Search Results for: Napoleonic Wars

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Navies Warship 12 Min Read

The Dutch Navy Warships of the Napoleonic Era

An watercolour of a small Dutch frigate shown, from two angles in a common convention of ship portraiture. She is flying the ensign of the Batavian Republic, dating it between 1796 and 1806. Prince Frederic of 64 guns late revolution Dutch ship taken at the Cape. Built in 1777 for…

France Italy 33 Min Read

NAPOLEONIC ITALY

The Battle of Marengo was fought on 14 June 1800 between French forces under the First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte and Austrian forces near the city of Alessandria, in Piedmont, Italy. Near the end of the day, the French overcame Gen. Michael von Melas‘s surprise attack, driving the Austrians out of…

Armies Poland 7 Min Read

Polish Units – Napoleonic Era

Following the victories at Austerlitz (1805) and later Jena and Auerstädt (1806), Napoleon called on Poles to establish a “Northern Legion” (also known as the Vistula Legion and, originally, the Légion Polacco-Italienne of the newly created Westphalian Army), yet without mentioning “Poland” in the name of the unit. In December…

France Naval Personnel 14 Min Read

Napoleonic Navy ‘Ashore’

Isar River, Freysing, Bavaria, April 1809 Capitaine de Vaisseau Pierre Baste was `supervising’ a recovery operation after the officers’ baggage of his command, sailors of the Battalion of the Danube and the 44e Bataillon de Flotille, had been dumped into the river. The train troops who had been carrying the…

Axis Strategy 49 Min Read

Alternate Second World Wars

Axis Power: Could Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan have won World War II? Paperback – September 23, 2012 by Dr. William Roger Townshend Ph.D (Author) Introduction The Second World War is the most popular period for alternate histories. This post is a list of possible points of divergence during and…

Cavalry 9 Min Read

Napoleonic Cavalry I

The major armies of the era each had formidable mounted forces, and during the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802) there was a rough parity between the horsemen of the Great Powers. Yet, when Napoleon (1769-1821) launched his Grande Armee on its campaigns of conquest in 1805, the cavalry of France emerged…

Cavalry 8 Min Read

Napoleonic Cavalry II

In December 1805, brigadier general Jean Rapp led a memorable attack at Austerlitz, when he charged at the head of two squadrons each of the Chasseurs a cheval and the Horse Grenadiers of the Guard and the Guard Mameluks and decimated the Chevalier Guards of the Russian Imperial Guard. Order…

Cavalry 8 Min Read

Napoleonic Cavalry III

Modern-day Knights The armoured warrior on horseback had dominated the battlefields of Europe for a millennium, but the advent of firearms had generally caused the disappearance of armour. By the end of the eighteenth century, most cavalry had abandoned it altogether. However, in the Napoleonic Wars armour made a comeback,…

Battle British 21 Min Read

The Wars of Independence: Bannockburn, 1314 II

First Day: Sunday, 23 June, the Eve of the Vigil of St John the Baptist Early that bright, warm summer morning, Bruce’s camp was already astir. He sent the Black Douglas and Robert Keith to reconnoitre the approaching English army. What the two men saw on that soft June day…

British China Wars Weapons 15 Min Read

Qing and Opium Wars I

China specialists Peter Perdue and Frederic Wakeman have both suggested, in separate publications, that the Qing were, in a way, victims of their own success. The period of Qing conquest, consolidation, and expansion had been exceedingly violent, with devastating wars that wracked East and Central Asia and corresponded with a…