Austerlitz: The Empire at its Zenith Hardcover – October 19, 2003

This is an Excellent book on the Austerlitz campaign, how Napoleon outmanouvered ad destroyed the Russian and Austrian army. I especially like the fact that it has many of the officers names and which units they fought in and little biography. Excellent plates, which are excellent painting guides for the wargamer or military modeller.

Excellent pictures.Good review of events preceding Austerlitz Maps are somewhat confusing. There are few modern studies of this important battle

beautiful book. One of the best on the subject. The uniform pictorials are excellent.

very good book, excellent reference for figure painting

My book is fine

Austerlitz: The Empire at its Zenith written by F.G. Hourtoulle and illustrated by Andre Jouineau is the fourth book in this very good series. The book gives the background and overview of the battle of Austerlitz. There are detailed maps, orders of battle, uniform and equipment illustrations, biographies and portraits of major actors. There is a detailed breakdown of the French army and its components but there is only the order of battle for the Russians and Austrians plus the numerous illustrations and their annotations.Austerlitz is clearly aimed at military history enthusiasts and researchers as well as military modelling devotees. The focus of the book is detailed information covering the major actors and armies at Austerlitz as well as numerous colour plates showing the uniforms of many of the units that participated at Austerlitz.F.G. Hourtoulle has written numerous books on the Napoleonic Wars for the publishing house Histoire et Collections. Andre Joineau did the majority of the infantry, cavalry, uniform and equipment plates; the originals can be found at the publishers Images de Soldats (the back of the book lists all the original sources for the uniform plates).Hourtoulle has done exactly what he set out to do, and that is provide a comprehensive description of the battle of Austerlitz. The strength of the book lies in the amazing amount of research and its presentation. I especially like the numerous quotes fromcontemporary sources regarding the battle and its participants. However, the majority of the research is skewered towards the French army and its composition.The maps are very good, I especially like the incorporation of contemporary representations such as Lejeune's panorama of the battle, suitably annotated. The order of battle information is likewise very good. There are numerous prints included from the author's collection, portraits of generals and major actors as well as small biographies of each as well.The strength of the book lies in the research and its presentation of the battle itself and the participants. Although there are hundreds of colour plates of infantry, cavalry, their uniforms and equipment, this is not my favourite part of this book. I would much rather rely on other books that are specifically focussed on uniforms. However, if you are looking for one book on the battle of Austerlitz, the participants and the armies, you can not beat this fantastic volume.As he been noted by other reviewers there is an issue with the plates on pp14-15 where the black has not been printed. This was the case in my copy as well. There are also numerous other small errors, most appear to be editing and formatting largely originating from the translation of the book from french to english. For such a phenomenal book and the very reasonable price it is very hard to complain, so I won't. It does seem petty to drop stars for such minor issues. It is hoped that these will be rectified in any later editions.

Although primarily a book that focuses on uniforms of combatants involved in the Battle of Austerlitz thru beautiful colour plates, I found this to be a good all round book. The book provides a good summary of the battle, greatly enhanced with the use of maps of the various phases of the battle, showing positions & movements of units. The book also incorporates contemporary artwork and portraits that truly make this a beautiful volume. A good part of the book covers biographies & career histories of various key Frenchmen from the various divisions & corps that took part in the battle. I would have preferred an expanded account of the battle & less of these biographies, however that does not detract from a must book for the Napoleonic modeller.

I was lucky to purchase from Amazon this book with only two plates (pages 14-15) showing color problem. It looks like the books has been opened prior to shipment and checked by Amazon staff. Thank you!

good thank you gave insight to the French side

As with other books in this series the text can be a bit baffling due to the translation from French. However the true value of the book is in the superb prints and illustrations and in particular the detailed uniform information. A joy to own but maybe not a great read.

Perfetto! un libro meraviglioso che cura la battaglia in tutto e per tutto, dall'ordine di battaglia, ai generali in campo, fino a una descrizione quasi maniacale delle uniformi e delle bandiere presenti.consiglio agli appassionati l'intera collana di Histoire & collection