The Road to Rivoli: Napoleon's First Campaign

by Martin Boycott-Brown, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., New York, 2002, 640 pp., $21.95

In the introduction to The Road to Rivoli, Martin Boycott-Brown states that the book "aims to tell the story of the campaign, concentrating on the military aspect. While doing this, it attempts to say something about the experiences of the local civilian population." While accomplishing the first goal, he fails in the second as the experiences of the civilians tend to fade in the later chapters. The Road to Rivoli is an exhaustive account of Napoleon's first Italian campaign, focusing on the actions of the Austrian and French armies as they battled across Northern Italy in 1796-1797. The author draws on a wealth of secondary sources, complemented by numerous primary sources in English, French, Italian, and Austrian, giving his work a refreshingly balanced perspective.

Boycott-Brown wastes a great deal of time laying the foundation for the campaign. He uses over 120 pages to explain the basics of Napoleonic warfare, the origins of the conflict, and the nature of the French and Austrian armies. Much of this is not needed, as this is not a book for a novice of the Napoleonic era. Boycott-Brown sticks to his initial aim of telling the military history of the campaign and, unfortunately, provides very little in the way of analysis. Reading the book is not easy, by any means, and appropriate analysis at various points would have made the book more interesting and easier to digest.

However, the greatest fault of the work is the lack of suitable maps and orders of battle. At times, the author details the action down to the regimental and battalion levels, and unless one knows which brigade, division, or corps a specific commander belongs to, one gets lost. The book has 10 pages of maps in the center of the book; however these maps fail to detail any troop movements or positions, making it very difficult to follow the action. To fully understand the situation, the reader is required to have a map of northern Italy in front of him, as well as another book detailing the orders of battle for the campaign.

The Road to Rivoli is not a book for the Napoleonic novice, and even the more experienced reader will have difficulty with this book. On the other hand, if one is looking for a decent account of Napoleon's first campaign, then it is worth the read.

LTC JOHN M. KEEFE

U.S. Army, Retired

COPYRIGHT 2004 U.S. Army Armor Center
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group