The Emperor's Last Victory


Book Description

A leading expert examines one of Napoleon's most decisive but least analysed victories In early July 1809 Napoleon crossed the Danube with 187,000 men to confront the Austrian Archduke Charles and an army of 145,000 men. The fighting that followed dwarfed in intensity and scale any previous Napoleonic battlefield, perhaps any in history: casualties on each side were over 30,000. The Austrians fought with great determination, but eventually the Emperor won a narrow victory. Wagram was decisive in that it compelled Austria to make peace. It also heralded a new, altogether greater order of warfare, anticipating the massed manpower and weight of fire deployed much later in the battles of the American Civil War and then at Verdun and on the Somme.




The Emperors


Book Description

The fascinating story of the Austrian, German and Russian imperial families during the four years of the First World War and the political and personal struggles that brought about their ruin




History of Byzantine Emperors


Book Description

“Wealth without work Pleasure without conscience Science without humanity Knowledge without character Politics without principle Commerce without morality Worship without sacrifice. https://vidjambov.blogspot.com/2023/01/book-inventory-vladimir-djambov-talmach.html A five-volume composition by A. M. Velichko "History of the Byzantine Emperors" reveals the events of the reign of all monarchical dynasties of the Holy Roman (Byzantine) Empire – from St. Constantine the Great before the fall of Constantinople in 1453. This is the first comprehensive study in which historical events from the political life of the Byzantine state are depicted in their organic relationship with the life of the ancient Church and the personality of specific kings. The work describes in detail and in detail the most interesting vicissitudes of the history of the Byzantine state, including in terms of interchurch relations between Rome and Constantinople. Numerous events of the times of the Ecumenical Councils are cited, the role and forms of participation of emperors in the activities of the Catholic Church are revealed. The work is supplied with portraits of all the emperors of the Byzantine Empire, maps and extensive reference material. /// For all those interested in the history of Byzantium, the Church, law and politics, as well as students of law and history faculties. /// This volume covers the era from Constantine the Great to Anastasius I. /// ... /// By the example of Byzantium, as reincarnated in Christ and through Christ of the pagan Roman Empire, the Lord revealed such an ideal that would be able to overshadow the pagan Roman analogue, striking in its appearance the minds of his contemporaries. Christ gave not only the ideal of personal faith on the example of the exploits of the first martyrs, ascetics, and saints. He bestowed (by man himself such an ideal, naturally, could neither be conceived nor created) to us a political (sometimes they say – social) ideal, as a special political and legal type of state system, in which the goals and objectives of the earthly Church organically become the alpha and omega public policy ... In other words, the Savior indicated under what state structure the most favorable conditions for the “capture of men” and the regeneration of the old man into the son of God are formed for the Church. /// The practical embodiment of the Kingdom of God on earth in the person of the Empire is the quintessence of Byzantinism, the meaning of life and existence of Byzantium as the first Orthodox state. Hence, as a result, all other legal and social structures are generated that create a stable political, legal and cultural image of an ideal state. /// The main idea of the political and legal system of the Roman (Byzantine) Empire was the imposition of the law of the Church on the state, the well-known identification of the tasks of the Church and the state, and the churching of man. "The Church in Byzantium just aspired to express itself in the state, to make its law the law of the state. " For Byzantium, “the existence in a state with civil and political rights of such persons to whom the law of the Church did not apply, and for whom non-observance of church law was not combined with civil and political lawlessness” was a complete absurdity, an unthinkable situation.




The Last Mughal


Book Description

WINNER OF THE DUFF COOPER MEMORIAL PRIZE | LONGLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 'Indispensable reading on both India and the Empire' Daily Telegraph 'Brims with life, colour and complexity . . . outstanding' Evening Standard 'A compulsively readable masterpiece' Brian Urquhart, The New York Review of Books A stunning and bloody history of nineteenth-century India and the reign of the Last Mughal. In May 1857 India's flourishing capital became the centre of the bloodiest rebellion the British Empire had ever faced. Once a city of cultural brilliance and learning, Delhi was reduced to a battered, empty ruin, and its ruler – Bahadur Shah Zafar II, the last of the Great Mughals – was thrown into exile. The Siege of Delhi was the Raj's Stalingrad: a fight to the death between two powers, neither of whom could retreat. The Last Mughal tells the story of the doomed Mughal capital, its tragic destruction, and the individuals caught up in one of the most terrible upheavals in history, as an army mutiny was transformed into the largest anti-colonial uprising to take place anywhere in the world in the entire course of the nineteenth century.




Emperors and Usurpers in the Later Roman Empire


Book Description

One of the great maxims of history is that it is written by the victors, and nowhere does this find greater support than in the later Roman Empire. Between 284 and 395 AD, no fewer than 37 men claimed imperial power, though today we recognize barely half of these men as 'legitimate' rulers and more than two thirds died at their subjects' hands. Once established in power, a new ruler needed to publicly legitimate himself and to discredit his predecessor: overt criticism of the new regime became high treason, with historians supressing their accounts for fear of reprisals and the very names of defeated emperors chiselled from public inscriptions and deleted from official records. In a period of such chaos, how can we ever hope to record in any fair or objective way the history of the Roman state? Emperors and Usurpers in the Later Roman Empire is the first history of civil war in the later Roman Empire to be written in English and aims to address this question by focusing on the various ways in which successive imperial dynasties attempted to legitimate themselves and to counter the threat of almost perpetual internal challenge to their rule. Panegyric in particular emerges as a crucial tool for understanding the rapidly changing political world of the third and fourth centuries, providing direct evidence of how, in the wake of civil wars, emperors attempted to publish their legitimacy and to delegitimize their enemies. The ceremony and oratory surrounding imperial courts too was of great significance: used aggressively to dramatize and constantly recall the events of recent civil wars, the narratives produced by the court in this context also went on to have enormous influence on the messages and narratives found within contemporary historical texts. In its exploration of the ways in which successive imperial courts sought to communicate with their subjects, this volume offers a thoroughly original reworking of late Roman domestic politics, and demonstrates not only how history could be erased, rewritten, and repurposed, but also how civil war, and indeed usurpation, became endemic to the later Empire.




The New American Cyclopaedia


Book Description







Roman Emperors in Context


Book Description

Roman Emperors in Context: Theodosius to Justinian brings together ten articles by renowned historian Brian Croke. Written separately and over a period of fifteen years, the revised and updated chapters in this volume provide a coherent and substantial story of the change and development in imperial government at the eastern capital of Constantinople between the reigns of Theodosius I (379-95) and Justinian (527-65). Bookended by chapters on the city itself, this book is based on a conviction that the legal and administrative decisions of emperors have an impact on the whole of the political realm. The fifth century, which forms the core of this book, is shown to be essentially Roman in that the significance of aristocracy and dynasty still formed the basic framework for political advancement and the conduct/conflict of political power around a Roman imperial court from one generation to the next. Also highlighted is how power at court was mediated through military generals, including major regional commanders in the Balkans and the East, bishops and bureaucrats. Finally, the book demonstrates how the prolonged absence of male heirs during this period allowed the sisters, daughters, mothers and wives of Roman emperors to become more important and more central to imperial government. This book is essential reading for scholars and students of Roman and Byzantine history, as well as those interested in political and legal history. (CS1100)