Chasseur Barres. An Infantryman with Napoleon's Eagles. Chasseur Barres is a classic memoir of a French soldier of Napoleon's Imperial Guard. Barres enlists in the 'skirmishers' of the Guard and dons the distinctive (and often despised) bearskin of his corps. From that point he embarks on a life of perpetual hard soldiering which takes him to most of the campaign theatres and many of the battlefields of the Napoleonic Age in the company of his Emperor. Barres' first hand accounts of the battlefield; campaigning; Napoleon and the principal characters of the age make riveting reading. Those devoted to the history of these dynamic times will find much to interest and satisfy within the pages of this book.
#584040 in Books Naval and Military Press 2009-02-13Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.21 x 1.23 x 6.14l; 1.50 #File Name: 1845741528490 pages
Review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. The french side of WaterlooBy Iñigo AlixAs its companion about the campaign of 1815 this is aneed in every napoleonic library.Absolutely pro french and "Napoleonic" view of the battle.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. An Excellent HistoryBy John B. SivertsenThis is an incredible work of history. Over the last 47 years (beginning with Chandler's "The Campaigns of Napoleon") I have read many; many histories of the Napoleonic era and I am shocked that it took me this long to discover this treasure.This book is nearly 125 years old but if you let that discourage you then you are making a huge mistake. It is a fascinating work of history - 294 pages of text and; get this; 157 pages of Notes. If you skip the Notes then you will miss some very entertaining and enlightening details and comments.For those of you who read military history; I would liken Houssaye's work to that of Douglas Southall Freeman's "Lee's Lieutenant's." Houssaye wrote 83 years after Waterloo (Freeman wrote 77 years after the American Civil War). There is an immediacy to their works that you don't see in today's histories because they each personally knew members of the generation that immediately followed their respective subjects and they each clearly walked the grounds when the grounds were still largely intact. They are not entirely "objective" (who is?) but their works each have a very entertaining "flavor" and "immediacy".Houssaye clearly admires Napoleon (and; writing in 1898; he dislikes the British and detests the Prussians) but he is no idle cheerleader. The study is filled with observations about what did work; what could have worked; what should have happened and what went wrong. He carefully describes the failures of Napoleon as well as his subordinates. This is a serious and objective work of history and the national pride that he periodically shows does not diminish the skill of his analysis. He debunks false theories - his rebuke at pages 279 and 293 of the theory that Napoleon was "ill" or "collapsing under strain" stands alone as worth the price of the book - he lays out in complete detail the physical activities of Napoleon over a number of days and essentially asks "Is this reflective of a sick man?"You will get a wonderfully vivid picture of the Waterloo campaign if you read side by side both Houssaye's book and the recent books by Andrew W. Field (a current serving officer in the British Army). Field brings a soldier's eye to the issues while Houssaye brings greater "immediacy" and "color" to the project. If you do this; you will need a good set of maps - these books are fairly poor in this respect. The maps in the books by David Hamilton-Williams and Peter Hofschroer are excellent for this purpose.All in all; an excellent; excellent work of history.
