A History Military Art Book Napoleon in Russia

A History Military Art Book Napoleon in Russia

First Edition Art History Military book. With Napoleon in Russia The Illustrated Memoirs of Faber du Faur, 1812 by Jonathan North. London 2001, Greenhill, first UK edition, hard bound with dust jacket, 206 pages, 93 full colour plates; 35 sketches in colour and black and white. This handsome book is a unique record of Napoleon's invasion of Russia by Faber du Faur, a talented artist and front-line soldier. It combines his detailed, accurate and compelling illustrations of scenes recorded as they actually happened with his vivid and gripping memoirs of the campaign. The result is a superb and remarkably detailed evocation of 1812, from the sweeping battle scenes which capture the ordeal of Smolensk and Borodino, to the day-to-day struggle to keep campfires burning and famished men fed. Faber du Faur's plates admired and highly-regarded primary source material are here presented, for the first time, complete and in full colour. His moving and frank memoirs, edited and translated by Jonathan North, are accompanied by a detailed campaign history and biography of the artist. Napoleon's invasion of Russia is a legendary campaign and a captivating story of endurance, survival and the rigours of total war. Few of the 500,000 men to cross the Niemen in July 1812 were to survive the French army was decimated by the advance into the heart of Russia, and almost completely destroyed in the epic retreat from Moscow. With Napoleon in Russia is a unique presentation of this epic and an unforgettable depiction of the horrors of war. Christian Wilhelm von Faber du Faur (1780 1857) served as an artillery officer, in Ney's III Corps, throughout the 1812 campaign.