The Napoleonic

Wars
alexander A Global History
mikaberidze

1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mikaberidze, Alexander, author.
Title: The Napoleonic Wars: a global history/Alexander Mikaberidze.
Description: New York: Oxford University Press, [2020]
Identifiers: LCCN 2019019279 | ISBN 9780199951062 (hardback: alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Napoleonic Wars, 1800–1815. | Napoleonic Wars,
1800–1815—Influence. | Geopolitics—History—19th century. | Military
history, Modern—19th century.
Classification: LCC DC226.3 .M54 2020 | DDC 940.2/7—dc23
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For Anna
I am called to change the world.
—Napoleon to his brother Joseph
We have won an empire by armed might, and it must continue to rest on
armed might, otherwise it will fall by the same means, to a superior
power.
—Secret Committee of the British East India Company
Now Napoleon, there was a fellow! His life was the stride of a demigod
from battle to battle and from victory to victory. . . . It can be said that
he was in a permanent state of enlightenment, which is why his fate
was more brilliant than the world has ever seen or is likely to see after
him.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
One man alone was then alive in Europe; everyone else tried to fill their
lungs with the air he had breathed. Every year France made him a gift
of three hundred thousand young men; and, with a smile, he took this
new fiber pulled from the heart of humanity, twisted it in his hands,
and made a new string for his bow; he then took one of his arrows and
sent it flying across the world, until it fell into a vale on a deserted
island under a weeping willow.
—Alfred de Musset
History is not the soil in which happiness grows. The periods of happiness in
it are the blank pages of history.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Contents

List of Maps ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xix

Chapter 1 The Revolutionary Prelude 3

chapter 2 The Eighteenth-Century International Order 18
Chapter 3 The War of the First Coalition, 1792–1797 44
Chapter 4 The Making of La Grande Nation,
1797–1802 68
Chapter 5 The Second Coalition War and the
Origins of the “Great Game” 83
Chapter 6 The Rites of Peace, 1801–1802 104
Chapter 7 The Road to War, 1802–1803 122
Chapter 8 The Rupture, 1803 148
Chapter 9 The Elephant Against the Whale:
France and Britain at War, 1803–1804 173
Chapter 10 The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 188
Chapter 11 “War Through Other Means”: Europe and the
Continental System 228
Chapter 12 The Struggle for Portugal and Spain,
1807–1812 242
viii | contents

Chapter 13 The Grand Empire, 1807–1812 282

Chapter 14 The Emperor’s Last Triumph 307
Chapter 15 The Northern Question, 1807–1811 332
Chapter 16 “An Empire Besieged”: The Ottomans and the
Napoleonic Wars 368
Chapter 17 The Qajar Connection: Iran and the European
Powers, 1804–1814 423
Chapter 18 Britain’s Expeditionary Warfare, 1805–1810 449
Chapter 19 Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1800–1815 469
Chapter 20 The Western Question? Struggle for the Americas,
1808–1815 501
Chapter 21 The Turning Point, 1812 525
Chapter 22 The Fall of the French Empire 552
Chapter 23 The War and Peace, 1814–1815 591
Chapter 24 The Aftermath of the Great War 615

Notes 643
Select Bibliography 833
Index 884
List of Maps

Map 1: Europe in 1789 2

Map 2: The World in the Late Eighteenth Century 19
Map 3: Europe in 1792–1794 45
Map 4: Europe in 1797 69
Map 5: Europe in 1800 79
Map 6: The Middle East in 1798–1801 84
Map 7: Europe in 1803 105
Map 8: North America and the Caribbean, 1801–1805 131
Map 9: Campaign of 1805 189
Map 10: Campaigns of 1806–1807 201
Map 11: Germany Before and After the Imperial Recess 216
Map 12: The Continental System 229
Map 13: Portugal and Spain, 1807–1814 243
Map 14: The Grand Empire, 1811–1812 283
Map 15: Europe in 1809 308
Map 16: North Europe 333
Map 17: The Ottoman Empire and the “Eastern Question” 384
Map 18: The Napoleonic Legacy in the Middle East 424
Map 19: Russian Expansion in the Caucasus 427
Map 20: Revolutions in the Atlantic World, 1776–1826 448
Map 21: West Indies 458
Map 22: India, 1780–1805 470
Map 23: The Indian Ocean During the Napoleonic Wars 479
Map 24: South America, 1808–1815 502
x | list of maps

