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Author: Paul L. Dawson Publisher: Frontline Books ISBN: 1399096389 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 252
Book Description
From the sun-baked sierras of Spain, through the stormy waters off Cape Trafalgar to the muddy and bloody fields of Waterloo, Britain’s soldiers and sailors were notching up victories which set the country on the path to becoming the greatest power on the planet. We like to imagine the country was unified against a common enemy, France, and the Tyrant of Europe – Napoleon. Yet if we scratch the surface, we find a nation not just at war with France but with itself. The great successes of Wellington and Nelson, and the glamour of Regency London, cover over the cracks of a divided society, of riots across the industrial north and widespread political opposition. Huge swathes of the country hated the war, booed and hissed at soldiers and ‘lobbed turds’ at the Scots Greys in Halifax. There were repeated ‘Peace Petitions’ which sought to stop the war – and even to prevent the British Army fighting at Waterloo. Armed Associations of gentlemen volunteers and Local Militias led the call to close down the debate on social and democratic reform, while on the other hand thousands of English reformers heeded the call from France and hundreds actually headed to France, with many thousands more believing that the time had come, when its young men were needed to fight for King and Country, for reform. The burgeoning middle class had no vote in parliament; rapidly expanding industrial towns and cities had no MPs, yet small villages – pocket boroughs – often had two. The burden of taxation fell on those least able to afford it; enclosure of common land; corn laws; restrictions on the freedom of expression; the endless killing, all fed into an undercurrent of political dissent that was ideologically opposed to the loyalist cause. It was a battle for the very sole of Britain. For the first time, the shocking reality of life in Britain, during what is often portrayed as being its greatest era, is told through diaries, letters, and newspaper comments. Fighting Napoleon at Home is a startling portrayal of the society from which the soldiers and sailors were drawn and exactly what it was they were fighting to defend. It will become essential reading for anyone attempting to understand why Britain’s aristocracy had to stop Napoleon at any cost and suppress the dangerous ideals of liberté, égalité, fraternité.
Author: Paul L. Dawson Publisher: Frontline Books ISBN: 1399096389 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 252
Book Description
From the sun-baked sierras of Spain, through the stormy waters off Cape Trafalgar to the muddy and bloody fields of Waterloo, Britain’s soldiers and sailors were notching up victories which set the country on the path to becoming the greatest power on the planet. We like to imagine the country was unified against a common enemy, France, and the Tyrant of Europe – Napoleon. Yet if we scratch the surface, we find a nation not just at war with France but with itself. The great successes of Wellington and Nelson, and the glamour of Regency London, cover over the cracks of a divided society, of riots across the industrial north and widespread political opposition. Huge swathes of the country hated the war, booed and hissed at soldiers and ‘lobbed turds’ at the Scots Greys in Halifax. There were repeated ‘Peace Petitions’ which sought to stop the war – and even to prevent the British Army fighting at Waterloo. Armed Associations of gentlemen volunteers and Local Militias led the call to close down the debate on social and democratic reform, while on the other hand thousands of English reformers heeded the call from France and hundreds actually headed to France, with many thousands more believing that the time had come, when its young men were needed to fight for King and Country, for reform. The burgeoning middle class had no vote in parliament; rapidly expanding industrial towns and cities had no MPs, yet small villages – pocket boroughs – often had two. The burden of taxation fell on those least able to afford it; enclosure of common land; corn laws; restrictions on the freedom of expression; the endless killing, all fed into an undercurrent of political dissent that was ideologically opposed to the loyalist cause. It was a battle for the very sole of Britain. For the first time, the shocking reality of life in Britain, during what is often portrayed as being its greatest era, is told through diaries, letters, and newspaper comments. Fighting Napoleon at Home is a startling portrayal of the society from which the soldiers and sailors were drawn and exactly what it was they were fighting to defend. It will become essential reading for anyone attempting to understand why Britain’s aristocracy had to stop Napoleon at any cost and suppress the dangerous ideals of liberté, égalité, fraternité.
