Jomini et la strategie: Une approach historique de l'oeuvre (review)

of the imperial troops in a way that shocked French commanders. On a small scale, Maida foreshadowed Wellington’s campaign in Portugal and Spain, and that is its significance. Schneid recounts all of this, but strangely, he insists that the war in Calabria was nothing but a “pin prick” and a “footnote in the larger framework of the Napoleonic wars” (pp. 54–55). This is precisely the same kind of argument that has always been made about the Italian theater in general in 1805, 1809, and 1813, so it is odd to hear Schneid repeat it. Schneid’s book is not aimed at a general audience, and it is purely military history with no analysis of the social, economic, and political origins and outcomes of the several wars examined. Nevertheless, people interested in the minutiae of Napoleonic warfare will find it appealing, and it does serve to fill a significant gap in our knowledge of Napoleonic warfare. This reader is convinced that the Italian wars were much more than footnotes in the story of Napoleon’s defeat.