Featured battle : Figueras [3]

Part of The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

Date : 04 May 1811 - 19 August 1811

The Spanish took the fortress on the 10th April 1811 [see Figueras 1] and garrisonned it with 5 weak regular battalions. The remainder of the garrison were made up from volunteers and Miqueletes [Catalan irregular mountain troops]. In May Napoleon had ordered an immediate re-capture of the fortress but the Spanish put up such a determined defence the immediate became over three months. The Spanish dead numbered 1,500 the French lost nearly three times that number. A French victory but a long expensive one.

With Napoleon’s Guard in Russia - The Memoirs of Major Vionnet 1812

Louis Joseph Vionnet. Translated & Edited Jonathan
A book I finished reading wanting more of the same. I suspect desperate hunger, numbing cold and the struggle to keep his troops together caused Major Vionnet to make few notes from which these memoirs were constructed. Jonathan North has written an excellent introduction, especially the Peninsular War background to the regiment, and there is an appropriate selection of maps and illustrations to support the text. He has also used other personal accounts to broaden the perspective and add detail. My one minor complaint is that the many footnotes are gathered at the end of the book. If, like me, you always read footnotes, and these are most helpful, then having them on the relevant page is so much more convenient. This book is about detail having a broad overview of the Russian campaign, while not essential, is most useful.
With only a little imagination the reader will gain insights into the hell which engulfed and killed so many of Napoleon’s troops in the retreat from Moscow. And crucially how some of the survivors survived.

Pen & Sword Military. Pen & Sword Books Ltd., 2012