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A Soldier For NapoleonThe Campaigns of Lieutenant Franz Joseph Hausmann, Translated by Cynthia Joy Hausmann A Remarkable DiscoveryThe Napoleonic Wars letters and campaign diaries of Lieutenant Franz Joseph Hausmann have never been published before, and are a unique primary source describing the daily life and duties of an officer in the wars. Written by Franz Hausmann for his father, himself a former infantry officer in the Bavarian forces, A Soldier for Napoleon constitutes a remarkable soldier's-eye-view of military life. His contemporary writing has considerable impact and immediacy, unclouded by hindsight or later judgement. The recently discovered letters and diaries, here placed in the context of the military events of the period by John Gill, cover the pivotal campaigns and convey the nature of the conflict from the point of view of a junior officer. Hausmann's first campaign was the 1805 war against Austria, followed by the 1806 and 1807 campaigns in Prussia and Poland. In 1809 he was in action against the Tyrolian insurrection and he also fought at Abensberg, and Znaim. He was only twenty-three when he embarked on the ill-fated 1812 invasion of Russia and served as part of the Bavarian corps that was shattered in this cataclysmic campaign. He survived to describe the 1813 campaign and the 1814 campaign in France when the Bavarians switched sides and fought against Napoleon. This is a unique, intimate picture of a young soldier going to war. With background material by John Gill, this book is not only entertaining, but also an important, authoritative addition to key works on the Napoleonic Wars. Cynthia Hausmann is the great-granddaughter of Franz Hausmann and painstakingly translated and deciphered the original letters and diaries. John H. Gill is a serving officer in the United States Army and the author of With Eagles to Glory. Extract from letter of 18 August 1812 from Franz Hausmann to his parents:"At about 6 o'clock (on the 17th) a few six-pounders were directed at a Russian picket, and towards 8 o'clock the affair began. It was our task to cover two batteries behind the Polota. Now it is easy to imagine that all the enemy artillery, of which to be sure they had only about 20 pieces, was concentrated upon these two batteries, which caused very much damage in the Russian army because of their excellent location, and we therefore endured a stiff cannonading that lasted until 4 o'clock. The brigade had extraordinarily good luck in this place, for we counted only six wounded, while the Sixth Regiment had 17 officers and over 200 men wounded, and the Second Regiment about five officers and 190 men." Extract from Franz Hausmann's diary, 18 August 1812:"In the morning before it was daylight we were relieved at the outposts by the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division, and we marched back almost as far as the city into bivouac. At 2 o'clock in the afternoon we received the order to break camp, crossed the Polota, and at about 3 o'clock arrived behind the Spas monastery. Now the enemy was to be turned by the 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Division advancing through defiles, while the 1st Brigade with the 3rd Brigade and II Corps attacked the enemy from the front. Four battalions of our brigade successfully crossed through the defile, which could be traversed only one by one, but we as the fifth [battalion in sequence] were prevented from following them by Russians who had gained a nearby hill. Therefore, in order to make place for ourselves on the plain, we were forced to take this hill by storm, and this was also accomplished by the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Regiment, just at the moment that one regiment on our left was in full retreat. The latter was reinspired by the arrival on the hill of our battalion, and we now joined forces to drive the enemy toward the woods. Here we remained still for a time, until suddenly the Swiss and French positioned on our left were thrown back behind us almost to the city of Polotsk, and the 1st Brigade of the 1st Bavarian Division, which was still standing in reserve, forced the enemy back into his first position 2 hours' distance from Polotsk. Thereupon we bivouacked on the battlefield, and the fusillade lasted the whole night." October 1998: ISBN 1-85367-336-6. Price: £19.50 A Soldier for NapoleonThere was considerable interest in the announcement of the hitherto unseen letters and diaries by a Napoleonic officer. We therefore invited Cynthia Joy Hausmann and John H. Gill to write about the background to the project. "I first became aware of my great-grandfather's letters", writes Cynthia Joy Hausmann "after the death of my grandfather, Franz, Joseph Hausmann's youngest son, in 1951. Although the quality of the paper and ink was probably as good as what one would encounter today, through the years the lettters had clearly been lovingly pored over by Franz's children. In