Map 25: Russian Campaign, 1812 527

Map 26: North America, 1812 542
Map 27: Campaigns in Germany and France, 1813–1814 553
Map 28: Europe in 1815 after the Congress of Vienna 594
Map 29: The World in 1815 614
Preface

I t has long been accepted that, together with the French Revolutionary
Wars, the Napoleonic Wars constitute a single conflict, lasting some
twenty-three years, that ranged France against shifting alliances of European
powers and produced a short-lived French hegemony over most of Europe.
Between 1792 and 1815 Europe was plunged into turmoil and transforma-
tion. The French Revolution unleashed a torrent of political, social, cultural,
and military changes. Napoleon extended them beyond the country’s fron-
tiers. The ensuing struggle was immense in its scale and intensity. Never
before had European states resorted to a mobilization of civilian and military
resources as total as during this period. What’s more, this was a contest of
great powers on a truly global scale. The Napoleonic Wars were not the first
conflict to span the globe—such a distinction probably belongs to the Seven
Years’ War, which Winston Churchill famously labeled as the first “world
war.” But this was a war that in its scale and impact dwarfed all other European
conflicts; for nineteenth-century contemporaries, it came to be known as the
“Great War.” Though provoked by the rivalries within Europe, the Napoleonic
Wars involved worldwide struggles for colonies and trade, and in scale, reach,
and intensity they represent one of the largest conflicts in history. In his efforts
to achieve French hegemony, Napoleon indirectly became the architect of
independent South America, reshaped the Middle East, strengthened British
imperial ambitions, and contributed to the rise of American power.
Starting in the spring of 1792, revolutionary France became embroiled in
a war. At first the French aspired to defend their revolutionary gains, but as the
war progressed, their armies spread the effects of the Revolution to the neigh-
boring states. With General Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise to power, France’s war
aims reverted to more traditional policies of territorial expansion and continental
xii | preface

hegemony seen under the Bourbon kings. Born on the island of Corsica into a
noble but impoverished family of Italian descent, Bonaparte studied at French
military schools and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the French artillery
in 1785. The Revolution, which he welcomed despite his aristocratic roots,
opened career prospects that would have been unimaginable to a young captain
from a remote outpost of the French Empire. Rising rapidly in the new revolu-
tionary armies, he was given command of French forces to invade Italy in 1796
and won brilliant victories that not only secured northern Italy for France but
also helped to end the War of the First Coalition, as is called the first attempt
to stop French expansion beyond its borders. Bonaparte’s next campaign, in
Egypt, was a military fiasco that failed to achieve its goals and ultimately
resulted in the departure of the French. But it did enhance Bonaparte’s repu-
tation as a decisive leader, which helped him overthrow the French govern-
ment in November 1799. By that point, a decade of revolutionary upheaval
and uncertainty had made firm rule, and the order and stability that it prom-
ised, more enticing than the ideas and promises of radical revolutionaries.
Though youthful (he turned thirty in 1799), the gifted General Bonaparte
proved to be a figure of authority. After seizing power in a coup, he assumed
the title of First Consul of the Republic and pursued an ambitious domestic
policy to stabilize France. The reforms of 1800–1804 consolidated revolution-
ary gains, with the famed Napoleonic Code reasserting fundamental princi-
ples of the Revolution: equality of all citizens before the law and security
of wealth and private property. Neither a revolutionary nor a power-hungry
maniac, Bonaparte instead gave France a form of enlightened despotism
masked by a façade of democratic ideals. Sovereign power resided only with
the ruler, not with the people. Though some scholars describe him as a “child
of the Revolution,” it would be more appropriate to refer to him as a child of
the Enlightenment. Bonaparte had little patience for the chaos, confusion, and
radical socioeconomic changes that revolutions tend to produce; on several
occasions he had openly expressed his disdain for the crowds that played a
decisive role in shaping the course of the French Revolution. Instead, Bonaparte
felt more comfortable within the traditions that emphasized rationalism and
strong political authority as well as tolerance and equality before the law.
True to the tenets of enlightened despotism, he strove to build a strong
French state by giving the people what he believed they needed, yet never
holding out the prospect of embracing republican democracy or surrendering
sovereignty to the will of the people.
Bonaparte, who was proclaimed Emperor Napoleon of the French in
1804, is widely recognized as one of the greatest military commanders in
history, but he made few original contributions to the theory of war. His gen-
ius lay in his ability to synthesize prior innovations and ideas and to implement
 preface | xiii

