The War of Wars

The War of Wars treats the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic conflicts as a continuous struggle that reshaped Europe and the wider world. Robert Harvey begins with the collapse of the Bourbon monarchy and the radicalisation of the French Revolution, then follows the coalition wars through Napoleon’s rise from general to emperor. Britain’s financial system, parliamentary politics, naval power and overseas empire are set against France’s mass armies, administrative mobilisation and repeated domination of continental Europe.

The military narrative ranges from the Atlantic and Caribbean to Italy, Iberia, central Europe and Russia. Trafalgar secures British command of the sea, the Peninsular War drains French resources, the invasion of Russia destroys the Grande Armée and the final coalition carries the conflict to Paris before Napoleon’s return and defeat at Waterloo. Harvey gives prominent roles to Napoleon, Horatio Nelson, Arthur Wellesley, William Pitt and Alexander I, while arguing that the wars accelerated nationalism, state finance, industrial production and the emergence of a new European balance of power.