Review of Napoleon: Spirit of the Age: 1805-1810, by Michael Broers

Napoleon’s empire reached its zenith during the years 1805-1810.  During these years, he won his greatest military victories and France’s territorial grasp stretched across most of Europe. Underneath these successes, however, were signs that perhaps Napoleon’s aura of invincibility was fading. Author Michael Broers describes these years in the second of his three-volume analysis of the French emperor with Napoleon, The Spirit of the Age: 1805-1810.

Broers first volume, Napoleon, Solider of Destiny, charted the Corsican upstart from his birth through 1805. It was a solid accounting of the famed general, but lacked the excitement and drama that any narrative of Napoleon deserves. This second volume traces Napoleon’s expansion of his empire by concisely explaining the politics and intrigue of the era and also providing a much-more thrilling account of his military exploits, correcting a flaw in the author’s earlier volume.

Napoleon’s military campaigns are explained in great detail and with consummate skill. Broers starts with Napoleon’s defeat of the Austrian and Russian coalition with victories at Ulm and of course Austerlitz, still considered Napoleon’s greatest triumph. The author excels in not only describing the famed battle, but also with his narrative of the night before, a night Napoleon called one of the finest evenings of his life. From here, Broers goes on to describe Napoleon wrecking the once proud Prussian empire at Jena and Auerstadt. By 1806, Napoleon seemed invincible. It was around this time that German Philosopher Georg Wilhelm Freidrich Hagel described viewing Napoleon on horseback; a “wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it . . . The spirit of the age, who commands history.”  And with Austria and Prussia having been defeated, and being unable to reach the hated British, he set his sight on attacking the Russians. At this point, chinks in the armor first appeared.

The battle of Eylau, fought in a blizzard in February 1807, changed everything. Napoleon always sought a conclusive battle to force his opponent to the negotiating table, but here, he failed to achieve one. Russian forces abandoned the field but were not defeated. Broers describes how the slaughter was a major shock to Napoleon who was also forced to retreat to gather supplies. He wrote one of his marshals that “The Russians have done us great harm,” which was the truth hidden underneath the emperor’s vast propaganda machine. Napoleon was eventually able to secure a meaningful victory a few months later at Friedland which finally drove Czar Alexander to the famed meeting at Tilsit.

Napoleon dreamed of a Europe divided into two spheres of influence: French and Russian. He hoped these goals were fulfilled during the meetings at Tilsit with Alexander and temporarily, they were. For instance, the Czar agreed to participate in Napoleon’s continental blockade. With this peace with Russia, Napoleon hoped there could be peace for him to simply rule his empire. He would be mistaken, however, as new challenges and problems developed.

First of all, he failed to get matters under control on the Iberian Peninsula. Napoleon sought to overwhelm Britian’s ally Portugal and better enforce the blockade. To do so, he needed Spain brought under his heel. Spain rose up against him and his brother Jospeh who he put upon the throne. Napoleon had finally gone too far. The “Spanish Ulcer” would put a serious drain on Napoleon for the remainder of his rule. Next, the Austrians rose up again in 1809 and Napoleon suffered a rare loss at Aspern-Essling before winning at bloodbath at Wagram. Third, his placement of his family in key leadership positions failed as siblings such as Joseph (Spain) and Louis (Holland) failed to meet his expectations. Fourth, he completely broke with the Catholic Church in Rome, straining issues on the religious front. Next, he dismissed many of his long-term leaders such as Minister Charles Talleyrand and police head Joseph Fouché. And finally, he finally divorced his wife and confidante Josephine due to her inability to produce an heir. He wanted a Russian princess but had to settle for an Austrian one instead. 

Through nearly 500 pages of text, Broers weaves the reader between all these events in Napoleon’s life. His pace and narrative hold the reader in place as the reader becomes engaged with these crucial years of Napoleon’s reign. As the author recounts, Napoleon won his victories and expanded his empire, but at quite a cost. The Grande Armée had lost too many of its best soldiers and leaders and Napoleon’s siblings could never meet his expectations, severely damaging his chances of controlling Europe through his family dynasty. Napoleon desperately sought an heir who could inherit his empire, but would there be an empire left?  Britain remained a vigilant foe, eager to fund allied countries in their chance at revenge and Russia and Czar Alexander would never become a true ally.  Broers’s third volume awaits my reading, where I hope to see how he describes the emperor’s fall and the end of an empire.