them in an effective and consistent manner. Between 1805 and 1810, having
crushed three European coalitions, Napoleonic France emerged as the domi-
nant continental power, extending its imperium from the Atlantic coastline
of Spain to the rolling plains of Poland. Along the way, the French armies
prompted important changes in Europe. In this regard Napoleon might be
perceived as “the revolution incarnate,” as the Austrian statesman Klemens
Wenzel von Metternich once described him, but the title must be viewed in
practical rather than ideological terms. After coming to power, Napoleon lost
the radical ideological zeal that had characterized his earlier years. But to defeat
France, European monarchies were compelled to pursue the path of reforms and
to incorporate select elements of France’s revolutionary legacy, such as greater
centralization of bureaucracy, military reforms, transformation of royal subjects
into citizens, and arousing people’s sense of rights while deflecting their
patriotic energies and passions toward defeat of a foreign enemy. In short,
they needed to employ French ideas against France.
The Napoleonic Wars should not be perceived merely as the continuation
of the revolutionary struggles. It is more appropriate to view them within the
context of the wars of the eighteenth century. Between 1803 and 1815
European powers repeatedly pursued traditional national objectives. There
were two main constants. One was France’s determination to create a new inter-
national order that would in turn produce hegemonic power. From this point
of view, Napoleon’s policies and Europe’s response to them echo Louis XIV’s
reign and the efforts of the Grand Alliance to contain expansionist France and
to preserve the fragile balance of power in Europe. The French Revolution
added an important ideological element to the Napoleonic Wars but did not
erase geopolitical issues that stemmed from earlier rivalries.
The other constant was the long-standing Franco-British rivalry, which
exerted considerable influence on the course of events. France remained offi-
cially at war with Britain for twenty years (240 months, starting in 1793),
far longer than the period France spent at war with Austria (108 months,
starting in 1792), Prussia (58 months, also starting in 1792), or Russia
(55 months, starting in 1798). Furthermore, between 1792 and 1814
Britain more than tripled its national debt and spent the staggering sum of
£65 million on subsidizing wars against Napoleon. Indeed, one may argue that
the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars constituted a new phase of what has
been sometimes described as the Second Hundred Years’ War, one that France
and Britain waged between 1689, in the wake of the Glorious Revolution
and France’s support for the overthrown King James II, and 1815, when
French imperial dreams ended at Waterloo. As in the earlier conflicts (in
addition to the War of the Spanish Succession, there was the War of the
Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War), these two powers struggled
xiv | preface

for dominance not only in Europe but also in the Americas, Africa, the
Ottoman Empire, Iran, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, the Mediterranean
Sea, and the Indian Ocean.
Such was the determination (and capacity) of Britain that the British gov-
ernment continued its steadfast opposition to Napoleon even when it found
itself acting alone for many of those years. More often than not, however,
Britain was at the heart of a wide array of coalitions that sought to contain the
French emperor’s efforts to build a Europe-wide empire. As soon as one coali-
tion collapsed, London made efforts to create another, financed from the prof-
its of rapidly expanding trade networks and growing industrial development.
The contest between Britain and France was, in effect, the struggle between
two societies in the process of building empires. France threatened, cajoled,
and browbeat its neighboring governments on the continent, but so did
Britain, using its economic and naval might to build and protect a global
commercial empire. As one senior British official opined in 1799, “It is laid
down as an axiom applicable to the conduct of an extensive warfare by this
country that our principal effort should be to deprive our Enemies of their
Colonial possessions. By so doing we weaken their power while at the same
time we augment those commercial resources which are the sole Bases of our
maritime strength.”1
The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars have kept historians
busy for the past two hundred years. Thousands of books have been written
on Napoleon himself, and when related titles—on the Napoleonic campaigns,
politics, and diplomacy, as well as his opponents and allies—are added to
the pile, the total number of books would certainly be in the hundreds of
thousands. The last decade in particular has seen the publication of a num-
ber of new titles, including more than a dozen biographies of Napoleon.
The shelves of any decent library groan under the weight of works on the
Napoleonic Wars.
Yet it is my firm belief that the story of the French Revolutionary and
Napoleonic Wars is far more complex than has been dealt with by the tradi-
tional approach, which views the era either as a backdrop for Napoleon’s life
or as a means to study the intermittent coalition wars within Europe. There is,
of course, a vast body of scholarship about Napoleonic-age militaries and
diplomacy—Paul Schroeder’s The Transformation of European Politics serves as
one of the finest examples of this genre—but it remains restricted in coverage
to Europe. The few studies that extend beyond European coverage tend to
unfold entirely within the framework of Franco-British rivalry, with little
consideration of events outside it. Most recently, for example, the British
historian Charles Esdaile wrote the masterly Napoleon’s Wars: An International
 preface | xv

