Reminiscences 1808-1815 PDF Download

Author: William Hay
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Author: William HAY (C.B., Captain, 5th Dragoon Guards.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Author: William Hay
Publisher: From Reason to Revolution
ISBN: 9781911512325
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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William Hay had a varied and exciting military career during the later years of the Napoleonic Wars, which took him to the Peninsula, to Waterloo and, after 1815, to Canada. First commissioned into the crack 52nd Light Infantry - and serving with that regiment in the campaigns of 1810 and 1811 - promotion took him into the 12th Light Dragoons. Afte

Author: Robert Burnham
Publisher: Frontline Books
ISBN: 1399060619
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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There are many books on Wellington’s campaigns during the Peninsular War. Yet very few examine the pivotal year of 1811, when he went on the offensive and forced Napoleon’s armies back over 300 kilometers, from the doors of Lisbon to the Spanish border. For two months he pursued the retreating French, fighting skirmishes and rearguards virtually the whole way. The French finally halted at the Spanish border and turned on Wellington in early May, where an epic three-day battle was fought at Fuentes de Oñoro. The rest of the year, Wellington defended the border while making plans to liberate Spain in 1811. Wellington’s Light Division and the defense of Portugal looks at the famed Light Division as it led the pursuit of the French and was involved in almost every combat and battle fought that year. The book also explores the stalemate of January and February 1811, where the division maintained outposts overlooking French positions in the vicinity of Santarem, as well as the pursuit of the French Army back to Spain in March and April, when the division fought many skirmishes, combats, and small battles, often on its own. These include the actions at Pombal, Condeixa, Redinha, Casal Novo, Foz d’Arouce, Freixada, and Sabugal. May saw the Light Division in a desperate fight at Fuentes de Oñoro, where for much of the battle it held the army’s right flank. For the rest of the year the Light Division was in the vicinity of Ciudad Rodrigo where it occupied ground that it held for much of 1810, where it served as Wellington’s advance outposts. The assumed similar positions and were engaged at Fuente Guinaldo and El Bodon. In addition to these fights, the book will examine the changes in the organization of the division, with the addition of new battalions and release of other units. It will also go into great detail on the problems it had with command and control – with its leading officers exhausted, requesting permission to return home to recuperate. Drawing on diaries, letters, and memoirs, the authors tell the story of the officers and men who fought in the division. Many of these sources have never been published before.

Author: Andrew Bamford
Publisher: Frontline Books
ISBN: 1848327749
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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The author has done a quite outstanding job of editing and footnoting this rare memoir . . . this will be of genuine interest to the Peninsular War historian or enthusiast.' Philip Haythornthwaite??John Vandeleur's letters home to his mother are a lively and engaging account of active service during the Napoleonic Wars, recounting everything from day-to-day life on campaign to the experience of pitched battle at Vitoria and Waterloo. ??As first a light infantryman and then a light cavalryman, Vandeleur was frequently on the outposts of Wellington's forces, in frequent contact with the French and often obliged to live a rough-and-ready lifestyle as a result. The conditions that he endured, and the camaraderie that sustained him, are vividly recounted in this fascinating collection _ previously only available in an extremely rare private publication over a century ago. ??Expertly edited and enhanced with contemporary documents and commentary by Andrew Bamford, this is an outstanding contribution to our understanding of the Peninsular War and Waterloo campaign.

Author: Carole Divall
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1526774038
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Over two hundred years ago, on 21 June 1813, just southwest of Vitoria in northern Spain, the British, Portuguese and Spanish army commanded by the Duke of Wellington confronted the French army of Napoleon’s brother Joseph. Hours later Wellington’s forces won an overwhelming victory and, after six years of bitter occupation, the French were ousted from Iberia. This is the critical battle that Carole Divall focuses on in this vivid, scholarly study of the last phase of the Peninsular War. The battle was the pivotal event of the 1813 campaign - it was fatal to French interests in Spain - but it is also significant because it demonstrated Wellington’s confidence in his allied army and in himself. The complexity of the manoeuvres he expected his men to carry out and the shrewd strategic planning that preceded the battle were quite remarkable. As well as giving a graphic close description of each stage of the battle, Carole Divall sets it in the wider scope of the Peninsular War. Through the graphic recollections of the men who were there – from commanders to the merest foot soldiers – she offers us a direct insight into the reality of combat during the Napoleonic Wars.

Author: Lady Magdalene De Lancey
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Medicine, Military
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Author: Matilda Greig
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192896024
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Dead Men Telling Tales is an original account of the lasting cultural impact made by the autobiographies of Napoleonic soldiers over the course of the nineteenth century. Focusing on the nearly three hundred military memoirs published by British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese veterans of the Peninsular War (1808-1814), Matilda Greig charts the histories of these books over the course of a hundred years, around Europe and the Atlantic, and from writing to publication to afterlife. Drawing on extensive archival research in multiple languages, she challenges assumptions made by historians about the reliability of these soldiers' direct eyewitness accounts, revealing the personal and political motives of the authors and uncovering the large cast of characters, from family members to publishers, editors, and translators, involved in production behind the scenes. By including literature from Spain and Portugal, Greig also provides a missing link in current studies of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, showing how the genre of military memoirs developed differently in south-western Europe and led to starkly opposing national narratives of the same war. Her findings tell the history of a publishing phenomenon which gripped readers of all ages across the world in the nineteenth century, made significant profits for those involved, and was fundamental in defining the modern 'soldier's tale'.

Author: George F. Nafziger
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 081086617X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 387

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The author covers one of the most explosive and most exciting periods of world history, spanning the time from the eruption of the French Revolution through the end of the Napoleonic wars (1789-1815). These twenty-six years of history saw the birth of nationalism and Western democracy, economic crisis and political convulsion, the growth of industrialism, the death of ancient traditions, and the birth and break-up of empire. It was the time of Napoleon, who gave his name to this period of tremendous change: the period in which the roots of modern Europe were planted. This work is intended as a broad review, devoting a majority of its attention to the military and political events and personalities of the period, while also surveying the major artistic, social and cultural events and personalities that formed this period.

Author: Gregory Fremont-Barnes
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750957859
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 583

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Writing to his mother the day after the fighting, Captain Thomas Wildman of the 7th Hussars described ‘a victory so splendid & important that you may search the annals of history in vain for its parallel’. Little wonder, for Waterloo was widely recognised – even in its immediate wake – as one of the most decisive battles in history: after more than twenty years of uninterrupted conflict, this single day’s encounter finally put paid to French aspirations for European hegemony. The culminating point of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Waterloo also witnessed levels of determination and bravery by both sides which far exceeded anything experienced by the veterans of Wellington’s recent campaigns in Spain and Portugal. Indeed, it was that unconquerable spirit which left over 50,000 men dead on the field of battle and tens of thousands of others wounded. This thoroughly researched and highly detailed account of one of history’s greatest human dramas looks first at the wider strategic picture before focusing on the tactical roles played by individual British units – all meticulously examined with the benefit of an extensive array of hitherto unexploited primary sources which reveal the battlefield experience of officers and soldiers as never before. Refusing simply to repeat the same unchallenged accounts and to commit the same errors of previous historians, this work relies exclusively on hundreds of first-hand accounts, by men of all ranks and from practically every British regiment and corps present on that fateful day, to provide a fresh and revised perspective on one of the most pivotal events of modern times.