THE FOLIO SOCIETY

Few individuals in history inspire such conflicting assessments as Napoleon Bonaparte – and David G. Chandler’s Campaigns of Napoleon is the definitive portrait. Thomas Carlyle described him as ‘the sheep-warrior of Europe’ and to Goethe he was the epitome of reason, living ‘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’. To others, however, he was nothing but ‘a talented thug’.

At the Siege of Toulon in 1793, Napoleon, aged just 23, first revealed the qualities that would carry him to greatness. Only 12 years later, he had himself crowned Emperor of the French. How did he achieve such a swift rise to power? What was the secret to the extraordinary war machine that put much of Europe under his heel? This best-selling Folio Society edition of David Chandler’s epic military history charts Napoleon’s remarkable progress through the major campaigns of his career and shows that his downfall, when it came, was as dramatic and heroic as his rise.