History, “a history of the Napoleonic Wars that reflects their pan-European

dimension and is not just Franco-centric.”2 Again, though, his focus remains
firmly on Europe,
My intention is to add to the history of these wars by showing that
between 1792 and 1815 European affairs did not unfold in isolation from the
rest of the globe. Indeed, the tremors that spread from France starting in 1789
tend to overshadow the fact that the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars had
truly global repercussions. Austerlitz, Trafalgar, Leipzig, and Waterloo all
hold prominent places in the standard histories of the Napoleonic Wars, but
alongside them we must also discuss Buenos Aires, New Orleans, Queenston
Heights, Ruse, Aslanduz, Assaye, Macao, Oravais, and Alexandria. We can-
not fully understand the significance of this period without involving the
British expeditions to Argentina and South Africa, the Franco-British diplo-
matic intrigues in Iran and the Indian Ocean, the Franco-Russian maneuver-
ing in the Ottoman Empire, and the Russo-Swedish struggles for Finland.
Rather than remaining at the periphery of the story, they go to the core of its
significance.
Offering a global context to the Napoleonic Wars reveals that they had far
greater long-term impact overseas than within the European continent itself.
Napoleon was, after all, defeated and his empire erased from the map of
Europe. Yet this same period saw the consolidation of British imperial power
in India, a crucial development that allowed Britain to emerge as a global
hegemon in the nineteenth century. This empire-building process required
immense commitments in terms of men and resources. More Britons died
during the years of sporadic campaigns in the West and East Indies than dur-
ing the Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal.3 And it was not merely Britain’s
expansion that gives global relevance to these years. The early nineteenth cen-
tury witnessed Russia pursuing its colonial designs in Finland, Poland, and
the Pacific Northeast while seeking to expand at the expense of the Ottoman
Empire and Iran in the Balkan Peninsula and the Caucasus. In the Atlantic
world alone, the Napoleonic Wars saw three established European empires
and the young American republic actively competing, with each determined
to preserve its territory and attempting to enlarge it at the expense of its
competitors. The United States more than doubled in extent after the pur-
chase from the French of the Louisiana Territory and challenged Britain dur-
ing the War of 1812. In the Caribbean, the French Revolution produced the
Haitian rebellion, the most consequential of all slave revolts on the Atlantic
rim. In Latin America, Napoleon’s occupation of Spain in 1808 spurred inde-
pendence movements that ended the Spanish colonial empire and created a
new political reality in the region. Momentous changes were also unfolding
xvi | preface