Author: Paul L. Dawson Publisher: Frontline Books ISBN: 1399096362 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 323
Book Description
From the sun-baked sierras of Spain, through the stormy waters off Cape Trafalgar to the muddy and bloody fields of Waterloo, Britain’s soldiers and sailors were notching up victories which set the country on the path to becoming the greatest power on the planet. We like to imagine the country was unified against a common enemy, France, and the Tyrant of Europe – Napoleon. Yet if we scratch the surface, we find a nation not just at war with France but with itself. The great successes of Wellington and Nelson, and the glamour of Regency London, cover over the cracks of a divided society, of riots across the industrial north and widespread political opposition. Huge swathes of the country hated the war, booed and hissed at soldiers and ‘lobbed turds’ at the Scots Greys in Halifax. There were repeated ‘Peace Petitions’ which sought to stop the war – and even to prevent the British Army fighting at Waterloo. Armed Associations of gentlemen volunteers and Local Militias led the call to close down the debate on social and democratic reform, while on the other hand thousands of English reformers heeded the call from France and hundreds actually headed to France, with many thousands more believing that the time had come, when its young men were needed to fight for King and Country, for reform. The burgeoning middle class had no vote in parliament; rapidly expanding industrial towns and cities had no MPs, yet small villages – pocket boroughs – often had two. The burden of taxation fell on those least able to afford it; enclosure of common land; corn laws; restrictions on the freedom of expression; the endless killing, all fed into an undercurrent of political dissent that was ideologically opposed to the loyalist cause. It was a battle for the very sole of Britain. For the first time, the shocking reality of life in Britain, during what is often portrayed as being its greatest era, is told through diaries, letters, and newspaper comments. Fighting Napoleon at Home is a startling portrayal of the society from which the soldiers and sailors were drawn and exactly what it was they were fighting to defend. It will become essential reading for anyone attempting to understand why Britain’s aristocracy had to stop Napoleon at any cost and suppress the dangerous ideals of liberté, égalité, fraternité.
Author: Beatrice de Graaf Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108842062 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 519
Book Description
Europe was forged out of the ashes of the Napoleonic wars by means of a collective fight against revolutionary terror. The Allied Council created a culture of in- and exclusion, of people that were persecuted and those who were protected, using secret police, black lists, border controls and fortifications, and financed by European capital holders.
Author: Bernard Wilkin Publisher: Pen & Sword Military ISBN: 9781399019668 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 192
Book Description
The French side of the Napoleonic Wars is often seen from a strategic point of view, or in terms of military organization and battlefield tactics, or through officers' memoirs. It is rarely seen from the perspective of the lowest ranks of the army, and the experience of the ordinary soldiers is less well known and is often misunderstood. That is why this account, based on more than 1,600 letters written by French soldiers of the Napoleonic armies, is of such value. It adds to the existing literature by exploring every aspect of the life of a French soldier during the period 1799-1815. The book will be fascinating and informative reading for military and cultural historians, but it will also appeal to anyone who is interested in the war experience of common soldiers. It offers the English-speaking audience a French view of a conflict which is too often limited to the traditional memoirs of Captain Coignet, Colonel Marbot or Sergeant Bourgogne.
Author: Paul L. Dawson Publisher: Pen and Sword ISBN: 1526702479 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 642
Book Description
During October 2016 Paul Dawson visited French archives in Paris to continue his research surrounding the events of the Napoleonic Wars. Some of the material he examined had never been accessed by researchers or historians before, the files involved having been sealed in 1816. These seals remained unbroken until Paul was given permission to break them to read the contents.Forget what you have read about the battle on the Mont St Jean on 18 June 1815; it did not happen that way. The start of the battle was delayed because of the state of the ground not so. Marshal Ney destroyed the French cavalry in his reckless charges against the Allied infantry squares wrong. The stubborn defense of Hougoumont, the key to Wellingtons victory, where a plucky little garrison of British Guards held the farmhouse against the overwhelming force of Jerome Bonapartes division and the rest of II Corps not true. Did the Union Brigade really destroy dErlons Corps, did the Scots Greys actually attack a massed French battery, did La Haie Sainte hold out until late in the afternoon?All these and many more of the accepted stories concerning the battle are analysed through accounts (some 200 in all) previously unpublished, mainly derived through French sources, with startling conclusions. Most significantly of all is the revelation of exactly how, and why, Napoleon was defeated.Waterloo, The Truth at Last demonstrates, through details never made available to the general public before, how so much of what we think we know about the battle simply did not occur in the manner or to the degree previously believed. This book has been described as a game changer, and is certain to generate enormous interest, and will alter our previously-held perceptions forever.
Author: Dominic Lieven Publisher: Penguin UK ISBN: 0141947446 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 952
Book Description
'A compulsive page-turner ... a triumph of brilliant storytelling ... an instant classic that is an awesome, remarkable and exuberant achievement' Simon Sebag Montefiore Winner of the Wolfson History Prize and shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize In the summer of 1812 Napoleon, the master of Europe, marched into Russia with the largest army ever assembled, confident that he would sweep everything before him. Yet less than two years later his empire lay in ruins, and Russia had triumphed. This is the first history to explore in depth Russia's crucial role in the Napoleonic Wars, re-creating the epic battle between two empires as never before. Dominic Lieven writes with great panache and insight to describe from the Russians' viewpoint how they went from retreat, defeat and the burning of Moscow to becoming the new liberators of Europe; the consequences of which could not have been more important. Ultimately this book shows, memorably and brilliantly, Russia embarking on its strange, central role in Europe's existence, as both threat and protector - a role that continues, in all its complexity, into our own lifetimes.