CPW

Review of Madness Rules the Hour: Charleston, 1860 and the Mania for War, by Paul Starobin

Charleston, South Carolina has a rich past stretching back all the way to the 1600s and America’s early colonial era. No chapters in its long and storied saga, however, are more associated with the community’s history than its role in the secession of the Southern states and it serving as the backdrop to the opening shots of the Civil War. Indelible turning points in the nation’s past, they still resonate today as some of the most impactful events on the course of our nation’s development to occur in any American city. In Madness Rules the Hour, journalist Paul Starobin presents a month-by-month account of the pivotal year of 1860 which culminated with South Carolina’s decision of December 20, 1860 to leave the union in a gathering at Charleston’s Institute Hall. I recently had an opportunity to listen to an audiobook version of the title, originally released in 2017.

Starobin’s steady, well-paced narrative explores why the South Carolina coastal city became a home for disunion sentiment and how the movement towards secession slowly gained momentum there. Particularly reliant on the institution of slavery for the production of the cotton exports which funded city government and provided income for the region’s elite, white Charlestonians were especially concerned with any developments that might curtail the labor system. The city was home to one of the largest concentrations of wealth in the South, and those who made their fortunes in cotton saw in any threat to slavery an implicit danger to their financial future. So, too, did middle and lower class white residents, who viewed any restrictions on slavery as restrictions on their own opportunity for economic advancement. With the possibility that a Republican might win the presidency, the tone and tenor of arguments for Southern independence—which had been bandied about for a decade previous with varying degrees of seriousness—increased in volume and urgency in Charleston.

Charleston and the state of South Carolina had a bit more experience with defiance of the federal government than many Southern regions by 1860. The state had single-handedly dared the president to enforce a hated tariff in the early 1830s, only backing down at the last moment when cooler heads prevailed. Yet the spark of disunion had been kindled, and it would burst into flames on occasion over the next quarter century at different points when attempts to control the spread of slavery gained traction in the nation’s capital.

In truth only a vocal minority actually believed that leaving the union would solve the region’s perceived problems, but it would have been hard to discern that in 1860. Powerful community leaders and vocal politicians steadily whipped listeners and readers into a frenzy over the course of the year, using such partisan newspapers at the Mercury as a mouthpiece and dominating discourse on the topic. Those who had reservations about the wisdom of secession learned to keep quiet in the emotional environment, and common sense seemed to be temporarily suspended. A potent mix of fearmongering, overconfidence, and persuasion combined to make disunion, with or without the full support of other slave-holding Southern states, seem a viable remedy for longstanding grievances.

The drama the book presents is punctuated by the Democratic Party convention held in the city in the spring of 1860, the event around which the entire story pivots. Hosting the nominating convention there was originally viewed as a way to mollify right-wing party members in the South who felt they no longer had a voice in the party platform. But in the end southern fire-eaters, with South Carolina politicians in the vanguard, determined to go their own way and break off from the party. The decision virtually guaranteed a victory in the presidential election by a sectional candidate. But the possibility seemed to only bolster the commitment to the dream of an independent South, as advocates of secession viewed such a result to be the final proof of designs to subjugate and ruin the region. Hence the election of Abraham Lincoln was less a shock than the expected end to an extended crisis.

Starobin guides readers through the story of how the idea of secession grew in popularity after the convention in an escalating drama which reaches a crescendo with the secession convention of December 1860. Numerous forgotten individuals, many largely unknown, are brought to light by the author, and the reverence many of them had for the eminent statesman from a previous generation, John C. Calhoun, is revealed. Along the way, readers get a better understanding of life in the town during the era for both its white and black residents. The book helps provide greater context and depth to South Carolina’s decision to leave the union than any account I have previously read, providing the complete backstory to a landmark event. It does not, thankfully, ever become bogged down in too much detail on any individual person or event. If there is any one thing I took away from Starobin’s account of the events leading to South Carolina’s secession, it is probably that it is a historical study in group dynamics, revealing how an action widely considered rash and ill-advised came to be viewed as the only rational response to political setbacks in a remarkably short period of time. Considering the tumult and dysfunction in our government today, that history lesson seems especially timely. If you have an interest in learning why and how secession occurred as it did, you will enjoy this book.