places they were torn or mended with small stirps of brown or transparent paper, some pages were out of order, and here and there my grandfather had pencilled in comments, as was his wont. Although Franz's handwriting was quite good, he used the old-fashioned Gothic script, sometimes squeezed comments into the margins, and generally wrote in a very small hand - in later years he would admonish his children to write as small as possible, so as to save postage by not using much paper. My great-grandfather Franz Joseph Hausmann served as a young lieutenant with the 7th Bavarian Infantry Regiment and was one of the fortunate few of Napoleon's Grande Armee to survive the Russian campaign of 1812-1813. Later, after the Bavarians changed sides and joined the Allies in the campaign against Napoleon, Franz fought his way across France up to the capitulation of Paris on 31 March 1814. It was Franz's good fortune on these military campaigns to be serving as adjutant to one or another of the Bavarian commanding officers, thereby greatly increasing his chance of survival. However, by 1951 Franz's only living descendants were in the United States, and only my father and I had sufficient linguistic interest to attempt a preliminary translation of the letter that had been handed down for the benefit of other family members. The older generation was thrilled to learn what an honourable young man Franz had been, and the younger generation by and large merely noted the fact that some ancestor had written letters during Napoleon's time. So matters remained, until I recently realised that my days were slowly running out and that I ought to make a serious effort to learn if there might be any outside interest in what had until then been considered strictly a family curiosity. Family attics have also produced other related treasures, notably Franz's military diaries, his voluminous later letters to his children, and the documents associated with his decorations. My grandfather, Julius (1849-1951), Franz's youngest child, emigrated in 1869, became an American citizen in 1874, and founded a successful importing business in New York. He spent long periods of time in Germany, around the turn of the century, even maintaining a house there in Weissenburg (in Alsace, now in France) where his unmarried sisters lived. In approximately 1923, when travel between Germany and the United States again became possible after World War I, he came into possession of all his father's letter and diaries. Presumably, these had previously been kept by his half-brother Otto, Franz's eldest son, who had remained in Germany. Otto, however had no children, and after his death in 1917, my grandfather assumed responsibility for the family legacy. In the war-related interim before someone from my family could bring these papers and related mementos to the United States, they were probably kept by Franz's unmarried daughter, Mathilda, who would die in 1939, the last remaining descendant of Franz's to live in Germany." "Franz Joseph Hausmann lived during one of the most important phases of Bavarian history," writes John H. Gill, "and personally experienced many of the dramatic events that brought transformational change to that realm in the first fifteen years of the nineteenth century. Born in the year of the French Revolution, Franz first entered the army in 1799, left active service in 1815 after the Battle of Waterloo, and finally departed the army in 1818 when the last Allied occupation troops came home from France. Through these years in uniform, he fought in every major Central European campaign of the French Empire: 1805 against Austria and Russia, 1806/7 against Prussia and Russia, 1809 against Austria, 1812 against Russia, and 1813 against the combined Allied powers. Finally, in 1814, he participated in the invasion of France with the Bavarian Corps of the Allied Main Army. A remarkable collection of military experiences for a young man of 25! Through all the many trials and glories of these years, Franz maintained a detailed march journal and, from 1812, a lively correspondence with his parents in Neuburg on the Danube. It is these often lengthy letters which form the foundation of this book and which provide unique insights into military life during the Napoleonic epoch. The letters and diaries come from a collection of Franz's papers held by his great-grand-daughter, Cynthia Joy Hausmann. For those who think of the Napoleonic era as a piece of ancient history only one step removed from the Roman Empire, it is worth recalling that Cynthia is only Franz's great-grand-daughter. Considering that most of us have probably known one or more of our grandparents and some have even been blessed to know great-grandparents, this littler observation helps bring home the fact that the age of Napoleon is not all that far removed in time from our own after all."
Greenhill Books/Lionel Leventhal Limited Park House Stackpole Books 5067 Ritter Road
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