The authors show that the conscripts mostly perceived compulsory service as a burden, and a heavy one. Three of the chapters are chronological, dealing with particular conflicts and the records they left, one deals with conscription and desertion, one life in the army, and one wounds, illness and captivity.

The organisation is clear and appropriate. Built around the collection of the Archives de l'Etat � Li�ge which kept more than 1,500 letters, all written by soldiers from the Ourthe department and the vast majority written by conscripts. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title.Ī superb guide to the experience and motivation of military service that is based on a wide trawl of relevant letters. It offers the English-speaking audience a French view of a conflict which is too often limited to the traditional memoirs of Captain Coignet, Colonel Marbot or Sergeant Bourgogne. The book will be fascinating and informative reading for military and cultural historians, but it will also appeal to anyone who is interested in the war experience of common soldiers. It adds to the existing literature by exploring every aspect of the life of a French soldier during the period 1799-1815. That is why this account, based on more than 1,600 letters written by French soldiers of the Napoleonic armies, is of such value.

It is rarely seen from the perspective of the lowest ranks of the army, and the experience of the ordinary soldiers is less well known and is often misunderstood. That armed clash of Jended napoleon Bonaparte’s ambitions of conquering Europe to build a great empire, and resulted in the deaths of around 20,000 soldiers.The French side of the Napoleonic Wars is often seen from a strategic point of view, or in terms of military organization and battlefield tactics, or through officers’ memoirs. Half a dozen European nationalities were represented in the military ranks at the Battle of Waterloo, located 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Brussels. He was in an autopsy room in the Forensic Medicine Institute in Liege, eastern Belgium, where tests are being carried out on the skeletal remains to determine from which regions the four soldiers they belong to came from. “So many bones - it’s really unique!” exclaimed one such historian, Bernard Wilkin, as he stood in front of a forensic pathologist’s table holding two skulls, three femurs and hip bones. LIEgE, BELgIUM - More than 200 years after napoleon met defeat at Waterloo, the bones of soldiers killed on that famous battlefield continue to intrigue Belgian researchers and experts, who use them to peer back to that moment in history.

Fighting for Napoleon by Bernard Wilkin