloody battlefield of New Orleans. Volume II of The Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars provides a comprehensive guide to the Napoleonic Wars and weaves together the four strands – military, naval, economic, and diplomatic - that intertwined to make up one of the greatest conflicts in history. Written by a team of the leading Napoleonic scholars, this volume provides an authoritative and comprehensive analysis of why the nations went to war, the challenges they faced and how the wars were funded and sustained. It sheds new light not only on the key battles and campaigns but also on questions of leadership, strategy, tactics, guerrilla warfare, recruitment, supply, and weaponry.
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