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When Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812, typhus ravaged his army, killing hundreds of thousands and ensuring his defeat, according to this breathless combination of military and medical history. After summarizing the havoc this disease wreaked on earlier armies and sketching Napoleon's career, the book describes his invasion of Russia with more than 600,000 men. Almost immediately typhus struck. Infected lice excrete the microbe in their feces, and victims acquire the disease by scratching the itchy bite. Talty (Mulatto America) describes the effects in graphic detail: severe headache, high fever, delirium, generalized pain and a spotty rash. Death may take weeks, and fatalities approached 100% among Napoleon's increasingly debilitated, filthy, half-starved soldiers. Talty makes a good case that it was typhus, not "General Winter," that crushed Napoleon. Readers should look elsewhere for authoritative histories of Napoleon's wars and of infectious diseases, but Talty delivers a breezy, popular account of a gruesome campaign, emphasizing the equally gruesome epidemic that accompanied it. 12 maps. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.As much a history of typhus as it is a history of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, this book presents both subjects in graphic detail, leaving the reader with no illusions of the "glory" of 19th-century warfare. In the spring of 1812, Napoleon assembled the largest army seen in Europe up to that time for the invasion and conquest of Russia-690,000 men under arms, most of whom would actually cross into Russian territory, followed by approximately 50,000 civilians. That's more people than lived then in Paris; this moving population would have ranked as the fifth-largest city in the world. Some 500,000 of them would never return, less than a quarter of them dying as a result of combat; the reason for most of the deaths is the subject of this book. Using contemporary sources, Talty (Empire of Blue Water) presents the whole horrifying experience as lived by the common soldier, the doctors, and officers up the ranks to the generals. He makes his case for the typhus being transmitted by the body louse. Strangely enough, the disease was no longer prevalent in Europe after 1814. Strongly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ2/15/09.].
—David Lee Poremba
Dramatis Personae: Command Structured and Coalitions
Introduction Old Bones 3
1 Incarnate 7
2 A Portable Metropolis 21
3 Drumbeat 35
4 Crossing 46
5 Pursuit 58
6 Smolensk 70
7 The Sound of Flames 80
8 Smoke 100
9 At Borodino 110
10 Clash 130
11 The Hospital 157
12 The Last City 172
13 Decision 192
14 Two Roads 205
15 Graveyard Trees 225
Epilogue: Rendezvous in Germany 253
Author's Note: The Doorway of the Hospital at Tunis 267
Glossary 277
Noted 279
Sources 297
Acknowledgments 303
Index 305
a very unique and interesting account of napoleans failed conquest of russia in 1812.the depictions of an army in the midst of both battle and typhus and the impact on each was well presented and surprisingly entertaining
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i havent read this book yet but im excited to start
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Overview
“Gripping . . . a compelling story of personal hubris and humbling defeat.”—Jack Weatherford,author of the New York Times bestseller Genghis Khan and the Making of the
Modern World
In a masterful dual narrative that pits the heights of human ambition and achievement against the supremacy of nature, New York Times bestselling author Stephan Talty tells the story of a mighty ruler and a tiny microbe, antagonists whose struggle would shape the modern world.
In the spring of 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte was at the height...