Careful with the maps, Eugene

I have been dabbling in the War of Spanish Succession since University days, and happily thought of it as the Marlburian Period. The Duke conducts brilliant campaigns and duffs up the French, normally assisted by the French born Austrian General, Prince Eugene of Savoy. I know that Marlborough himself regarded these as truly joint enterprises, but we all know that Corporal John is the main man. From an Anglo-centric perspective.

I have always had a sneaking suspicion that I really should know more about Prince Eugene. A recent trip to Romania made me think that his Eastern campaigns would be an interesting project, as there's some nice Ottoman 1/72 stuff out there, and my WSS figures could do double duty. Well, some of them could. And when I'm bored of Blenheim and so on, there's always Eugene's campaigns in Italy against the French as well.

What has been missing for a while has been a modern accessible biography of Eugene, particularly one written from a military perspective. Well, this year, doyen of Marlburian writers, James Falkner, stepped up with a new book "Prince Eugene of Savoy: A Genius for War Against Louis XIV and the Ottoman Empire" from Pen and Sword.

I would guess that most of us with an interest in the period have one or two of Falkner's books on our shelves, and I've always found him solid and reliable. I therefore splashed out on the hardback edition.

First up, I have to say that I learned a lot from this not overly long book (232 pages, including notes and index), so it was worth investing in it. The victories in the West, which we are familiar with, are all well covered without excessive detail, and Eugene's role in them is given due prominence. The coverage of his other battles is good too, from Northern Italy to the lands disputed with the Ottomans. If I was to pick holes in it I would say that for the less well known battles I could have done with some more solid orbats, rather than just vague references to "Imperial Forces", but it may be that the information is just not available. Or at least not readily available.

What Falkner is good at is explaining Eugene's strategic genius, showing the speed with which he moves his armies around and the risks he takes. He doesn't always win, but he's got a really good hit rate, considering the problems he was labouring under, with campaigns fought on more than one front and the perennial shortness of finances that afflicted the Austrian bit of the Hapsburg Empire.

My big issue with the book is the really poor quality and paucity of the maps, The maps in his book about Marlborough's battles, "Great and Glorious Days" are drawn by the brilliant Derek Stone (who is, I believe, a wargamer). They are clear, with all the named places included, and show troop positions and terrain in his unique 3D perspective way. The campaign maps in this book don't have all the places, and are generally too large scale to be useful. Most of them don't include troop movements. The detailed battle maps are of Blenheim, Oudernarde and Malplaquet. Honestly, no one needs more maps of them. The map for the Battle of Cassano is a vintage reproduction, and not even a good one. The writing is indistinct and the armies aren't even labelled with who is who. There's no map of Peterwardein, the key victory over the Ottomans, nor of his defeat at Denain. Of course, you do get the obligatory Pen and Sword photo sections with portraits of the main protagonists, which frankly add very little to the understanding of the period.

All of which sounds a bit of a downer, but overall I enjoyed the book. I learned things I didn't know and have a better understanding of Eugene's problems and achievements. It's a 4* book rather than 5* because of the map issues I mentioned, but for me it's well worth the £20 I paid for it, and I will be returning to it as I work on my Ottoman armies and those eastern campaigns. Recommended.