Author: Bruno Colson Publisher: OUP Oxford ISBN: 0191508764 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 493
Book Description
This is the book on war that Napoleon never had the time or the will to complete. In exile on the island of Saint-Helena, the deposed Emperor of the French mused about a great treatise on the art of war, but in the end changed his mind and ordered the destruction of the materials he had collected for the volume. Thus was lost what would have been one of the most interesting and important books on the art of war ever written, by one of the most famous and successful military leaders of all time. In the two centuries since, several attempts have been made to gather together some of Napoleon's 'military maxims', with varying degrees of success. But not until now has there been a systematic attempt to put Napoleon's thinking on war and strategy into a single authoritative volume, reflecting both the full spectrum of his thinking on these matters as well as the almost unparalleled range of his military experience, from heavy cavalry charges in the plains of Russia or Saxony to counter-insurgency operations in Egypt or Spain. To gather the material for this book, military historian Bruno Colson spent years researching Napoleon's correspondence and other writings, including a painstaking examination of perhaps the single most interesting source for his thinking about war: the copy-book of General Bertrand, the Emperor's most trusted companion on Saint-Helena, in which he unearthed a Napoleonic definition of strategy which is published here for the first time. The huge amount of material brought together for this ground-breaking volume has been carefully organized to follow the framework of Carl von Clausewitz's classic On War, allowing a fascinating comparison between Napoleon's ideas and those of his great Prussian interpreter and adversary, and highlighting the intriguing similarities between these two founders of modern strategic thinking.
Author: General Michel Franceschi Publisher: Savas Beatie ISBN: 1611210291 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 238
Book Description
Popular and scholarly history presents a one-dimensional image of Napoleon as an inveterate instigator of war who repeatedly sought large-scale military conquests. General Franceschi and Ben Weider dismantle this false conclusion in The Wars Against Napoleon, a brilliantly written and researched study that turns our understanding of the French emperor on its head. Avoiding the simplistic clichés and rudimentary caricatures many historians use when discussing Napoleon, Franceschi and Weider argue persuasively that the caricature of the megalomaniac conqueror who bled Europe white to satisfy his delirious ambitions and insatiable love for war is groundless. By carefully scrutinizing the facts of the period and scrupulously avoiding the sometimes confusing cause and effect of major historical events, they paint a compelling portrait of a fundamentally pacifist Napoleon, one completely at odds with modern scholarly thought. This rigorous intellectual presentation is based upon three principal themes. The first explains how an unavoidable belligerent situation existed after the French Revolution of 1789. The new France inherited by Napoleon was faced with the implacable hatred of reactionary European monarchies determined to restore the ancient regime. All-out war was therefore inevitable unless France renounced the modern world to which it had just painfully given birth. The second theme emphasizes Napoleon’s determined efforts (“bordering on an obsession,” argue the authors) to avoid this inevitable conflict. The political strategy of the Consulate and the Empire was based on the intangible principle of preventing or avoiding these wars, not on conquering territory. Finally, the authors examine, conflict by conflict, the evidence that Napoleon never declared war. As he later explained at Saint Helena, it was he who was always attacked—not the other way around. His adversaries pressured and even forced the Emperor to employ his unequalled military genius. After each of his memorable victories Napoleon offered concessions, often extravagant ones, to the defeated enemy for the sole purpose of avoiding another war. Lavishly illustrated, persuasively argued, and carefully illustrated with original maps and battle diagrams, The Wars Against Napoleon presents a courageous and uniquely accurate historical idea that will surely arouse vigorous debate within the international historical community.
Author: J.P. Riley Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 113632142X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 459
Book Description
This analysis of the world war between Napoleon and the 6th coalition in 1813 covers operations in Europe, Spain and North America. It examines the differences between alliances and coalitions, comparing the long-term international relationships in alliances and the short-term union of coalitions.
Author: Paul L. Dawson
Author: Paul L. Dawson
Author: Paul L. Dawson
Author: Beatrice de Graaf
Author: Bernard Wilkin
Author: Gareth Glover
Author: Paul L. Dawson
Author: Dominic Lieven
Author: Bruno Colson
Author: General Michel Franceschi
Author: J.P. Riley