AN EAGLE AMONG RAVENS: THE CAMPAIGNS OF LA GRANDE ARMÉE 1812-1814 (Napoléon's Eagles)

“IN the spring of 1812”, wrote the English historian, Arthur Bryant, “every road across Germany was thronged with horses, guns and wagons bound for Poland.” Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, all marched under one banner, for one purpose, under the guiding hand of one man: Napoléon. An Eagle Triumphant told the story of la Grande Armée as it conquered Austria, Prussia, Poland, Spain, and Austria, again. By the spring of 1812 Napoléon could justifiably claim to hold sway over a vast swathe of Europe stretching from the gates of Cadiz to the banks of the river Niemen. Yet within two years his dominion had shrunk to the 86 square miles of the Mediterranean island of Elba. An Eagle Among Ravens tells the story of Napoléon’s attempt to extend his influence further east into Russia, and its utter failure. It graphically portrays the vicissitudes faced by the men of la Grande Armée as they struggled to return to their homelands in the depths of the Russian winter. It details the great struggle that followed the retreat, the struggle of nations, as a new Grande Armée fought to maintain Napoléon’s grip on central Europe, and defeat the forces of German nationalism and the Russian hordes. Finally it tells of the last desperate stand of the once great armée as its battle-hardened remnant struggle to defend their homeland. The final campaigns of Napoléon, and by extension la Grande Armée, have been likened to the combat of an Alpine eagle with a flock of ravens. "The eagle may kill them by hundreds”, wrote Bourrienne. “Each blow of his beak is the death of an enemy; but the ravens return in still greater numbers and continue their attack on the eagle until they at last overcome him.”