Polish Eyewitnesses to Napoleon's 1812 Campaign: Advance and Retreat in Russia

Marek Tadeusz Lalowski · Jonathan North

Dez 2020 · Pen and Sword Military

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The drama of Napoleon’s ill-fated invasion of Russia is captured through the letters and diaries of Polish soldiers who fought with the French.

Napoleon’s invasion of Russia cost hundreds of thousands lives and changed the course of history. Europe had never seen an army like the one gathering in Poland in 1812—half a million men in brilliant uniforms and shimmering helmets. Six months later, it was the ghost of an army, frozen and horrified, retreating home.

This illuminating volume tells the story of this epic military disaster from the viewpoint of the tens of thousands of Polish soldiers who took part. Some of them were patriots eager to regain independence for their country. Others were charmed by the glory of Napoleonic warfare or were professional soldiers who were simply doing their jobs.

They all tell an unrivaled tale of ruthless battles, burning villages, numbing hunger, and biting cold. By the end the great army had been reduced to a pitiless mob and the Polish soldiers, who had set out with such hope, recalled it with horror.

Autoren-Profil

Marek Tadeusz Lalowski is a Polish historian specialising in the Polish contribution to Napoleon’s campaigns. With his co-author Jonathan North he has published Glory and Despair: Polish Accounts of the Sieges of Saragossa, 1808 and 1809 and War of Lost Hope: Polish Accounts of the Napoleonic Expedition to Saint Domingue, 1801 to 1804.