[448] Two very useful books have been Holland Rose’s Personality of Napoleon and his Life of Napoleon I. A compact and convenient biography, with good battle maps, is R. M. Johnston’s Napoleon. Thomas Hardy’s great epic-drama, The Dynasts, is a magnificent picture of Napoleon’s career, historically very exact. It is one of the great stars of English literature, too little known as yet to the general public.
[449] See Mahan’s Life of Nelson.
[450] Gourgaud quoted by Holland Rose.
[451] The resumption of war was more directly due to the publication in France of the Sebastiani Report, a full account by the staff officer of the ports and strong places of Egypt and Syria. The alarm occasioned by this document hardened the determination of the British government to retain a garrison at Malta in spite of the obligation to evacuate it imposed by the Peace of Amiens.—P. G.
[452] All this is admirably told in Tolstoy’s wonderful War and Peace.
[453] The best textbook to follow in expanding this chapter is W. A. Phillips’ Confederation of Europe.
[454] See J. W. Headlam’s Life of Bismarck.
[455] W. A. Phillips’ Confederation of Europe is the leading textbook here. H. E. Egerton’s British Foreign Policy in the Nineteenth Century and L. S. Woolf’s International Government are very illuminating. See also Thatcher and Schwill’s convenient General History of Europe and Philip Guedalla’s Partition of Europe; 1715-1815.
[456] The Dukes of Savoy (ancestors of the present Italian kings) had been astride the Alps, ruling in France and Italy, for centuries; and their strategic position had long given them a European importance. The Dukes of Savoy had been kings since 1713, first as Kings of Sicily, 1713-20, and then (when Sicily was exchanged for Sardinia in 1720) as Kings of Sardinia.—E. B.
[457] An excellent book on the substance of this chapter is F. S. Marvin’s Century of Hope. Another is R. A. Gregory’s Discovery. See also Seignobos’ Political History of Contemporary Europe.