The Imperial Guard of 1st Empire Vol.2

“The Guard charges!”

For the Emperor, the cavalry was the commander’s weapon; it had to inform him and allow him to make his actions felt, and give him an insight right in the heart of the fighting. He had to have as many squadrons as possible to ward off a danger, to take advantage of the first opportunity or create an opening during the battle.

From the charge made by the Grenadiers and the Chasseurs à cheval at Marengo to the terrible one at Waterloo by the Lancers, not forgetting the death of Morland at the head of the Chasseurs and the Mamelukes at Austerlitz, the history of the Cavalry of the Guard is full of glorious feats of arms, as glorious as the uniforms were magnificent.

“When campaigning, the Emperor never wore any other uniform except ours, especially the service dress and seemed just like one of our officers. He always wore our regiment’s tailcoat, or green frock coat with two very small general’s epaulets, without aglets”

This book is a new, completely redrawn, reviewed and greatly enlarged version – with almost 50% extra characters – of the one published several years ago by the same authors. In 176 pages, these two specialists’ texts are illustrated with a thousand or so pictures.