in the Islamic world, where the political, economic, and social upheavals in
the Ottoman Empire and Iran laid the foundation for the “Eastern Question”
dilemma. In Egypt, the French and British invasions of 1798–1807 led to
the rise of Mehmet Ali and the eventual emergence of a powerful Egyptian
state that would shape Middle Eastern affairs for the rest of the century. Nor
did South Africa, Japan, China, and Indonesia escape the effects of the European
power struggles.
On a more personal level, having studied and taught Napoleonic history
for well over two decades, I believe that there is a pressing need for an inter-
national perspective. History teaches the inexorable truth that actions have
consequences that reverberate long after the events themselves end, a fact
clearly illustrated in the period in question. The Napoleonic Wars set many
parts of the world on a separate course of development, and without them, the
Revolution itself might have remained largely a European affair and with lim-
ited influence on the outside world. But France’s ambitions and European
efforts to thwart them meant that the war spread to far-flung corners of the
world. As one American historian observed, “In part deliberately, in part
despite himself, Napoleon made the Revolution a crucial event in European
and world history.”4
What follows is divided into three parts. The first provides an overview of
the revolutionary period from the start of the French Revolution in 1789 to
General Napoleon Bonaparte’s ascent to power in 1799. It contains contex-
tual background to the subsequent events, for it would be impossible to
understand the Napoleonic Wars without looking at the decade that pre-
ceded them. The second part is organized both chronologically and
geographically, making allowance for the fact that events were unfolding
simultaneously worldwide. It starts with Europe at peace in 1801–1802 and
explores Napoleon’s efforts to consolidate French gains in the aftermath of
the French Revolutionary Wars and Europe’s response to them. Chapters 8
and 9 concentrate on the Franco-British tensions that ultimately erupted into
a conflict that went on to consume the rest of the continent. In the subsequent
chapters, the narrative moves away from the traditional focus on western and
central Europe to consider other areas of conflict, such as Scandinavia, the
Balkan Peninsula, Egypt, Iran, China, Japan, and the Americas, demonstrat-
ing how far the Napoleonic Wars reached. The third and final part of the book
traces the fall of the Napoleonic Empire. By this point the Napoleonic Wars
had been all but resolved in Asia, so the narrative shifts to Europe and North
America and culminates in the defeat of Napoleon and the convocation of the
Congress of Vienna. The concluding chapter casts a broad look at the world in
the aftermath of the war.
 preface | xvii

In undertaking this task, I have inevitably had to be highly selective and

there is much that was not included or discussed at length in this work.
I hope nonetheless that my choices will not detract from the book’s message
and will still reveal how and why the Napoleonic Wars, and those who fought
them, influenced the course of events across the globe.
Acknowledgments

L ike most people, I learned about Napoleon in early childhood. This

initial interest turned into a genuine passion when during a regular visit
to a bookstore in my hometown of Tbilisi, Georgia, I discovered a dusty vol-
ume of the French emperor’s biography written by the great Soviet historian
Albert Manfred. I was so mesmerized by Napoleon’s exploits that I searched
high and low for more books, not an easy task amid the political and economic
turmoil that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since then I have
devoted more than two decades to studying Napoleon, and it has become one
of the defining experiences of my life. It is because of this fascination with the
emperor that I was able to leave my war-ravaged homeland to pursue a new
academic career, traveled widely around the world, met my wife, and pursued
an “American dream.” In so many ways, Napoleon changed my life.
Over the years, my views of Napoleon have evolved from the unbridled
admiration of my youth to a much more circumspect appreciation of the man
and his talents. His personality is crucial to understanding the turbulent years
that shaped Europe at the start of the nineteenth century. Napoleon was a con-
summate reader whose prodigious memory, analytical mind, and ability to
select relevant details made him a highly effective administrator. One of the
greatest military minds, he was a stirring visionary, and the scale of his ambi-
tions continues to capture people’s imagination. But his other traits are dis-
tinctly unpleasant to contemplate. He was a climber and double-dealer who
exploited others for his own gain. He was egotistical and prone to nepotism,
richly rewarding his relatives even when confronted with their continued
incompetence; his demands for efficiency often blurred lines between lawful-
ness and criminality; and he cynically exploited human weaknesses whenever
the occasion arose. He was not the “Corsican Ogre” that he is often made out
to be, but neither was he the romantic figure of the Napoleonic legend.
xx | acknowledgments

