The Illustrious Dead
the terrifying story of how typhus killed Napoleon's greatest army
Stephan Talty
‘Talty’s subtitle is not sensationalist hyperbole.This is a truly terrifying story that will challenge readers who might be overwhelmed by revelations of the most gruesome details of “total war.” Overcoming revulsion at vivid descriptions of agonizing human experience is rewarded, however, by Talty’s captivating narrative and plausible thesis about events that profoundly changed 19th-century history. The story of Napoleon’s ill-fated 1812 invasion of Russia has been analyzed from almost every historiographical angle, making all the main events of the campaign and its historical consequences well known. But Talty’s talented recounting of two interweaving actors, total warfare and bacteria, turns this familiar story into a charismatic suspense thriller unfolding a futile tragedy that nevertheless dramatically reconfigured the 19th-century structure of European political and colonial power.’
JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association
The Illustrious Dead is another triumph of narrative nonfiction from the author of the New York Times bestselling Empire of Blue Water.
In the spring of 1812, Napoleon was at the height of his power. Forty-five million called him emperor. Unstoppable in his relentless pursuit of territory and authority, he held sole command of a nation that was the richest and most potent on earth, the most cultured, the furthest advanced in medicine and science and technology. In that fateful year, Napoleon turned toward Moscow at the helm of the largest invasion force in the history of mankind.
His army was a thing of martial beauty, honed by constant warfare and superbly led. No army on earth could stop Bonaparte from conquering the world. But there was something waiting in the Russian steppes that would test Napoleon to his limit and bring his dreams of a world empire to a shocking close. It was not a brilliant general or an unseen alliance, but the tiny typhus microbe.
The Illustrious Dead tells the tale of these two unstoppable historical forces meeting on the road to Moscow in a clash of killer pathogen and peerless army.
Reviews
‘A fast-paced sketch of this disastrous campaign, The Illustrious Dead is a military history that treats typhus as an invisible army on the battlefield, silently slaughtering hundreds of thousands of French soldiers, frustrating Napoleon’s ambition, weakening his reign and changing the course of European history … Breezy rather than exhaustive, Dead will be enjoyed by armchair historians, if not the squeamish.’
Alexander F. Remington, The Washington Post
‘Talty delivers a breezy, popular account of a gruesome campaign, emphasizing the equally gruesome epidemic that accompanied it.’
Publishers Weekly
» All reviews for this title‘In this riveting book, experienced writer Stephan Talty documents how the lowly, miserable, lethal typhus microbe destroyed Napoleon Bonaparte’s plan to conquer Russia in 1812 … Talty’s focused, taut account will come as a revelation to the American general public and even to many students of military history as well … Talty has performed a great public service by rescuing this vital story from the obscurity into which it had fallen. He has also produced a compulsive, terrifying book. Compared to the horrors he documents, The Silence of the Lambs is bedtime reading for children. Highly recommended.’
Martin Sieff, The Washington Times