WILSON, Sir Robert. Brief Remarks on the Character and Composition of the Russian Army, and a Sketch of the Campaigns in Poland in the Years 1806 and 1807.

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WILSON, Sir Robert. Brief Remarks on the Character and Composition of the Russian Army, and a Sketch of the Campaigns in Poland in the Years 1806 and 1807 London, Printed by C Roworth, Temple Bar and sold by T Egerton, Military Library, Whitehall, 1810.

4to. Contemporary quarter calf over marbled boards, re-backed; pp. xxix, 276 (bound without half-title), seven fold-out engraved battle plans with handcolouring of military units and large engraved folding map with outline colouring of the 'Theatre of War netwen the Niemen or Memel and the Vistula' at the end; light spotting, a very good copy.
First edition of an account of the War of the Fourth Coalition, in which Napoleonic forces fought against Russian troops, Sweden, Britain, Prussia, and Saxony. The appendix contains documents from the French, Russian and Prussian armies, providing first-hand reports on various battles, as well as giving the terms of the armistice treaty. The officer, politician and diplomat Sir Robert Wilson was perfectly suited for for the task of summarizing the convoluted history of that episode of the Napoleonic Wars, as he had served in many campaigns and treatise negotiations. After the battles of Leipzig in 1813 'The tsar, the emperor of Austria, and the king of Prussia wanted to retain Wilson with them. On 11 November 1813 Aberdeen wrote to Castlereagh: From his intimate knowledge of the Russian and Prussian armies, and the great respect invariably shown him by the emperor of Russia and the king of Prussia, he is able to do a thousand things which no one else could do' (ODNB)..

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