Napoleon and Berlin

Description

"At a time when Napoleon needed all his forces to reassert French dominance in Central Europe, why did he fixate on the Prussian capital of Berlin? On four separate occasions during the Campaign of 1813, Napoleon unleashed French armies against Berlin, and each time his efforts ended in failure. In Napoleon and Berlin, Michael V. Leggiere explores Napoleon's almost obsessive desire to capture Berlin and how this strategy ultimately cost him all of Germany." "Napoleon's motives have remained a subject of controversy from his own day until ours. Instead of concentrating his forces for a decisive showdown with the enemy, he repeatedly detached large numbers of troops, under ineffective commanders, toward the capture of Berlin. Napoleon hoped to deliver a tremendous blow to Prussia's war-making capacity and morale. Leggiere argues that ironically the heavy losses and strategic reverses the French sustained in this questionable undertaking left Napoleon's Grande Armee vulnerable to an Allied coalition that eventually drove Napoleon from Central Europe forever." "Based on research in archives throughout France and Germany, this book is the first English-language history of Prussia's "War of Liberation" and of its mobilization and use of the Landwehr, the Prussian militia. Most works on Napoleon mention the defense of Berlin only in passing. This book proves that Prussia's victory over the French decisively contributed to Napoleon's defeat in 1813. Not only did the Prussians change the course of the war, but their victories made future Prussian and German armies the envy of the world."--Jacket.