Tři napoleonovi jezdci - Vzpomínky dragouna Onyona, dragouna Auvraye a jízdního myslivce Wolfe Toneho na deset let napoleonských válek (Kritické vydání) – Kovařík Jiří (2020)

In 1893, a group of men associated with the newly established Musée de l’Armée at the Invalides in Paris founded the military-historical monthly Carnet de la Sabretache, Notebook from the Sabre Bag. It was published until 1937, and among the founding fathers and leading figures was the outstanding painter of battle scenes, Édouard Detaille. The revue, which each year reached up to six hundred pages, featured an abundance of articles and studies on French military history, with a significant portion dedicated to the publication of manuscript memoirs and recollections from the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. We have attempted to resurrect three of them from oblivion for Czech readers, and the selection was not random. Together, they provide a rather unusual picture, illustrating the entire course of the Napoleonic Wars from the time of glory and dazzling victories to their bitter end. Non-commissioned officer Jean-Auguste Onyon of the 4th Dragoon Regiment, the author of the first memoir, recounts the war and campaigns he experienced in a whimsical, almost joking manner, with that unmistakable French lightness. Although he endured many hardships, he wrote about the campaign that took him to Moravia in 1805 with such a perspective that it might seem as if war were merely an entertaining adventure. Second lieutenant of the 23rd Dragoon Regiment as...