1812_Napoleon_in_Moscow.htm

[Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com>]

   Napoleonic Literature
   Greenhill  [INLINE] Books
   
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   [INLINE] 1812: NAPOLEON IN MOSCOW
   by Paul Britten Austin
   
   9 x 6 in. (240 x 159 mm).  272 pages.  22 halftones, 2 maps.
   ISBN 1-85367-195-9.
   U.K. Price £19.50.  U.S. Price $40.00.
   
   Napoleon's Grande Arm�e waits at the gates of Moscow, preparing to
   enter in triumphal procession. But it finds a city abandoned by its
   inhabitants - save only the men who emerge to fan the flames as
   incendiary fuzes hidden throughout the empty buildings of Moscow set
   the city alight. For three days Moscow burns, while looters dodge the
   fires to plunder and pillage. And so begins 1812: Napoleon in Moscow,
   Paul Britten Austin's atmospheric 'word-film' presented through the
   testimony of more than 100 of the people who witnessed the took part
   in the campaign. A large proportion of these close-up accounts have
   never been seen in English before.
   
   After the fires die down the army settles in the ruins of Moscow. For
   five weeks Napoleon waits at the Kremlin, expecting 'his brother the
   Tsar' in St. Petersburg to capitulate and make peace, while in fact
   the Russian army is gathering its strength. At the same time Murat's
   cavalry, the advance guard, is encamped in dreadful conditions three
   days' march away at Winkowo, where it is being starved to death. When
   Napoleon eventually realizes the futility of his plans and prepares to
   leave Moscow, the advance guard is surprised by a Russian attack and
   tumbles head over heels out of its position. The most astounding
   exodus in modern times ensues. Trailing thousands of wagons and
   carriages laden with all the stupendous loot of Moscow, the Grande
   Arm�e moves slowly south in an attempt to outflank the Russian General
   Kutusov. At Malo-Jaroslavetz, 100 kilometers from Moscow, it runs
   headlong into ten of Kutuzov's divisions, and its 'conquest of the
   world' comes to an end with the shock of Napoleon himself narrowly
   escaping capture by Cossacks.
   
   1812: Napoleon in Moscow follows on from the brilliant 1812: The March
   on Moscow, which brought Napoleon's army across Europe to the great
   city. Paul Britten Austin recreates this next phase of the epic
   campaign with characteristic verve, and an astonishing sense of
   immediacy from the words of the participants themselves.
   
   Paul Britten Austin went to sea as a cabin boy in the British merchant
   marine, graduating to Radio Officer and serving in tankers and liberty
   ships. In 1947 he recovered his childhood home in Paris, but moved to
   Sweden, where he married the Swedish novelist Margareta Bergman,
   sister of the film director. For nearly a decade he was in charge of
   English-language broadcasts from Radio Sweden; thereafter, from 1957
   to 1969, of the Swedish government tourist office in London.
   
   He has written a score of books on various subjects, both in English
   and in Swedish, including a classic biography of the eighteenth
   century Swedish poet Carl Michael Bellman. He has also translated many
   other Swedish classics and he has been awarded a Swedish knighthood of
   the Order of the North Star and an honorary D.Litt. In 1989 he
   contributed the article on Marshal Oudinot to David Chandler's
   anthology Napoleon's Marshals.
   
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