Heinrich von Bülow.

Nach seinem Talentreichtum sowohl, also seiner sonderbaren Hyper-Genialität, nud seinem Lebensabentheuren geschildert. Nebst authentischer Nachricht über die Verhaftungdieses merkwürdigen Mannes und den Gang seines Kriminal-Prozesses. Browning throughout, but overall very good in later brown marbled paper-covered boards, leather label to the spine. [iv], 132pp. Peter Hammer, Cologne, n.d.

Uncommon, BL copy and three copies on OCLC located, Yale, Stanford and Niedersachsische Staats- und Universitäts Bibliothek, no copies traced by KVK.

Bülow's dogmatic pronouncements on the geometrical relationship between the base and line of operation laid his work open to destructive criticism from later military theorists. He was nonetheless highly influentual in his day. He has been described as "vain and irresponsible" and his response to the campaign of 1805 to be his downfall: "Bülow's criticism of his country, blended with personal frustration, extreme self-esteem, and a provocative style became bitingly sarcastic in response to the collapse of the powers of the ancien régime... At this moment of crisis [he] wrote The Campaign of 1805, Militarily and Politically Considered, which was published, because of its radical ideas, at the author's own expense... Bélow's writings were more than the Prussian government was prepared to tolerate. When Prussia faced her gravest trial, [he] described Austerlitz as the modern Actium and predicted a French hegemony over Europe. He was arrested, declared insane, and detained first in Berlin, and later, with the fall of the city and the French advance, in Colberg and Riga under Russian custody. In 1807 he died in prison, according to his relatives, due to ill-treatment." [Gat The Origins of Military Thought pp.87-8]

This study of his "Wealth of Talent" and "Hyper Brilliance" includes a brief biography and synopsis of his trial. The author Julius von Voss, one of Bülow's co-editors of the military journal Annales des Krieges, genuinely deserves the description "miscellaneous writer". Amongst his works are libretti, puppet plays, military studies and including an early science fiction adventure, Ein Roman aus dem Einundzwanzigsten Jahrhundert [A Tale of the Twenty-First Century], published in 1810.

Stock Code: 84401