A classic account - illustrated with 24 detailed maps and plans - of Napoleon's fighting retreat across France in 1814 by the doyen of Napoleonic military historians F. Loraine Petre. Many judge this backs to the wall campaign - during which the Emperor's battered forces fought a battle every few days - to have been the most brilliantly conducted of Napoleon's many campaigns. Harried by enormously superior Russian, Prussian and Austrian armies, depressed and depleted by its devastating losses in Russia and Germany in the years since 1812, what was left of the Grande Armee still managed to keep its enemies at bay until the Emperor bowed to the inevitable and abdicated before departing for his first exile in Elba.