He was a man whose many talents are incontestable but whose role and place
in history require a more nuanced evaluation; within his unquestionable gen-
ius lurk many flaws. But whatever view one takes of him, whatever aspect of
his accomplishment is discussed, whether one admires him as a superb mili-
tary leader or condemns him as the precursor of latter-day dictators, one can-
not deny that he was a self-made man who dominated his age like no other
individual, a fact that his die-hard enemies grudgingly admitted as well.
This book is the product of years of research and contemplation. Throughout
this time, I have received support, guidance, and encouragement from numer-
ous friends, colleagues, and family members. I would like to thank all of them,
especially those who were there when I first embarked on this project a decade
ago and who continued to encourage me when common sense might have
inclined them to impatience. My family has lived with Napoleon for a very
long time; in the case of my children, for the whole of their young lives. My
sons, Luka and Sergi, have become les marie-louises, frequently playing under-
neath the office desk waiting for their father to finish writing yet another
page; they merrily ask me to convey their regards to “Uncle Napo” every
time I travel to France. I am grateful to my family—Levan, Marina, Levan Jr.,
and Aleko Mikaberidze, and Tsiuri, Jemal and Koka Kankia —for tolerating
my Napoleonic passion as well as heaps of Napoleonic books and documents
scattered around the house for so many few years. This book would not have
been possible without their love, patience, and support.
I first came up with the idea of producing an international history of the
Napoleonic Wars while still in graduate school at the Institute on Napoleon and
the French Revolution at Florida State University. I was very fortunate to work
under the guidance of Professor Donald D. Horward, an eminent Napoleonic
scholar who directed more than one hundred graduate students and turned FSU
into one of the most prolific centers for the study of the revolutionary era. His
decision to respond to a simple inquiry from an aspiring student from a war-
torn country had profound ramifications for my life. Whatever accomplish-
ments I have as a scholar are entirely due to his unwearied mentorship and
guidance. Equally important to me is the support of J. David Markham,
without whom I probably would not have embarked on a career of the
Napoleonic historian.
Michael V. Leggiere and Frederick Schneid have taught me much through
their friendship and scholarship. Michael’s meticulous studies on the collapse
of the French Empire in 1813–1814 have shaped my own understanding of
this momentous event. Rick continues to amaze me with the breadth of his
knowledge and his willingness to share and assist. Despite being deeply
involved in their own research, Michael and Rick have been generous with
 acknowledgments | xxi

their time, read many parts of this manuscript and shared their criticisms,
corrections, and suggestions.
My editor at Oxford University Press, Timothy Bent, has been both
extremely patient and kind in working with me, putting up with numerous
delays and accepting a manuscript that was far larger than the one he had com-
missioned. With his warm sense of humor, he gently guided me through the
editing and helped me refine the book, for which I will be eternally thankful.
I am much indebted to the guidance and dedication of my agent, Dan Green.
It has been a genuine pleasure to work with the remarkable staff at Oxford
University Press: Mariah White, Joellyn Ausanka, and especially my copyed-
itor, Sue Warga, for her meticulous scrutiny of the text. George Chakvetadze
did a splendid job designing maps for this book. I would also like to thank
anonymous readers who provided valuable criticism that made the book
much stronger.
Over the years I have been privileged to get to know and work with a remark-
able group of scholars: Katherine Aaslestad, Frederick Black, Jeremy Black, Rafe
Blaufarb, Michael Bonura, Alexander Burns, Sam Cavell, Philip Cuccia, Brian
DeToy, Charles Esdaile, Karen Greene (Reid), Wolf Gruner, Wayne Hanley,
Doina Harsanyi, Christine Haynes, Jordan Hayworth, Marc H. Lerner, Dominic
Lieven, Darrin McMahon, Kevin D. McCranie, Rory Muir, Jason Musteen, Erwin
Muilwijk, Ciro Paoletti, Christy Pichichero, Andrew Roberts, John Severn,
Geoffrey Wawro, and Martijn Wink. I have learned much from them and am
grateful to each of them for their continued support and encouragement. I have
benefited immensely from the expertise and astute judgment of Alexander Grab,
Sam Mustafa, Bruno Colson, Marco Cabrera Geserick, Michael Neiberg,
Virginia H. Aksan, Jonathan Abel, Mark Gerges, John H. Gill, and Morten
Nordhagen Ottosen, who have taken time from their busy schedules to read parts
of this manuscript and provide invaluable feedback. Nathaniel Jarrett generously
shared a treasure trove of documents that he has mined in the British archives;
Heidrun Riedl helped me research Austrian war efforts at the Kriegsarchiv
in Vienna. I will miss wonderful discussions about the impact of the Napoleonic
Wars on the Middle East with the late Jack Sigler, a Foreign Service officer who
had spent decades serving in the region and generously shared his knowledge and
experience with me. Much of what I know about French naval history is the result
of my close friendship with Kenneth Johnson, which started back in graduate
school when we were still dreamers riding around in a 1976 Buick LeSabre,
a genuine warship on wheels.
Away from the United States, I am thankful to Huw Davies for an oppor-
tunity to discuss this project at the international conference “Waterloo: The
Battle That Forged a Century” at King’s College London in 2013. Two years
xxii | acknowledgments

