The Napoleonic Wars: The rise and fall of an empire (General Military 4)

This book is the publication in a single volume of Osprey Essential Histories volumes 3, 9, 17 and 39. A worthy, general, largely pro-Napoleon treatment (particularly in Fisher's chapters) of military matters of the Empire. There are however some occasionally political moments, notably, Fremont Barnes's clear treatment of the Vienna Settlement. Although it must be said that a poor caption to a map of Europe  (p. 329), 'The Vienna Settlement graphically demonstrates the extent to which the triumphant Great Powers benefitted territorially', goes completely contrary to the thrust of his text, namely that the Allies were very moderate in their claims and that balance-of-power diplomacy was dead, as per Schroeder in The Transformation of European Politics, a work not cited in the Bibliography. And there are some egregious small errors: how many times must it be repeated that Cambronne did not say 'La garde meurt…' (he himself denied it!!)?; British batteries are said in the text to have inflicted heavy losses on the French at Waterloo (p. 309) and yet no British batteries are shown in the illustrations on pp. 308 and 312; and the bibliography is three years out of date. But these are small criticisms.
 
Contents
– The rise of the Emperor 1805-1807
– The empires fight back 1808-1812
– The Peninsular War 1807-1814
– The fall of the French empire 1813-1815