7 maps i22 illustrations e6 x 9 iPreviously unpublished letters and diaries of a Napoleonic officer rDetailed accounts of the 1812 and 1814 campaigns rA unique combat history of the Bavarian Army The letters and campaign diaries of Lieutenant Franz Hausmann.are a unique primary source for the daily life and duties of an officer in the Napoleonic Wars. Written for his father, himself a former infantry officer in the Bavarian forces, they constitute a remarkable soldier's-eye view of military life. Hausmann saw action in the wars against Austria (1805), Prussia (1806), and Russia (1807). He also took part in the ill-fated invasion of Russia in 1812, marching in the ranks of the doomed Bavarian corps. He survived to describe the 1813 and 1814 campaigns, when the Bavarians switched sides and fought against Napoleon. His writing has considerable impact and immediacy, unclouded by hindsight, and is here placed in the context of military events by John Gill. John H. Gill is the author of With Eagles to Glory, a study of Napoleon's German allies in the 1809 campaign. Cynthia Hausmann is the great-great grandaughter of Franz Hausmann.
