Patrick Rambaud: The battle. Book 2 of 3

Alkuteos: La Bataille, tome 2 (2013)

Kääntäjä: Montana Kane

Kuvittaja: Ivan Gil

Teksti: Frédéric Richaud & Patrick Rambaud

Ilmestymisaika: 2021 (ko.painos)

Kustantaja: Cinebook

Sivumäärä: 54

ISBN: 9781800440050

Muoto: Nid.

Sarjamerkintä: The Battle #2

Peukku: ^^b

*- Gather the entire calvary, do you hear me, and throw it at them all in one go! Attack! I want an onslaught of fire and steel to rain down on the whole thing and wipe it out!

May 1809: Napoleon’s Grande Armée is about to cross the Danube using the enormous floating bridge erected in a single night by the French military engineers. On the other side of the river, Archduke Charles and the Austrian armies wait for them, fully determined to get revenge for their humiliation suffered at Austerlitz.

After five hours of battle, the villages of Aspern and Essling – where the battalions of Marshals Masséna and Lannes are entrenched – lie in ruins. The dead already number in the thousands in both camps. In the rear, as night falls, the trapped French are busy rebuilding the big bridge, which has been shattered by Austrian rowboats filled with rocks, leaving ammo and reserve troops beyond reach. There is only one order: hold!

The Battle of Essling was the first mass slaughter of modern warfare: thirty hours of battle with no winner or loser, that left over forty thousand bodies strewn across the wheat fields.

From the sappers to the Voltigeurs, from the hussars to the army general staff, from the walls of Vienna to the banks of the rising river and the villages in flames: The Battle is much more than either a historical novel or graphic novel. It’s a monumental epic.

Frédéric Richaud and Ivan Gil have created a masterful adaptation of Patrick Rambaud’s novel, which earned him both the French Academy’s Grand Prize and the Goncourt Prize – a feat unheard of at the time.*

Toinen osa on melkoista pauketta ja räiskintää. Sodan kauhuja pääsee seuraamaan lähes paraatipaikalta. Niin sieltä taistelukentältä kuin myös taistelujen välissä. Huomaa, että sotilaiden mielenterveys on varsin usein vaarassa eikä monesti voi luottaa kuin tuuriin selvitäkseen hengissä...

Yksityiskohtaisesti ja värikkäästi kuvitettua historiallista sarjakuvaa. Paljon katseltavaa ja ihmeteltävää. En suosittele herkille, sillä paikoitellen ruumiinosat vain lentelevät tykistötulessa.