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Review of Christopher C. Meyers, ed., The Empire State of the South: Georgia History in Documents and Essays (ed. by Christopher C. Meyers) The Old South: A Brief History with Documents (David Williams) and Georgia: A Brief History (Christopher C. Meyers and David Williams)

The following review appeared in the Fall, 2023 issue of Muscogiana

Mercer University Press is a fabulous academic publisher well known for punching above its weight, especially on topics related to Georgia history. We have been fortunate to review several of the Press’s titles touching on Columbus-area heritage over the past few years. Recently I received three of Mercer Press’s books for review in this space which have a broader focus—two statewide and one of the larger region of which it is a part. While all were originally released several years ago, I thought they nonetheless merited mention in this journal both as landmarks in state historiography and for their particular usefulness to the large number of researchers among our readership.

The Empire State of the South: Georgia History in Documents and Essays, was originally published in 2008 but is now in its fifth printing and has come to be recognized as an essential volume on state history. Compiled and edited by Christopher Meyers, professor of history at Valdosta State University, the book is a collection of nearly 130 edited original documents fundamental to Georgia history, ranging from speeches and constitutions to campaign songs. The documents are arranged in chronological order within each of sixteen chapters which cover the state’s past by era. Each chapter is introduced by a short introductory essay on the period of focus. Following the presentation of the featured documents—many of which are heavily redacted so as to showcase only the most essential portions—two in-depth essays by noted scholars of the given period are offered. These elaborate on key aspects of the period under study as revealed in individual circumstances selected for their representativeness. The scope is necessarily incredibly wide-ranging, including compacts made by Europeans with Native Americans, public opinion during the American Revolution, pivotal documents associated with secession and the Civil War, unrest during Reconstruction, major issues during the world wars, and the turmoil associated with the Civil Rights Movement. All of this is followed up with a variety of other reference materials, such as population tables illustrating the growth of the state over the years, a list of governors of the state, counties with date of organization, and official state symbols. A short assortment of images and maps iconic to Georgia history precedes the entire collection. By any measure, the book is a comprehensive collection of information that will be invaluable to researchers.

A similar Mercer University Press book, The Old South: A Brief History with Documents, focuses on a more specific period of time but encompasses a much larger geographic area. Longtime professor David Williams, author of more than ten books on state and regional history and possessing some expertise in Chattahoochee Valley history, edited the volume. It first appeared in 2014 and remains in print. Similar to Empire State, the heart of the book is a collection of a variety of original documents which illustrate major themes in several historical eras. As the book’s subject is the “Old South,” periods receiving attention range from the era of European exploration and first colonial settlements up to the Civil War. The South as a whole is included, but Georgia receives its fair share of attention in the volume. Each chapter is introduced by thorough essay on the era under discussion and its importance in regional history, and is followed by ten to fifteen documents which together tell a story of the human experience in that particular time period. A comprehensive bibliography with suggestions for further reading concludes each chapter.

The editors of the above volumes, Meyers and Williams, have also collaborated on a popular and widely acclaimed history of Georgia (Georgia: A Brief History, originally published in 2012) which has been published as a second “expanded and updated” edition by Mercer in the spring of 2023. A standard reference source on the state’s past by a variety of educational institutions for over a decade this revised version of the title contains only slight modifications to the original publication. Notably, this includes information on recent events such as the COVID epidemic and its impact on life in the state.

Given the book’s widespread acceptance as a reference text, one might easily assume that it is a dry, heavily subdivided textbook and not the story-driven narrative that it is in actuality. Meyers and Williams exhibit both their deep grasp of Georgia history and innate ability to weave a compelling story in the pages of A Brief History, moving from era to era with ease while demonstrating pace and purpose without being melodramatic. The state’s history unfolds as a cohesive, connected tale of human experience in their capable hands. This does not mean, however, that every subject or time period receives precisely the same amount of attention.         

A Brief History is exactly what the title implies: an introductory summary of Georgia history and not a definitive academic treatise. Though a serious study by respected professors, the book contains no footnotes, instead featuring lists of essential books consulted in the writing of each chapter. Per their prerogative, depending on their depth of knowledge and interests, the authors take deeper dives into some subjects than others—their discussion of the development of the colony of Georgia and its role in the American Revolution is a particularly well developed summary, for example, while the chapter focusing on secession and Civil War features much less discussion of the actual military aspects of the war than one might expect yet provides one of the better synopses of the war experience on the home front to be found in print. A small selection of supplementary materials, such as a series of maps, charts, and graphs illustrating important trends in the state’s past, a listing of all of its governors, and data on population by census, is included.

All three books are excellent reference resources on their subjects. All are well deserving of your consideration if you have an interest in gaining a better understanding of Georgia history or are conducting any research in the state or wider region’s past.

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