Napoleon and the Struggle for Germany: The Franco-Prussian War of 1813: Vol 1

This book is the first of a two volume Cambridge history on Napoleon's campaigns in Germany in 1813; with each volume weighing in at several hundred pages, this is a highly-detailed and thorough account of the campaign in Germany.   While the book includes accounts from all sides, most of the material comes from German sources, especially memoirs, letters, etc., which give readers a good idea of what the leading German military figures were thinking...and generally, they were thinking bad things about their Russian allies.

While the military campaign is interesting, the most interesting part of the book is the description of the relationship between Germany and Russia, and their respective military leaders.  The Russians, with their army exhausted by the campaign in 1812 and early 1813, were wary of confronting Napoleon on anything but the most lopsided of terms, and were not willing to risk their weakened army to defend Prussian territory.  Meanwhile, Prussia recalled its experience in 1806, when it was crushed after finding itself with no allies, took great pains to humor the Russian concerns, but there were limits as to what the Prussians would accept from their lukewarm allies.

The many quotes from personal letters, etc. inject a lot of personality into the account of the campaign.  There were serious frictions between and within the Russian and Prussian armies, and on occasion these frictions had--or almost had--serious repercussions.

In summary, a very good but rather dense account of the 1813 campaign; Volume 2 of this history will be reviewed in due course.