The Downfall : La Débâcle, the Smash-Up (Classic Reprint)

from vaellus

A masterful novel about the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. If there are some minor flaws, then the two sieges of Paris--first by the Prussians, and then during the short civil war stage by the French troops--are dealt with too quickly in a few chapters near the end of the book. A couple of more ...

from BillMcGann

Zola: The Debacle In the late 1860s Prussia, led by Kaiser Wilhelm and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, engaged the French government headed by Napoleon III in heated negotiations over the throne of Spain and the sovereignty of the Low Countries. The dispute grew as France looked for a fight. France...

from lriley

The 19th of Zola's 20 Rougon-MacQuart novels detailing life as lived in Napoleon III's second empire France. One of the best war novels ever written revolving as far as battle scenes mainly around the French disaster at Sedan and at the end of the book around the destruction of the French commune...

from Calantir

This is the first (and so far only) Zola I've read, and then only because I found it cheap in a bookstore. I didn't know anything about the Franco-Prussian War, and as far as Zola I knew that he wrote a cycle of naturalistic novels, which I had been waiting to read until someone did a new transla...

from vaellus

A masterful novel about the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. If there are some minor flaws, then the two sieges of Paris--first by the Prussians, and then during the short civil war stage by the French troops--are dealt with too quickly in a few chapters near the end of the book. A couple of more ...