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The Fall of Napoleon: The Allied Invasion of France, 1813-1814. By Michael V. Leggiere. New York Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-521-87542-4. Illustrations. Maps. Appendixes. Bibliography. Notes. Index. Pp. xvii, 686. $35.00.
Michael V. Leggiere wrote The Fall of Napoleon to "analyze the invasion of France from both the French and Allied perspectives." Late October, 1814 found the remnants of Napoleon's army retreating westward across the Rhine to try to defend the French homeland against a looming invasion. That invasion involved an allied host whose leading members included Austria, Prussia, and Russia. An assortment of lesser German states such as Bavaria, that only recently had been Napoleon's allies, participated in the invasion. The author examines in detail this allied coalition "in which politics influenced strategy and military operations affected diplomacy." On the French side, Leggiere is particularly interested in the performance of Napoleon's key marshals charged with guarding the frontier. He seeks to fill what he correctly identifies as "a surprising gap in...