Sadowa [Illustrated Edition]

Illustrated with over 25 maps and diagrams of the manoeuvres and engagements of the War.
The scale of the French disasters during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 were of truly epic proportions; beaten off the field by the German armies in northern France, besieged like rats in a trap in the fortresses they thought were the keystones of their defence, and humiliating starved into surrender even in their capital of Paris. The years after the war led to huge amounts of soul-searching and intellectual debate how the French army might be modernized, refitted, and changed to enable it to stop any foreign invader dictating terms in the streets of Paris again; even thoughts of Revanche ! and the recapture of the lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine were harboured. The French military, set to their task with fervour, trying to divine how and why, their brilliant forebear Napoleon and their current nemesis the German General Staff, had been able to achieve their brilliant victories. The fruits of their reaches were published for wider debate and discourse, they received much praise and a readership beyond French borders some being translated into English. This volume General Bonnal, formerly professor of the École Supérieure de Guerre dissects the 1866 war between Prussia and Austria for dominion of the Germanic world. Moltke the Elder’s strategy and tactics are explained illustrated and with no punches pulled deliberately set as the example to be followed as the Prussian army outmanoeuvred their cumbersome opponents before encircling them at the climatic battle of known as Sadowa [Königgratz].