later Peter Hicks extended a similar invitation to a symposium at the Fondation

Napoléon in Paris. Through the years Thierry Lentz, François Houdecek and
Pierre Branda, of the Fondation Napoléon, have generously shared their time
to discuss with me aspects of the Napoleonic history; I still hope to see an
English-language history of the Napoleonic Empire that can match Lentz’s
superb multivolume Nouvelle histoire du Premier Empire. I have benefited from
the help and counsel of many individuals from across Europe, among them
Yves Martin, Dimitri Khocholava, and Jovita Suslonova in France; Nika
Khoperia, Beka Kobakhidze, Shalva Lazariashvili, Paata Buchukuri, and
George Zabakhidze in Georgia; Ciro Paoletti in Italy; Alexander Tchudinov,
Dimitri Gorchkoff, and Vladimir Zemtsov in Russia; Michael Bregnsbo in
Denmark; and Alan Forest and Jonathan North in Great Britain. The Napoleon
Series project, where I have been involved for many years, remains an
immensely useful place for discussion and exchange of ideas. I owe a great
debt to many its members but especially to Robert Burnham, Tom Holmberg,
and Steven Smith.
I have benefited in too many ways to mention from the wonderful atmos-
phere provided at Louisiana State University–Shreveport by my colleagues,
especially Gary J. Joiner, Cheryl White, Helen Wise, Helen Taylor, John
Vassar, Blake Dunnavent, and the late Bernadette Palombo. My sincerest
thanks go to Larry Clark, Chancellor of LSUS, and Laura Perdue, Executive
Director of LSUS Foundation, for their continued support and encourage-
ment. This book has improved greatly from the discussions I have had with
students in my French Revolution and the Age of Napoleon courses, espe-
cially Ben Haines, Autumn Cuddy, Ethan Puckett, Art Edwards, Zachary
Favrot, Mitchell Williams, Douglas Smith, and Aaron Kadkhodai.
At the Noel Foundation, I am indebted to Robert Leitz, Shelby Smith,
Delton Smith, Gilbert Shanley, Merritt B. Chastain Jr., Steven Walker, Laura
McLemore, Stacy Williams, Dick Bremer and Richard Lamb for their big-
hearted support, which allowed me to undertake research trips to European
archives and to acquire many titles for the growing Napoleonic collection at
the James Smith Noel Collection. Similarly, I am appreciative of the Patten
family, whose endowment of the Sybil T. and J. Frederick Patten Professorship
helped me conduct research in the French diplomatic archives. Beyond the
confines of academia, I have discussed the Napoleonic Wars with more people
than I can remember but I owe a particular debt for the advice and encourage-
ment to Martha Lawler, Janie Richardson, Jerard R. Martin, Sara Herrington,
Ernest Blakeney, Ray Branton, Dmitry and Svitlana Ostanin, and Mikhail
and Nataly Khoretonenko. Needless to say, despite all this support, I alone
bear the responsibility for any mistakes that remain in this book.
 acknowledgments | xxiii

The book would not have been done were it not for the loving support and
care of my wife, Anna Kankia, who has stoically endured all my absences,
travels and obsessions. I dedicate this work to her with these words from
Catullus 51: Nam simul te aspexi, nihil est super mi. These words are as true
today as they were twenty years ago when we first met.
Alexander Mikaberidze
Shreveport, Louisiana
August 15, 2019 (Napoleon’s 250th birthday)