Charlemagne's Early Campaigns (768-777): A Diplomatic and Military Analysis

Forsideomslag
BRILL, 27. mar. 2013 - 744 sider
Charlemagne's Early Campaigns is the first book-length study of Charlemagne at war and its focus on the period 768-777 makes clear that the topic, for his forty-six year reign, is immense. The neglect of Charlemagne's campaigns and the diplomacy that undergirded them has truncated our understanding of the creation of the Carolingian empire and the great success enjoyed by its leader, who ranks with Frederick the Great and Napoleon among Europe's best.
The critical deployment here of the numerous narrative and documentary sources combined with the systematic use of the immense corpus of archaeological evidence, much of which the result of excavations undertaken since World War II, is applied here, in detail, for the first time in order to broaden our understanding of Charlemagne's military strategy and campaign tactics. Charlemagne and his advisers emerge as very careful planners, with a thorough understanding of Roman military thinking, who were dedicated to the use of overwhelming force in order to win whenever possible without undertaking bloody combat. Charlemagne emerges from this study, to paraphrase a observation attributed to Scipio Africanus, as a military commander and not a warrior.
 

Indhold

Introduction
1
Charlemagne and Carloman
108
Opportunities and Problems
139
Phase One
177
4 The Unwanted War
246
5 The Siege of Pavia
310
6 The Fall of Pavia and Its Aftermath
374
Phase Two
427
8 The Friuli Diversion
473
9 The End of the Saxon War
510
10 Integration of the Saxon Territory
566
Conclusions
631
Bibliography
654
Index
691
Copyright

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