LA GUERRE SECRÈTE DE NAPOLÉON – ÎLE D’ELBE 1814-1815 (NAPOLEON’S SECRET WAR, ELBA 1814-1815)

The nine-month reign of a giant of Lilliput: intrigue, secrets and preparations for the return finally laid bare.
Napoleon stayed three hundred days on the island of Elba, from 3 May, 1814, to 26 February, 1815. This period if often seen as an interlude in the ‘epic' of Napoleon's life, so much did it seem like the giant only cared for the sleepy 244 km2 of his tiny kingdom and minuscule population.
Not so, says Pierre Branda. The stay on Elba, he maintains, was far from being a rest for Napoleon. His every action was closely scrutinised, and he was put under pressure by the victors of 1814. As a reaction, Napoleon never ceased in organising projects and plots, sometimes extremely far-fetched, to try to get away. He also waged a secret war, which in the end he won, since his adversaries did not see it coming..
Using little-known and certain never-before-published sources, Branda lays bare all the schemes and plans, traps and counter-traps used by the great strategist to prepare the landing in the Golfe Juan which astounded Europe.

Read the interview here on napoleon.org of Pierre Branda on the subject of his book